Letters

Down to the finish line

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my column last week. Five different people called, beginning on Thanksgiving morning. Between that sentence and this, I just got another. We did indeed find Neal C. Kirk, and on Monday, he spoke to his brother for the first time in 56 years. I only tell you this so you don’t have to roust the poor guy anymore. Well, I do think it’s pretty cool. Silly me, I didn’t bother to check my voicemail while I was off for the long weekend. I just figured word would come over email.

Anyway, as I said before, I only knew the guy for a minute a couple of years ago. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know my name, and he’s unlikely to remember me. I once gave him a business card; he saw the ‘D’ and decided it stood for doctor. It just wasn’t worth explaining to him.

So what do I know about what’s going to happen with him and his family? Little. Things like incredibly long separations take time to heal, and while it seems possible, or even probable, that one family member or the other will travel to Reno to see Nealand (I don’t know how to spell this, but this is how his sister-in-law kept referring to him), I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t happen. I’m hoping for the best, even though I don’t know what the “best” is.

Anyway, I don’t want to further violate his privacy except to wish him and his family the best. Unless, of course, he meets up with his family members. Then maybe I’ll have something more to say, and I’ll get to tell you all about it. *** I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. I did. Took two whole days to be really off from work and school. Some great people came over and helped me drink Brian’s Perfect Eggnog, which is a famous cocktail I developed over years of diligent testing. I ate turkey and stuffing and Dutch bread and pie and drank red wine. And now, I’ve got about 10 days in which to implode my brain while I try to do my final papers for the semester. —D. Brian Burghart brianb@newsreview.com

Do the math

Re “Vet” (15 Minutes, Nov. 14):

He says he is 75 years old and was a gunner on a recoilless 106 anti tank gun. You kids down there at Reno News & Review might be shocked to hear that there is this thing called mathematics, and his numbers don’t add up. The Korean war started in 1950 and ended in 1953, which, through the miracle of subtraction, tells us that war happened between 60 and 63 years ago. A man who is 75 years old today would have been between the ages of 13 and 15 years old during that war. Last time I checked, the U.S. armed forces didn’t allow 13-year-olds to enlist. Chris Rosamond Truckee

Who do you think you’re reading, anyway?

Re “Boycott Thanksgiving Sales” (Editorial, Nov. 21):

Go eat your turkey in peace and quit trying to model other people’s lives to your sublime notions of a model society.

Dean Chaney Sun Valley

Muy bueno

Re “Going back to caliente” (Foodfinds, Nov. 21):

Dave Preston’s review of Rigo’s Mexican Cuisine restaurant was spot on. We have been customers of Rigo’s for as long as he has been open. We have enjoyed eating at his restaurant at least once or twice a week. Rigo prides himself on using fresh natural ingredients. His menu items are mostly prepared from scratch. His family recipes are very authentic Mexican, Inca and Aztec food served in a family friendly atmosphere. It is at a location difficult to find the first time, but well worth the effort—at the northwest corner of East Prater Way and Sparks Boulevard in the Hacienda Shopping Center in Sparks. His seafood items are the greatest. We especially enjoy his salsa and chips.

Kudos to Dave for his article. It is an accurate portrayal of Rigo’s. Glen and Roberta Godfrey Sparks

Yeah, no kidding

Re “2013 Thanksgiving Family Guide” (Supplement, Nov. 7):

Thank you for publishing the “2013 Thanksgiving Family Guide.” So far, it has been the only public acknowledgment I have seen of the Thanksgiving holiday.

I wonder if anyone else noticed that the Jack-o-Lanterns were still brightly grinning on the front steps when corporate America unleashed its annual barrage of Christmas marketing. Time was, the Christmas shopping season did not officially begin until after Santa’s arrival in Herald Square, and that seemed a decent compromise: to wait until Thanksgiving for the madness to begin. But now, it seems, corporate management has decided to eliminate Thanksgiving from the canon of American holidays, and the reason is obvious: aside from the loss-leader ads for Butterball turkeys in the supermarket, they still have not figured out a way to make money from it. And, as we all know, nothing is of any value if doesn’t make a buck.

