Letters

Rock me, Jennamarbles

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I just spent 15-and-a-half minutes learning how to make my boobs appear bigger from Jenna Marbles. That’s a hard thing to admit, it being Monday and all. I must be in the mood for confession because that’s the kind of crap that the internet brought into the workplace, and everyone knows it, so my disclosure is meaningless. I mean, back when I started, unless you brought some pornography into the shop, you’d almost never have access to pornography. Not that Jenna Marbles is pornographic, she seems like a nice girl, working on her master’s. Down to earth, even.

But think about it. I’m sure most workplaces are like mine. You still work the same hours, basically. If you had a lunch hour five years ago, and you still work at the same place, you probably have one now.

But look at all the distractions technology has brought to you. Internet and cell phones eat my time in 15-second intervals. Sometimes, it’s as simple as the internet is particularly slow. Other times, it’s somebody blowing up your phone with text messages. I can’t imagine that there’s not a minimum of an hour we waste every day on this crap. But the work that must be completed hasn’t decreased. So what gives?

If you’ve ever gotten an email from me at 4 a.m., you know I’m not typical. I don’t even think of myself as a multi-tasker. My single task is my life, lame as that sounds, so I just do life.

But what about the people whose work defines the hours when they can work or play or contemplate Jenna Marbles’ apparent marbles? Five hours a week, that’s about 12.5 percent per week less work done, but the same salary. Couldn’t that be considered a de facto raise? Hmmm. Twelve-and-ahalf percent across America. Amusing and slightly ironic— since it’s the very technology that enabled desktop publishing that’s now hobbling it.

D. Brian Burghart brianb@newsreview.com

Fuel to the fire

The Steamboat Ditch Company has an easement to cross my property— on which I pay property taxes, my animals graze, and which I maintain. Every spring, the Steamboat Ditch Company creates and leaves in its wake 45 miles of fire hazardous materials which they arrogantly expect private property owners to clean up after them, violations of NRS 444.630, NRS 444.635, and Washoe County Board of Health Regulations 040.0101, and 050.145. No other companies with easement rights to come onto my property leave their garbage behind. That our region has endured devastating wildfires in recent years, together with the current controversies regarding fire protection in the county, the Steamboat Ditch Company’s historical “chainsaw massacre” approach to maintenance, and their dumping on private property must no longer be tolerated!

From the Nevada/California border west of Reno, the Steamboat Ditch winds along the foothills through Belli Ranch, Caughlin Ranch, the gully behind Manzanitza, Lakeridge Shores, Windy Hill, Arrowcreek, etc. Is the debris left by Steamboat Ditch Company the cause or is it just a coincidence these neighborhoods have experienced such horrible fires? Once you have had a wildfire burn through your neighborhood, it’s terrifying to have your property’s defensible space compromised.

D. Horton Reno

Defense Attack

Re “Days of our lies” (Feature story, May 17):

Dennis Myers might want to reconsider his defense of Rep. Mark Amodei, since Congressman Amodei chose to abstain from voting on the bipartisan SmithAmash amendment to reinforce the intent of the Constitution, and thus prevent by statute the possible illegal abuse of power by the president or other government officials concerning the indefinite detention provisions contained in the present National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Please see the memorandum to Congress from 28 concerned civic and religious groups, as well as a brief background of the NDAA found in Wikipedia. You will note there that “Afederal court issued an order prohibiting the indefinite detention powers of the NDAAfor American citizens on the grounds of unconstitutionality on May 16, 2012, in response to a lawsuit filed by journalist Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Wolf and others.”

Please also note:

Adam Serwer reports that House Republicans, who almost all opposed the Smith-Amash amendment, approved a “hoax fix”: Republicans opposed to the SmithAmash amendment proposed a hoax fix that “reaffirms” Americans’ right to habeas corpus. Only, the right to habeas was never in question, so their proposal wouldn’t actually do anything. The proposal is a complete non-sequitur, a badfaith attempt to prevent Smith and Amash from closing a gaping “terrorism exception” to Americans’ due process rights. That amendment passed by almost the same overwhelming margin that the Smith-Amash amendment failed, by a vote of 243-173.

