Christmas in September? Aargh!

I visited Sam’s Club recently. As I walked in the front door, the first thing I saw was a fully lighted, decorated Christmas tree. To Sam’s Club, Walmart, Macy’s and other retailers, I submit the following:

’Tis not the season to be jolly, ’tis much too early for bells and holly. Let us have Thanksgiving first, then feel free to do your worst. Tempt us with your festive displays, empty our wallets with your winning ways. Bombard our senses with music and lights, until we pray for silent nights. But please, please wait until December, not October and not November — and never, never in September.

Carole D. Martin

Las Vegas

Too much mud

After watching all the political hate ads, I’ve reached the conclusion that none of these candidates is fit to hold office. How sad.

Carolyn Boyle

Las Vegas

Silly scare

In his Sept. 21 letter to the Review-Journal, Pat Sharp criticized the handling of the mercury contamination at Johnson Middle School. As someone who has had a lot of experience handling elemental mercury — and who was in charge of environmental safety programs, first at Caltech and later at UCLA — I would like to expand on Mr. Sharp’s points.

It is appalling how this incident was handled — it must have been under the control of a governmental agency. I wonder if any non-governmental industrial hygienist was ever consulted. I doubt it. The people at the Environmental Protection Agency frequently blow up environmental contaminations to make themselves look important and essential.

Holding school kids under quarantine until 5 a.m. was absolutely unnecessary. Elemental mercury is basically non-toxic unless large quantities are ingested or spread over large areas of skin for an extended period. Note, the toxicity of mercury in fish is because it is methyl mercury, which is a very toxic, organic form of mercury.

Inhalation of mercury vapor does represent a serious long term hazard, but the vapor pressure of mercury at room temperature is very low. That means that very little mercury vapor is in the air above a spill of elemental mercury. The careful monitoring of everybody’s clothing was unnecessary, as any mercury contamination on clothing is easily removed by washing the clothing.

Considering the amount of spilled mercury ultimately found (a quarter cup), ripping up a large amount of the gym flooring was totally unnecessary and I suspect was done mostly for show. An industrial vacuum cleaner equipped with a HEPA filter could have been used to clean up any spills, even those too small to be readily observed.

In my professional opinion, this entire incident is a perfect example of governmental overkill and incompetence, and unnecessarily frightened many parents and kids.

Walter F. Wegst

Las Vegas

Large fan base

With regard to the recent letter to the Review-Journal from John Dillon of San Bruno, Calif., lamenting the Oakland Raiders’ proposed move to Las Vegas:

Mr. Dillon must not have an economics degree. The jobs the new stadium will create — from construction to souvenirs to food services — will be tremendous. If Mr. Dillon doesn’t want to come to Las Vegas, that’s his loss, not ours.

Mark Davis does what’s best for the team and a brand new stadium with a large fan base is best.

Barry Bashist

Las Vegas