Opinion

I think people in power have a vested interest to oppose critical thinking.
— Carl Sagan

On Christmas Eve of 50 years ago, 17 year old Juliane Diller was seated comfortably next to her mother aboard an 86-passenger turboprop bound for Pucallpa, Peru, when they flew into a thunderstorm. Storage bins started flying open, spilling their Christmas contents across isles into laps. A bolt of lightening struck a wing and the plane started to break apart.

Dear America, It's been so long since I've written to you.

For nine months, a group in a south Carson City neighborhood of 1 acre+ lots battled to stop the approval of a zoning change to Single Family 6,000 on an adjacent lot which should be a transitional area from low density residential to higher density development. On March 18, 2021, that fight was summarily ended by the Board of Supervisors (BOS) who have heard the Siren songs of "affordable" housing and infill.

At the conclusion of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the normal rhythm of live is restored, when we cease to view our neighbors next door and strangers on the street as potential harbingers of disease, each of us needs to do our own analysis of what went wrong with the handling of this “national crisis”.

While lifeguarding at South Shore away back in the summer of ’61, I got to experience my first Red, White & Tahoe Blue 4th of July, which, fireworks aside, was no different than any other idyllic Tahoe summer day. How could I guess that half a century later I would be reading the Declaration of Independence on the Village Green at North Shore with a Marine Corps flyover following the words, “…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” Va-vaVOOM! It gives me chicken-skin to think of it.

The spectacle of this summer’s Opening Ceremonies at the Tokyo Olympic Games is scheduled to commence on Friday, July 23rd at 4am Tahoe time. I already have my alarm set for 3:30. There are two kinds of spectators of Olympic games, spectators, and those most intense of all lookie-loos, the athletes who tried out for the Olympic Games, and did not make the team.

In the meeting rooms of legislatures, city councils, boards of directors and school districts across the country, the conversation regarding race has, in many cases, devolved into a clash between ideologies, where “equality” and “equity” (similar sounding words) stand in stark contrast to one other.

If the first six months of the pandemic made us stir-crazy, the next nine months made us just plain nuts. Fourth graders are acting out, airline passengers are getting into mid-flight brawls, sports fans are tossing water bottles, and Dad’s blood is rising from a slow simmer to a roiling boil. Whoa! Dad is in need of a time out.

So let us call a worldwide time out for Dads during the entire month of August to temper our emotions and calm our anxieties. We can simply call it, “Time Out for Dad Time.”

Anyone who has visited Layne Haven in the past year has had the pleasure of meeting Huckleberry, my pet Tahoe Jay, who stops in for breakfast at eight, lunch at noon, and Happy Hour at five.

So, are pandemics like Cicadas? Where Cicadas have a 17 year cycle, might pandemics have a 99 year cycle? Mother Nature does offer-up some intriguing specimens of symmetry. So do Cicadas and pandemics have built-in alarm clocks that go off on time every time? Or might climate change spring their clocks forward like we do with daylight saving time?

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum when Josh Swain was bored out of his mind after dutifully practicing pandemic tactical dispersion for more than a year.

And oh, did I ever love to bet on sports. My specialty was the over-under bet on the National Anthem prior to the Super Bowl. Below average on the Super Bowl outcome itself, I hardly ever misfired on the length of the National Anthem.

A small bite of good news. For the first time in over a year, Nevada’s Mark Twain, (yours truly), gets to present with his pants on. Yes, our mutual friend Samuel says he’s done with Zoom. As of the 11th and 12th of June, and throughout the summer on assorted evenings, the North Shore will have Twain at Tahoe to compliment Shakespeare at Tahoe. (We always have been the smartest end of the lake.)

I’m listening just now to Aretha Franklin singing, “This bitter Earth may not be so bitter after all.” I cannot help believing her. And I attribute this guarded attitude to a mild level of optimism, based upon a middling level of confidence, that most of us do care about people who don’t always think or look like us.

AB227 is being considered in the Legislature that will create a loss of 4300 temporary and skilled workers jobs as stated by The American Staffing Association [ASA]. An unofficial poll among Private Employment Agencies (“PEAs”) that are Nevada businesses that are licensed and regulated by the Nevada Labor Commissioner, say it’s estimated that about 15% of them are Veterans.

As a reader of Pine Nuts might attest, we have never been a student of grammar. Grammar is why we left Jolly Old England in the first place to create a grammar of our own. And if punctuation was not one of the grievances against King George listed in the Declaration of Independence, well, it should have been.

Life on Earth is good, mostly, unless you're a moth, and fly too close to the flame. It's an interesting journey for us humans to be sure. We're always seeking a reason for our being here, and usually come up with something expansive like, "to make the world a better place," when the real reason is, "to tie this shoe."

CARSON CITY — Last Friday marked the legislative deadline for committee passage in the first house, meaning that bills not voted out of committee by then (except for those specifically marked for deadline exemption) are now dead.

As a former cross country coach I enjoy watching people run, and I do it with a critical eye. "Oh-oh! This gentleman is supinating and will not last another mile at that pace." Sometimes I will pick up my own walking pace to try to find out if I am in fact right, and when I am, well, I drop off to the side and buy myself a cup of coffee.

I've gotten myself into some jams before, but nothing like this one. It all started when a temple screw fell out of my reading glasses, and being the son of an optometrist, I determined to fix those glasses myself. Bad judgement. I have never been handy in that way.

Longevity for the Nevada man is projected to be 75.6 years, probably because we drink, smoke, gamble, and stay up 'til midnight howling at the moon. However, low as that number may be, it would be lower yet, were it not for saintly Nevada women who will be the saving of us.

As recently reported in this fine family journal, your Nevada neighbor and age-old fossil McAvoy was a lifeguard at Lake Tahoe away back in the summer of '61 at the tender age of 17.

I read a lot. So much so that often even if I enjoyed the read, I might soon forget the formulaic content as I immerse myself in the next book. One book, however, that continues to stick with me is "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant.

After one year's absence from the wreck center I was a wreck, a mere shadow of my original self. I was convinced, if the pandemic didn't kill me, it would make me wish I was dead, or at least cramp my style to the point where I wouldn't recognize myself in the mirror, even when that mirror was fogged-up. But then along came Stumpy's.

One of the great characters forged here in the Tahoe Basin did not answer roll call this morning, as yesterday he was called home from this green earth, and is now Heaven's Pit Boss, Mark Pilarski.

Zoom meetings are like Near Beer, you don't get a buzz, but you still get the weight gain. However, when Kevin Sung called from the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative at the Northern Nevada International Center, well, I jumped in with both virtual feet. We agreed to a Zoomed Cultural Session with young entrepreneurs from 10 countries who desired to meet our mutual friend, albeit really bad businessman, Mark Twain.

As the country continues to grapple with COVID-19, health care officials are reminding seniors and caregivers to be on high alert for scammers. Some of the most common scams targeting seniors include strangers claiming to be with Medicare or a health insurance company to obtain personal information, or lure individuals into false investment opportunities through various scare tactics.

The inventor of the brassiere clasp was an American icon who gets no credit for this singular foundation garment fastener, nada, zippo! It remains a travesty of history that this oversight has been ignored for so long, and the time has come to shed a bright light on the petrified truth.

On my way to college away back in the last century, I landed a summer job that a boy could only dream of having, "lifeguard at the Sands, South Shore, Lake Tahoe." So it was with a broad smile that I drove my ’55 Chevy to the lake and found a room to rent for those three months of summer, 1961.