Beth Davidson via email

River’s edge

Re “Positively Fourth Street” (Feature story, May 10):

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I ride from Reno/Sparks or visa versa, I usually use the river path. Bike lanes are good, but bike paths are much, much better. No traffic, lights, etc.

Tim King Reno

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Hate that

Why is it that most of the “hate” letters are from those embracing the religious right?

Generally, I notice that most liberals’letters are not filled with quite so much venom as those from conservatives.

I’m guessing that Jesus was a liberal, and probably tended towards socialism, rather than cutthroat capitalism.

And that he probably agreed that equity/wealth should be distributed according to one’s service to one’s fellows, rather than how much “capital” one has accumulated.

At least that’s my recent read on “socialism,” which I finally Googled today.

It seems there are many kinds of socialism, but the theme is that the common people should have a say in how the world is run, and that essential services—vital services— should not be run ‘for profit only,’ but adjudicated by a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

So for my money, I positively prefer a sharing, caring world as opposed to a “gimme more” world wherein those with the gold make the rules.

After the hungry are fed, the homeless housed, and the fearful comforted, then and only then should we focus on accumulation of personal wealth.

Please remember, you can vote out a government, but you cannot vote out a for-profit-only corporation.

We’re all in this together, ya know, and nobody gets out alive.

By your good deeds ye shall be known. Not by your bank balance. Craig Bergland Reno

False facts

Re “Straight to the heart” (Green, May 17):

So this article is saying that the “Heartland Institute” does not “believe” in global climate change (not global warming, as many places are not being warmed)? Is there not already plenty of evidence suggesting otherwise?

There is, and they know it perfectly well, so now they try to cover up that “little known fact” (as they would have it) by posting images of mass criminals such as Osama bin Laden, saying those personages believe in “global warming.” Is this not against their regulations? It is very ignorant, that is certain, but to cost the Institute $1 million. That must be against regulations, just as what they did with the billboards should have at least a fine attached by law enforcement. Charlie Xzavior via email

Nutters

Re “Libertarian weekend” (News, May 10):

Thank you for being one of the only print publications to notice that there was major Libertarian political activity in our state last weekend. The Revolution is not being televised. Please note what is becoming a citizen revolt. Afurther generational changing of the guard is taking place.

Many Gen-X Ron Paul enthusiasts such as myself are involved. We are running for office as well as doing more than showing-up to Republican functions. Some folks absolutely think we are nutters, but guess what? So is a $560 million debt born on the backs of Reno citizens by the City Council with collusion from Washoe County. We are nuts if things don’t change [and the city must declare bankruptcy]. How about an outside audit instead of the standard, yearly, regurgitated and re-formatted spreadsheet? Show us the money!

S. Rowan Wilson At-large candidate, Reno City Council

Correction

Re “Headfirst” (Art of the State, May 17):

In the photo caption, Brendan Vaile was misidentified as “Brendan Bartlett.” We apologize for any confusion our error caused.

Executive Assistant/Operations Coordinator Nanette Harker Assistant Distribution Manager Ron Neill Distribution Drivers Sandra Chhina, Jesse Pike, John Miller, Martin Troye, David Richards, Warren Tucker, Matthew Veach, Neil Lemerise, Russell Moore General Manager/Publisher John D. Murphy President/CEO Jeff vonKaenel Chief Operations Officer Deborah Redmond Human Resource Manager Tanja Poley Credit and Collections Manager Renee Briscoe Business Zahida Mehirdel, Shannon McKenna Systems Manager Jonathan Schultz Systems Support Specialist Joe Kakacek Web Developer/Support Specialist John Bisignano 708 North Center Street Reno, NV 89501 Phone (775) 324-4440 Fax (775) 324-4572 Classified Fax (916) 498-7940 Mail Classifieds & Talking Personals to N&R Classifieds, Reno Edition, 1015 20th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 or e-mail classifieds@newsreview.com Web site www.newsreview.com Printed by Paradise Post The RN&R is printed using recycled newsprint whenever available. Editorial Policies Opinions expressed in the RN&Rare those of the authors and not of Chico Community Publishing, Inc. Contact the editor for permission to reprint articles, cartoons or other portions of the paper. The RN&Ris not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. All letters received become the property of the publisher. We reserve the right to print letters in condensed form. Cover design: Priscilla Garcia Feature story design: Hayley Doshay

THIS MODERN WORLD BY TOM TOMORROW

You do the math

Criminentlies. At what point is the United States of America going to get a clue? Our health-care system is jacked. Bad.

