Where are the parents of these hungry kids?

In response to your Monday story, “School lunches get stamp of approval from CCSD students”:

Kris Patrick, the food services coordinator for the Clark County School District, stated, “We want to give kids what they want” when it comes to the free meals the district provides children in the summer. I believe she should be more concerned about giving kids what they “need,” instead.

If parents aren’t feeding their children, then what else are they not providing? Clothing, shelter, a safe environment to live in? Clark County’s Child Protective Services should investigate the parents of children who receive free food provided by taxpayers. This would ensure these neglected children aren’t suffering even more cruel treatment at the hands of their dysfunctional parents.

This summer program seems like more do-good liberal nonsense, providing cradle-to-grave government assistance. But where are the programs for educating parents and holding accountable those who refuse to care for their children?

Why is it so hard to really address the problem? Is it because the answers are not pretty, the fact that we have parents who starve their children?

Why do we look away and hide our heads in the sand when innocent children are starved and maltreated? Is it because it is uncomfortable and just easier to take care of some other person’s child ourselves, with taxpayer dollars? Why are we so quick to come to the rescue of maltreated animals, but remain mute and inactive when we clearly see that children are being maltreated?

All the while these parents are getting their tattoos, their vape and cigarettes, their alcohol and wine, their drugs, their fancy SUVs, their designer clothes and the latest iphone.

Doug Farmer

Las Vegas

Carbon pollution

Your recent story “Understanding the future of Nevada’s electrical grid” noted that California electric grid operators want to create a regional electricity grid, which could open the opportunity to expand renewable energy in California and the West.

The plan that is currently on the table, however, could also extend the lives of some of the dirtiest power plants across the West.

The California Independent System Operator is exploring a partnership with Warren Buffett’s PacifiCorp, which is the largest owner of coal-fired power plants in the western United States. PacifiCorp’s Hunter and Huntington coal-fired power plants in Utah alone degrade air quality in nine national parks across the West — including the Grand Canyon. This partnership with a coal-dominated utility would undermine the potential benefits of a regional grid and endanger clean air, clean water and our climate with more carbon pollution.

While a regional energy grid can be of incredible benefit to consumers and clean energy development, it must be structured in a way that doesn’t give new life to aging coal plants. Expanding access to renewable energy in California shouldn’t come at the expense of more pollution in states such as Nevada, Utah and others throughout the region.

Elspeth DiMarzio

Las Vegas

Partisan sniping

In response to Jerry Gordon’s July 18 letter criticizing Hillary Clinton:

Remember that Congress and investigative agencies such as the FBI are dwelling over three emails out of thousands and thousands. Perhaps these three emails contained a small “c” somewhere — denoting “confidential” — that could have been easily missed in the busy life of a secretary of state.

I doubt that Condoleezza Rice was a crook. I doubt that Colin Powell was a crook. I doubt that Hillary Clinton is a crook.

All three did the same thing.

I also doubt that three emails are worth the amount of money being spent to prove she is a crook, and that the Zika virus is not worth eradicating instead.

Partisan politics has gotten terribly beyond reason.

Suzy Stern

Henderson