Local teams should just forfeit to Gorman
To the editor:
I enjoyed Ed Graney’s Nov. 19 column "Gap widens between Gorman, Palo Verde."
My advice to the 10 local football teams that were drubbed by an average score of 59-5 (including five shutouts) would be that each school forfeit the Bishop Gorman game at the beginning of the 2012 season. Gorman would lose money at the gate, but that shouldn’t hurt them too much. But they would also lose out on recruiting as athletes don’t enjoy sitting out games.
Players would not be humiliated by being ritually sacrificed. Forfeit this one game and stop the madness.
The Gorman team could instead have an intersquad game that would be more entertaining to their fans than the present "competition."
PETE CARNES
LAS VEGAS
Road rules
To the editor:
As a teacher, it pains me to hear of children being hit in crosswalks. Nearly every day after the last class I am out at the crosswalk helping our students safely cross the street and directing traffic. From my observations, both sides of the car and pedestrian debate make mistakes.
Children will walk out in front of traffic without looking. It’s not right, but many times it is an adolescent making an assumption that should never be made. Since I have been helping direct traffic, I have noticed an increase in the number of our students looking and ensuring that the driver sees them and is going to stop prior to entering the crosswalk. That is not to say that all follow this guideline, but it has been improving.
Meanwhile, many drivers in our city don’t know the rules of the road, the rules they should be following on a daily basis. I have had a woman lay on her horn for more than 10 seconds because I refused to drive through a crosswalk while a student was in it.
While standing in the crosswalk myself, I have had numerous adults drive through and nearly hit me. Even after making eye contact with these individuals and putting my hand up for them to stop, they still drive through as if they never saw me.
The fortunate part is that these individuals are in the minority. A vast majority of the drivers have been courteous, friendly and appreciative. It’s the uninformed, unaware or just plain ignorant few whom we need to address.
We will never eliminate auto-pedestrian accidents, but the frequency of their occurrence recently is inexcusable. Parents, take the time to educate your children on how to safely cross the street. Make sure they are aware that in an auto-pedestrian accident, they will always lose. Drivers, we are the adults and it is past time that we all behaved as such. Know the rules of the road and follow them.
TRAVIS BOWKER
LAS VEGAS
Good food
To the editor:
Kids don’t like vegetables, real good food, so parents might as well let them subsist on junk food such as french fries, pizza, tacos and a lot of sugary drinks. So one-fifth of 4-year-olds are obese.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables in school lunches. But large food companies such as Conagra and Schwan spent $5.6 million lobbying Congress against new nutrition guidelines. The lawmakers killed the proposal by the Department of Agriculture and let schools continue to count french fries and the tomato sauce on frozen pizzas as vegetables.
Conservatives in Congress said: It is not the job of the U.S. government to tell people what to eat.
Our U.S. government doesn’t control what kids eat in the schools, but corporations do. Our kids are conditioned by big food companies advertising on TV and their monopoly on school cafeterias so that children prefer sugary, salty and fatty food products instead of American healthy food.
GERARD A. SANCHEZ SR.
LAS VEGAS
Reid hire
To the editor:
In a way, I feel sorry for Josh Reid. Even if he was a viable candidate for the Henderson city attorney’s job, he has his father’s reputation to live down.
No matter the reasoning behind the decision to lower the posted standards that seemed to be good for previous hires, this move is reason enough to indicate that the Henderson City Council made a political hire rather than seek the best of the best. No matter what the Henderson officials say, Harry Reid has a lot of power in Nevada, and it is political suicide to buck him.
I hope for Henderson’s sake, the son is a better representation of the Reid dynasty than the father, but I doubt it. If you need your father’s power to get a job, you probably didn’t deserve it in the first place.
FRANK WALKER
LAS VEGAS
Top candidate
To the editor:
Thank goodness there were no politics involved in hiring Josh Reid as Henderson’s city attorney. He was just the top candidate.
There was no lowering of standards, nor were the good old boys networking. He was just the top candidate.
It just shocks me that he wasn’t the first choice in the beginning. Why would you even think of hiring the interim city attorney? I’m sure she wasn’t as politically connected … I mean as experienced … as that attorney who’d been around since 2000.
Henderson, you’d better look out. You might lose your new city attorney. I hear Clark County is looking for a new district attorney.
FORREST A. HENRY
NORTH LAS VEGAS
U.S. traitors
To the editor:
President Obama, Harry Reid or members of Congress, please tell me what country I am living in? I love my country and served my country in the Korean War, but I do not like what is happening in America.
In the Nevada section on Thanksgiving Day was a picture that tore at my heart. A father with his beautiful 1-year-old daughter, living for months at the Las Vegas Rescue Mission. It was hard to take my eyes off of that child who knew no home.
Millions of Americans are hurting, yet living the good life are bankers and CEOs who raped America and members of Congress who fill their coffers through insider trading. They belong in the company of Benedict Arnold. One day, these unconscionable people who revel in their wealth, much of it ill-gotten, will learn the hard way.
When you don’t have country, you will have nothing.
WALTER E. GUNTHER
LAS VEGAS
