Parents at fault; give Onion sanctuary

To the editor:

In response to letters about Onion the dog, I am outraged over the situation. The toddler’s death was a terrible accident, but Onion has suffered enough. He belongs in a sanctuary, where he can live out the rest of his life.

There are so many people who would love to take him into their home. There are people who have no love or companionship and would be thrilled to have Onion.

Why is nothing ever the parents’ fault? They leave their kids in hot cars and claim they forgot the children were in there. They let their kids run through stores without watching them, and then it’s the store’s fault if a child gets abducted. They leave a tiny child along with a large animal, and it’s the animal’s fault if he attacks the child.

When are parents going to accept the fact that they are the ones responsible for their children’s lives and safety?

ANN DONCHEZ

HENDERSON

Water rights

To the editor:

One hundred years ago, in 1913, Los Angeles was running out of water. William Mulholland, of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, hit upon a grand scheme to save the city. Across desert and through mountains, water would be imported via aqueduct from Owens Valley, 233 miles to the northeast.

Surreptitiously, the cagey Mr. Mullholland dispatched his agents to the valley. They bought parcels of land and their water rights — grabbing 89 percent of the acreage.

The aqueduct was built. Today, Los Angeles is one of the largest cities in the nation. Owens Valley, where 200,000 head of cattle once fed from grassy rangeland, is now a withered desert.

One hundred years after Mr. Mulholland’s scheme, Las Vegas is about to embark on the same tragic course. The Mr. Mulholland of yesteryear is now embodied in a female protege, Pat Mulroy, general manager of Southern Nevada Water Authority. For years she quietly filed applications to acquire water rights from rural sources in four counties: White Pine, Lincoln, Nye and northern Clark.

Today in California, none of this could happen. After the rape of Owens Valley, the state enacted the Area of Origin Law. This prohibits the draining of one region of the state for development in another, assuring protection of water-rich rural areas against the predatory threat of more powerful areas.

In Nevada, it appears no such protection exists.

“I’ll think about that tomorrow,” said Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind,” as Rhett Butler slammed the door behind him. “After all, tomorrow is another day.”

JOHN DUBOIS

LAS VEGAS

Horse slaughter

To the editor:

We are enjoying a respite from the Las Vegas summer, vacationing in Switzerland.

I keep up with our local news at the Review-Journal website, and I read the article highlighting Robert Redford’s opposition to slaughterhouse approval for horses (“As celebrities protest horse slaughter, one permit blocked,” July 22, reviewjournal.com). The article notes that apparently no slaughtering of horses for meat has taken place in the United States since 2007.

While in Geneva dining at an upscale restaurant, we noticed that Cherval (horse meat) steak was featured on the menu as prominently as a T-bone would be in Las Vegas, and at a price that one of our fine establishments could only hope to charge. Below the menu selection, it was stated that the horse meat was from the United States and Canada.

So has the horse already left the barn — hooves to the sky? Is the Food and Drug Administration or Department of Agriculture looking the other way? We opted for the filet de perche.

STACY STANDLEY

LAS VEGAS