Letters

Gut check

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I must be living a boring life. The most interesting thing I can think of—outside my continuing adventures trying to get my solar water and PV systems—is the little adventure at the Digestive Health Center for an upper endoscopy I had last week. I’ve got a persistent pain in my right abdomen, just under my rib cage. I’ve whined about it before, and it was truly the first non-traumatic thing that I ever went to the doctor for. That’s going on 18 years ago.

At any rate, the upper endoscopy is the other end of the colonoscopy that I got when I turned 50.

What they do is knock you out, stick a scope down your throat, and take pictures. There was a tiny hiatal hernia, but no damage from the years of what’s been diagnosed as acid reflux or GERD. It suggests that the original diagnosis of some gall bladder issue seems more likely than ever.

My doctor did give me some kind of cool advice. Before the procedure, I explained that I never take the Prilosec my doctors always prescribe because it seems to prevent me from digesting my food correctly, exchanging one sort of pain for another. His advice was, “Keep doing what you’ve been doing,” and since I was a bit zoned out from the sedation, he had to explain, “Yeah, don’t take the Prilosec.” He then gave me the generic diet advice: No spicy foods, don’t lie down for twothree hours after eating, raise the head of the bed, no caffeine or alcohol.

So, it seems likely my gall bladder needs some adjustment. The doctor specifically mentioned that he doesn’t really buy into those olive oil gall bladder cleanses, but there was something going on behind his eyes that suggested maybe he wasn’t quite convinced there’s not something to them. On the other hand, since he’s a guy who stares at assholes for a living, maybe he’s less likely to engage with his eyes than most.

Here we go, this should be fun. If somebody has a gall bladder treatment they particularly like, drop me a line. —D. Brian Burghart brianb@newsreview.com

Plug in, drop out

Re “Fight with power” (Editor’s note, Jan. 16):

As the owner of a solar power system, I am still a customer of NV Energy, and they charge me $9 a month for the privilege. It doesn’t make any difference to the electricity which side of the meter I am on. If I don’t use all the power when it is generated, it goes onto the grid and is consumed by my neighbors. In this way, I am just like the “peaking” power plants in your column. The major difference, is that I am not a “dispatchable.”

My system was installed with the help of the Solar Generations program. Because of that, all the Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) produced by my system are owned by NV Energy. At the time I installed, the RECs were worth as much as the electricity itself, about 12 cents per KWh.

To me, the grid is the perfect battery. I can store electricity at 100 percent efficiency, and it is maintenance free. As a net-meter customer, my system size is currently limited to 50 percent more than I can use. Which is fine with me.

If the rules change, and I only get the avoided cost rate, it might make more sense for me to leave the grid completely.

Dan Casale Sparks

Pigeon hero

Re “Cruel service” (Letters to the Editor, Jan. 16):

Thanks to Kevan Shaw for coming to the aid of the abused pigeon at the Eldorado Hotel Casino on New Year’s Eve. It is heartwarming to be reminded of the wonderful people out there who are willing to take the initiative to help those who are being mistreated, be they people or animals. It’s fortunate that Mr. Shaw was in the right place at the right time and was willing to act.

Julie Douglass Reno

Send in the drones:-)

Re “Drone on” (15 Minutes, Jan. 16):

Kudos to visionary Dr. Maragakis and his supportive staff at University of Nevada, Reno.

It’s going to take much more than wide open spaces and sunny skies to attract the Unmanned Autonomous Systems industry and its high-paying careers to the Silver State. I’ve wondered how many UNR STEM graduates have been able to find employment in the region. I trust this new program, beginning as a minor, will blossom, and allow many graduates to remain and contribute economically to the area we all enjoy so much

I notice Ms. Chatterjee studiously avoided the tainted, or even disgraced term “drone” in her interview. Unmanned Autonomous Systems is a mouthful and even UAS does not exactly roll off the tongue. I propose, that, when in print, we stay with “drone,” but add an emoticon, “drone:-)” to differentiate good drones from, well, not so good drones. How this will be handled in the spoken word, I shall leave to those much smarter than I. My concern is that the original term is just not going to go away. Steve Waclo Carson City

Law promotes criminality

Re “Out, damned pot” (Upfront, Jan. 16):

Nevada still has one of the worst written and unfair medical marijuana laws in the country. We voted as a state to allow sick people access to one more medication that they can add to their arsenal of deadly prescription drugs. Pot is not just fun to smoke, it really does help very sick people. These are people tired of being dittoheads and just taking their corporate-manufactured drugs. Most prescription drugs have severe side effects. So does pot. Ever seen your roommate destroy a bag of Doritos and ruin your sofa?

So here are some facts about getting your medication papers from the state of Nevada. You call the guy in the Big Nickel ad. He asks you what your ailment is, he then tells you what state building you can get your application at and when you fill it out, for $150 dollars, he will tell you the only doctor in Northern Nevada willing to risk his license for your cash. None of the pot docs will take insurance for this medical recommendation.

Medical marijuana has no prescription. Otherwise it would be protected under the Health Information Privacy Act. Your medical info becomes public knowledge. So after paying the Pot Pimp and the Pot Doc cash, you still pay the state $150 for your papers and another $12 for your picture. Now you need to find a provider of your medicine, and it is not at the pharmacy with the corporate stuff. It is still in the alley, park or casino parking lot.

