14 minute read
Letters
from July 5, 2012
Call me maybe
Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
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So, I’m trying a new body hack, starting this week. As many of you know, I’m a carnivore for health and weight reasons. I eat little processed grains or sugars. But I’ve come to believe that a restrictive lowcarb lifestyle isn’t any more reasonable than a vegan lifestyle. Nor do I believe that just because our bodies are omnivorous, that we’re meant to eat balanced meals all the time. I don’t think that’s the way our bodies evolved over the years.
Here’s my hypothesis: During the development of our hominid bodies up to about 30,000 years ago, we ate what was available when it was available. There was little food storage. We ate fruits, grains, vegetables and nuts— augmented by meats and fish—in the summer and fall. We ate meats and fish—augmented by dried plants materials like berries and nuts—in the winter and spring. There was no calendar, so please understand I’m just writing broadly; the switch would come with the seasonal maturity of plants and fruit.
It’s my guess that a “balanced” diet tends to enhance fat storage. In prehistoric times, the only time that there were both plentiful plants andanimals (a “balanced” diet) was the autumn. We put on fat to prepare for winter (and we still do).
I’ve seen two schools of thought on this: Forks over Knivespromotes vegetarianism over a meat diet and Good Calories, Bad Caloriesby Gary Taubes promotes a low-carb diet over a veggie-based diet. But both kind of say, “This way is the only way.” I’m going to try to see if the pendulum should swing between those extremes. •••
Last week, I got a call from someone asking if they could offer their customers a discount or something to vote for them in our popularity contest. “Buy votes? I don’t see anything that forbids that in the rules. Just don’t try to cheat with technology.” To my mind, this whole thing is just a metaphor for our democracy anyway. Just go to www.newsreview.com/reno/ ballot/BestOfReno12. —D. Brian Burghart brianb@newsreview.com
Agnostics go to hell, too
I, too, went to the university, but instead of Thomas Paine, read Freud’s Future of an Illusion and thought many of the same thoughts you offered. My 6-year-old cut through the intellectual bog by simply asking, “Is God like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?” After a good deal of seeking, I have come to peace with my spirituality and find hope in it. I am Christian and cannot speak of other approaches to the spiritual side of life.
Sorry you have been so disappointed in God and in the church as well as in the affairs of those who represent themselves as speaking on God’s behalf. All of us have reason to mourn how far human efforts have missed the mark of what faith and the gospels promise. It has been said that we should not blame Christianity for the state of the world, because it has never really been tried. You mention the doctrine of original sin. Along with original sin comes the doctrine of free will, which is intertwined with the discussion of the impact of sin in the world of which you rant. Under the doctrine of free will, God does not force anyone to believe or to be good. That to me is what being made in the image of God is about: We have the freedom to choose life or death, good or evil. Our rejection of godly lives on a very regular basis and our tendency to act in our egocentric self-interest, disregarding the harm we do, is the best support I know of for the doctrine of original sin. Persons do not engage their spirituality because of logic or reasoning; it is a right brain, not a left brain activity. The Scriptures all proclaim this: It is the child and the simple-hearted who find faith. We are urged to approach God in spirit and in truth. It is not the beautiful, proud, powerful, or greedy who find God, for the world’s standards do not apply to faith. It is usually those who are burdened by what they have done, by their responsibilities or by their fears, who find faith.
Atheism is a burden, because it leaves no room for hope. Being an atheist does not make a person smart or self-reliant or strong except in that person’s own eyes. One can proclaim all he wishes that there is no God, but that does not make it so. Since one can’t prove the existence or nonexistence of a Supreme Being, or Higher Power, possibly the only intelligent choice is that of the agnostic, who is waiting for the evidence to be all in. If you want to challenge God’s existence, simply pray for the truth to be shown to you and be patient. If we continue to pray, understanding will come. R. B. Stacy Reno
A visionary, too
As an atheist myself, I was intrigued by Jake Highton’s essay. But what I’m most looking forward to is the shit storm that will undoubtedly sprawl out over the letters page for the next month or so in response to this. So sit back and grab some popcorn.
