Letters to the Editor, Nov. 29

Defend your beliefs

In the mid-1970s when I was a young man attending college, I worked at the Sears store at the Genesee Valley mall in Flint Township, Michigan. In the retail trade, Sears was always considered reliable and trustworthy. Sears was a virtual icon that decorated our landscape for many decades, so it comes with some sadness that it is closing (many of) its doors.

Here is a little-known piece of trivia: Sears once had a radical activist working for them who is now a Boulder City resident: me.

I once had the daring of youth to circulate a petition throughout the store requesting there be no smoking on the sales floor. Now remember, this was in the 1970s, before we had legislation and other safeguards enacted to protect us against secondhand smoke. When I took my petition to the store manager’s office, he graciously put out his cigarette and acknowledged my petition, and that was all. No action whatsoever was taken.

My lengthy petition had no effect. Or did it? Today, we walk into stores and we take for granted that the air we breathe will be free from harmful secondhand smoke. But how many people will recall that it wasn’t always this way? It took pioneers like myself to take the risk of being fired in order to stand up for truth and justice.

Through the years I also fought the corporate behemoth on problems like excessive noise.

Sears never put up any plaque in honor of my services, yet there are countless people I’ve never met who have benefited by my efforts of so long ago. Each new generation must stand out and dare to speak up for truth.

Fare-thee-well, Sears. My efforts were not in vain.

Bobby Morrow

Commercials condone violence, not efficiency

This is an open letter to the Southern Nevada Water Authority board of directors.

When our country is continuously ripped with violence and senseless mass shootings, including the horrific Oct. 1, 2017, massacre on the Las Vegas Strip, I am making a plea to SNWA to discontinue the airing of its commercial that promotes violence to one’s neighbors.

The commercial(s) is the water conservation series “Don’t make us ask you again. It’s a desert out there.”

In one commercial, an elderly lady knocks on her neighbor’s door (where the lawn is being overwatered). When the male neighbor answers the door, the woman gives a swift kick to the man’s groin, sending him to the ground. Another commercial is where a small bichon frise dog violently attacks a neighbor, lunging at the man’s throat (for overwatering his lawn).

The message these commercials send is that it’s OK to use violence to get ones’ point across. I don’t believe it is an appropriate message to our community, especially from the SNW “Authority.”

I was never a fan of these commercials when they launched. Doing harm to a neighbor is not a way to build a community of love and tolerance. Adults and children see the message as, “Hey it’s OK to harm my neighbor if they don’t do what I asked them to do, the SNWA commercial shows it’s OK.”

I continue to see the commercial with the elderly lady attacking the neighbor. Why the commercial continues to air is beyond comprehension; it does not send a message of water conservation, but rather that it’s OK to do harm to another, especially if one has been warned … “Don’t make us ask you again…”

Following the airing of the commercial on Nov. 14, local Fox 5 reported a story on a road-rage incident that left a man dead. The policeman interviewed made a notable statement, “Turning to violence is not the answer.” Let’s follow his advice.

Mary Vail