Las Vegas Review-Journal - Opinion

Well, suppose I own a widget factory that makes high-quality widgets. I make them for people who send me their own raw material of varying quality from which to make their widget. I hire qualified assembly line workers to actually make the widgets, and hire managers to oversee production and tell each worker how they are to do their part in making these high-quality widgets.

Suddenly I find out a high percentage of the widgets are defective. Does it make sense for me to go to the workers overseeing their small, manager-directed, part in the production of widgets, blame them for the poor quality, and threaten them with harsh penalties if the widgets continue to be defective?

No, I would first go to the managers who are responsible for the overall widget production, and demand they meet the responsibility for quality widget production. If the managers tell me it is impossible to meet that responsibility because of the varying quality of raw material, labor unions, the federal widget quality bureau, litigious lawyers or whatever, I either find new managers, or admit my entire business plan is flawed.

I know this is a grossly simplified analogy, but nonetheless, it does not seem logical to hammer the teachers, who are only doing their own small part, as directed by school administrators, in the overall education of our youth.

James R. Brown

NORTH LAS VEGAS

In flight

To the editor:

I believe Howard Stutz and Brian McGill are on to something ("McCarran visitor count sinks nearly 10 percent in August," Sept. 29 Review-Journal). My experience is that the demand for seats must be exceeding the supply.

Because my business takes me to Washington, D.C., each week, I have completed nearly 100 round trips between McCarran and Washington Dulles since July 2007. To my best recollection, only one of the 200 flights originating or terminating at McCarran had available seating. That one flight was a Tuesday, nonstop Southwest Airlines flight.

All too often the gate attendants on inbound flights are barking offers to forfeit seats on the overbooked Las Vegas-bound flight.

JetBlue decided to discontinue nonstop service between McCarran and Washington Dulles in September 2008. I began questioning their reasoning upon learning of this decision. I could not understand why an airline would discontinue service when its flights had no available seats. I kept hearing excuses like, "Our management wants to reduce the number of cross-country flights," or, "Perhaps the FAA asked McCarran to reduce the number of takeoffs and landings for safety concerns," and finally, "We anticipated hotel occupancy to be down in Las Vegas. See, we were right!" Of course, they were right. When you don't lead the horses to water, they won't drink. When you cancel flights into and out of Vegas, people can't get there to stay in the hotels.

Maybe it is me. Maybe I fly in and out of Las Vegas on the only days and times that others want to fly in and out of Vegas. I don't think so -- particularly when I occasionally choose midweek. If I am picking the high-demand times, then why not offer flights on only those few days and times of the week that I fly? Obviously these are high-demand days and times.

The airlines don't have a problem offering weekly, bi-weekly, or tri-weekly flights to and from other vacation destinations. Why not Vegas?

I'm not sure just what is going on here. Are the airlines convinced that if they hold out, the casinos will subsidize additional flights? I am becoming quite suspicious. Maybe it is only because I am becoming grumpy in my small, overcrowded seat.

Royce Snyder

HENDERSON

Just a thought

To the editor:

OK, enough of all the political banter and rampant speculation already. It's boring. Let's get down to more serious issues.

This week, like most weeks, traipsing through the daily newspaper one finds interesting tidbits of information that nobody seems to give a second thought. In a small column, I see that Clark County Commissioners Susan Brager and Chris Giunchigliani were considering everything from enacting a heavy monetary penalty to a new felony law for animal cruelty because two cats were savaged, apparently by a bobcat near the Mountains Edge community.

So who let the cats out, and whatever happened to the County Commission's proposal to snare and spay 200,000 feral cats here? Maybe they are just hoping for an increase in the bobcat population or that the newly confirmed feline H1N1 will be enough to resolve this overpopulation problem?

Not far from this articulate newspaper gem was a picture of President Obama tiptoeing through a field of solar panels in Florida, talking "smart grid" and other environmentally friendly issues, I suppose. No doubt we could stand to jettison some of the carbon-emitting fuel sources we're now dependent upon, but at what cost?

Who has submitted these proposals for wind, solar, nuclear and smart grid technology conversions to the CBO for evaluation?

Then, hardly a daily newspaper goes by without a mention of the move toward legalization of marijuana. Supporters are aghast that college students are now drinking themselves to death. If only they could get some Mary Jane instead. If legalized, then what would your blood Mary Jane level need to be before you are considered legally drunk?

Marijuana is said to be a gateway drug, but a gateway to what?

Wow, just when we are on the road to lower car insurance premiums, better health care, reductions in cigarette smoking and lung cancer, now we need a substitute so the local tax collector, the auto insurance and health care industries can all prop up their financials?

What do the surgeon general and the CBO say about all of this?

Not much.

Richard Rychtarik

LAS VEGAS