R 2014 07 17 by News & Review

Letters............................ 3 Opinion/Streetalk............ 5 Sheila.Leslie.................... 6 Brendan.Trainor.............. 7 News.............................. 8 Green............................ 11 Feature......................... 13 Arts&Culture................ 16 Art.of.the.State............. 19

Foodfinds..................... 20 Film.............................. 22 Musicbeat.................... 23 Nightclubs/Casinos....... 24 This.Week.....................27 Advice.Goddess........... 28 Free.Will.Astrology....... 30 15.Minutes..................... 31 Bruce.Van.Dyke............ 31

Well-behaved

women See Let Freedom Ring, page 7.

THEY MADE AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE See News, page 8.

the year so far See Arts&Culture, page 16.

monkey

business See Film, page 22.

RENo’s NEws & ENtERtaiNmENt wEEkly

VolumE

20,

issuE

July

17-23,

2014

When Wounds Won’t Heal Cuts and scrapes seem to heal naturally when we’re young and healthy. But as we get older, circulatory problems, diabetes and other conditions can hinder the healing process. When that happens, even a small sore can become a complex medical problem requiring specialized care. The wound may become “stuck” in the healing process and become a chronic wound. Warning signs may include the following: • Inability to heal for ﬁve days or more • Swelling that does not go away • Continuous pain • Fluid that drains from the wound • The wound reappears after it has healed

Many Factors Can Hamper Healing The wound may be too large for the body to regenerate enough tissue to repair it, or it may become infected. Certain illnesses, like diabetes and heart disease, can inhibit the body’s ability to get enough blood and nutrients to the wound for healing.

Treatment Options If you experience any of these warning signs, contact your doctor or call a wound care center. Specialty treatment options may include: • Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) • Debridement to remove unhealthy tissue • Use of advanced wound care dressings and topical products

• Compression therapy • Education to teach patients how to prevent and take care of wounds • Referrals to specialists for treatment of underlying medical conditions that hinder the healing process, including blocked or narrowed blood vessels Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is an advanced treatment that can be very effective. Oxygen is delivered at higher than normal atmospheric pressure. While the air that we normally breathe contains 21 percent oxygen, a hyperbaric oxygen chamber can deliver up to 100 percent oxygen. This enhances the body’s ability to ﬁght infection, reduces swelling and promotes new blood vessel growth. Patients usually ﬁnd the treatments very relaxing.

Remember… It’s important to seek treatment for nonhealing wounds. And if you have diabetes or reduced sensation in your feet, check for wounds every time you bathe or shower.

• Infection therapy

Todd Inman, MD is a board-certiﬁed, family medicine physician at the Northern Nevada Medical Group. He is Medical Director for the Wound Care Center® at Northern Nevada Medical Center. Dr. Inman earned his medical degree and completed his residency from the University of Nevada School of Medicine in Reno.

To schedule a consultation, call 775-352-5353.

Medicare and most of the area’s health plans are accepted.

Todd Inman, MD, CWS, WCC Board Certiﬁed, Family Medicine and Wound Care

Exceptional People. Exceptional Quality. Experience the Difference. 2345 East Prater Way, Suite 100 | Sparks, NV | 352-5353 | nnmc.com

Information is provided for educational purposes only, and is not intended to constitute medical advice or to be relied upon for the treatment of any particular condition. If you have concerns or questions about speciﬁc symptoms that may affect your health, please contact your healthcare provider.

RN&R |

July 17, 2014

Send letters to renoletters@newsreview.com

Cracked up

But where’s the party?

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review. One of the best compliments I’ve ever received was from a pastor. He was actually referring to one of my Fatal Encounters stories where I didn’t automatically follow the storyline handed over by the authorities about a druggie who was shot and killed by police, and I dug a little deeper. He called to invite me to an Easter Sunday service, which I declined, and to talk about the story, and one of the last things he said to me was, “I’ll give you this, you’ve got integrity.” I used to have integrity. I was an unrepentent whatever I was. But, you know, compromises wear a person down, even if it takes decades. Nobody is ever as resolute as when they were younger. OK, never say nobody. I’m sure some still go down fighting. But lately, I’ve been thinking a bit about what it means to have integrity as a human being. We know what a structure with integrity is. A bridge with integrity has no cracks, right? One dictionary defines integrity as “the state of being whole and undivided.” But the word, as it relates to human beings, means more along the lines of being honest and having strong moral principles or moral uprightness. And I hate to say it, but that doesn’t describe me the way it once did. I wish it did. To me, having integrity is morally ambiguous. It’s practicing what you preach or having the courage of your convictions or saying one thing and not doing another. In other words, a bad guy can have integrity. For example, Sandor Clegane or Tywin Lannister or Tony Soprano have integrity. So can good guys, although when you think about it, it’s a lot easier for good guys to compromise their integrity. Until rap music came along and turned the concept of “sold out” on its head, integrity was related to that. It wasn’t about not making money off your talent. It was more about not undervaluing your being and talents. I don’t know why this came up in my mind today. Maybe it’s because I’ve been listening to some older punk rock, and I’d like to think I haven’t softened those scruples that created lines in the sand 35 years ago.

He’s young, he’s fashionable, and he probably throws a great party. However, much like Brazil and its scandal-plagued stadium, Chuck Reno aims to plan this city into a disaster with a losing team. Last night, we heard the pained voice of a Washoe County School District representative speak of how close all of our schools are to capacity and of how there wasn’t even any more room for bungalows, and how we were absolutely unable to bond ourselves out of fixing these schools or building new ones. He also stated that the planning commission has already approved 30,000 permits for new units to be built. As a professional who works for government, he could not come out against the amendment on the table. But his eyes told the story even after he was saying he had to remain neutral. To this disclosure, and to about a hundred pleas from community members asking for slower, smaller development, planning members Kevin Weitzke, Douglas Coffman and Chuck Reno were still able to make findings to approve yet another piece of nasty suburban sprawl into Verdi. Verdi is not a common suburb. It is exceptional. Many people in Reno proper enjoy the town we have protected. We have four foreclosed commercial spaces in the Sommerset Development above us. There are probably 10 empty commercial spaces from Robb Drive and Sharlands to Robb Drive and Mae Anne. Scolari’s closed its pharmacy and is struggling to keep up with Walmart. Yet these planners think more building with limited tax revenue at a ratio that does not, will not ever match the costs to the existing citizens is just the solution we need. This is why Chuck Reno was the Brazil of mayoral candidates, as my neighbor said to me. This is why many city planners on our commission need to go. They are not planners at all. Planners would value comment and outrage from the community over drought and limited resources, over animals and tourism from open space, and over centralizing and cleaning the heart of the city

Our Mission To publish great newspapers that are successful and enduring. To create a quality work environment that encourages people to grow professionally while respecting personal welfare. To have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live.

instead of misguided sprawl that has left most of us broke and foreclosed. Mickey Skinner Verdi

Or, do unto others Re “Corporations are people, just like us” (Left Foot Forward, July 10): Here’s another great dodge for businesses with religious ideals: St. Paul wrote in Thessalonians, “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” Bingo! No need for Social Security, unemployment insurance, workers’ comp, optional disability, retirement contributions, 401Ks, etc. Stop working, stop eating. Fred Hinners Reno

And so wise George Washington was 6 feet 3 inches tall, weighed 225 pounds and was a muscle-bound body builder— he could have played linebacker in the NFL. At a low point for the colonists during the war, morale was terrible, and troops were ready to quit. They were camped under a bridge that was 100 feet above the creek. George Washington told them if he could throw a rock over the bridge they would continue, if he failed, they quit. He threw the rock over the bridge, it was really at that moment that represents the birth of our nation. I have always thought this was one of the most inspirational stories ever! Mike Arp Reno

Corporations limit options Re “Corporations are people, just like us” (Left Foot Forward, July 10): Sheila Leslie’s column continues to spread the lie propagated by the liberal progressive media stating that the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision denies women the use of certain contraceptives. You state, “The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision

Editor/Publisher D. Brian Burghart News Editor Dennis Myers Arts Editor Brad Bynum Calendar Editor Kelley Lang Staff writer Sage Leehey Contributors Amy Alkon, Woody Barlettani, Bob Grimm, Ashley Hennefer, Sheila Leslie, Eric Marks, Dave Preston, Jessica Santina, Todd South, Brendan Trainor, Bruce Van Dyke, Allison Young

—D. Brian Burghart

Creative Director Priscilla Garcia Art Director Hayley Doshay Junior Art Director Brian Breneman Design Melissa Bernard, Brad Coates, Serene Lusano, Kyle Shine, Skyler Smith Design Intern Geraldine Centinaje Advertising Consultants Joseph “Joey” Davis, Gina Odegard, Bev Savage Senior Classified Advertising Consultant Olla Ubay Office Manager/Ad Coordinator Karen Brooke Executive Assistant/Operations Coordinator Nanette Harker

brian b@ n ewsreview . com

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last week to allow Hobby Lobby and other corporations to determine what specific reproductive health care products their female employees can have is appalling and infuriating.” This is what I refer to as a lie. The court’s ruling did not in any way prohibit any woman from purchasing and using any legal contraceptive sold in the U.S. It simply applied religious convictions to be respected by the law as to a company’s health insurance provisions. The “Obama Care” law prior to the ruling required health insurance coverage for all contraceptives, including what the owners of Hobby Lobby consider to be abortion-inducing contraceptives. The company’s insurance will continue to provide coverage for the remaining 16 contraceptive types on the market. The others can be purchased and used by any woman that wishes to do so. This ruling is in fact supportive of religious freedom and not about controlling what a woman wishes to purchase. This entire problem could, of course, be resolved by creating a health insurance program that is purchased by the individual before tax dollars so that the free market would determine the cost and the coverage of health insurance. It is totally irresponsible and false to claim as you do that women are now denied the right to use whatever contraceptives they wish. Under any reasonable interpretation of this ruling, your statements are a lie at worst and a misrepresentation at best. Not really a surprise given your past record of misrepresentations. Fred Speckmann Reno

Chad left hanging Re “Language corrected” (Upfront, July 10): Some very effective journalism by Dennis Myers. That’s how the world is supposed to work, isn’t it? The press raises a legitimate issue, then an office holder responds and handles it. But we shouldn’t let our registrar off the hook. The County Commission should determine whether she used “Democrat” maliciously or accidentally. Either way it wasn’t acceptable.

Distribution Director Greg Erwin Distribution Manager Anthony Clarke Distribution Drivers Sandra Chhina, Joe Medeiros, Ron Neill, Andy Odegard, Clayton Porter, Christian Shearer, Marty Troye, Warren Tucker, Matt Veach, Gary White, Joseph White, Margaret Underwood General Manager/Publisher John D. Murphy President/CEO Jeff vonKaenel Chief Operations Officer Deborah Redmond Human Resource Manager Tanja Poley Business Manager Grant Rosenquist

NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS

Conducting elections requires a religious dedication to getting the details right. Remember it was a poorly designed ballot in Broward County, Florida, which put the loser of the 2000 presidential election into office. I would say this atones partially for the overzealous handling of ACORN by Secretary of State Ross Miller. What I’d really like to see from Miller is a hearty promotion of the actual concept of democracy. How about a pilot program of mail-in ballots as in Oregon? We could actually end up as the state with the highest turnout. We could be No. 1 at something that’s good for a change. And he could save the state millions by dumping those idiot voting machines. Sorry—those idiotic voting machines. C.G. Green Reno

Make the poor pay Re “Question 3” (News, July 10): Neat idea! Make someone else pay for your education! Crafty! Slick! Conniving! Seriously though, why discourage businesses from moving to Northern Nevada by taking a bite out of their profit to solve a problem that isn’t of their own making. Here’s the right fix: Property owners already pay for schools as a portion of their property tax. Enforce a school tax on renters of apartments as well. Also increase the amount of school tax collected from property owners who have children while these children are in school. Applied in this way everyone pays towards schools. You pick up several thousand new school tax payers. Those who have the most vested interest in the program are also required to pay a little more into it, and businesses can concentrate on making money, creating jobs and bringing a prosperous economy back to Northern Nevada rather than worrying about how much of a bite the state is going to take out of them for new programs. Anthony Mouse Reno

Business Nicole Jackson, Tami Sandoval Lead Technology Synthesist Jonathan Schultz Senior Support Tech Joe Kakacek Developer John Bisignano System Support Specialist Kalinn Jenkins 405 Marsh Ave., Third Floor Reno, NV 89509 Phone (775) 324-4440 Fax (775) 324-4572 Classified Fax (916) 498-7940 Mail Classifieds to classifieds@newsreview.com

THIS WEEK

Web site www.newsreview.com Printed by Paradise Post The RN&R is printed using recycled newsprint whenever available. Editorial Policies Opinions expressed in the RN&R are those of the authors and not of Chico Community Publishing, Inc. Contact the editor for permission to reprint articles, cartoons or other portions of the paper. The RN&R is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. All letters received become the property of the publisher. We reserve the right to print letters in condensed form.