So after all the time and money spent on this law, like my doc said, just pay the ticket. It is cheaper, and the DMV doesn’t call you a pot head. Any dispensary in Northern Nevada will be closed by the government or lack of patients who can afford to follow our laws. The only real answer to this problem of regulation, greed and crime is to legalize it.

Roberta Moose Reno

It’s humor, but it’s a dry humor

Water, water, everywhere—except here in the West and Southwest.

Just in case some of the readers are not aware, have roots in the Amazon, or just live in a cave; we live in what’s called a “desert region” here in Nevada. Here it comes again this spring and summer, and it’s called drought. We old timers have seen it before, so it comes as no surprise to us, and we have endured the condition before, and not too long ago. In this writing I do not solicit a 200-page report on climate warming because we just can’t do a thing about it. Though I do not favor the use of the term, “It is what it is,” I will never the less lean on it here.

Be prepared for a weekly shower with your domestic partner, and if you have children a collective and all-at-once bathing experience will just have to suffice. Once again we of the older set have been there, done that many years ago.

For all the “greenies” out there, you might take my example to heart. Many years ago, I began a ritual to do my share for water conservation. As a male, the task is easily accomplished. However, the ladies of the household may find the task uncomfortable and perhaps not to their liking. Easy—instead of using the porcelain fixture within the house when I needed to relieve my bladder, I took to taking the chore outside to my back yard. After choosing a few select areas of unwanted weeds and/ or other invasive plant life in mostly private areas, I attacked with urine.

These unwanted plants do not do well in a constant, unrelenting stream of body acids. I surmise that over the years I have saved thousands of gallons of precious water that usually and wastefully, just go down the tube. At the same time I have controlled or eliminated the unwanted weeds and invasive plants with no use of harmful, commercially produced chemicals.

I have nurtured another bonus over the years, since I drink very little water and instead prefer a cold beer or two and again two or three glasses of red wine before and during dinner. More ammunition for my attack on the unwanted plants in the back yard. Dan Archuleta Sparks

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THiS Modern World by tom tomorrow

Choose: Snowy winter or drought summer?

Asked at Java Jungle, 246 W. First St.

Dustin Urban

Web marketer I’d prefer cold and snowy with water next summer. I’m a kayaker, and I like to see water in the river.

Brandon Pausa

Hospital worker I’d rather have the warm winter and the drought summer because I don’t like the cold very much. I’m from Michigan, and it was always snowy and cold there, and I never enjoyed that. I moved out here so it would be warmer.

Don’t panic

We had our third medical center shooting since October. Often in our culture, a third incident with details in common with two previous events begins panicked calls for changes. After all, it’s a detective novel cliché that one incident is an accident, two are coincidence, but three is a pattern.

First, let’s dispel the idea that there is a pattern, outside of the weapons of choice, which were, of course, guns. The first incident in October at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center was a shot fired by an off-duty police officer. The second was the incident at Urology Nevada near Renown Medical Center in which a probably mentally ill person killed a doctor and himself and wounded two others.

In the third incident, elderly William Dresser allegedly shot his wife at Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center. All we can do is speculate about motives, but this has some indications that it was an attempted mercy killing.

And not to shoot a dead horse, but doesn’t this help to undermine the idea that more guns on school campuses will decrease gun violence in schools? Medical centers, except when specifically posted, are not what are known by the gun lobby as “gun-free zones.”

America is already an armed fortress. As a country, we’ve over-reacted to isolated terror attacks and extremely rare attacks on government buildings. We’ve added prison-like security to many of our schools because of extremely rare school shootings.

We’ve added layers of privacy-invading security checks to get on airplanes, even domestic flights. We’ve become a country that lives in paranoid fear, while real violent crime has been dropping for years. Remember when we used to proud to be the land of the free? Now we’ve developed an international reputation as being the land of the surveilled and the home of the timid. We should not look for ways to further decrease our liberty. The ability to move freely is characteristic of a free society, but we see those rights further and further restricted. We should be looking for ways to control a security-obsessed government because it’s not just the foreign or domestic terrorists the government is treating with suspiThe nation is cion, it’s all of us. becoming armed There were many areas of worry that were identified in those fearand fortified— filled days following the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the against us. World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. For example, gasoline tanker trucks were identified as having more explosive potential than those 747s, but the devices that were shown as effective methods for police to disable the pneumatic braking systems were never legislated onto those trailers. Attacks on medical centers are worrisome, but it has become obvious that Americans don’t have an appetite to solve the real underlying issues: mental health, our healthcare system, and our militarized society. Ω John Freeman

Computer programmer Cold, snowy weather, absolutely. We need water. We need a lot of water. We need snowpack. We need the river to be high. The only bad thing about it is if we get enough water, they’ll start building more homes.

Jaimie Crush

Writing tutor A cold winter and enough water next summer. I like the cold, and it’s good to have water, obviously.

Don Divers

Security guard Definitely cold winter. I like the cold, for one reason. It’s pretty obvious from dying plants everywhere that there’s not enough water.