Jonathan Daniel Reno
Me, too
I agree with everything Jake said. Great essay. Thanks, RN&R, for publishing this.
Kay Warren Reno
Ditch the books, too
How could Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason confirm your atheism? Thomas Paine was not an atheist, he was a deist. That is, he believed in God based on the application of his reason on the laws and designs in nature. Deists believe the designs point us to the Designer. Deism is the opposite of atheism. Atheism teaches there is no God, and deism teaches there is a God. What aatheism and deism do have in common is the complete rejection of all the unreasonable claims made in the various “holy” books of the various “revealed” religions. Read Paine’s outstanding essay comparing deism to Christianity (www.deism.com/paine_essay_deism _christianity.htm ). This essay is found in The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition. I can’t understand how you could possibly see Thomas Paine as an atheist and his important deistic writing on God, deism, religion, etc., The Age of Reason, as an atheism-promoting book. It’s beyond comprehension unless you mistake Paine’s rejection of religion as rejection of God as too many people do. That is one of the important points deism makes clear, that God and religion are (thankfully) two very different things. Progress! Bob Johnson Clearwater, Fla.
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A bite of the apple, too
Before we get all giddy with glee about Apple parking their big, fat corporate butt in Reno, let me ask a simple question. Why don’t I get a tax break? Why don’t other businesses already here contributing 100 percent of their property and sales taxes getting a tax break? Oh, that’s right, we’re not big enough. Apple is too big to tax. Why do huge corporations get to pit one small city against another and bid down their taxes? This is a fine example of how huge corporations get tax breaks while small businesses get nothing. GM pays no federal income tax. Exactly why are we subsidizing these huge corporations? Because they create so many jobs and are too large to fail? We would increase the number of jobs in Reno by giving the same tax breaks to any number of existing Reno businesses. And that $1 billion in capital investment is for computer equipment. Who manufactures computer equipment in Reno? I’m pretty sure they’re going to buy their $1 billion in equipment from China. This deal sounds too good to be true because it is. Reno’s greed to get Apple here is the same greed other cities have when they give huge corporations tax breaks to move to their cities. And when there’s enough greedy cities, huge corporations wind up paying no or little taxes, so who winds up footing that bill? You, me, individuals, and smaller businesses that don’t get corporate welfare. Ed Park Reno
Best Of, as well
Re “We’re live. You’re the Best.” (Editor’s Note, June 21):
This is the third time tonight I’ve tried to express my opinion in the RN&R reader survey. Do you have a way to keep marketers and other business interests out of this voting process? I tried to vote last year, and was met with the same difficult bullshit. I’m a longtime Verdi resident, and lived in Truckee, Calif., before this. My frustration revolves around being unable to express an opinion and vote in this important survey. Please make this survey available to me, and others who are getting derailed by business interests and others who seem to wish to make a simple thing like answering a survey difficult and convoluted. I’m guessing you realize this does not have to be. Please let me know what I can do, if anything, to cast my vote, as well as have it counted. I’m not trying to “stuff the ballot box.” I’m guessing you realize there is enough power politicking in this world, anyway. Thank you for your time and consideration. Marsha Sidwell-Fronefield Verdi Editor’s note: In light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s re-affirmation of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, we no longer feel it is patriotic to block marketers and business interests from the Biggest Little Best Of Northern Nevada readers’poll. However, if you’ll go to www.newsreview.com/ reno/ballot/BestOfReno12 you should be able to make your voice heard alongside theirs. It can only be said that people who don’t vote in the Biggest Little Best of Northern Nevada readers’poll hate America.
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THIS MODERN WORLD BY TOM TOMORROW
One bad apple?
