Letters for June 24, 2004

Trial and error
Rep. Jim Gibbons’ shrill attacks on George Bush’s perceived enemies, “the trial lawyers,” is outrageous. When Gibbons’ wife, Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, was herself seriously injured by the negligence of a health care professional, she sought and received help from a “trial lawyer.” Her husband, the congressman, shared in that decision and, in fact, testified at her medical malpractice trial on behalf of his wife. The jury found in favor of the health care provider and against Ms. Gibbons. Judge Mills Lane was so offended at the injustice of the verdict, rendered despite the fact the defendant conceded he made a mistake and injured Ms. Gibbons, that the judge granted her a new trial. The case later settled before a new trial was held. Rep. Gibbons should be ashamed of himself for attacking the same “trial lawyers” to whom the Gibbons family turned in their time of need. Abraham Lincoln was a “trial lawyer.” The founder of the Republican Party would turn over in his grave if he could hear the attacks on his profession, by the likes of Bush and Gibbons.

Peter Chase Neumann
Reno trial lawyer

Love your dog
Re “Pets aren’t people, too” (RN&R, Letters, June 10):

What a shame that Kyle Owens sees parks overrun with human groin projectiles as superior to parks with dogs.

I’m betting that any dogs benefits will outweigh the shortcomings of their existence—leaving the occasional excrement—rather than the human drawbacks of trash, public expense and competition for jobs.

The last time I checked, the most serious of dog crimes, the bite, still counts for much less misery than murder, rape, robbery, drugs and other human violence; and there are twice as many dogs running around the planet.

In all fairness, a dog will never be elected president to help move humanity forward, but they’ll be there faithfully and honorably if and when that happens, while children have a much greater chance to work against such advancement.

Keep your genes in your pants, my suburban-class simian animal brother.

Kyle Weiss
Reno

Save fuel, eat well
Re “You can only blame yourself” (RN&R, Editorial, June 3):

The bad news is—increased gas prices will cost our farmers an additional $800 billion to harvest this year’s crops. Who will absorb this cost, as food prices rise?

The good news is that more of us may decide to forgo that trip to the fat-food restaurant and cook at home instead. We know that at home our meal is fresh, no one has spit in it, and it was made with TLC.

Today, I cooked potatoes, rice, Southern cornbread and tomorrow’s breakfast grain of the day. All in solar ovens—one storebought cooker and one homemade.

Reno has the best solar energy in the country, and it’s free. The less petroleum we use, the less demand, the lower the cost, the higher quality of life we’ll all have. Besides, the blue-hot Chinese economy will blister our oil-getting capacity real soon.

Anyway—the less energy we use, the less it costs us to eat.

Get a pressure cooker. They use less fuel than regular cooking, are extremely fast, and healthy. Buy or build a solar oven; plans are on the Internet. Dry your clothes on a clothesline. Put in a solar hot water heater; it’ll pay for itself in five years. Think positive.

Fossil fuels are finite, unlike us.

C.O. Bergland
Reno

Skateboarding for Jesus
Many of us who live in the Rancho San Rafael area are in recovery from the latest disaster inflicted on us by our local government, Washoe County, in the guise of Rancho San Rafael Park. This “Skateboarding for Jesus” event upset a lot of people. The people, traffic and parking situation were out of control for two days. No attempt was made to do anything about the people parking illegally and overrunning the adjacent residential area. At about 2 p.m. on Saturday, I was sitting in a lawn chair in my front yard, when [I caught] a fat woman going to the bathroom in my front yard.

I called RPD, and a policewoman came out. We talked about what had happened and finally agreed that even though what had happened was against the law, the chances of finding the woman were small, and the chances of getting somebody down- town to sign off on prosecuting her were even smaller.

Any event at San Rafael should be required by both the Reno Municipal Code and Washoe County ordinance to provide funds for temporary signage and blocking of the adjacent residential areas. It should also budget for at least two fulltime officers, one motorcycle and one parking enforcement, to patrol the adjacent residential areas for the duration of the event.

Events should be required to obey the Reno Municipal Code; it is the law.

Darryl Kuhns
via e-mail