Letters for July 14, 2011

Where’s the recycling?

Re “Not so green” (Letters to the Editor, May 12):

Is RN&R is passing the buck?

Earlier this spring, you published a letter with a diatribe about “never going to another Earth Day” at Idlewild Park because Waste Management and NV Energy were there (as they should be, but they also need their feet held to fire).

Common sense, however, belies some basic truths.

I stood at the WM booth as they told another visitor that WM recycles only “bottle-shaped” plastics.

Many folks here wish more were recycled, but WM itself, and RN&R’s canned response to the latest letter, make it plain that all the yogurt cups in the world won’t be recycled unless they are actually recycled.

Logic would indicate that if local steel scrap yards won’t pay for them, there is little incentive to “recycle” tin cans. These can be separated magnetically, anyway.

People hereabouts are prone to stuff any and all that they can into available bins, but it is mere folly.

WM exploits this feel-good phenomenon. See the USA Today, reprinted in June 30 RG-J, about San Francisco’s recycling, along with other big cities (not just wannabees).

Steve Klutter
Sun Valley

Obama’s plan

Re “Renovation” (Feature story, July 7):

I have been all over this country, and there are many tent cities in every state, with many people displaced by this economy. I, myself, in my 60s with three degrees, am unemployed and have been so for about a year. I am a twice-wounded Vietnam vet who served three tours early in the war, ’65 to ’68. This economy is about to take another turn for the worse, and by fall and winter, will surpass these last few years’ downturn. Obama, on the other hand, will try to make a last ditch effort for an illegal amnesty program, just before the election. He needs the Hispanic vote to even have a chance to pull it off. When Arizona started with the illegal problem, and he stepped in, he did not want to deal with it then. He even said so. He needs to have it all come about just before the next election, when nothing can be done about it in time. He is crafty and sly, and he will do anything—I mean anything—to stay in office, and his plan to put us in a third world status will come into play.

Jim Fedullo
Reno

Party on

It does appear that the Fox News-sponsored Tea Party may actually shut down our government next month.

By not raising our debt limit, valid fears of default may ricochet around the global economy, and we may lose our status as the world’s currency.

This means, of course, our creditors will be unwilling to lend stuff to us quite so freely.

Stuff like oil, goodies that we no longer manufacture here, and other essentials.

And if they do continue to lend, it will be at a much higher cost.

So look for gas to skyrocket, foreclosures to increase, unemployment to swell, and more small businesses to shutter their doors.

Of course, we’ll need more taxpayer money to rescue the poor misunderstood banks—this started under Bush, remember?—or else our economic growth, based mostly on speculation and financial creative accounting, will stagnate, and the CEOs won’t get their needed bonuses.

But you ‘Baggers’ will be fine, because the wealthy who you’ve sworn to defend will surely reach out to help you all with raging inflation and newfound poverty.

And when they piss on you and tell you it’s raining, you may even believe them: that it’s just trickle down.

Me, I’m not so hopeful, I’ve got an umbrella … and rubbers.

Craig Bergland
Reno

How soon is now?

Re “Carpenters hammer Walgreens” (News, Oct. 10, 2010):

Walgreen’s has been building on a Walgreen’s in Fernley for the months I’ve been in Fernley since September. All the time they’ve had a sign up saying “COMING SOON.” What is “soon”? Is that some other time frame I haven’t heard about?

Louise Phillips
Fernley

Justice undone

[Casey Anthony’s acquittal] is the same as the O.J. Simpson case. She’ll get hers in the end though; too bad she wasn’t tried in Texas or Nevada. It would have been a totally different outcome. O.J. is now serving time in Lovelock, middle of the desert, nothing to view but sagebrush and tumbleweeds. She is a weak person; it’s just a matter of time until she screws up like O.J. did. So as you drive down I-80 on your way to Winnemucca, be proud that there is justice sometimes in this world, at least in Nevada and Texas.

Mike Arp
Reno

Now there’s a thought

Reno News & Review should have a page for television: the new shows that come out and pre-existing shows. It would be an interesting page to have in the paper for everyone to read. Bob Grimm needs to up the ante on his reviews. It seems that he has become a stale piece in the RN&R. His movie reviews feel more like a personal opinion than a balance of what sucks in the movie to what is good in the movie. He uses foul language way too much, and it seems as the weeks go by, he is grumpier and grumpier with his reviews. I can’t wait to read the RN&R this week.

Andrew Evans
via email

Cary-ed away

Re “Setting Amodei’s record straight” (Right to Your Head, July 7):

It is perhaps the best idea to know of what you speak before you speak it. It is also a very good idea to have all the facts, before you condemn.

If you are so good at politics, why isn’t your butt in the seat? If you know politics, why don’t you understand the necessity to run a Hail Mary play sometimes, even if you know it will get someone’s panties in a bunch? Get over the seven-year itch and come to terms with reality.

Vicky L. Maltman
Sun Valley

Shame, shame

Re “Regent criticized” (Upfront, July 7):

The Regents did the public a disservice in how they conducted the meeting and public forum. The music video, poetry recital, do-rag fashion show with subsequent photo op and the showing of an outdated Face to Face interview was rude, irrelevant, and a blatantly disrespectful waste of time and money for those members of the public and professionals who came to be heard but were denied that right because of the Regents’ misuse of time.

That’s not to mention the time of the huge number of public employees who were there in person and via live video from fire departments and Cooperative Extension offices across the state to defend the budget for Cooperative Extension. Simply put, Cooperative Extension provides the greatest good for the greatest number of people for the fewest dollars of any program the Regents govern, and this seemingly was not taken into consideration when budgets were cut. Shame on the Regents.

Marianne Merriam
Reno