Cover and feature story design: Brian Breneman

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July 17, 2014

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This MOdErn WOrld

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What’s your favorite amendment? Asked at Hobby Lobby, 5685 S. Virginia St. Carol Cooke Attorney

The First. While all amendments are equal, the law has always treated the First Amendment just a little more equal. Without the First Amendment, we have nothing. Without the freedom of speech, the press and assembly, none of the other amendments would survive.

Rita Homer Office manager

The Second, because with that one I can protect all the others.

Bob Fulkerson Political organizer

Fire. Fire. Fire. We’ve really got to wonder how it comes down to this newspaper to bring this to people’s attention. It’s really hot out. So hot, in fact, we’ve got those occasional heat-driven afternoon thunderstorms. Lightning from those storms sometimes cause wildfires. Are you with us so far? Along seemingly unrelated lines, Northern Nevada has gone through a burst housing bubble. Thousands of homes were foreclosed upon, and people were thrown out. When those people left, they stopped watering their lawns and their shrubs and their trees. If we weren’t in the middle of a drought, it’s possible that many would have survived, but the fact is, things have been unnaturally dry. And while all that was happening, we’ve seen entire trees turning brown, standing like come-hither candles, victims of insects and disease, particularly conifers and particularly the bark beetle. Trees weakened by drought and other environmental factors are more susceptible to insects and disease. And once a diseased tree is dead, if left in place, those insects move onto the next victim in a vicious cycle. Dead trees are more susceptible to explosive ignition from lightning strikes. Keeping up? Now we’re going to ask you to open your eyes. As you ride, bike or drive around town, check out the condition of the trees. Particularly look on road rights of way, maybe the islands on Plumb Lane,

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I would have to say the First because it gives us the right to be here [at a protest against Hobby Lobby], and it’s the one that kind of all the other ones rest on. It’s the right to protest, the right to petition the government, the right to band together against some pretty massive, powerful forces. It’s kind of the foundation of organized religion, too.

for example. Check out the trees and shrubs around foreclosed homes—in fact, the condition of the landscaping is often an indicator of whether a house is bank-owned. As you drive up into the rim of the valley, as in the Old Southwest, just try and count the dead trees and shrubs. Perhaps start at Arlington Avenue over by I-80 and follow it up past Plumb where it turns into Skyline Boulevard. If you follow it far enough, you’ll end up near the area that burned in the Caughlin Fire, fueled in part by dead and dying trees. Look, if Reno ever wants to re-earn the moniker City of Trembling Leaves, we have got to remove trees that are dead and dying from our properties. The city’s forester must remove dead and dying trees from the city-owned thoroughfares. The City Council must write some codes to force banks to maintain the properties they own. The rest of us have got to be responsible for the landscaping we have. While many of us have chosen to xeriscape our properties, we’ve also got to remember that even drought-tolerant plants need water. Part of the problem is that drought-stressed trees may not show the damage for two or three years. Homeowners just have to be aware and watchful. The bottom line is we’ve created a very dangerous situation in our little valley. Under the wrong conditions, these dead trees can explode like Roman candles and threaten nearby homes. Everyone shares responsibility for protecting this community from fire. Ω

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Notis Fulicar Television photographer

The right to bear arms. It’s inherent to all the citizens here. If I’m not bothering anyone, and they’re not bothering me, I have the right to protect my family.

Jesse Olson Electrician

The First Amendment. The most important freedoms, I believe—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. I just believe those are our most important freedoms.

THIS WEEK

MISCELLANY

JULY 17, 2014

RN&R

Mining bets on the don’t pass line They want you to believe they always put the interests of Nevadans first. They also want you to believe they’ll pay less in taxes if Question 2 (SJR 15) is approved by voters in November, removing mining’s constitutional protection, a 5 percent cap on the net proceeds of minerals tax. by Most observers doubted SJR 15 Sheila Leslie would ever make it to the ballot, since it required two approvals by the Legislature. They knew that many legislators are closely aligned with the mining industry thanks to heaps of cash distributed to campaign and caucus accounts and the annual ‘party-hearty’ September bash at Lake Tahoe where legislators are treated to high-end hotels, meals and entertainment while they mingle with the mining brass. The odds were certainly not in its favor. The resolution was initiated by the Senate Revenue Committee back in 2011. (Full disclosure: I was the chair of that committee.) After extensive hearings where the industry’s manipulation of regulations

allowing huge deductions came to light, resulting in many mines paying zero in net proceeds, another Revenue Committee member, Senate Majority Leader (now Congressman) Steven Horsford, was incensed. By the way, this “zero tax” trend continues today as political commentator Hugh Jackson recently pointed out. Of the 32 gold-producing mines in Nevada in 2013, 11 paid zero in mining taxes despite generating $525.3 million worth of gold, thanks to Nevada’s overly generous regulatory scheme. Mining executives foresaw inevitable passage of SJR 15 in the Senate, and attempted to kill it quietly in the Assembly with no vote, no fingerprints. But Horsford played hardball in the waning hours of the session to ensure a vote was taken. The measure passed easily and mining lobbyists began plans to destroy it in the next session. In 2013, the resolution was initially panned by Senate Democrats. When pressed by constituents, they mumbled industry arguments that mining would

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actually pay less in taxes if the constitutional protection were eliminated, despite clear testimony and an opinion from the Legislative Counsel Bureau that said otherwise. Removing the provision, enjoyed by no other industry, would simply give the Legislature the ability to tax mining differently, perhaps through a severance tax as is done in other states. Or legislators could choose to leave the tax the same. It was Republican Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson who blew up the industry’s plan to kill the bill by ignoring it. Roberson, no fan of big mining after living in Kansas and seeing first-hand the devastating impact of a bust cycle, proposed a higher tax on mining once SJR 15 passed, as an alternative to the teachers’ plan for a general corporate tax. SJR 15 eventually passed both houses with strong support from the Democratic base, sending it to your ballot this November as Question 2. When the actual language translating SJR 15 into Question 2 was approved by the Legislative Commission last month, legislators

debated the arguments “for” and “against” to explain the measure to voters. The most intensive debate revolved around a sentence referencing the “scarred landscape” left behind when a mining company leaves. Assemblyman Ira Hansen, R-Sparks, insisted the sentence be changed, saying it didn’t reflect reclamation efforts. Various photos posted on Twitter quickly proved otherwise and the sentence was not altered. Unlike big business opponents to the Education Initiative, big mining has yet to put up a major media campaign against Question 2, knowing that even if passed by the voters, it will be up to legislators to determine the appropriate level of taxation. Mining companies anticipate better luck protecting their profits in the Legislature where one-third of the members can block any tax bill. They’re going to gamble on Nevada’s history and its legislators’ fondness for campaign cash and ritzy parties instead. It’s probably a good bet. Ω

To read ballot Question 2, go to http:// nvsos.gov/index. aspx?page=1309

Angry women shouldn’t use the ‘F’ word The Supreme Court decided Burwell v. Hobby Lobby on June 30. It ruled a closely held private corporation’s owners could refuse to pay for 4 out of 20 covered birth control methods mandated by Obamacare because of a sincerely held religious belief that they were abortofascients. by Brendan Trainor The decision relied on the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act that overturned a Supreme Court decision affirming that Oregon could deny unemployment insurance to Native Americans who used peyote in their religious rituals. The RFRA now protects a person who violates certain mandates from criminal or civil prosecution due to their religious beliefs. The decision set off a firestorm in the twitterverse. Extreme left wing populist Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma): “Can’t believe ... we’d even consider letting big corps deny women access to basic care based on vague moral objections.” Her followers will see big corps, access, women’s basic care, and immediately will think: Stop the

religious right hillbilly deviationists! What is remarkable is the profanity and violent imagery used by liberal women. See: @SandraMcMahan1h: “Fuck you, Hobby Lobby, you narrow-minded, anti-women pieces of shit!!!!!!” @SpiffyKeen: “FUCK THE SUPREME COURT! FUCK HOBBY LOBBY!” @AtheistBrandi: “Fuck you Hobby Lobby, I hope all your stores burn to the ground. Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU!!!!!!” @ObfusticateHobby Lobby: Time to burn that shit down.: Costa Koutsoutis (@costa_kout): “#HobbyLobby are scum of the earth. Burn every single one down, build a homeless shelter there instead.” Whew! Why do progressive feminists harbor so many violent fantasies! Are these the voices of empowered, independent women, or spoiled princesses? One of the most talked about tweets was this: “All of the people who voted in favor of #HobbyLobby have one thing

in common and it’s not a vagina.”— Elizabeth Plank (@feministabulous). Contrast the tweets from some young libertarian feminists. “Why is ‘equality for women’ considered synonymous with ‘forcing other people to pay for your birth control’?” — Emily Zanotti (@ emzanotti). Hey. It’s wrong for government to mandate employers pay for birth control. It’s wrong for government to mandate employers pay for Viagra. — Julie Borowski (@JulieBorowski) June 30, 2014. “Over the counter, people. Just make birth control available over the counter. This shouldn’t be difficult.” — Lucy Steigerwald (@LucyStag). “To every conservative whining about #HobbyLobby: advocate for OTC birth control or please shut the hell up.”—Cathy Reisenwitz (@ CathyReisenwitz). Libertarian women are self reliant. They want the state out of their sex lives, and that goes both for the religious right and the progressive left. When women are forced by law to get

a prescription for birth control it drives up the cost and demeans their ability to take care of themselves. As we continue to politicize health care and science, we waste time and vitriol arguing that could have been better spent living. The conservative looks at a partially drunk glass of water and argues it is half full. The liberal cries it is half empty. The libertarian drinks it down and gets a refill. A few Republicans, notably Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindall, have also advocated for over the counter birth control. Libertarian Party Chair Nicholas Sarwark said, “Cutting the government requirement that birth control be purchased only with a prescription and making it over-thecounter would advance liberty by giving easier access to birth control without putting their employer in the middle of their personal choices. Government doesn’t make men get prescriptions for condoms, there’s no reason it should make women get prescriptions for birth control pills.” And he doesn’t have a vagina, either! Ω

Definition of fucking irony: www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/irony

42 MPG HWY.

OPINION

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ART OF THE STATE

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NIGHTCLUBS/CASINOS

THIS WEEK

MISCELLANY

JULY 17, 2014

RN&R

Photo/Dennis Myers

This vacant Spanish Springs Valley home was under a lien because no one paid the bill to have trash not picked up.

Pot goes straight Newsrooms always get a lot of material on financial services— public offerings, merger announcements, that kind of thing. Those materials are getting more interesting these days. For instance, this came in on July 1, datelined from Mesquite in Clark County: “Cannabis Sativa, Inc. (OTCQB:CBDS) announced today that on June 30, 2014, it consummated the acquisition of Kush, a Nevada corporation (‘Kush’), and its consolidated subsidiary, following which Kush became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company (the ‘Merger’); ... Kush is a development stage company engaged in the research, development and licensing of specialized natural cannabis products, including cannabis formulas, edibles, topicals, strains, recipes and delivery systems.” The announcement also reported that former New Mexico governor and Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson has accepted the position of chief executive officer. Steve Kubby, famed as a quarter-century cancer patient who used cannabis medication and author of Why Marijuana Should Be Legal, is the corporation’s board chair. Another announcement/sales pitch came in on June 26 from an outfit called BestOTC Network, LLC. It read: “Everyone is jumping on shares of R:N:B:I at 15 cents right now. They have never been so cheap in the past. Imagine if you wanted to grab it two weeks ago it would’ve cost you 35 cents. Analysts are saying that the company is about to soar again and that they recommend buying as much as possible in the 15 to 20 cent range. R:N:B:I is one of the few companies on the market that is involved in the legal cannabis sector. Grab shares now!”

