Letters for May 6, 2010

Real good for Nevada

Re “Sandoval’s the real deal, for real” (Reviled & Revered, April 29):

I don’t agree with writer John Barrette’s insistence that Brian Sandoval “is good for Nevada.” I’m deeply concerned about education in Nevada. Brian Sandoval has done nothing but propose more cuts to an already struggling education system and said nothing of substance on any other issue. I think Rory Reid will be good for Nevada. Unlike Mr. Sandoval, he is offering a long-term vision for our state. That’s what we need.

Ann Owen
Fernley

Real reformer

Re “Sandoval’s the real deal, for real” (Reviled & Revered, April 29):

It appears that your publication is endorsing Brian Sandoval. This is the same person who supports the unconstitutional Arizona law that encourages racial profiling of Americans. This sounds like another Republican that is pandering to the far right. I, and many others, am not interested in supporting that type of person. Mr. Rory Reid is the only candidate who supports reforming our struggling education system and is what Nevada needs now.

Ken Waldis
via email

Real flip-floppy

Re “Sandoval’s the real deal, for real” (Reviled & Revered, April 29):

I disagree vehemently with the article by John Barrette that suggests Brian Sandoval is the “real deal.” If your writer would have spent five minutes researching Mr. Sandoval he would have discovered the former judge has been another career politician who in the past month has flip-flopped on immigration issues, domestic partnerships and lied about having never signing pledges.

Sorry, but Brian Sandoval and his Jim Gibbons-like mistakes aren’t what Nevada needs.

Vera Walton
via email

Real Reid

Re “Sandoval’s the real deal, for real” (Reviled & Revered, April 29):

OK, Mr. Barrette has his opinion of Judge Sandoval, and I respect it, even if I have to disagree. Rory Reid has done his homework; he has a strong vision for the future of our state and plans for creating new jobs and improving our K-12 through higher education. I can only believe that Mr. Barrette has blinders on and would prefer to rant rather than doing the necessary research that all voters should do, especially a voter who also writes for the RN&R. I respect Judge Sandoval, but being somewhat cynical about Republican politicians, I have to wonder just why he left a life term on the bench to run for governor. As everyone knows, elections can be lost. So is it possible that his future is assured if he is not elected? I am a Rory Reid supporter. I have talked with Rory, I have read his vision for the future of Nevada and his plan to strengthen Nevada schools and reform education in our state. He fully understands the need for an educated workforce for economic development. So far all I have heard from his leading Republican candidate is that he has come back to Nevada to serve, but nothing specific. If one wants a future for our state, then our best bet is Rory Reid.

Martha Gould
Reno

Not real

Re “Jesus is all right with us” (Letters to the Editor, April 29):

I wanted to address your supposedly surprising conclusion at the end of your letter stating that you had a vision of Jesus: You have a B.A. in psychology and an M.S. in information systems. Dearest me. What does this mean, exactly? That you are a sensible, rational human being, and that your psychotic break with reality was somehow justified by a college education?

As a trained psychologist—a student of the human mind—what would you call a person who has visions of things no one else can see? Never mind. The Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, will answer for you: “Delusion: a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture.”

Wouldn’t almost everyone consider a vision of a disembodied human face with patently Jewish features filling the space of an entire room to be an event incompatible with our normal external reality? You even went so far as to admit that this experience of “seeing” happened with the “eyes of your soul” and your physical eyes closed. Has your degree conferred to you some great ability to discern the “real” supernatural unexplainable internal delusions from the “fake” ones that people with mental illnesses have? I am going to have to ask you to relinquish your credentials. No, seriously. But you can keep the Information Systems one.

I wanted to find the right word to describe this. Pharisaism refers to behaving like the Pharisees: that is, placing the importance of ritual or practice over meaning. Is this how you feel about the real, analytical field of psychology? It’s just some sort of ritual you performed that resulted in the divine favor of your degree, and not a subject of any actual meaning. By the way, I have a M.A. in some B.S.

Issac Dotson
Sparks

Real problems

In the state of Nevada, to obtain a hunting license, applicants must undergo a series of classes that certifies that they completely understand the ability to safely handle a firearm, and to become educated in and encouraged to participate in the state of Nevada’s efforts to effectively manage wild game. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the Department of Wildlife’s licensing efforts when it comes to fishing. Apparently, any idiot with $29 and a fishing pole qualifies to be able to do this, and this letter pertains to the three people this weekend at the ponds at Caughlin Ranch that qualify in this category.

First off, the fishery that those ponds represent: 1) are on private property; 2) exist based on dozens of years of local efforts by the homeowners and sport fishing experts in the area; 3) are for catch and release fishing only for the homeowners, children, friends and grandchildren who live in the area. Second, the spawning population that exists in these ponds has taken years to create, and in light of your complete disregard toward the education or phylogeny of the large mouth bass, those fish are in spawning mode. The larger of the two sexes, the female bass that you and your friends were targeting this past Saturday, were on their spawning beds protecting their eggs!

With that said, the fact that you not only repeatedly harassed them, but subsequently hooked them, only to throw them up on the grass to die, will inevitably mean that future generations of children and grandchildren will no longer have the opportunity to participate in the catch-and-release fishing that has gone on for over a decade. Your needless culling of the females will undoubtedly leave the nests unprotected, and the predation of any young that do make it, eminent.

It’s just too bad that completely uneducated and selfish so-called fishing “sportsmen” don’t have to have the same set of brains on their shoulders that your average Nevada hunter does. For whatever it’s worth, I hope you gentlemen do eat them, like you claimed you were going to, but don’t be at all surprised when they taste like the goose excrement that they’ve been feeding on. Damn humans!

Ben Chavez
Reno