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The bucket theory of memory
People try to put us down
Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review. Ask anyone who knows me, I’m young. I don’t know what that means, but I know it’s not the circuits I’ve made around the sun. I’m always energized, bouncing off walls, with an immature sense of humor. We live on the cusp of immortality. I freak out my friend Carter King when I talk about the potential of uploading my consciousness into the cloud, or transferring it into a clone made of my own cells. Why shouldn’t I have a backup in case something bad happens, like I get hit by a bus or forget to keep my hands on the steering wheel? I think 300 would be about the right age to die. I mean, if it really has to happen at all. When I get there, maybe I’ll say 600 is the right age. Once your essential memories are storable and transferable on some kind of external hardware, the finite number of cells available for new learning in our current wetware will be irrelevant. You could choose who you want to be each time you change out your body. That’s why I hate the growing number of inexorable signs of aging I’m experiencing. I’ve had tinnitus for a while now. Since September 2013, anyway. It’s a hazard and badge of a misspent youth. But two weeks ago, something slipped, and suddenly I lost a big part of the hearing in my left ear. It feels congested more than anything. The quality of the sound seems to improve when I take decongestants. My ear, nose and throat guy told me a few months ago that there’s nothing that can be done to treat tinnitus, so I’m trying some Eastern methods, herbs and such, to treat the underlying issues, like stress and inflammation. Here’s the thing: These little signs of things breaking down cause me to fear that I won’t make it past the sell-by date. I’m going to be very angry if I keel over from a massive stroke the day before some geek in Silicon Valley creates an app for uploading our consciousness. Life is nothing if not short, and 53 years is still equal to nothing if you’re rounding to the nearest thousand. Trust me, it’s not a fear of death as much as it is a fear of missing out.
Our generation changed the culture of America forever. For me, it started in Dallas with the JFK assassination, I was 5, then civil rights and Sgt. Pepper and Vietnam woke up everybody and led us into the decade of disco dance balls and “Free Bird.” The AIDS of the ’80s or Reagan ending the Cold War, you seldom hear about anymore. With the internet and PlayStations at our fingertips, time started to be spent in front of the monitor rather than the playground. Electing an American president named Hussein within the same decade the twin towers were brought down pretty much defines our lack of vision for the preservation of the values that made us great. Should we be proud of our generation? Mike Arp Reno
Do the math Re “Life after meth” (Feature story, April 16): I know this story very well. Having been a meth junkie for 30 years, clean for 22 years now. Now I have a daughter with a meth problem. I’m not sure how to handle it. I guess it will be tough love. Don’t come back to Daddy. I’ll keep my grandson safe at home with me, but you stay away until you can say you’re clean. Name withheld Fernley
Shouldn’t be shooting Re “Priests and cops” (Notes from the Neon Babylon, Feb. 26): Regarding the writer who asked why didn’t the cops “shoot in the air,” let me answer that question. They’re not unbelievably stupid, that’s why. A simple, easy Google search will quickly tell you about 11-year-old Shanti Lanza. Her dad shot into the air, and he killed his 11-year-old daughter. Vice-president Joe Biden also said to shoot into
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the air. People who advise others to do this are merely advertising how stupid they are. I am no rocket scientist; someone smarter than me can probably point out some spelling or grammatical error in my letter to you. Believing you should shoot into the air for any reason, especially to frighten someone, is just about the stupidest thing to believe. Whoever believes that needs to start reading books and turn off the TV. Christopher Johnson Gerlach
Pocket liners Re “Cooling it” (News, March 26): In the article by Dennis Myers, Pat Hickey’s constituent letter was quoted with the summation line, “Now let’s see whether you can look me in the eye and keep a straight face while saying you won’t be at all influenced by who I am and what I ask of you,” regarding lobbyist-fed money in politics. That statement is very bold, and much needed meds for today’s bribery-driven legislation. Mr. Hickey, a life-long entrepreneur and socially rubbermeets-the-road kind of guy, says with that bill and its very realistic take on democracy’s present tineared legislators, that Pat Hickey’s words and bill do most assuredly represent concern, clarity and truth at this time. The bill would give pause from the lucrative tracks ex-legislators and their aides seem to so easily slip and slide along into the maw of money and causes that only benefit the suppliers of all that lucre. The money is big, and the temptations equal if not greater. It is time for the voter’s needs to be placed above the slick-tongued farm animal leavings we are constantly given as reason to line the same old pockets. Christopher Lunn Carson City
Protect suffrage Three bills being proposed in the Nevada State Legislature will turn back the clock by demanding
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identification requirements in order to vote. These measures are a subtle way of suppressing an individual’s right to vote. Eleven percent of voting-age Americans do not own identification cards, adding up to 21 million people. Furthermore, 18 percent of people over the age of 65 do not have a current ID in any form. In Nevada, there are seven counties that don’t have a Department of Motor Vehicles, so it would be particularly difficult to get identification cards into the hands of those citizens. Academic studies suggest that requiring a voter ID card will reduce voter turnout, particularly among the elderly, poor, AfricanAmericans, Hispanics, young, and military. These individuals, who are much less likely to own cars or drivers licenses, will be disenfranchised. This roadblock is known as a “modern-day poll tax” because of the costs in obtaining identification and transportation, as well as time off work and time spent traveling to and from the DMV. Protect our citizens’ right to vote. Contact Elliot.Anderson@asm.state. nv.us and join with him in saying “no” to AB253, AB 256 and SB169. Alice Good Reno
Guns are great! (Over there, 3,000 miles away in Nevada) Re “Faculty, students and staff” (Editorial, April 2): “The large majority of the university community doesn’t want guns on campus.” And they ought to know by now that no plebiscite can surmount the constitutional protection of fundamental rights. The fact is that in the seven states that allow licensed carry on college campuses, the effects of that policy have been universally positive, not negative. Since that proves that there is no “compelling public interest” in prohibiting licensed carry on campuses, there is no legitimate basis to keep the prohibition in
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NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS
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place. Fundamental rights are not subject to majority approval. Their enumeration in the Constitution exists precisely to foreclose the majority from infringing upon them. Barry Hirsh Miami
Guns everywhere Re “Faculty, students and staff” (Editorial, April 2): Our country was founded on principle and on protecting the rights of people, even those rights that a majority might disagree with. In our past, there were places where the majority did not want people of different color than white to exercise their civil rights of freedom. That, fortunately, has been replaced with a respect of those civil rights. This posting shows the same issues of the majority (asserted by the poster) not wanting people to exercise another civil right. A civil right should stand on its own, even if everyone else doesn’t think it should. Just seeing the same pattern emerge here as well. Doug Thompson Heber City, Utah Editor’s note: We suggest you do not walk into a Nevada casino and assert your “civil” right to bear arms wherever you want.
Waiting to happen Re “Faculty, students and staff” (Editorial, April 2): Years ago, while standing in line in a store, the man next to me stepped on my foot. I assumed it was an accident. However, recognizing me as a professor, he half jokingly said: “That for the ‘C’ I got in your class.” If guns are allowed on campus, how long will it be before an angry student shoots a teacher over a grade; how long will it be before a jilted student shoots an ex-girlfriend; how long will it be, or a depressed student takes his or her own life? When that happens, we can look to lack of wisdom in the Nevada Legislature. Robert Peterson Reno
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APRIL 30, 2015
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