Letters for July 9, 2009

Play away

Re “Play with it” (Feature story, June 25):

I am proud of Chad Sorg and all the artists involved in the Dada project. A very cool concept, I wish I lived closer. Keep up the good work, Reno artists.

Chuck Foxen
Tulsa

Soup to nuts

rBGHs, GMOs, HFCSs and MSGs. This is some of the alphabet soup that we routinely slurp in our … uh … soup.

America’s food supply is grossly over-additive-ed, under-regulated and criminally mal-labeled.

And, ingredients that are GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) do not have to be included on the container. There are myriads of them … more than you may imagine.

It is hypothesized that one of three Americans born after 2000 will get diabetes.

Some 60 percent-plus of us are overweight, and many are seriously and intimately health-threatened.

While the powerful, profitable food industry slyly skews statistics, it is suggested that things like high fructose corn syrups, corn fed beef, and green revolution GMOs will soon have a profound effect on the health of us all.

Small wonder our health care system is overloading; and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet, Bucko.

Given a few years, and an establishment that is forced to honestly label, we might still have a health care system next decade.

It is up to us to force the industry to consider people over profit, and from my seat, the gov’ment ain’t gonna help.

So I’m going to finish my coffee, roll another cigarette, and later drink some homemade wine, and hope that my liver and lungs will last a few more years. And I hope that when “it” happens, it’ll be fairly quick, somewhat painless, and irrevocable. Don’t want to lay in some bed wasting away slowly and kept alive because we’re not rational enough to allow physician-assisted suicides for the terminally ill.

At least I’m aware of my bad consumptions and foul addictions, unlike those who really don’t understand how craftily “chemicalized” our foods are—and thus are potentially doomed to a life of expensive insulin shots, organ removals, and debilitating lifelong heftiness and disease.

I am ashamed of my complicity in letting this injustice come to pass. I did not try hard enough to stop it. I was not vocal and active enough to keep the MegaCorps from getting such a stranglehold on our stomachs and lives.

I am truly sorry for that and my g-g-generation’s lack of stewardship.

Start a garden, stop eating processed “foods,” boycott, and write your representatives for proper and full food labelling.

You’ll feel a whole lot better.

And so will I.

Craig Bergland
Reno

Rockin’ the bus

Re “Reno to Sacramento” (Feature story, July 2):

I want to commend the RN&R for printing Brian Morris’ story about using public transportation to travel to Sacramento. His story was funny, educational and showed his real passion and commitment towards reducing the impacts that we all share. It is exactly the kind of journalism I enjoy reading in the RN&R; it was enjoyable, educational and enabled us to think differently about how we travel and live in our area. The article showed us Brian’s passion and commitment to reduce oil consumption and environmental degradation, but also his effort to get others to think differently about their own impacts and choices to the world we all share. It shows that we can all do more to reduce our own impacts to the air that we all share.

I congratulate Brian on his non-trivial attempt to get to Sacramento sans car and also the RN&R for showcasing the gonzo-type journalism of our local neighbors.

KC Mares
via email

What’s in it for Harry?

Re “Unsinkable?” (News, July 2):

“Efforts to encourage renewable energy production;” key word “efforts.” Harry Reid’s got the talking part down; time will tell if it is a bait and hook—hopefully not too late. Let’s be smart voters, we, too, have our due diligence. Question everything in politics and read the fine print. Passive solar is the future, what will Reid be giving up to support this inevitable commodity?

Kate Barrett
Reno

No soup for you

Re “Half baked” (FoodFinds, May 21):

Thank you for this review. I’ve long considered writing my own review and submitting it, just to point out that the service at Josef’s is very, very bad. You were lucky to receive prompt attention in the beginning of your meal. I have been several times. The first few times were with my boyfriend or family, and I wrote off the bad service, assuming that they were having a bad day. After about my fifth time, I gave up and decided never to return again, no matter how much I like the food. The wait staff not only ignores you, never checks in, takes forever, but they can also be incredibly rude. I had to go back with co-workers several months later, and again recently for a baby shower. Both times the service was exactly the same. Their service has been markedly poor for at least two years. I am not alone either; my friends and family will not go back. There were women at the baby brunch that had never been there before and won’t go back, they commented that the food was nice once we finally got it, but there were no water refills or coffee refills, and they gave up on ordering dessert.

Desiree Hubbell
Reno

Demand morality

Re “Sen. Ensign should not quit” (Editorial, June 25):

Our political leaders are elected to lead. When they act irresponsibly or unlawfully, there’s a contradiction with this public trust. This isn’t a party politics issue, it’s a basic principle.

If we allow our leadership the option of acting improperly, we accept this behavior as part of the societal norm. Shame on us if we allow this to occur. It’s that simple.

Tim King
Reno

Grimmcrap

Re “Robocrap” (Film, July 2):

You, like most critics Mr. Grimm, seem not to have read the name of the movie. It’s called Transformers, therefore it should be mostly about … let’s see … hmm … Transformers? Not the actors. It makes sense that the movie shows more CGI robots and whatnot than people. DUH. You call it crap. Most critics call it crap. The fans call it great because it shows more robots fighting and transforming than humans. It is what a Transformer movie should be, and since we don’t have 30- to 50-foot robots lying around, they made it with CGI robots. I am a fan of the ’80s, so even if I don’t like the sorry line or the new styles of the robots, I still prefer two hours of them to 30 minutes of robots and a hour and a half of people.

cet1421
via www.newsreview.com/reno