Life in America has become just one long series of marketing events. We begin the year with the Super Bowl, followed quickly by Valentine’s Day. It then moves on to Easter and into the summer “grilling season.” At the end of summer, there is back to school, followed closely by Halloween and now, it seems, Christmas.

Words only have the meaning that we give to them. Now, we have Black Friday all year long; it has become a code word for “get out there and spend.” Hopefully, Christmas itself will not suffer the same fate.

Ahh, the joys of life in a freemarket Capitalist society. God save us.

Bill Nickerson Reno

The hooker will see you now

Re “The doctor won’t see you now” (Feature story, Nov. 28):

I love the “cup of coffee per day” example. Yeah, go to the Star of the Megabucks, and for the price of a cup of coffee per day, you can buy a new Mini or get a new bike or get married or get a divorce or go to the doctor. So what is next? For the price of a cup of coffee per day, maybe you could, just maybe, get an actual cup of coffee? C’mon. We are just being asked to pay to leave others outside and not actually to get anything that we were not already getting. But I guess you do what you have to do. Now I’m gonna make myself a cup of coffee before I have to pay me 160 bucks per month to let me make a cup of coffee. David R. Gomez Reno

It’s all in the bottom line

Re “The doctor won’t see you now” (Feature story, Nov. 28):

There is a math issue here. The article claims that two-thirds of the $1,600 a year for 600 patients goes back to the doctor and that amounts to $125,000 a year? Well, 600 patients at $1,600 each is $960,000. Two of that is $640,000. So ... where is the rest of the money going? If they were really sending two-thirds of the money back to the doctor, and $125,000 is what the doctor was OK with then that would mean they could charge 1.5 times $125,000 or $187,500 spread among 600 patients is $312 a year per patient. So is MDVIP overcharging its patients?

Ken Mela Sparks

Editor’s note: It appears your equation does not include the doctor’s costs of running a medical practice, which is factored into the deal with MDVIP.

Good job on medical story

Re “The doctor won’t see you now” (Feature story, Nov. 28):

Your article on concierge medicine did a great job of describing and analyzing a very worrisome development in family/primary care medicine in America.

Senior citizens, my wife and I live in a firmly middle-class community in Maryland, halfway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Some five years ago, concierge or boutique medicine came to our locality. Judging by the letters to the local weekly newspaper, a lot of people were not happy about it—including my wife and I—because we really liked our doctors but decided to go elsewhere when their medical practice announced that it was going “boutique.”

Sometime after that, when we had found another medical practice that offered primary care via the “traditional” way (i.e., insurance-based), we learned that our old doctors had decided not to go boutique/concierge after all—they announced that they were suspending their decision for a while, and in the end, my old doctor did not switch to the concierge model. However, the concierge model never did go away, and some docs in our town are doing business that way.

Ironically, our new doctor recently switched to a homeopathic model and left the new primary care practice where we had originally sought refuge. So, we began a new search for primary care. As a retired federal civil servant, I have chosen to subscribe to both Medicare and good secondary health insurance (the latter being The Federal Employee Program, which is excellent but not inexpensive). The search for new doc No. 2 was successful but unnerving as well as sad, since we realized that issues about supply, demand and ability to pay are indeed taking center stage in our nation’s health care system.

Harold Holzman Columbia, Md.

Hide your shame

Re “The doctor won’t see you now” (Feature story, Nov. 28):

You should be ashamed of yourself for presenting such a sketchy article that involves two doctors and

