A brand new version of FDR’s old CCC

To the editor:

In response to your Tuesday story, “Utility pushed on solar project”: President Franklin Roosevelt had his CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and now, it seems, Sen. Harry Reid has his own CCC (Chinese Crony Capitalist).

Sen. Reid has issued his opening salvo against “evil” NV Energy because the company does not want to buy grossly overpriced solar energy from his CCC. The project, like every other crony capitalist green energy hustle, won’t fly unless the CCC has a captive market of people to be further impoverished by ever-higher electric bills.

If Sen. Reid follows his usual modus operandi we can expect a few more public shots across NV Energy’s bow plus lots of non-public pressure on the Public Utilities Commission. We can also expect a bill in the 2013 Legislature to up the percentage of solar energy the utility must buy and an accelerated time frame to buy it. The bill will be written is a way that makes the CCC’s company the only one eligible for the contract. No competitive bidding process necessary. After all, free markets are so messy and “unfair,” right?

All hail the new CCC.

KNIGHT ALLEN

LAS VEGAS

Pay ‘adjustments’

To the editor:

In response to your Thursday editorial, “Teachers let go”:

I would not identify teacher salary adjustments as raises. Most states follow the principle of education and training as valuable. School districts agree to pay more for a teacher who has advanced degrees and college units and years of experience.

Known as “step and column” or “step and lane,” salary schedules reflect the notion that more education and experience make our teachers worth more. This is not a seniority system, in my judgment.

Raymond Garubo

Henderson

Christian values?

To the editor:

I wanted to agree with Alexandra Petri’s Wednesday commentary about the Chick-fil-A kerfuffle urging us to avoid mixing food and politics. But while cruising along with her “separation-of-food-and-politics” argument, she suddenly veers into a logical ditch by making an exception for companies whose products are “made in obscene conditions.”

Isn’t that what the opponents of Chick-fil-A are doing? Making an exception for companies that in their view support bigotry and hatred?

Chick-fil-A’s problem isn’t in having “Christian values.” It is in parading them with the subtext that everyone else’s values are inferior. What does the company statement that both the founder and current president of Chick-fil-A are still married to their first wives mean? That divorced people are inferior?

I feel the same way about that other paragon of Christian business morality – Hobby Lobby.

Believe what you want, close your stores on Sundays if you wish, but when you put up a sign saying that you do so to “allow our employees to worship with their families” the subtext is that they are “better” Christians than the proprietors of stores that stay open on Sunday.

Moreover, Chick-fil-A’s defense that “we don’t discriminate against anyone” melted when it was discovered they bankroll anti-gay groups. They may not discriminate, but they are most certainly enabling those who do.

The First Amendment guarantees that these companies can believe what they want. But they shouldn’t be surprised when their parking lots are filled with chanting demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights to disagree.

Charles Edgley

Las Vegas