Opinion

I publicly wept when they looked at me. More than 6,500 young men and women fed into the meat grinder since 9/11.

Come prepared to cry when you stare into the faces of the snuffed. "Always Lost: A meditation on war" plays at the Nevada Legislature through May 3.

The name comes from Gertrude Stein who once opined that "war is never fatal but always lost." I could not disagree more with the former.

I have been a business owner in Downtown Carson City for more than 12 years. I have spent more than $200,000.00 of my own money to rehab my building that was built in about 1870.

I have spent more than a million dollars to stock my business with what I believe are quality antiques. We have the largest and possibly best antique shop in Nevada. I have never asked for or received any City, State or Federal funds.

Downtown Carson City has some fine restaurants and venues including the Nevada State Museum, The State Capitol Building and interesting shops.

On April 1st of this year, two morning disc jockeys from the Fort Myers, Southwest Florida area, informed their audience that dihydrogen monoxide was in the city’s water supply.

They should be applauded for bringing attention to this pervasive, nefarious and evil chemical seeping into our homes every time we shower, water our lawn, or take a drink from our faucets, because it is also prevalent in Carson City’s water supply!

In the 1997, 14 year old Nathan Zohner of Idaho warned us of its terrible effects:
• It can cause excessive sweating and vomiting.

by MOLLY MOSER

I’ve successfully reported the very first half of the legislature and have been through quite a lot. The majority of the experiences are good and quite silly and I would like to share them with you. Not a lot of people get to witness what’s behind the curtains of a Nevada Media Alliance reporter. Here, I share my experiences, in no particular order including: my efforts, encounters, and outcomes all while reporting for the Nevada Legislature.

As our legislators practice their compassion for homosexual marriage in what the unenlightened refer to as 'profaning our historic religious traditions', they will now consider overturning the laws of nature and biology to gratify the countless progressives who claim to be unfairly labeled by their detractors as deviants and/or Feminists. However, in the words of our President, perhaps we should also address the equally important issue of fairness.

I took some time over Spring Break to look back on what we’ve done so far. It makes me happy to see the breadth of issues that our reporters have covered — animal cruelty legislation, protests, measures to protect children from human trafficking, and so much more. Their work has been featured in the Reno Gazette-Journal and on our local NPR and PBS affiliate stations — and it’s no wonder why. It’s quality journalism.

by RILEY SNYDER

by SCOT JENKINS

One month ago, I was in a mad scramble trying to find a class for spring semester. Today, I was holding the elevator door for a Senator so we could both attend his committee hearing in a timely fashion. Tonight, as I look over my first article while awaiting the publication of my second, I can’t help but catch things that would make Paul Mitchell give me that clairvoyant look, the one where he doesn’t say anything but I can actually hear the bass of his voice in my mind saying: you are capable of doing better than this, right?

Considering how many years I spent building and managing the websites of the Nevada Appeal and its sister publications, I was interested to see them roll out a completely new web platform and design last week.

The look is very clean, though almost in a retro-1999 way, and they do work better on mobile devices. But they removed so much navigation that it makes it hard to find what you are looking for, and the keyword search is deathly slow, when it works at all.

Why am I opposed to school uniforms at Carson High School? It’s a lengthy answer and so I’ll try to condense it. We live in a small town, with limited selection to stores. We have Wal-Mart, Target, JCPenny, and Kohl’s. We have access, in Reno, to those listed plus several more, but only a fraction of the stores that you would have in a big city. My daughter has been in the current SSA “uniforms” at the middle school for the last 2 years. Additionally I have a buying background in the fashion industry for 8 years, so I have that perspective to my argument as well.

On March 14th I attended a workshop presented by the Carson City Public Works Department. The presentation outlined a proposal to create a pedestrian-friendly environment on Carson Street through the downtown area of Carson City between Fifth Street and Ann Street. This Road Diet, as they are commonly called, would include using striping to reduce travel lanes from four to two, and add on-street parallel parking.

President Reagan once said - "tear down this wall."

This Board needs to say: "remove these curtains."

As they are preventing Department Managers from being present at budget hearings. Establishing a system of transparency is our responsibility, while accomplishing this we cannot exclude the right of the public to participate and collaborate in the budget process. Any level of openness that is interfered with only ensures that the public trust will be damaged.

Orwellian NEW-Speak: Budget Cut Language Engineering

Does anyone out there actually believe that Congressional sequestration results in budget cuts? The federal spending under sequestration goes up every year without congress even passing a budget. If the automatic baseline budget grows less than is required by law then Washington, our media, and the New-speak columnists misinform the people of our nation that there has been a cut when in fact spending is increasing. There are no cuts which is why spending goes up each year.