One of the robust editors at this fine organization was ordered by his cardiologist to get a stress echocardiogram, which is essentially a sound picture of the heart. Sort of like those black and white ultrasound pictures of fetuses that we are all so familiar with from Facebook and the Republican agenda for women in the 21st century.

That’s all just great.

Now, here’s the not-so-great part, and the part that just about anyone can relate to, maybe enough to get irritated enough to vote against anyone who opposes Obamacare, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: That test was going to cost that editor more than a thousand dollars. And that voting part is based on the hope that our undemocratic U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t toss out the whole thing, likely announcing its decision before the end of its term in June.

All right, since it’s early in the year, the editor’s entire $500 deductible has not been paid. Since that robust editor had a colonoscopy this year, some has been. Admittedly, he received an envelope in the mail from said ass doctor, but he has not opened it, preferring not to know just how hard he’d been reamed yet and thinking it still might be some kind of reconciliation (see “Dear Dr. John,” RN&R, April 26). But when he was called to preregister for the echo, the administrator mentioned the deductible was going to cost him $300.

“And then you have to pay 30 percent of the cost,” she said, matter-of-factly, “so your cost will be slightly more than a thousand dollars.” Just to round numbers, that would put the price of a heart scan at more than $2,100. (Media consumers will recall the great investigative piece Frank Mullen did over at the Reno Gazette-Journal on this topic last November. It was called “Cardiology wars: patients’wallets are casualties.”)

Upon hearing a strangled voice on the phone and the clutching of shirt fabric, the office kindly offered to allow the patient to make payments, probably of around $50 a month.

But throw in one more factor: The editor’s office might—repeat—might be changing insurance carriers in July. That means, the $500 deductible would be wasted because a new $500 deductible would kick off on July 1.

The appointment was cancelled. At least until July.

But here’s the thing. Even with insurance, patients are avoiding necessary medical care because costs have skyrocketed. Echo scans are old but reliable technology. They’re cheap to perform.

But a heart attack. Aheart attack isn’t cheap. According to the National Business Group on Health, in 2010, the average total cost of a bad heart attack was about $1 million.

And as things stand, guess which editor of the RN&R does not have a million in the bank? That’s an almost guaranteed medical-cost-caused bankruptcy—the most common reason for bankruptcy in the United States.

Insurance companies have a choice, but they don’t calculate the way we hope they would. We think, “They could pay a thousand bucks now, or they could pay a million bucks after the heart attack.” But they think, “Forty percent of first heart attacks end in death.”

You do the math. Ω

Did you come here by bus?

Asked at municipal bus stop ceremony

David Jickling

Regional Transportation publicist I’ve been here since 7:30 for various meetings, so I had to drive here. [There are no buses] from my house to here. I live on West Plumb Lane. I was here doing interviews with Channel 4 at 5:30, and at that time there definitely weren’t any buses.

Bob Cashell

Reno mayor No, I didn’t come by bus. I was running in between two different meetings so I wasn’t able to get the bus and get back. Yes, there were buses along the route, but I had one meeting here, one meeting over there, so I came here for the first part of the meeting, went over there for an hour meeting, came back over here. The schedule just didn’t work for me today.

Howard Riedl

Regional Transportation engineer No, I didn’t, because I had to pick up one of our artists, Denise Duarte [who was honored at the ceremony, see 15 Minutes, page 35].

Geno Martini

Sparks mayor No, I did not. It wasn’t conducive to me catching the right schedule. I just left a meeting at [Sparks] City Hall, and the bus schedule didn’t work right for me.

Dave Aiazzi

City councilmember I came by bicycle. It’s Bike to Work Week. I bike quite a bit. It depends on where the meetings are. We live very close to downtown so I ride a bike.