Letters for June 11, 2009

Reviewer’s unfair

Re “Crust issues” (Foodfinds, May 21):

I have to take umbrage with the article written by Grant Nejedlo regarding Uncle Vinny’s Pizza. I understand we are all entitled to our own opinions. However, I feel that when our opinions are shared with the public, it is the duty of said person to be fair. I feel Nejedlo’s opinion was anything but that.

He starts off by criticizing his 16-year-old server. She has waited on me several times and always goes the extra mile, and she is never patronizing. She doesn’t know how to be; she is a young woman going to school and helping support herself. Kudos to her.

Nejedlo also criticizes the exterior building color. What does that have to do with anything? Uncle Vinny’s doesn’t own the building; they are tenants paying rent trying to succeed in these difficult economic times. As the majority of their customers would tell you, they have been a much needed and welcomed addition into this Sparks industrial area.

Nejedlo also states how he was almost driven to drink “hard alcohol” due to the “super-angsty” pop music blasting in the background. The restaurant manager Amanda as well as the bartenders are always accommodating and if the “blasting” music was so offensive to Nejedlo and his wife, did either one of them think to nicely ask if it might be turned down. I guess it is easier to be reactive as opposed to proactive.

Now, let’s discuss the so-called cardboard crust pizza. I have eaten at almost every pizza place in the Reno-Sparks area. I would rate Uncle Vinny’s in the top three or four. Obviously, that is my opinion, but if you look at the lunch crowds, I would say that I am not the only one who feels that way. They even have a decent dinner and weekend crowd, and they are in the industrial part of Sparks and do not have the typical housing tract to draw business from.

We are all a part of this community and should behave as such. To write such a mean-spirited review is just that: mean-spirited. I truly hope the majority of the Reno News & Review readers will totally disregard Nejedlo’s review and try this wonderful addition to the area.

Patty McEwan
via email

Obama’s glorious

Re “Summer of love” (Editor’s note, May 28):

Welcome Jen Huntley and John Barrette. We look forward to many refreshing thoughts, much needed with our multiple international, national and local problems.

Now, D.C. discourse might go:

Some Democrats: “Most citizens desperately desire and need a Medicare-style coverage universal single-payer health care system.

As desired, it is expected to provide 2.6 million jobs, $100 billion in wages and $317 billion in business and government revenue annually -ALL non-profit!”

Too many Republicans: “HELL NO!”

Eleanor Roosevelt stated: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; That’s why they call it the present”

To re-phrase it: “Many Republicans are history, tomorrow is a hopeful promise, and today is a gift called the Obama Administration.”

Walden and Betty Joura
Reno

Obama’s shameful

During a speech in Cairo, Obama displayed a lack of strong support for the very existence of Israel and a dangerous naiveté regarding Iran and the Palestinians. To suggest that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are anything but a pretext for regional supremacy and the destruction of Israel displays a weakness in America’s foreign policy and a lack of will to stand behind our only real ally in the Middle East. To suggest that the two-state solution will allow Israel to remain an extant state with Hamas running the Palestinian political agenda is, if viewed charitably, ill-informed. At worst it is a shameful farewell to the homeland for the Jewish people, a people whose traditions have nurtured ethics, science and the best parts of the foundation of Western civilization.

We, as a nation, must continue to stand with Israel against the culture of hatred which is fostered elsewhere in the Middle East. Unfortunately, President Obama’s speech in Cairo indicated a lack of resolve in this matter which is shameful.

Gregg Alan Gendiellee
Sparks

Not Chicken Little, either

You don’t believe in climate change? Fine.

What if you’re wrong and have done nothing but denial?

Don’t wanna pay taxes for ‘our’ collective infrastructure? Fine.

Get ready for a lack of fire trucks, on-time police, roadways fixed, and increased insurance rates.

Don’t want windmills in Palomino Valley? Fine.

You get to pay more for electricity along with all the rest of us.

Not for single-payer health care? Fine.

Let’s just throw more money at the health “insurance” companies so they can deny even more claims and make corpulent profits.

Don’t believe in instant run-off voting? Fine.

You get only two parties to choose from.

Don’t want to pressure city council to fix our traffic lights? Fine.

Burn that extra gallon of gas a day and watch what it does to your pocketbook in the coming months.

Don’t want to cut up that credit card? Fine.

The Gang-Banksters love you for that, and gee, they’re your “friends.”

Too much work to do a garden this year? Fine.

Use 10 calories of fossil fuels to get one to eat.

The Little Red Hen asked for help to plant her wheat, thresh it, grind it, and bake it.

The duck, the cat, and the dog said “No.”

She didn’t share her bread.

But I’m not the Little Red Hen.

Craig Bergland
via e/mail

Ignorant profiler

Re “Straight edge” (Art of the State, May 28):

What’s actually missing from this review is any research into the slideshow and accompanying narration that Kelsie Harder gives to his drawing class. As you watch and listen to it, you see how amazingly organized his home studio is. I have two soup cans that I use to hold pencils/pens, etc., that Kelsie painted solid black, then hand-lettered “ART” on one. The actual lettering is so neat, done with a size 00 brush, that you find it hard to believe that a human could accomplish this within a couple of days. The slideshow also points out how organized both his record album collection and his studio work space are. Artists will forever continue to work in an environment that is best suited to their own true and irreversible personality, but if a reviewer doesn’t take the time to get some sort of basic reference as to where the artist in question is actually coming from, it’s faster and much easier to simply slap one of artdom’s unoriginal labels on him/her … then go to press. Through his work and conversation, Kelsie will continue to prove that not having an MFA has never kept him from remaining current in art history, or from constantly producing a large body of work that he, like the rest of us in our own studio quest, feels strongly about. And if Kelsie’s work isn’t urban enough for you, that’s your “ism” problem—not his!

James L. Weaver
Freedom, Calif.