Bundy, BLM, press, politicians monitored The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremist activity around the nation, has issued a 26-page report which faults Cliven Bundy and his supporters, and also harshly judges the Bureau of Land Management for bungling the April standoff near Bunkerville, and both politicians and journalists for “pandering to the far right.” The SPLC said that the BLM let Bundy’s grazing fee arrears drift for far too long before taking action. In addition, once the agency did take action, its sudden abandonment of the mission emboldened hate groups: “The Bundy standoff has invigorated an extremist movement that exploded when President Obama was elected, going from some 150 groups in 2008 to more than 1,000 last year. ... The fallout from the BLM stand down is very troubling: an even more emboldened antigovernment movement. Just in the months since the Bundy ‘victory,’ tense standoffs between the BLM and antigovernment activists have taken place across the West—in Idaho, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. The scariest incident happened in Utah, where two men pointed a handgun at a BLM worker in a marked federal vehicle while holding up a sign that said, ‘You need to die.’” The report called it “puzzling” that the BLM allowed Bundy 20 years “without paying grazing fees that all other ranchers pay.” It praised the U.S. Justice Department for recently reviving a domestic terrorism committee created after the Oklahoma City bombing that became dormant with the passage of time. Noting that the media suddenly pulled back from Bundy when he made racial comments, the SPLC asked why race is sensitive but not armed rebellion. “Racism was crossing a line, apparently, but the calls from the ranch for revolution and outright defiance of federal law enforcement seemed to be just fine with the Hannitys of the world.” The report can be read at www.SPLCenter.org.

—Dennis Myers

8 | RN&R |

JULY 17, 2014

Unappealing Local governments turn monopolies loose on public without grievance process The house in the Spanish Springs Valley could not be neater. One gravel driveway appears to have been carefully by combed. A concrete driveway is so Dennis Myers clean it might be eaten off. There are three vehicles on the property, but they are all out of sight. It’s ready to sell. Power and gas meters do not appear to be turning over at all. No one lives in the house and the owner lives out of state, so it is alarmed. There are two metal posts in the front yard that appear once to have held a real estate sign. It came down because the home can’t be sold.

“If government removes competition, it needs to create regulation to protect consumers.” Glen Atkinson economist The home belongs to Dean Barnett, a California resident. It belonged to his mother. After her death, he put the property in its current impeccable state. “Mother passed away at the end of 2011,” he said. “It’s been vacant ever since.” So he was taken aback to learn in May that Waste Management Inc. (WMI), which handles trash collection in the county, put a lien

on the property for unpaid collection at the property. Since there has been nothing to collect for several years, he was disinclined to pay. But how to deal with the problem wasn’t easy to figure out. WMI has agreements with Washoe County, Sparks and Reno to provide exclusive trash collecting service in each of their jurisdictions. Its agreements with the local governments give it monopolies in each of their territories, both on service and on the trash bins—residents cannot buy their own and thus save monthly rental fees. Unfortunately, in the process of turning these monopolies loose on the public, the local governments did not set up any regulation to give residents somewhere to go for help if the corporation gets out of hand. There is nothing like an appeals process or independent administrative grievance procedure. “Not necessarily, no,” said Reno environmental specialist Jason Geddes. “It’s just the ombudsman” that customers can turn to, he said. That’s not a city ombudsman. It’s a corporate ombudsman. There is no independent scrutiny of WMI conduct. Barnett obtained a copy of WMI’s agreement with Washoe County, which was adopted 14 years ago. He said he believes WMI is “not following the franchise agreement,” but it appears there is no way to pursue

violations of that agreement short of going to court. Waste Management spokesperson Sarah Polito did not respond to a request for comment. Barnett said he engaged in lengthy discussions with WMI officials until “I think they realized I was not going to go away.” He twice presented copies of his mother’s death certificate to them and passed up one sale of the property because of the lien. He also insisted that, according to the franchise agreement, a customer could halt service to a vacant property simply by notifying the corporation. WMI, he said, was exceeding its authority under the agreement. Finally, WMI lifted the lien. Geddes said a resident may be able to prove a building has stood vacant by showing that utilities have not been in operation or other such means. That would put a property owner in the position of having to prove her case instead of WMI proving its case. Not only is the burden apparently on the customer, it also appears that it’s not all that uncommon for people to be taken by surprise to learn that they are being billed for service they didn’t know they were getting. During research on an earlier story by the RN&R on WMI (“Issues with trash,” Sept. 5, 2013), a clerk at the company’s Holcomb Street office was heard telling a complaining resident, “We are not required to inform you when we provide you with service.” The tone of voice and rote delivery of the sentence indicated it had been spoken many times before. In all three jurisdictions, residents are forced to use WMI service, and no other. In the Sparks franchise agreement, for instance, “all third party providers” are banned. It also defines types of trash and, to prevent people from providing their own service, prohibits transport to landfills of some types of trash by residents. Specifically, Sparks prohibits residents from taking “animal and vegetable waste resulting from the handling, storage, preparation, cooking, sale and serving of food and beverage ... offal, swill, kitchen and table waste, and other organic animal or vegetable waste ... bottles, cans, cups, plates, utensils, containers, and/ or covering of any construction or material that has been in intimate contact with food, confection and/ or beverage ... any component used in the preparation or manufacture of matter intended for animal or human consumption, and ... such matter and/ or materials listed in subsections C(2) and C(3) of this section that have been discarded without first being sanitized” to the dump.

“The free market is based on competition,” said economist Glen Atkinson. “If government removes competition it needs to create regulation to protect consumers. … I can’t speak for all economists, but it seems to me that consumers should be able to go somewhere with their concerns about quality of service and rates and so on.” Local governments, he said, haven’t done a very good job of providing that kind of independent help to customers of trash collectors or cable companies. In Reno, City Councilmember Jenny Brekhus—one of several relatively new members of the council—said, “I would say that last year, 2013, I spent more time on the Waste Management rollout than I did on any other issue in terms of constituent concerns.” But 2013 was an unusual year. The city had just put in place a new franchise agreement that introduced a new and complicated recycling program. That start-up did not give Brekhus and her colleagues a good look at what normality is in terms of resident complains on trash collection. Once the rollout of the new program started to recede, Brekhus said she started getting mostly specific complaints about the program, such as “the cart selection, that kind of thing.” She said she anticipates a lot more complaints when leaf-raking time comes in

autumn. As for major problems like liens on property, she said the city has administrative grievance procedures for its own city-run programs, like sewers. “Well, we have administrative hearing officers for a lot of disputes like traffic tickets, sewers, but those kinds of arrangements are not, to my knowledge, in place on the franchise agreements. … We do have it for our own enforcement.”

“ I had some pretty long discussions with them and told them, ‘Hey, you’re costing me money here.’” Dean Barnett Homeowner The new franchise agreement between WMI and Reno was approved by the old council the week before Brekhus and three other new councilmembers took office. Making changes in franchise agreements isn’t all that easy. They are made for long periods. The county/WMI agreement has been in place for 14 years. Reno’s new agreement is for 17 years. “It’s the law you have to have garbage service,” Barnett said, describing the municipal code that creates monopolies for business. But there’s no law for customers.Ω

Citizenship PHOTO/DENNIS MYERS

Hobby Lobby customer Rita Homer (back to camera) engaged in a debate with several protestors at the chain’s Reno store last weekend. The protest was held in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling exempting privately held corporations from some of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The dialogue in Reno was polite, each side had its say, and everyone walked away without anger. Congress, take note. Company employees designated space for the protestors and brought them bottled water to help with the heat. OPINION

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Abrahm Schank stands in front of a drain ditch filled with vegetation on his farm in Fallon.

To ditch or not to ditch Farmers, ranchers angered by proposed rule The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed changes to the Clean Water Act that are highly controversial throughout the country. The proposed rule is called Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS), and the by Sage Leehey EPA states on its website that it’s meant to “clarify protection under the Clean Water Act for streams and wetlands that form the foundation of the sage l@ newsreview.c om nation’s water resources.” Many farmers and ranchers believe this rule would overstep and extend the EPA’s power unfairly and needlessly. One of the main waterways that farmers are worried about being regulated under this rule is ditches used for irrigation. Farming and ranching groups all over the country have posted their opposition to WOTUS on social media using #DitchTheRule. Most, if not all, of these posts state a fear that the rule would bog them down in permits. Farmers say the EPA would regulate the ditches and other parts of their land, so changes to these areas would necessitate a permit. “For an example, sometimes we have to go and do excavation on [drain ditches] if there’s structural issues or if there’s a pipe or something like that,” Schank said. “So every little aspect of that, from the way I understand it, would have to be permitted, and the EPA is going to regulate it, which will make it super complicated. It’s more costly, etc.” Schank said other projects he has to complete relatively often on his farm would need to be permitted by the EPA and said he doesn’t think it would be feasible to obtain a permit for all of these tasks. He also worries about how long getting a permit would take, saying that some crops could be lost in just a few days without water if the farmer had to wait too long to see gina for a permit to, for example, clean out a ditch. McCarthy’s full speech He also said he believes this could make farming too expensive for from July 10, visit smaller operations, and according to the Nevada Farm Bureau Federation, http://tinyurl.com/ 82 percent of Nevada farms and ranches are owned by families. o2gyucl. and to read “It’s not only going to cost us, it’s—whether we’re producing alfalfa more about the opposition to the rule, visit for dairies, that price will be passed all the way through or if you’re ditchtherule.fb.org. producing cash crops, they go straight to the consumer, so it’s going to affect them, too,” Schank said. “It costs more time and money. ... If you can make it work and make money, you should do it, but if things like this keep getting in the way and making the practice harder to do, you’re going to see less and less of it.” The EPA, on the other hand, said there will be no new permitting required by WOTUS. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has been travelling around the country defending the proposed rule. “The bottom line is—if you didn’t need a permit before this proposed rule, you won’t need one when it’s finalized ... ,” she said in Kansas City on July 10. “EPA is not saying that all ditches are jurisdictional. In fact, our proposal specifically says we are not regulating all ditches—unlike the current, existing regulations. ... While some ditches are connected to larger water systems and are vital to public health and water quality, the vast majority are not, and therefore not jurisdictional.” Many farming and ranching groups still don’t believe this is the case though and continue voicing opposition on social media saying that McCarthy has misrepresented the rule. Ω OPINION

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t was Thursday, Nov. 18, 2013. A member of the Douglas County Republican Central Committee, Walter Nowosad, was conducting an interview with Sue Lowden, a former state senator who was running for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor. In the course of the interview, Lowden showed an inclination to go along with local party sentiment, as with Nowosads’s eighth question. “When ratified, the Constitution provided that two senators be appointed by their state legislature,” Nowosad said. “That changed in 1913 with the ratification of the 17th Amendment and provided for those seats to be filled by popular election. Mark Levin, in his book, The Liberty Amendments, suggests that we repeal the 17th Amendment and return to appointment by the legislature. Would you support Levin’s position? If not, why not?” There were land mines all over this question, but Lowden failed to see them. “I would absolutely support it,” Lowden answered. “I supported term limits, for instance, when I was in the state Senate. If we had term limits in the United States Senate, we wouldn’t have this problem right now. I don’t know why the senators wouldn’t want it shown in good faith to the American public that this would be a good idea for our country. Instead we have Harry Reid, the Harry Reids of our country

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It would be nice to report that this is an oddball occurrence in one small state’s political life. But in fact, while the issue has not reached critical mass, it is playing a role in a fair number of states. In a Republican primary debate in Salt Lake City in January 2010, the three Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate debated. Incumbent Robert Bennett, a conservative Republican who was adjudged insufficiently crazy by social conservatives, found himself having to defend the 17th Amendment against his two opponents. Bennett lost the primary to repeal supporter Mike Lee, who went on to win the election and now pushes for repeal of the 17th in the Senate. The same year in Colorado, Republican Ken Buck ran as an advocate of repealing the 17th until Democrats started using the issue, whereupon he changed his position. In Alaska, GOP U.S. Senate nominee Joe Miller’s stance allowed headlines like “Joe Miller Thinks His Own Senate Race Should Be Unconstitutional” and “Joe Miller—Elect me so I can take your vote away.” He beat GOP incumbent Lisa Murkowski in the primary but narrowly lost the general election when she ran as a write-in candidate.