In 1993, during a major national recession, Alabama officials announced they lured German carmaker Mercedes Benz to the state to build an assembly plant for its new sport utility vehicles. Asmiling Gov. Jim Folsom wore a Mercedes button as he made the announcement.
Later, as Alabamians learned how the state had given away the farm to get the plant, Auburn University professor Wayne Flynt said, “It’s gone from euphoria to fright.”
Mercedes had played states off against each other, getting a huge package of goodies. Alabama officials had been unable to say no. They were so desperate for anything that would relieve a harsh recession that they accepted corporate welfare that in better times they would have rejected.
It became a national scandal. AWisconsin newspaper called it “Getting the Benz.” The Associated Press reported that “few are familiar with the nuances of international banking and big-league industrial recruiting.”
Part of the problem was the secrecy. By not keeping the public informed, community groups could not participate in scrutinizing the deal. Public discussion was at a minimum. The public was presented with a fait accompli.
Reno is now saddled with an uncooked deal with Apple. It may turn out fine, but it may also blow up in the faces of the officials who were too anxious, too accommodating, too manipulative, too clever by half.
Secrecy was necessary, they tell us, because Apple insisted on it, and they might have taken their business elsewhere.
That’s entirely possible. Apple has previously threatened towns if it didn’t get its way. Steve Jobs appeared personally before the city council in Cupertino, Calif., to threaten to pull his operation out of town unless he got his way on a building project.
Nevada columnist Jon Ralston has written about the existing Apple office in Reno—created as a tax dodge— and of the corporation’s executives “who gaze longingly at Nevada, their salivary glands in overdrive, thinking how easy it is to plant a few employees here and then grow astronomical profits while providing not one scintilla of assistance to the state.”
But at least Apple has the excuse that it’s doing what a predatory corporate monolith is expected to do. Public officials, however, represent the public, not Apple.
As noted in our news section this week, Nevada law allows confidentiality in economic development negotiations if “proprietary information” might be threatened. But no one made money off knowing that a corporation in 1984 wanted to move to Nevada and that the corporation’s name was Citibank. Indeed, a whole special session of the Nevada Legislature was held to make changes in banking law demanded by Citibank while other states competed with Nevada amid wide publicity. Nevada still prevailed.
Members of the Washoe County Commission, Washoe School Board, and Reno City Council sold out the public, approving the Apple deal after less than 30 hours of study. Their staffs delivered a defenseless, uninformed public to Apple. The deal certainly appears to jam huge amounts of public giveaways into one end of the pipeline to produce a trickle of public benefits coming out the other end.
Officials like Gov. Sandoval and County Manager Katy Simon smugly said the information was there for the public if the public wanted it. It’s their job to make public informtion easy, not difficult, to find.
This community belongs to all of us, not just to officials. When government stops trusting the people, people stop trusting the government. Those officials better pray the Apple deal works, because they are on their own. Ω
What do you get out of Artown?
Asked at Nevada Women’s Lobby meeting
Roberta Ferguson
Clinical psychologist I love the music. I love the community involvement. I love the art. I love going to all the different galleries and the musical events—classical, jazz, I like it all. The drums are wonderful— the Reno High drummers. And I live near downtown so I can walk down to the park.
Joan Kruse
Retiree It gives me a lot of joy, the fact that our community does have a heart. … I have grandchildren, and I love to watch them in their activities at Artown.
Carolyn Miller
Accountant I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to contribute to the arts. Also, what I like is that it showcases Reno to the outside world.
Catana Barnes
Artist I like to see the different artists and what different genres are taking place. The different groups that come in from out of town to participate.
Kate High
Non-profits consultant It really emphasizes to me that Reno is becoming a thriving and holistic community that isn’t just about what it what it was always historically about. It’s really a place where you can have a full spectrum of community activities. I love the fact that it brings people to town. I love the fact that so much of it is free and makes the arts accessible to all sorts of people, and it’s all over town.
