Letters for June 25, 2009

Peace within

Re “Heat” (Filet of Soul, June 11):

I thought the story, “Heat,” was a fair and accurate description of your experience in Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class. Furthermore, although it’s fair to come for the workout, eventually you’ll come back for the meditation. How does the saying go? “Peace isn’t found when everything surrounding you is still, rather when the surrounding is chaos and you find peace within that” or something like that! You get the point.

Your next trip to the studio should include purchasing the new student special. We offer $30 for 30 days unlimited yoga. Your focus will improve dramatically, and you’ll see a difference in the connection between your mind and body. Everything else you enjoy doing will improve. Not a sales pitch, although we are a business!

Thank you for sharing your experience with our community and beyond.

Melissa Martinez
via email

Where’s the story?

Re “Oh, happy day” (News, June 18):

Hello, I was wondering if this photo was all you had about Juneteenth? We were out there all day. This wasn’t even really a part of the Juneteenth Celebration. Their act was last-minute and more for the entertainment of their friends who were still there. We had church in the park all day, which was the main part of Juneteenth that people were out there for. The picture you took was at the end of the day. I love how it looks like you spent all day out there and caught a part of the celebration. I’m sorry, there was so much more to the day. It’s a jubilant and lovely celebration that we the blacks in this community cherish. I myself take this celebration as true freedom. As a journalism student, I feel you should have gotten more out of the day than Marcus Woods and Chidi Okonkwo standing out there rapping.

Christin Smith
Sparks

Orange you glad?

For the last couple of months, the three morning network shows, Good Morning America, the Today Show and the Early Show have been locked in a competition to see who can come up with the most obnoxious background graphics for their respective shows. Think orange.

All three programs settled on an ugly orange pulsating backdrop of squares, circles, arcs broad lines, frames, brackets, etc. to highlight each and every segment of their shows. And they have added a permanent little winking, blinking, rotating bit of network ID pieces in the lower left-hand (NBC) and right-hand (ABC and CBS) corners of the TV screen.

Out of all the hundreds of shows on all the multi-dozens of channels on TV, they’re the only ones to do something this annoyingly stupid. They have boldly gone where no nitwit has gone before.

Next on the agenda: Diane Sawyer, Harry Smith, Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera are going to don orange wigs and have orange network logs tattooed on their cheeks and foreheads. And the tattoo will glow in the dark. So you can expect to see the morning anchors turning the lights on and off quite frequently during the show.

So what can we, the public, do to express our feelings about these new developments?

We, as many of us as possible, can descend upon New York City, and with butterfly nets, conduct a calm, dignified roundup.

And yes, to express to them the depth of our compassion, we can certainly outfit them in glowing orange straightjackets, if they so desire. The fashion conscious Diane Sawyer will probably insist on it.

Mark Andrews
Fallon

Curb your butts

The World Health Organization reports smoking kills about 443,000 Americans annually; second hand smoke kills about 50,000 of them. Among the states, Nevada has the third-highest death rate. WHO says smoking is more lethal than any disease. Dr. John Peckham, director of health policy at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, estimates at least 4,000 Nevadans die every year from active and passive smoking.

More than 50 studies of passive smoking during the last 25 years have shown risk factors for babies: low birth weight and sudden death syndrome; for children: ear infections, asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, learning and social problems, cancer, leukemia and cystic fibrosis complications. For adults, add heart disease, strokes, lung and nasal cancer, decreased lung function and cervical cancer.

It is estimated the U.S. medical and economic cost of tobacco usage is more than $150 billion annually. Now that our FDA will be observing the tobacco industry closely, we can start considering a national ban, which is becoming a world trend. The many billions of dollars saved would be a nice down payment on our desperately needed single-payer universal health care plan for all citizens.

Walden Joura
Reno

Red Dog muddle

Re “Psychedelic shack” (Arts & Culture, June 18):

I believe that there is a slightly muddled citation in your history of the Red Dog.

Toward the end of your article someone is speaking about “Mary (Works)” doing dinners at the original Red Dog (c. 1965). Don and Roz’s daughter, Mary, is too young for that, seems to me she was born circa 1967.

Perhaps Rozzie did some cooking, but I always thought Chandler had “Aunt Ellen” (Harmon?) recruited for fancy cooking on the Comstock.

Anyway, we’d appreciate your clarifying the attribution to keep local history from going astray. You could call either Don or Chandler and get the information you need to straighten it out.

Larry Steinberg
Silver City

Stop making sense

Re “Sen. Harry Reid, R-Nevada?” (News, June 18):

Sen. Reid’s voting record reflects a Nevada constituency that has been changing over the years. Ideological purity is easier for a senator to achieve when they come from a state that is less evenly divided regarding what constitutes “good” public policy. Would Nevada be turning from red to blue if it weren’t for pragmatic Democrats like Harry? I think not.

Doc McIntire
via www.newsreview.com

Money matters

Re “Nevada’s conservative legislators should fight” (Reviled & Revered, June 18):

Favoring the UAW over other stake holders would be outrageous in a liquidation. In fact, it wouldn’t fly in court. In Chapter 11, the goal is profitability. That requires the cooperation of the workforce, and the UAW agreed to everything, including a five-year no-strike clause. The bondholders are getting their slice of a pie that wouldn’t be there without the workers.

Rich Dunn
via www.newsreview.com