Our Mission To publish great newspapers that are successful and enduring. To create a quality work environment that encourages people to grow professionally while respecting personal welfare. To have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live. Editor/Publisher D. Brian Burghart News Editor Dennis Myers Arts Editor Brad Bynum Calendar Editor Kelley Lang Editorial Intern Sage Leehey Contributors Amy Alkon, Chanelle Bessette, Megan Berner, Mark Dunagan, Bob Grimm, Ashley Hennefer, Sheila Leslie, Dave Preston, Jessica Santina, K.J. Sullivan, Kris Vagner, Bruce Van Dyke, Allison Young Creative Director Priscilla Garcia Art Director Hayley Doshay Junior Art Director Brian Breneman Design Vivian Liu, Serene Lusano, Marianne Mancina, Skyler Smith Advertising Consultants Meg Brown, Gina Odegard, Bev Savage Senior Classified Advertising Consultant Olla Ubay Office/Distribution Manager/ Ad Coordinator Karen Brooke Executive Assistant/Operations Coordinator Nanette Harker Assistant Distribution Manager Ron Neill Distribution Drivers Sandra Chhina, Ron Large, Joe Medeiros, Jesse Pike, Martin Troye, Warren Tucker, Matthew Veach, Gary White, Joseph White, Sam White General Manager/Publisher John D. Murphy President/CEO Jeff vonKaenel Chief Operations Officer Deborah Redmond Human Resource Manager Tanja Poley Business Manager Grant Ronsenquist Business Nicole Jackson, Tami Sandoval 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&R are 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&R is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. All letters received become the property of the publisher. We reserve the right to print letters in condensed form.

THiS ModeRn WoRld by tom tomorrow

Do you consider Reno hip?

Asked at Wildflower Village, 4395 W. Fourth St.

James Dilworth

Filmmaker I think that Reno is hip if you compare it to places like Oakdale and Sacramento and that kind of place.

Mary Sauvola

Retiree Yes, I do. I love the art scene. I like Midtown. I like the restaurants. I think it’s great.

Above the inFLUence

Among the annual public service announcements in this editorial space is the “flu etiquette” editorial. Amid other things we say every year, we strongly advise an annual flu shot, but we also recognize that some people strenuously disagree with this notion. One of our staff members gets one. One of our staff members believes he gets sick every time he gets one. Another of our staff members believes he got a multi-year flu shot a few years ago, but we’re not going to break the news to him that there is no such thing.

According to flu.gov, there are many things a person can, and should, do to avoid contracting the flu. There are steps you can take in your daily life to help protect you from getting the flu. • Wash your hands often with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand rub. • Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way. • Try to avoid close contact with sick people. • Practice good health habits. Get plenty of sleep and exercise, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat healthy food. Here are the same website’s suggestions on how to avoid spreading the flu. • Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. • If you are sick with flu-like illness, stay home for at least 24 hours after your fever is gone without the use of fever-reducing medicine.

WebMD offers some other clues as to how doctors avoid cold and flu germs. • Avoid public surfaces like computer keyboards, telephones, doorknobs, pens that are given to you when you sign for a credit card purchase (or to fill out forms in a doctor’s office) • Exercise to increase your immune system • Health.com also has some good suggestions. • Avoid that holiday dip when you’re visiting friends.

Double-dippers, you know. • Quit smoking. • Dispose of all your used tissues yourself.

The Centers for Disease Control has some pretty good advice at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/. Top advice (after getting an annual flu shot): Try to avoid contact with sick people. Good to know.

So, what’s all this mean, and why do we care enough to devote an annual editorial to flu prevention? The bottom line is that each flu season, nearly 111 million workdays are lost due to the flu. That equals approximately $7 billion per year in sick days and lost productivity. And yet, our culture both rewards those who come to work or school or the grocery store with the flu and punishes those who try to stay home. For example, some restaurants require employees to either come to work with the flu or not to work again until they pay for a doctor’s excuse to say they’re healthy. Most people don’t go to the doctor for a simple flu—often doctors are booked up for month—which sends those people to urgent care or even the emergency room for an excuse, but more likely they just set out your eating utensils while they’re contagious. Seems like the season for a change. Ω Sandra Kell

Retiree Yes, because of all the cultural events that are emerging in this town. I’ve been here for 40 years, and I really think it’s getting more hip.

Kat Ballou

Social media consultant It’s getting there. And it seems to me it’s changing in a very positive way and becoming more hip.

Guy Louis Rocha

Historian By Northern Nevada standards? Yes, Reno would be hip. Is it hip compared to Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Davis, Santa Barbara, Sante Fe, Boulder and points east? No. There’s enclaves in Reno [that are hip].