Letters for February 21, 2002

I would like to ask Mr. Shafer: What the hell do you know about anime? And also, if you actually watch anime for fun, why don’t you ever say anything good about it?

Nobody told you that anime is not intended for American audiences? We watch and love anime because it is a foreign box of surprises, where the Japanese authors bring together pieces of culture from their own land to deliver a beautiful spectacle of technology, magic art and superb characters.

Please stop trashing my hobby like this. You are supposed to promote the titles, not give half-ass “I’m-a-Hollywood-critic” reviews.

Greco Espinoza
Sparks

Passive smoke’s fatal
Re “Passive Smoke’s Not a Killer” [RN&R Letters, Jan. 31]:

People can argue over differing studies about how secondhand smoke affects others, but I know that it is extremely detrimental. My mother never smoked cigarettes or had health problems, yet died of pancreatic cancer, for which the main risk factor is smoking, after living for years with my father’s two- to three-pack per day habit.

I also suffer from asthma after the years of exposure to my father’s secondhand smoke. I guess that some people will refuse to believe the serious effects of secondhand smoke until they personally suffer the health consequences. The point of restricting secondhand smoke exposure for non-smokers is to allow them the right to maintain their good health and not force them to participate in another person’s unhealthy choice to smoke.

Cindy Davidson
via e-mail

Who’s the loser now?
This is just too good to let pass without comment.

In a childishly insulting e-mail sent to members of the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce, Dave Howard, the Chamber’s bumbling public policy director, proved beyond any doubt his monumental ineptitude.

Howard’s goal in sending out the screed was to gain support for the obscene financial boondoggle generally regarded by most of our community as The Train Trench Nobody Wants. He and his manipulators campaign relentlessly for this foolish undertaking by continually clouding the issue with false claims and skewed statistics designed to drive us all deep into debt for many years in the future.

So how did the Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce Public Policy Director go about attempting to convince the Chamber members? He resorted to name-calling. In his puerile attempt to ridicule three highly respected local citizens for their efforts to warn voters of, and circulate petitions against, the clear perils of The Train Trench Nobody Wants, Howard repeatedly described them as “losers.” And, in a burst of genuine idiocy, he even published their names and telephone numbers. And that’s exactly how it all bounced back and bit him in the buns.

“Call them today,” Dave Howard suggested. And people did. Within a day or two, seven Chamber of Commerce members had phoned Mike Robinson, Martha Gould or Mike Tracy and requested petitions to circulate against The Train Trench Nobody Wants.

Mike Price
Reno

Smokers’ rights
Re “Smoking Blows” [RN&R Letters, Feb. 7]:

Welcome to “T. Yearnshaw’s World.” A world where no one is allowed to do anything that T.Y. doesn’t approve of. Whining pissants like this make me puke. Do I “choose” to smell a person’s bad breath across a retail counter when he buys a magazine? Smell someone’s body odor in line at the supermarket? Listen to a man’s stupid, obnoxious wife bitch at him or to his annoying, undisciplined little brats screaming at the top of their lungs at the movie theater?

Let me try to make this simple enough for you to understand, T.Y. Many people live in our world, and we must deal with things that they legally do whether we like them or not. Since you and the smoke Nazis have made it impossible for smokers to enjoy their “own” pleasure anywhere outside of those disgusting glass-walled rooms at the airport, you should be glad that you only inhale six cigarettes a year.

Nonsmoker’s name withheld
via e-mail