“Most astonishing [in the interviews] was Lowden heartily embracing repealing the 17th Amendment and returning to state legislatures the appointment of U.S. Senators,” wrote commentator Jon Ralston. Chris Gentilviso in the Huffington Post: “If it were up to Nevada lieutenant governor candidate Sue Lowden (R), Americans might not have to worry anymore about voting for their senators at the polls.” Talking Points Memo: “Failed Senate Candidate Wants To End Direct Election Of Senators” (Lowden had somehow lost a U.S. senate primary to Sharron Angle in 2010). PoliticsUSA: “Nevada Republican Wants to End Senate Elections Because Harry Reid Won.”

who are there over and over again and have a tremendous amount of money to be re-elected. Yes, I think people are really fed up with bad people in government. If that’s a way to change things up in Washington, I would be all for it and do whatever we [need] to do it, but I think term limits is an easier way to do it if there was some way to get that on.” Little of her rambling answer had to do with the question, but the bottom line was she had come out against the popular election of United States senators. The interview lay dormant for a few months, like a time bomb, until Nowosad got an interview with Lowden’s opponent, Mark Hutchison. Then on March 27 both interviews were posted on the Douglas County GOP website. Within a day Lowden was getting her reward.

“ How c ou ld tH e s ta tes Ha ve be en s o foolH a r d y a s to dis en fr a n c His e tHems elve s ? ”

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Republican U.S. Senate nominees in Arizona, Indiana, Michigan and Missouri supported repeal. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), lavishly funded by reactionary corporations and billionaires, drafted a partial proposal on appointment of senators, but dropped it after it leaked. Clearly something is going on with the 17th Amendment.

Idea mart It’s not unusual, during periods of economic instability, for unusual public policy proposals to enter the public arena. Unlike previous periods of unhappiness with mainstream politics, some of the proposals that have been surfacing do not foreshadow potential policies for the future. Rather, they call for reviving policies of the past. There has been, for instance, a revival of interest in nullification and interposition, a forerunner of secession. The theory was that a state had the power to interpose its will and nullify federal laws. (We’re not making this up.) It’s a doctrine that had considerable currency during the run-up to the Civil War and after enactment of the Affordable Care Act, there were some figures who called for states to nullify it. Texas Republican candidate for Gov. Debra Medina called for nullification and interposition to block federal laws in “agriculture, energy, education, health care, industry.” She stopped short of calling for secession, but just barely. Good to know a line is drawn somewhere. It appears fairly clear that at least some of the support for repeal of the 17th Amendment is derived from the fact that some activists are trying to accomplish through legislative appointment of senators things they cannot achieve at the ballot box. At American Thinker, for instance, Jon Hall wrote that it is the fault of the 17th Amendment that Minnesota “is now represented by a comedian” (Al Franken). Nowhere is this clearer than in Nevada, whose voters re-elected Harry Reid in 2010, to the immense displeasure of 17th Amendment opponents. PatriotAction.net: “HARRY REID, THE POSTER BOY FOR THE REPEAL OF THE 17TH AMENDMENT.” On RedState.com, an anonymous posting reads, “I’ll guarantee you that Obamacare would’ve never passed if the 17th Amendment wasn’t introduced or enacted at least. Part of the process of taking back our constitutional liberties is to return power which has been lost back to the states. Let Harry Reid know he’s not king of the Senate.” CoachisRight.com: “The 17th Amendment gives the federal government a Senate free of obligation to the states. Today’s senators, no matter how great, are not obligated to serve the needs of the state that elected them. Once having served to lobby for the needs of the state legislature, the 17th created a federal guarantee of political party ‘block and tackle.’ What was once a check and balance has become the dysfunction of D.C. Today’s Democratcontrolled Senate has over 140 job and economy bills submitted by the Republican House that Majority Leader Harry Reid has refused to put on the docket for debate, compromise and passage.” TheLoneStarWatchdog.com: “The Bundy Ranch Siege: An Example Why the 17th 14 | RN&R |

JULY 17, 2014

Amendment is the Reason Senator Harry Reid is Corrupt.” (The syntax is confusing and the corruption is unsubstantiated).

Sue Lowden is the latest casualty of battles over the 17th Amendment.

What is past is prologue

PHOTO/DENNIS MYERS

“FORWARD INTO THE PAST”

But there are more serious arguments for repeal of the 17th. Some activists believe that state legislatures are less compromised than Congress, suggesting they have never been to a state legislature. Legislatures tend to be cat’s paws for business. In Nevada, the Legislature is a cat’s paw for businesses generally and casinos in particular. There are also states’ rights advocates who argue that the original idea of appointed senators was of “ambassadors” to the federal government, increasing the authority and strength of state governments. The historical record is uncertain on whether this theory is true. At the constitutional convention Delaware delegate John Dickinson, who proposed the plan for legislatures appointing senators, did not mention it in his list of reasons. Moreover, during both the convention and the ratification period there were those who expected appointed senators to increase the power of the federal government. And reinforcing states’ rights wasn’t necessarily a widespread concern, in part because the state legislatures were regarded as less than competent or even corrupt. Connecticut delegate John Sherman argued that appointed senators would mean “the particular states would thus become

“I f tha t’ s a wa y to c ha n ge thI n g s u p In w a s hIn g to n , I wou ld b e a ll for It. ” Sue Lowden Former nevada LegiSLator interested in supporting the national government.” In the Federalist Papers written during ratification, “Publius” (Alexander Hamilton) discussed Senate appointments in the context of “a probability that the general government will be better administered than the particular government [state government].” In some ways, the record suggests the opposite of the notion that appointed senators would be advocates of their states. Rather, there was some expectation that House members would look after their regions while appointed senators would take a broader, national view. During the ratification period, “A Citizen of America” (Noah Webster) wrote that appointed senators would “act for the aggregate interest of the whole community.” He also faulted senators in the state legislatures because, coming from districts instead of statewide, they were too “inspired by local views,” which does not suggest that he wanted senators preoccupied by state rights in a federal system. James Madison of Virginia was one delegate who fit the belief that state legislative election of senators would enhance states’ rights. “This election of one branch of the federal, by the state legislatures, secures an absolute

dependence of the former on the latter,” he said in responding to Patrick Henry criticisms of the proposed constitution. But his was far from a universal view.

Downhill slide Following ratification of the Constitution, the system of legislatures appointing senators degenerated into rank corruption and graft. History textbooks may instruct us in the debates between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, which were held to encourage voters to support state legislators who backed the two candidates’ political parties, but the reality was not so high minded. In Nevada’s early days, so much money was thrown around in Senate appointment years that U.S. Senate appointments were practically a form of economic development. There were two phases in each appointment—bribing rank and file voters in the general election to vote for state legislators, then bribing those state legislators to vote for Senate candidates. In the first round in 1880, James Fair was reported having spent $40 a vote in Washoe County and up to $80 in Churchill County.

Carson City editor Sam Davis considered the 1872-73 appointment of John P. Jones to the U.S. Senate to be a turning point. Jones, who had lost a sheriff’s race in California two years earlier, moved to Nevada where public office could be purchased much more cheaply. According to Davis, Jones unnecessarily spent a half-million dollars in a race that was already wired in his favor. ($500,000 in 1873 is more than $9 million in 2013 dollars.) In 1875, William Sharon—another Californian—laid out $800,000 for a U.S. Senate seat from Nevada, then returned to San Francisco where he spent virtually the entire six-year term, to the point that in 1879 secretary of the senate John Burch said that if Sharon tried to claim his salary then he (Burch) would submit the case to the controller of the U.S. Treasury. At that point, Sharon had shown up for work for only two months of his four years in office. To give some indication of how divorced appointive senate races were from merit, Sharon’s money nevertheless made him a serious candidate for reelection. This era of U.S. Senate seats publicly on the auction block created so much revulsion in the public that it led to proposals to strip legislatures of the power to appoint. The Populist Party, whose platform was more or less adopted by the Democratic Party in the 1896 campaign, advanced the proposal. In 1913, more than enough state legislatures approved it and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan had the satisfaction of signing the final ratification of the 17th Amendment, which he

had advocated as the Democratic nominee for president in three campaigns, including 1896. In 1997, the alleged Nevadan Jay Bybee, who co-authored the second Bush administration’s legal rationale for torture, wrote for conservatives who oppose popular election of senators, “How could the states have been so foolhardy as to disenfranchise themselves?” But the notion that senators might become less oriented to state rights seems belied by the record. They are often criticized for not having enough of a national outlook. Some of those who support repeal of the 17th are also those critical of Harry Reid for protecting Nevada from a federal nuclear waste dump.

There seems little doubt that Democrats consider repeal of the 17th to be a good issue for them. For one thing, in 2010, one of the factions of the Tea Party released a 10-point “Contract from America.” Number 10 was “Stop the Tax Hikes: Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011.” Mysteriously, when the Democratic Party started sending out attacks on the Contract, No. 10 had been re-worded into, “Repeal the 17th Amendment: Take away your right to pick your U.S. Senator.” When appointing U.S. senators, legislatures met as single bodies, not as two houses. The partisan breakdown nearly always determined the outcome of U.S. Senate appointments. Of the senators appointed by legislatures during 12 and a half decades, only 2 percent of the

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Berkley defeats Heller

alcohol prohibition in 1929, three years before repeal, because dry states controlled enough votes in Congress and in state legislatures to stop it. Then repeal happened in 288 days, one of the fastest ratifications. When Nowosad interviewed Sue Lowden’s opponent, Mark Hutchison, he asked the same questions of both. When they came to the 17th Amendment, Hutchison avoided the pitfalls into which Lowden had stepped. He had something for everyone, but didn’t endorse repeal: “I don’t know that I would be in support of a complete repeal of the 17th Amendment, you know, just by waving a magic wand. I would be supportive of allowing the states to, by the process permitted by the United States Constitution, to come together and to determine within their state legislatures whether they would like to do that on a state-by-state basis. And if there is sufficient numbers, if there is three-quarters that decide that they wanted to amend the Constitution back to the way it was, I’m all in favor of the people of the United States being able to make that decision. But again, you don’t do it by waving a magic wand, you would go through the amendment process set forth in the United States Constitution. I will say that I am very sympathetic to the idea that state’s rights need to be asserted much more against the federal government.” Hutchison defeated Lowden, 54 to 36 percent. If nullification and appointment of senators are back in the political arena, can repeal of women’s suffrage and revival of slavery be far behind? After all, just last month voters in Nevada’s Douglas, Lyon and Storey counties voted to renominate a state legislator who promised to vote for slavery like a good little seismograph if that’s what the public wants him to do. Ω

and behind the times, as though they were debating the League of Nations or coinage of silver at 16 to 1. Yet, as in the case of Lowden, they keep doing it. Why take the political risk? Political analyst Fred Lokken said it’s the nature of low turnout primary elections, in which the “more agitated extremists show up.” “I like to tell my students that normal people don’t participate in primaries,” Lokken jokes. As a result, the most zealous have an outsized influence in primaries, with the result that candidates try to cultivate them. Describing Republican primaries, he said, “It’s a kind of grotesque pandering that results, especially during a primary season when you’re trying to lure the extreme right.” The result is that after the primary is over, Republican candidates must shed their most extreme proposals, which leads to voter cynicism. Some believe that repeal of the 17th has no chance of getting through Congress or the states. “Fortunately, repeal will never happen,” David Firestone wrote in the New York Times. That level of certainty was also present about

senators appointed did not represent the majority of the appointing legislature. Translating the outcome from pre- and post-17th Amendment law can be done neatly by looking at the last two U.S. Senate elections in Nevada. Democrat Harry Reid ran for reelection in 2010. Though news coverage of the campaign suggested a close race, he ended up winning an easy 6-point victory over Republican Sharron Angle. Voters also elected a Nevada This is the joint resolution Legislature with a approved by Congress on 37 to 26 Democratic December 4, 1911, and sent majority. If federal to the states to amend the U.S. Constitution to make senators had still senators elective. been appointive, the lawmakers would have reached the same decision as the voters. In 2012 Republican Dean Heller, appointed to the Senate by the governor to fill a vacancy, sought election to a full term of his own. This race was much tighter—Heller defeated Democrat Shelley Berkley by a percentage point. In the legislature, Democrats held their majorities and picked up a seat, now controlling the legislature 38 to 25. The lawmakers would have appointed Berkley. Candidates who advocate legislative election of U.S. senators often seem a bit out of touch

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RN&R

by BoB Grimm

As we reach the midway point of 2014, the RN&R’s resident movie critic picks the year’s best and worst so far

nfortunately, this is one of those film years that the likes of me really fears. It’s come to be known as a Transformers year, a year when Michael Bay will punish those of us who don’t like trucks that change into robots all that much. Fortunately, this is also a movie year delivering a lot of unique, bizarre experiences. Some of the best films of the year so far are among the weirdest I’ve seen in a long time. They are also very good. With half the year behind us, here’s a list of this year’s best and worst so far. Take note: there are actually two movies worse than Transformers this year. This means there are movies making the rounds that can cause your eyeballs to rot out of your head, so make sure your health care covers eye maladies.

1. The Grand BudapesT hoTel : Writer-director Wes Anderson still hasn’t made a bad movie, and this hilarious showcase for Ralph Fiennes is one of his best. Fiennes plays M. Gustave, concierge

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at the hotel of the movie’s title, and he delivers an eternally hilarious performance without once trying to get a laugh. He just gets them, and he gets them good. As for Anderson, this movie has a little bit of everything that makes him such a blast to watch. Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Jeff Goldblum and other Anderson regulars all chip in.

2. edGe of Tomorrow : This is the sort of awesomeness James Cameron used to turn out before he got obsessed with blue aliens. Tom Cruise is his usual ass-kicking self, and also very funny, as a soldier caught in a time loop where he dies … and dies … and dies. It’s ingeniously clever and all kinds of fun. 3. under The skin : This haunting and original work from Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast) is seriously messed up. There are things in this movie I wish I had never seen, but I will probably see them again because I now own the film and will surely watch it numerous times whenever I need a good freak-out. It’s strange, the things we do to ourselves.

4. life iTself : It’s quite fitting that one of the last things the great film critic Roger Ebert did is take part in an excellent documentary of his life. I imagine he and his partnerin-crime Gene Siskel would’ve given this one an enthusiastic thumbs up. It gives us a beautiful oversight of his whole life, and also provides a nice testament to the courage and joy he mustered when facing death. Both Siskel and Ebert left us way too soon.

5. Cold in July : A great Southern fried thriller that just came out of nowhere, starring Sam Shepard, Michael C. Hall and Don Johnson in a constantly surprising film. It’s a movie that shifts gears a lot, especially in its final, gonzo act. Shepard has never been this good in a movie, Hall is a revelation, and Johnson is simply badass. 6. BorGman : Herein lies a disturbing, horrifying, funny movie about gender and social roles, marital strife and infidelity that will make you scratch your head, laugh out loud and squirm in your seat. The film starts with Camiel (Jan Bijvoet), a vagrant living underground in the woods, being hunted by an angry priest. It goes absolutely batshit from there,

and is sure to please those who like their movies a little complicated and strange.

7. snowpierCer : Wow … there are some seriously weird films this year. This one from Joon-ho Bong, the director of The Host (the cool monster movie—not the Saoirse Ronan P.O.S.) has the survivors of the human race after a snow apocalypse, led by Chris Evans, living on a train. It sounds nuts, and it is nuts. Let it also be said that Tilda Swinton is doing some wacky roles this year. Her heavy makeup characters in this and The Grand Budapest Hotel prove she doesn’t give a crap what she looks like onscreen.

8. alan parTridGe : Steve

young. An editing error had me calling this a 5-star movie in the print version of our paper. I didn’t think it was that good, but I do, indeed, think it’s very good.

10. Godzilla : Gareth Edwards delivered with his giant radioactive lizard movie, and thank god for that. If this movie had stunk, I would’ve been in serious trouble. I worked up a level of excitement for it that was unprofessional and ill-advised. The film isn’t perfect, but the payoffs are massive, and I can’t wait for the sequel. I want King Kong vs. Godzilla!

The worsT

Coogan finally brings his fictional entertainment character to the big screen (Well, mostly small screens via video on demand, but it did get a small theatrical release.) It’s a hostage comedy that works, thanks to Coogan’s spot-on performance. One of the year’s funniest movies.

While there have been some very good releases this year, I think I’ve already seen enough bad films in 2014 to fill two year-end top 10 bad lists. So … that would be, like, 20 awfully bad films. For the purposes of this article, I’ve whittled that list down to five exercises in wretchedness.

9. The faulT in our sTars :

Blended : Adam Sandler and Drew

Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort make for a winning screen couple in this sweetly moving look at dying

Barrymore re-team for an asinine, racist, garbage haul that is worse than Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Do you

“History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men. Godzilla!”

hear what I’m saying? This movie is worse than Don’t Mess With the Zohan!

Hide the children. Bolt down the furniture. Stock up on bottled water. The Apocalypse is imminent.

I, FrankensteIn : Aaron Eckhart, desperate for his own action franchise, probably hurt his chances of ever getting a headlining role again after appearing in this travesty. This mess reimagines Frankenstein’s monster as some sort of metrosexual immortal hipster who scowls a lot and wears a hoodie. Someone, somewhere, thought that a sexy, brooding Frankenstein’s monster would be a good idea. That particular someone should never be allowed to submit an idea on anything ever again, especially if that anything cost millions of dollars.

transcendence : Johnny Depp, that guy that used to make great movies, stars in what feels like a pale remake of The Lawnmower Man. It used to be that the release of a Depp movie meant something special was on the way. Nowadays, it means something akin to a farting, incontinent elephant is gracing the screen, and you had better be prepared to avert your eyes and pinch your nose.

transFormers: age oF extInctIon : And I looked, and beheld a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Michael Bay, and another freaking Transformers movie was following close behind him. And he was given authority over massive budgets to bring Hell to Earth. And he succeeded in godless fashion as a pestilence that took over the movie theaters. OPINION

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devIl’s knot : When I heard that Atom Egoyan was directing this movie about the West Memphis Three, I thought we were in for something interesting. Within the first few minutes of Reese Witherspoon’s pouting, lost performance, I knew I was in store for something really bad. Damien Echols, one of the West Memphis Three who spent years on Death Row for the murders of three children—murders he did not commit—disowned this film. I don’t blame him.

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July 17, 2014

Photo/Allison Young

Ladies who lunch

Dale (Ashley Marie James) and Wren (Sophie Moeller) can’t quite handle the delicious quiche.

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche Just call me Juanita. I spent 90 minutes with that name, by after one of the members of the Susan B. Jessica Santina Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein christened me by slapping a nametag across my chest as I entered the annual “meeting and quiche breakfast,” a.k.a. a preview performance of Brüka Theatre’s 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche. Every “member” was treated thusly, and given similarly old-fashioned monikers, e.g. Norma, Mildred and Edith—even the men. Each of us was greeted by the club’s offi5 lesbians Eating a cers (and director Sandra Brunell Neace), Quiche is presented at who thanked us for attending the meeting by Brüka theatre, 99. and dressing in such beautiful frocks. n. Virginia st., July 17, Then the officers called the meeting 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 31, and Aug. 1 and 2 to order, and away we went, with the 5 at 8 p.m., and July 27 Lesbians taking us—somewhat against our at 2 p.m. tickets are will—back to the seemingly sexually repres$20 general and $18 sive days of 1956. students/seniors in advance, or $25 at the Our officers are Wren (Sophie Moeller), door. For tickets, visit the events chair; Vern (Jamie Woodham), www.brownpaper in charge of buildings and grounds; Dale tickets.com. For more (Ashley Marie James), Wren’s assistant information, visit and, apparently, the club’s archivist; Ginny www.bruka.org.

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(Stacy Johnson), the secretary and newest member of the group; and, of course, President Lulie (Amy Ginder). The ladies, impeccably dressed in ’50s-era A-line dresses provided by Cynthia Lewis and Dressed Like That, called the meeting to order. Ginny, a plump English girl in horn-rimmed glasses, provided the evening’s agenda. Lulie, after her opening remarks, announced the winning quiche and brought us up to speed on the goings on since last year’s meeting. Vern said she’d updated the clubhouse with a state-of-theart security system—it is the Cold War, you know—as well as rations to last each person in attendance the duration of our stay in the makeshift bomb shelter, if it should come to that. It’s by far an improvement over the last person to hold this office—“Marjorie,” a man in attendance who had the misfortune of sitting front row center and took quite a beating from the officers! Then, the siren sounded. Was it a test, or was it actually the atomic bomb? Either way, we were all stuck together, thanks to Vern’s specially rigged, bomb-proof doors.

ART OF THE STATE

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And the stark realization hit that the quiche sitting on the table before them was the only quiche they would eat again. This is when things got a little out of hand. The ladies, usually models of decorum and restraint, started to show their true colors—which, in this case, were a rainbow. Yes, big shocker, the “sisters” were big ol’ lesbians. And so were we all … especially poor “Marjorie.” What I’m saying here is that you may need a drink or three before, or even during, this show. Expect dozens of hack lesbian clichés and vulgar jokes. Expect that you will laugh—hysterically, though occasionally you will groan, too—but

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also that you may just reach a point where the awkward innuendos and self-revelations grow tiresome, and you start to wonder, “What’s the meaning of all this? I enjoyed this short little play, a runaway success from the New York International Fringe Festival. I loved Ginder’s portrayal of Lulie, a buttoned-up society lady with a too-big smile to cover her little secret. Moeller’s contorted, overly pleased face is a work of art, and cleverly represents the mask that ladies of this era often had to wear. And I’ve loved everything I’ve seen Jamie Woodham do, but her Vern was especially funny. But despite its relatively short length, I could easily see a good 15-20 minutes being shaved off it, and after a while I found myself thinking, “Really? That old lesbian joke?” The pauses felt a beat too long, the jokes belabored a bit too much. Like I said, a few drinks may be in order here. But overall I enjoyed spending time as Juanita. I considered myself lucky; I could have been Marjorie. Ω

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RN&R

High notes Ti Amo Italian Grille Casino Fandango, 3800 S. Carson St., Carson City, 885-7000 It’s not often that I get to dine with a nationally recognized foodie, but one agreed to come with me to our capital by Dave Preston city providing I wouldn’t use his name—he said his publicist would have a fit. There’s great ambiance in this space, a large wine rack on one wall, a rustic country Italian décor, and great Italian arias playing at a complementary level, not blaring. It’s a complete menu ($14-$26) that includes a New York style pizza section ($7-$19) as well. Out came roasted garlic, pickled veggies and warm bread—great start to the Italian fare. Chef Patrick Nelson started us with Prawns Ti Amo ($5), jumbo butterflied prawns Photo/AlliSon Young

Chef Paco Perez cooks in the Ti Amo kitchen.

For more information, visit www.casino fandango.com/dining. html.

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that were hand breaded and pan fried and topped with a pomodoro scampi sauce. It reminded me of a warm brochette, but the succulent prawns added another flavor dimension. They had a family style salad ($11-$18) that sounded worth a try— butter lettuce, baby greens, cherry tomatoes, artichoke hearts, black olives, sweet red onions, roasted red peppers, white beans, salami, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. All fresh veggies—it was a meal in itself—and tossed in a house-made, slightly sweet and tangy vinaigrette.

It is a superb myriad of flavors and textures and, to tell the truth, dropping the salami would have made it one of the best salads I’ve had in a long time—not that I have anything against salami, but there was plenty of tastibles going on without it. For the entrée, my friend was all over the veal picatta ($22), and I tried the seafood lasagna ($20). My impetus was that one might not think of seafood and lasagna in the same sentence. The report on the veal was five stars. You could cut it with a fork, and the lemon, butter, caper and white wine sauce was a mangiare made in heaven. They used the giant, fresh caper berries, and the sides were also laudable—red and golden beets and capellini (angel hair) pasta with a marinara. The beets were a welcome change and masterfully prepared, savory, sweet and firm. The seafood lasagna was overthe-top. Fresh lasagna noodle layered with shrimp, lobster, scallops and crab—more than generous. All of it topped with one of the richest, creamiest Alfredo sauces I’ve ever tasted. Dessert meant the house-made cannolis and spumoni ice cream ($5). This Sicilian cannoli consisted of two tube-shaped shells of very lightly fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet, creamy but very light ricotta with a chocolate dip at each end. The spumoni was light green with the fruit. It was almost a gelato it was so creamy—bellissimo! This little place in Carson City has a great wine list, with more than half the labels great Italians. They offer 21 by-the-glass ($6.25-$12.75), and with the appetizer and salad, I had the Fontana Candida Frascali ($7.50). A pinot grigio grape, it’s a light, tasty white wine with a dry, crisp finish that’s built on a zesty citrus backbone. For the meal, I went with the Pio Cesare Barbera d’ Alba ($12.75). The Barbera grapes are grown in the Barolo area of the Piedmont region above Genoa, one of my very favorite grape regions of Italy. This wine has great structure, plummy and complex flavor, with spicy and ripe fruit, blackberry aroma and a hint of toasted tobacco. And as we were about to leave, the aria playing was Puccini’s Nessum dorma with the Three Tenors and the great climax with the high note that blows the roof off. A fitting way to end this Italian repast. Ω

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Itʼs happen ing in ACTIVITIES SILVER STATE 4WD & UTV JAMBOREE

enthusiasts. Th, 4-5:45PM, free. Spanish Springs Library, 7100A Pyramid Lake Highway (775) 424-1800

This week-long festival is dedicated to motorized recreation. Jeeps, UTVs, rock buggies, Toyota pickups and other off-road vehicles are invited to participate. M-Sa through 7/19. Opens 7/14 Wild West Motorsports Park, 12005 East Interstate 80. (775) 323-2977

CLICKETS KNITTING GROUP

ONE IS SILVER, THE OTHER IS GOLD

SCHEELS RUNNING CLUB

This special NV150 exhibit celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Nevada Arts Council’s Folklife Apprenticeship Program. It features 22 award-winning Nevada artists from the indigenous Paiute, Shoshone and Washoe peoples and the skilled ranchers, miners, loggers and railroad workers who have long been a part of the state’s history. Tu, Th, F, 11AM-4PM through 7/29 and Sa, 1-4PM through 7/29, $5 adults; free for museum members and children under age 12. Sparks Heritage Museum, 814 Victorian Ave. (775) 355-1144

Run with expert pacers and enjoy running in a group Tu, 6:30PM through 12/9, free. Scheels, 1200 Scheels Dr. (775) 331-2700

SHIRLEY’S SPARKS FARMERS’ MARKET This 22nd annual farmers’ market features fresh local produce, arts and crafts, specialty foods, prepared foods and children’s activities. Th, 3-8PM through 7/24 and Th, 3-8PM through 8/21, free. Victorian Square, Victorian Ave

SCHEELS KIDS KLUB: ARCHERY 101 Join the Scheels Archery Expert to learn how to shoot a bow! Meet in the archery department. All kids will receive a FREE ride on Scheels Ferris Wheel. M, 7/21, 6PM, free. Scheels, 1200 Scheels Dr., (775) 331-2700

RENO SKI AND RECREATION CLUB

This class is for knitters of all ages and levels. Yarn and needles are available. First and Third Su of every month, 1:30-3PM, free. Spanish Springs Library, 7100A Pyramid Lake Highway, Spanish Springs (775) 424-1800

FOUR SEASONS BOOK CLUB

Sa, 7/19, 9:30PM, no cover. Sidelines Bar & Nightclub, 1237 Baring Blvd. (775) 355-1030

METAL ECHO - “WE’RE BACK” SHOW! It’s been a while since we’ve played at one of our favorite spots, Sidelines Bar in Sparks! F, 7/25, 9:30PM, no cover. Sidelines Bar & Nightclub, 1237 Baring Blvd. (775) 3551030

BIKINI BULL RIDING DJ and Bikini Bull Riding Competition. Su, 5 & 9PM through 12/28, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

A SINGERS-SONGWRITERS SHOWCASE Bring you, your instrument and your song. We look forward to hearing and seeing you there! Th, 8PM through 12/18, no cover. Paddy & Irene’s Irish Pub, 906-A Victorian Ave. (775) 358-5484

LIVE MUSIC & LATE NIGHT DJ Live music with late-night DJ. F, 5PM-2AM & 7-11PM through 12/26, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

LIVE JAZZ Vocal and instrumental jazz from “The Great American Songbook”, performed by First Take featuring Rick (SAX) Metz. Fridays, 6PM, no cover. Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen, 1180 Scheels Dr. (775) 657-8659

The book club meets the ﬁrst Saturday of each month. Call to ﬁnd out each month’s book title. First Sa of every month, 1-2PM, free. Sparks Library, 1125 12th St. (775) 352-3200

LOCALS NIGHT

CONVERSATION CAFE

LIVE MONDAYS WITH TANY JANE

BILL DAVIS

Open mic night every Monday at 8PM, hosted by Tany Jane. M, 8PM, no cover. Sidelines Bar & Nightclub, 1237 Baring Blvd. (775) 355-1030

Sa, 6PM, no cover. Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen, 1180 Scheels Dr. (775) 657-8659

LIVE MUSIC & LATE NIGHT DJ

CLASSIC ROCK NIGHT

Live music with late-night DJ. Sa, 5PM-2AM & 7PMmidnight through 12/27, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

The drop-in conversation program meets on the ﬁrst Saturday of each month, 2-4PM, free. Sparks Library, 1125 12th St. (775) 352-3200

PERFORMANCE AND MUSIC RUSTLERS’ HEAT Th, 7/17, 7PM, F, 7/18, 7PM and Sa, 7/19, 7PM, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

JASON KING Th, 7/17, 7PM, no cover. Great Basin Brewing Co., 846 Victorian Ave. (775) 355-7711

ALIAS SMITH

The Reno Ski and Recreation Club holds its general meeting. Hear the most current information about the Reno Ski & Recreation Club’s upcoming activities. Second Tu of every month, 6PM, free. Cantina Los Tres Hombres, 926 Victorian Ave (775) 3566262

F, 7/18, 9:30PM, no cover. Sidelines Bar & Nightclub, 1237 Baring Blvd. (775) 355-1030

CROCHET CONNECTION

Sa, 7/19, 8PM, no cover. Great Basin Brewing Co., 846 Victorian Ave. (775) 355-7711

Learn to crochet or share tips with other crochet

ZERO JONES BAND

JEFF ROWAN F, 7/18, 8PM, no cover. Great Basin Brewing Co., 846 Victorian Ave. (775) 355-7711

BOURGEOIS GYPSIES

Locals Night, DJ. M, 5PM through 12/29, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

Classic rock night with DJ. Tu, 5PM through 12/30, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

OPEN JAM WITH TAZER & FRIENDS W, 8PM, no cover. Sidelines Bar & Nightclub, 1237 Baring Blvd. (775) 355-1030

LADIES NIGHT & TOUGHEST COWBOY Ladies Night w/live music and Toughest Cowboy Competition. DJ breaks until midnight. W, 7 & 9PM through 12/31, no cover. John Ascuaga’s Nugget, 1100 Nugget Ave. (775) 356-3300

KARAOKE KARAOKE WITH BOBBY DEE Tu, 8PM, no cover. Morelli’s G Street Saloon, 2285 G St. (775) 355-8281

KARAOKE Th-Sa, 9PM, no cover. Bottom’s Up Saloon, 1923 Prater Way (775) 359-3677

ERIKA PAUL Enjoy Louisiana-style food and the soulful, breathtaking jazz sounds of Erika Paul on keyboards and vocals. Th, 6PM, no cover. Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen, 1180 Scheels Dr. (775) 657-8659

RN&R

Monkey shines

22 Jump Street

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes The motion-capture apes take another step toward world domination in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a film just as good as its predecessor, and certainly a step forward when it comes to pure, unadulterated ass-kicking ape action. The movie picks up 10 years after a well meaning doctor played by James Franco first shot an experimental drug into a chimp by and unintentionally initiated the end of the Bob Grimm human race. Caesar (Andy Serkis doing his motion-capture best) leads a group of genetibgrimm@ newsreview.c om cally modified apes in the redwoods near the Golden Gate Bridge. Life is good, and the humans have seemingly disappeared thanks to the Simian Flu brought on by the Franco character’s experiments.

"I hate every ape I see, from chimpan-a to chimpanzee!"

1 Poor

2 Fair

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As it turns out, some humans have survived, led by Gary Oldman’s frustrated Dreyfus, who fears the humans will run out of fuel for their generators. There’s a chance for some hydraulic power via a dam in the woods, a dam that just happens to be near the apes’ compound. A band of humans, led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke) sets out to repair the dam, stumbles upon the apes, and those apes aren’t happy to see them. While Caesar has a few positive memories of humans to go with the bad ones, others are 100 percent justifiably pissed at mankind. Koba (Toby Kebbell), who figured prominently in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, isn’t too happy about his days as a lab experiment. He has no interest in a peaceful existence with humans, and he’s going to do some pretty nasty stuff to ensure acrimony. This not only creates discord between apes and humans, but ape on ape feuding as well.

excellent

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Everything leads up to an exciting battle between apes and humans in San Francisco, with a decaying Golden Gate Bridge figuring prominently in the action, and the blessed sight of Koba blasting away astride a horse with machine guns in both hands. While this installment isn’t as strong with the human element (Franco rocked in Rise), the action in Dawn is far superior. One of the cooler aspects of the film is that you can’t help but feel bad for Koba, with his clouded-over eye and surgical scars. No amount of compassionately delivered optimism from Caesar will ease Koba’s mind. He’s out to mulch some humans and take no prisoners, and his vengeful mannerisms are understandable. This makes him a great, compelling villain. Clarke, who was awesome in Zero Dark Thirty, holds his own among his motion-capture colleagues. Keri Russell (who worked with director Matt Reeves years ago on TV’s Felicity) does decent supporting work as the soothing companion with some first aid knowhow. Oldman is his typical frantic self as a human with an ax to grind—his character, like many others, lost his family to the Simian Flu. I caught the film in 3-D, and I couldn’t help but notice things seemed a little dark. My first instinct was that the filmmakers were cheating a bit by making things dark so they could cut some corners on the ape CGI. However, when I lifted my glasses, the images did look a bit brighter. Skipping 3-D might be the way to go for Dawn. Reeves, who directed Cloverfield, Let Me In and the vastly underrated The Pallbearer, proves a more than ample choice for the Apes job. He’s already been announced for the sequel, due two years from now. It’ll be interesting to see where the Apes franchise goes next. I’m holding out hope that it’ll jump many years into the future, with the Icarus spacecraft returning to Earth to make some startling discoveries. Icarus was the ship Charlton Heston rode in the 1968 original, and it was mentioned in Rise during some background news footage and newspaper headlines. The return of Icarus would be many kinds of awesome. Ω

Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, an unlikely duo if there ever was one, basically repeat the same steps of their very funny 21 Jump Street, and they do it in a way that keeps things fresh while knowingly recycling the same plot. This film acknowledges what it is, a run-of-themill sequel, for its entire running time. It’s a selfmocking technique that works well thanks to its stars and the deft comic direction of returning directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who are on a roll, having also directed this year’s The Lego Movie. This one picks up where the first film left off, with Captain Dickson (Ice Cube in serious comic overdrive) assigning Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) to college. In college, they will do exactly what they did undercover in the first movie: Infiltrate the dealers, find the supplier. They get the laughs the same way, through Hill’s self-deprecating, rat-a-tat delivery, and Tatum’s dumb lug shtick. It worked well the first time, and it works well again.

Edge of Tomorrow

In the future, Earth is fighting a crazed, vicious alien force that’s shredding our armies with little effort. Tom Cruise plays Cage, an armed forces officer who serves more as a public relations man than anybody who belongs on a battlefield. After a publicity tour, he sits down with a hard-nosed general (a cold Brendan Gleeson) and finds out he's going into battle. Cage is justifiably terrified, and his first taste of battle doesn’t go well, and he’s killed in especially gruesome fashion. For reasons I won’t give away, he instantly wakes up after his death, transported back to a moment shortly after his meeting with the general, and before the battle that will take his life. Cage is in a seriously messed up situation. He starts repeating the same day, and dying every time. He does his best to change that outcome, but he always winds up meeting a grisly death and waking up in the same place. He eventually comes into contact with Rita (Emily Blunt), the military’s poster girl for the perfect soldier. By repeating days with Rita, Cage starts to build himself up as a soldier, discover secrets about the enemy, and increasing life longevity chances for himself and mankind. The film’s handling of this situation is thrilling and even funny, thanks to Cruise’s strong performance and nice direction by Doug Liman (Swingers, The Bourne Identity). It will easily stand as one of 2014’s best.

Life Itself

Roger Ebert saw a lot of documentaries during his reign as the world’s most renowned movie critic. It’s only fitting that one of the last things he did in his life was take part in a documentary that will certainly stand as one of 2014’s best. This gives us the full story on Ebert, retelling the days before he started writing about movies for a living, his Pulitzer Prize-winning career as a critic, and his painful, yet amazingly graceful, last days. Director Steve James had permission to film Ebert in his hospital rooms as he battled cancer. It’s hard to watch what he’s going through, but it’s inspiring to see how Ebert handled his obstacles. Oh sure, James probably shows us some of the more pleasant, upbeat footage, but Ebert’s passion for life was a most genuine one, and no trick editing is required to show us that. The film touches upon two very important partnerships in Ebert’s life: his marriage to Chaz Ebert—who appears often in the film—and his work with the late Gene Siskel. While watching the movie, it seems as if Roger Ebert is narrating, but the voice is that of an impressionist named Stephen Stanton. The resemblance is incredible, as if Roger somehow found his voice again in time to tell us his story. This is sweet, scary, funny, sad and surprisingly entertaining and uplifting. It’s also revealing (I didn’t know he was an alcoholic), uncompromising (some of the medical moments are very hard to watch), and brutally honest. While I give it my highest endorsement, I think Ebert would’ve given it 3 and a half stars out of 4. Hey—he was a tough critic. (Available on VOD, Amazon.com and iTunes during limited theatrical release.)

Maleficent

Angelina Jolie plays the title character, the infamous horned villain from Sleeping Beauty. There’s a little bit of revisionist history here, with Maleficent portrayed as more of a fallen angel rather than a straight up baddie. The whole thing almost works because Jolie is damned good in this film, especially when the script allows for her to bellow curses and just act devilish. It gets a little sleepy at times

when it deals with, well, Sleeping Beauty (Elle Fanning), the young woman who stands to have a very bad 16th birthday thanks to a Maleficent curse. Jolie has a creepy getup that I thought would bother me, but I kind of liked looking at it after a while. It’s the world surrounding her that I found a bit pedestrian. Director Robert Stromberg worked as a production designer on films like Alice in Wonderland, Avatar and Oz the Great and Powerful. I didn’t like any of those movies and, in the end, I don’t really like this one. At this point in watching Stromberg’s work, I’m just not taken by his weird visual worlds. They put me off for some reason, and have a choppy pop-up book feel to them. On the plus side, it is better than Alice and Oz, and perhaps even Avatar. On the negative side, it’s still not all that good.

Tammy

Having co-written this movie, Melissa McCarthy can take a lot of the blame for yet another bad comedy featuring her playing an uninteresting mess of a human being. She stars as the title character, a fast food worker who wrecks her car, gets fired and finds out her husband (Nat Faxon) is having an affair in the same day. She winds up hitting the road with her alcohol-swilling, diabetic grandma (Susan Sarandon), and virtually nothing works as far as laughs are concerned. McCarthy and Ben Falcone’s script (Falcone also directs) tries to mine laughs out of grandma being a trashy party girl and Tammy eating too much pie. It wastes the talents of everybody involved, including Gary Cole as a philandering barfly and Mark Duplass as Tammy’s love interest. When Tammy holds up her former burger joint employer, it’s almost funny, but most of that scene was covered in the preview trailer. McCarthy can be hilarious—her best film moment may always be the outtake during the This is 40 credits—but she can also be tedious as she is in this and last year’s Identity Thief. Her next film is St. Vincent co-starring Bill Murray, a film that will hopefully erase this one from our memories.

Third Person

It’s been 10 years since writer-director Paul Haggis won some Oscars for Crash, a good but overrated movie. That film had a bunch of storylines weaving together, and gave some good actors decent showcases. It also seemed to set the stage for a promising directorial career. Haggis has yet to capitalize on his Oscar triumph. His latest probably won’t do much to change that. It’s a respectable but divisive effort that will confound a lot of viewers the way Cameron Crowe’s complex and unjustly maligned Vanilla Sky did. It tries to do a lot, and it doesn’t succeed on all fronts. Some will see it as a train wreck, whereas I see it as a flawed but reputable effort. It’s a puzzle movie with Michael (Liam Neeson), a struggling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, as its centerpiece. His tempestuous lover Anna (Olivia Wilde) comes to visit him in Paris. The two have a strange, sadomasochistic relationship that will be explained. The reasons are a bit preposterous, but they make sense in context. There are two other story arcs featuring Adrien Brody, Mila Kunis and James Franco. The stories tie together with one of those big movie twists that will either make or break the picture for you. I liked the twist, but I wouldn’t argue with you if you hated it.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Director Michael Bay seems to be taunting his haters at this point, employing all of those things that sicken his detractors, and cranking everything up to disgusting levels. Replacing Shia LaBeouf is Mark Wahlberg. He plays Cade Yeager, a crazy robot inventor living on a farm with his smoking hot daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz). After inadvertently buying Optimus Prime from an old guy at an abandoned movie theater (yep!), Yeager and his daughter wind up fighting alongside the Autobots as they battle an evil race of American-made Autobot clones courtesy of a Steve Jobs-like mogul (Stanley Tucci). The movie is a billion hours long, and none of those hours are ever any good. Some of the visuals pop, but you won’t care because you will be glazed over by the time most of the big action kicks up. If you should choose to see this one, make sure all of your bills are paid, and you’ve winter-proofed your house before you sit down, because you aren’t getting out of that theater for a very long time.

But seriously, folks The Morris Burner Hotel Folk Festival Have you noticed the number of banjos on the radio lately? Those, along with fiddles and acoustic guitars have by Fil Corbitt seemed to dominate pop music lately. Between the omnipresence of Mumford and Sons’ last hit single and the word “hey!” that Lumineers seem to be constantly yelling from every chain restaurant speaker, the so-called folk revival is unavoidable. Reno’s music scene is no exception to the national wave of folk stylings. And like many genres, with a density of bands in the same place, it calls for a relatively centralized hub. In this case, a festival. Photo/Brad Bynum

crosspollinate scenes with similar foundations. However, it’s not only various folk subgenres the festival is meant to transcend. Since it will be held at the Morris Burner Hotel, Marlene hopes that it will bridge the gap between the Reno folk and Burner communities too. When you think about Burning Man music, there’s a good chance you jump to, “oonce oonce oonce,” “wha wha” triplets, or “boom,” followed by an air brake release valve. The accordion probably isn’t at the top of the list. “I love the electronic music, but folk music also works on a philosophical level with Burning Man,” says Marlene. “Folk is about discussing ideas, and sharing them with a community.” The folk festival is not directly associated with Burning Man, but Marlene hopes to mobilize Reno’s Burner community to a type of event that they might not normally frequent, in a location they might. In addition to donating 20 percent of the profits to the homeless shelter next door, The Morris Burner Hotel Folk Festival is a tribute to the recently passed Pete Seeger. Each band has been asked to cover one of his songs. Seeger’s grassroots activism, Marlene says, is a solid fit with the festival’s politics. “We live in an overloaded, overengineered, corporate culture and both folk and Burning Man are all a direct response to that. … You can hear the rebellion of the human heart coming through.” That’s a feeling both communities can agree on, she says. The festival will be held on one outdoor stage, but Marlene emphasizes the efforts being made to create a comfortable mid-summer outdoor event. There will be plenty of shade, misting tents, couches and good spots to set up lawn chairs and blankets. The folk festival is a commendable event for cultivating a community in Reno, and, most of all, for not using “folk” to pun on the word “fuck” in the event’s name. Ω

The Morris Burner Hotel Folk Festival, to take place July 18-20, seems to be a fairly comprehensive bill of new and old folk alike. “Sometimes what we do gets lost in bars, and we’ve been trying to get away from the one acoustic person that opens up the show type thing.” says Josiah Knight, a local singersongwriter and organizer of the folk festival. The folk scene needs more intentional shows, he says, where people are there specifically to hear the music. The three-day weekend festival will be host to 25 bands with varying flavors of folkiness, from indie to bluegrass. The diversity in folk sub-genres is intentional. Jill Marlene, another organizer of the festival, hopes to interest older fans to hear younger people play, and vice versa, in an attempt to

Festival organizers Josiah Knight and Jill Marlene at the Morris Burner Hotel. the morris Burner hotel Folk Festival is July 18-20 at the morris Burner hotel, 400 E. Fourth St., 327-1171. July 18 is dedicated to “Indie folk,” progressive folk sounds. Saturday will include more familiar folk music, with the theme “Back to the ’60s,” and 1960s folk attire is encouraged. Sunday is “Bluegrass and Beyond,” which includes Celtic folk. For more information, visit http://morris burnerhotel.com/ folkfestival $15 for one day or $35 for a three-day pass.

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JULY 17, 2014

RN&R

THURSDAY 7/17

FRIDAY 7/18

SATURDAY 7/19

125 W. Third St., (775) 323-5005

Blues jam w/Blue Haven, 9:30pm, no cover

Rise Up, 9pm, no cover

Suspect Zero, 9:30pm, no cover

DG Kicks, 9pm, Tu, no cover

5 STAR SALOON

Karaoke, 10pm, no cover

DJ Boogi, 10pm, no cover before 10pm, $5 after

Open Mic w/Steve Elegant, 7pm, Tu, karaoke, 10pm, Tu, W, no cover

Our Devices, Wings To Save, Donkey Jaw, Love Like Wes, 8pm, $6

Sisters Doom, Countress, Drag Me Under, Screaming Meg, 8:30pm, 5

Golden Guns Tattoo Summer Party, 7pm, no cover

People Under the Stairs, The Halve Two, Traj Hardie, Flatline, 8:30pm, Tu, $15-$17

3RD STREET

132 West St., (775) 329-2878

THE ALLEY

906 Victorian Ave., Sparks; (775) 358-8891

SUNDAY 7/20

BAR-M-BAR

Old Man Markley July 18, 7 p.m. Jub Jub’s Thirst Parlor 71 S. Wells Ave. 384-1652

Monday Night Open Mic, 8pm, M, no cover

816 Highway 40 West, Verdi; (775) 351-3206

CARGO AT WHITNEY PEAK HOTEL

Mojo Green, The Nibblers, 9pm, $7

255 N. Virginia St., (775) 398-5400

CEOL IRISH PUB

Amuma Says No, 9pm, no cover

538 S. Virginia St., (775) 329-5558

CHAPEL TAVERN

1099 S. Virginia St., (775) 324-2244

Sonic Mass w/DJ Tigerbunny, 7pm, no cover

COMMA COFFEE

Comedy

312 S. Carson St., Carson City; (775) 883-2662

3rd Street, 125 W. Third St., 323-5005: Comedy Night & Improv w/Patrick Shillito, W, 9pm, no cover

DAVIDSON’S DISTILLERY

COTTONWOOD RESTAURANT & BAR 10142 Rue Hilltop, Truckee; (530) 587-5711

Catch a Rising Star, Silver Legacy, 407 N. Virginia St., 329-4777: Roundboy Jimmy Graham, Th, Su, 7:30pm, $15.95; F, 7:30pm, 10pm, $15.95; Sa, 7:30pm, 10pm, $17.95; Andrew Kennedy, Tu-W, 7:30pm, $15.95 The Improv at Harveys Cabaret, Harveys Lake Tahoe, Stateline, (800) 553-1022: Flip Schultz, Suli McCullough, Th, Th-F, Su, 9pm, $25; Sa, 8pm, 10pm, $30, Scott Record, Ronnie Schell, W, 9pm, $25 Reno-Tahoe Comedy at Pioneer Underground, 100 S. Virginia St., 686-6600: Geechy Guy, F, 7pm; Sa, 6:30pm, 9:30pm, $12, $15 The Utility Players, F, 9:30pm, $14, $17

235 W. Second St., (775) 324-4255

Serina Dawn Trio, 6pm, no cover

Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover

FUEGO

Good Friday with rotating DJs, 10pm, no cover

The After Eights, 6pm, no cover

Paul Covarelli, 6pm, no cover

Adrenaline, 9:30pm, no cover

Seeing Eye Dogs, 9:30pm, no cover

Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover

Karaoke with Miranda Panda, 9pm, no cover

4395 W. Fourth St., (775) 747-8848

The Writer’s Block Open Mic, 6:30pm, no cover

Reno Music Project Open Mic, 6:30pm, no cover

GREAT BASIN BREWING CO.

Jason King, 7pm, no cover

Jeff Rowan, 8pm, no cover

846 Victorian Ave., Sparks; (775) 355-7711

RN&R

JULY 17, 2014

Karaoke w/Nitesong Productions, 9pm, Tu, Open Mic/Ladies Night, 8:30pm, W, no cover Karaoke with Lisa Lisa, 9pm, no cover

Karaoke w/Andrew, 9pm, no cover

HARRY’S SPORTS BAR & GRILL

DJ and karaoke, 9pm, no cover

1100 E. Plumb Ln., (775) 828-7665

CW and Mr. Spoons, noon, M, no cover

Karaoke w/Lisa Lisa, 9pm, M, W, no cover karaoke w/Miss Sophie, 9pm, Tu, no cover

Bourgeois Gypsies, 8pm, no cover

8545 N. Lake Blvd., Kings Beach; (530) 546-0300

9825 S. Virginia St., (775) 622-8878

Traditional Irish Tune Session, 7pm, Tu, no cover

Wildflower Comedy Power Hour Open Mic, 8:30pm, Tu, no cover

THE GRID BAR & GRILL

HELLFIRE SALOON

Post show s online by registering at www.newsr eview.com /reno. Dea dline is the Friday befo re publication .

Live flamenco guitar music, 5:30pm, no cover

170 S. Virginia St., (775) 322-1800

THE GOLDEN ROSE CAFE AT WILDFLOWER VILLAGE

Gnarly Pints, 9pm, no cover

World Dance Open Floor w/Starr Nixdorf, 8pm, no cover

275 E. Fourth St., (775) 324-1917

EL CORTEZ LOUNGE

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 7/21-7/23

J2, 8pm, no cover

Los Pistoleros, 9pm, no cover

Bass Heavy, 9pm, W, $TBA

Open mic, 7pm, no cover Goin Country, 8pm, W, no cover

THURSDAY 7/17

FRIDAY 7/18

SATURDAY 7/19

SUNDAY 7/20

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 7/21-7/23

HIMMEL HAUS

Open Mic Night, 9pm, M, no cover Trivia Night, 9pm, W, no cover

3819 Saddle Rd., South Lake Tahoe; (530) 314-7665

THE HOLLAND PROJECT

Whitebulbs, Busking for Moonlight, Hopelessly Hopeful, Bat Country, 7:30pm, $5

140 Vesta St., (775) 742-1858

Expire, Harm’s Way, Suburban Scum, 7:30pm, $10

JAVA JUNGLE

Outspoken: Open Mic Night, 7pm, M, no cover

246 W. First St., (775) 329-4484

JAZZ, A LOUISIANA KITCHEN

First Take featuring Rick Metz, 6pm, no cover

Erika Paul, 6pm, no cover

1180 Scheels Dr., Sparks; (775) 657-8659

JUB JUB’S THIRST PARLOR

Expire

Bill Davis, 6pm, no cover

1) Old Man Markley, Frankie Boots and the Country Line, 7pm, $10-$15

71 S. Wells Ave., (775) 384-1652 1) Showroom 2) Bar Room

KNITTING FACTORY CONCERT HOUSE

Avenue Q, 8pm, $25-$160

PADDY & IRENE’S IRISH PUB

Acoustic Wonderland, 8pm, no cover

POLO LOUNGE

DJ Steve Starr, 8pm, no cover

211 N. Virginia St., (775) 323-5648

906-A Victorian Ave., Sparks; (775) 358-5484 1559 S. Virginia St., (775) 322-8864

2) End of the Line, Battalion of Saints, Out For War, 7pm, $10

Avenue Q, 8pm, $25-$160

Gemini, 9pm, no cover

July 19, 7:30 p.m. The Holland Project 140 Vesta St. 742-1858

1) Blazin Mics!, 10pm, M, no cover

Avenue Q, 2pm, 8pm, $25-$160

Richie Ballerini, 8pm, W, no cover

RED DOG SALOON

Open Mic Night, 7pm, W, no cover

76 N. C St., Virginia City; (775) 847-7474

RUBEN’S CANTINA

Karaoke, 8pm, no cover

1483 E. Fourth St., (775) 622-9424

Hip Hop Open Mic, 10pm, W, no cover

RYAN’S SALOON

Bourgeois Gypsies

Live jazz, 7:30pm, W, no cover

924 S. Wells Ave., (775) 323-4142

SE7EN TEAHOUSE/BAR

Bluegrass/Americana Open Performance Jam, 7pm, no cover

148 West St., (775) 284-3363

SIDELINES BAR & NIGHTCLUB

Alias Smith, 9:30pm, no cover

1237 Baring Blvd., Sparks; (775) 355-1030

ST. JAMES INFIRMARY

445 California Ave., (775) 657-8484

STUDIO ON 4TH

Zero Jones, 9:30pm, no cover

Tuesday Jam and Open Mic w/Davis Nothere, 8:30pm, Tu, no cover

Dance party, 9pm, no cover

Tuesday Night Trivia, 8pm, Tu, no cover

Karaoke w/Rock N’J Entertainment, 8pm, no cover

Koolwater Karaoke, 7pm, W, no cover

July 19, 8 p.m. Great Basin Brewing Co. 846 Victorian Ave. Sparks 355-7711

An Evening With Todd Ballowe and Friends, 7:30pm, no cover

432 E. Fourth St., (775) 410-5993

VASSAR LOUNGE

1545 Vassar St., (775) 348-7197

WILD RIVER GRILLE

Tany Jane, 6:30pm, no cover

17 S. Virginia St., (775) 284-7455

Eric Anderson, Joel Ackerson, 6:30pm, no cover

Erika Paul Carlson, 6:30pm, no cover

Eric Anderson, 2pm, Tyler Stafford, 6:30pm, no cover

Tany Jane, 6:30pm, M, Joel Ackerson, 6:30pm, Tu, Verbal Kint, 6:30pm, W, no cover

Recycle this paper

Friday 7/18 Pre-Basque Festival Celebration with Music by

Amuma Says No Saturday 7/19

Steampunk Stroll with Music by Gnarly Pints

Happy Hour

3pm - 7pm Daily $3 Premium Pints Well Drinks Iced Irish Coffee

Fridays

At Idlewild Park 5pm-9pm Cold Beer & Beverages By The Thirst Relief Unit A.K.A. “Ceol T.R.U.” 538 S. Virginia St. @ California Ave. ceolirishpub.com Facebook “f ” Logo

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JULY 17, 2014

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ATLANTIS CASINO RESORT SPA 3800 S. Virginia St., (775) 825-4700 1) Grand Ballroom Stage 2) Cabaret

THURSDAY 7/17

FRIDAY 7/18

SATURDAY 7/19

SUNDAY 7/20

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 7/21-7/23

2) Palmore Brothers, 8pm, no cover

2) Palmore Brothers, 4pm, Kick, 10pm, no cover

2) Kick, 8pm, no cover

2) Midnight Riders, 8pm, M, Tu, W, no cover

2) Decades, 8pm, no cover

2) Petty Theft, 8pm, no cover

2) George Pickard, 6pm, no cover

2) George Pickard, 6pm, M, Tu, W, no cover

2) Sneaky Creatures, 10pm, no cover

1) Tainted Love, 9pm, $25

1) Dance Inferno, 7pm, $25.95-$39.95 2) Audioboxx, 10:30pm, no cover 3) Live piano, jazz, 4:30pm, no cover

1) Dance Inferno, 7pm, $25.95-$39.95 2) Audioboxx, 10:30pm, no cover 3) Live piano, jazz, 4:30pm, no cover 4) Jamie Rollins, 10pm, no cover

1) Dance Inferno, 7pm, 9:30pm, $25.95-$39.95 1) Dance Inferno, 7pm, $25.95-$39.95 2) Audioboxx, 10:30pm, no cover 2) Audioboxx, 10:30pm, no cover 3) Live piano, jazz, 4:30pm, no cover 3) Live piano, jazz, 4:30pm, no cover 4) Jamie Rollins, 10pm, no cover

1) Dance Inferno, 7pm, Tu, W, $25.95-$39.95 2) Live Band Karaoke, 10pm, M, DJ Chris English, 10pm, Tu, Garage Boys, 10:30pm, W, no cover

1) Masters of Magic, 8pm, $10-$20

1) Kenny Loggins and Blue Sky Riders, 9pm, $25-$65 2) Lex Nightclub Fridays w/DJ Rick Gee, 10pm, $15-$30

1) Masters of Magic, 8pm, $10-$20 2) Lex Nightclub Saturdays w/DJ Enfo, 1) Masters of Magic, 8pm, $10-$20 10pm, $15-$30 3) County Social Saturdays w/DJ Jamie G, 10pm, no cover

1) Masters of Magic, 8pm, Tu, W, $10-$20

1) Broadway Showstoppers, 8pm, $33.40-$42.40 2) DJ, 10pm, no cover 3) David Patrone, 8pm, no cover

1) Broadway Showstoppers, 8pm, $33.40-$42.40 2) DJ, 10pm, no cover 3) David Patrone, 8pm, no cover 4) Keyser Soze, 6pm, no cover

1) Broadway Showstoppers, 8pm, M, W, $33.40-$42.40

CARSON VALLEY INN

2) Decades, 7pm, no cover 1627 Hwy. 395, Minden; (775) 782-9711 1) Valley Ballroom 2) Cabaret Lounge 3) TJ’s Corral

CRYSTAL BAY CLUB

Tainted Love

14 Hwy. 28, Crystal Bay; (775) 833-6333 1) Crown Room 2) Red Room

July 19, 9 p.m. Crystal Bay Club 14 Highway 28 833-6333

ELDORADO RESORT CASINO

345 N. Virginia St., (775) 786-5700 1) Showroom 2) Brew Brothers 3) Roxy’s Bar & Lounge 4) Stadium Bar

GRAND SIERRA RESORT

2500 E. Second St., (775) 789-2000 1) Grand Theater 2) Lex Nightclub 3) Sports Book 4) Cantina 5) The Beach

HARRAH’S RENO

Karaoke

1) Broadway Showstoppers, 219 N. Center St., (775) 788-2900 8pm, $33.40-$42.40 1) Sammy’s Showroom 2) The Zone 3) