In his Oct. 16 letter, "Assisted suicide," Rainer Volk wrote, "Shame on you weak souls," referring to those dying from horrible disease who choose to end everyone's suffering sooner and with some dignity.

I wish Mr. Volk would recognize my right to live my life by the same overriding rule he does: honor the law and my beliefs, as long as it hurts no one else. No one has any right to insist that my dear wife or I suffer six pointless months of my intractable, terminal agony because of others' religious dogma.

On another topic, Ginger Vetrano said in the same edition that under the FairTax, if we spend a dollar on an item, there would be a 30 cent tax. Actually, on an item marked one dollar, it's 23 percent (not 30 percent) FairTax is just 19 cents and is included in that dollar. Its pretax price is 81 cents, its standard FairTax of 23 percent is 19 cents, and its marked, total, out-the-door cost is the $1 on its price tag. The tax is progressive, because the wealthy buy more stuff and thus pay more taxes. Ms. Vetrano made an honest, hurried mistake, but many liberal reporters and politicians know better and simply lie to us.

MIKE FICK, Kennewick