When most of us spend our personal funds for a good or service, we strive for maximum value because our funds are finite.

Public spending, whether at the Federal, state or local level, occurs because of borrowed money, taxes and user fees ultimately paid for by an overlapping pool of individuals and businesses.

At the last Board of Supervisor meeting, the public (citizens) were cleared from the room so that City Staff and the Board members could discuss issues relating to the Budget.

The conversation centered on the budgeted items – those completed – vs. – incomplete, the later an unmet challenge. The challenge: fiscal responsibility - vs. - the unmet needs of each department.

by PAUL GEORGE

by MOLLY MOSER

I spent most of January studying the faces of each Senatorial and Assembly lawmaker. I also tried to force myself to understand some of the bills, but I figured it would be better to just get the idea of it and learn along the way (which I did, and it worked). Reporting on big Nevada politics is new to me, and I’m eager to learn more.

UPDATE 10AM: Today, the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, a national coalition, joined forces with a Nevada State Senator and local community leaders in and around Carson City to harshly criticize the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for refusing to work with local residents to keep a small group of wild horses free. The mustang herd at issue travels between federal land in the Pine Nut Herd Management Area (HMA) and a rural area outside Carson City.

Today I attended a Chamber luncheon focused on [our] children's use of drugs and alcohol, and the ENDLESS ways the signs of/actual drugs are hidden. I was blown away with the amount of information given in such a short time, but the most disturbing moment was announced with applause.
Carson City is proud to randomly drug test their athletes.
Wow. Your athletes. Good for you. Finally.

by S. LANEY OLSON

I knew little about broadcast up until Feb. 14 of last week. However, when the opportunity for me to shadow Brent Boynton from KNPB arose, I jumped at it without hesitation. I had always been interested in broadcast but had focused my attention on print. This was opportunity to expand my horizons.

The 2012 education PISA* rankings indicate that the USA came in at 25th for math, 14th for reading and 17th for science out of 30 countries with only three of those countries spending slightly more money per pupil than America. Yet the mantra for more money, benefits and taxes for education continue just as it has for the last sixty years. If more money will solve the education problem then why hasn't it ever worked in the last sixty years?

(Editor's Note: The following was submitted to Carson Now by Carson City Supervisor Jim Shirk. Follow him on Twitter here and on his blog here. )

by STEPHANIE GLANTZ

Well, the first couple weeks are all done! And, oh my gosh, have I learned a lot. For some reason I thought the assemblymen and senators would a lot easier to access than they are. I think the reporters we talked to before this started made it sound really easy. Some are pretty friendly about talking, but others are a little harder.

by NATASHA VITALE

by ALEX POMPLIANO

It’s become somewhat of a cliché, saying in a retrospective astonishment that something began as an idea. In theory, everything begins as an idea. But I’ve never been a part of something from the very beginning that would eventually lead to a fully realized organization like the Nevada Media Alliance, so you’ll have to forgive the cliché.

I just got word that Sheriff Fulong is trying to get rid of the biker clubs in Carson City . You got to be kidding me, what has this country come to? Go get the guys that shoot up IHOP, the guy who is molesting children. You wont win this one, we have constitution rights and we will fight for them. Police are the most corrupt people I know. There's bad seeds in all aspects of clubs, including the police. All this is gonna do is bring us bikers closer together and make us stronger. The Blue nights who are cops where cuts too, you gonna close them down to?

by RILEY SNYDER

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned about myself during my very short career in journalism, it’s that I love to cover politics. Over last summer, I did everything from arguing with editors at my internship on the value of driving hundreds of miles to cover a candidate’s stump speech, to doing some of the area’s only coverage on school board elections, and live-tweeting City Council meetings for hours on end. I have an insatiable appetite for covering elections, governments, and everything in between.

by MICHAEL V. MARCOTTE

As I pen this, three UNR grad students are leading eight undergrads in the final planning of the launch of the Nevada Media Alliance. I may be supervising this experiment in news partnering, but these eager, ambitious journalism students will be deciding — and doing — much of what goes into it.

Shall Carson Street be narrowed to 2 lanes? Will it benefit or harm the community and the affected businesses? My suggestion is simple: Using traffic cones, temporarily close off the lane closest to the curb, give it a 60 day trial, and see what happens. My guess is that it will clearly be shown to be either be a benefit or a problem, and that the issue will solve itself.

John Vettel
Carson City, NV