Smart meters not all they’re cracked up to be

To the editor:

The "smart meter" sounds so nice in theory, but there is a very important requirement for this program that must not be overlooked ("Smart meters suggest savings," Wednesday Review-Journal).

To comply with this program, Nevada will have to change its regulations to allow the power company to charge us different fees at different "peak" times of the day. Under our current law, this is prohibited. As your story pointed out, the difference in fees would be "stark."

They act as though they are doing us this tremendous favor by giving us a "choice." But when are peak hours, when they'll now be permitted to charge us higher fees? When we all get up for work in the morning and head out? When we come home at 5:30 p.m. and turn on the air and start cooking after a long day?

So we will have a "choice" not to pay these higher fees by not cooking dinner after work or not turning on the air conditioner? By getting dressed for work in the dark?

In the end, it will just be another way to justify squeezing even more dollars out of us during the hours we need power the most.

Don't fall for it.

Mary Ann Gothard

LAS VEGAS

Play time

To the editor:

As soon as news broke of a parental protest to Green Valley High School's productions of two socially progressive plays, a chorus of indignation started singing the praises of the brave teachers and actors and decrying the "obvious" hatred and ignorance of the parents. What actually bothers me far more than the political agenda at work in the play selections or the reflexive mob sanctimony of the aggrieved is the monolithic, vitriolic reaction of the community -- including the Review-Journal -- to the parents' opposition.

What lessons will the children who likewise oppose the performances learn from this controversy? If your opinion is different from the majority, be quiet. If you question the assumptions of the majority, they will have free rein to slander you. If you think something is deeply wrong but it's popular, you have no right to oppose it.

If these aren't the true lessons to take from this matter, then we have to ask why the media isn't also sympathetically profiling the students who oppose the biased selection of plays, or why local commentators aren't applauding the courage of a handful of people for standing up to a smug establishment.

This treatment appears to be just another example of the mainstream's one-way tolerance.

Jamie Huston

LAS VEGAS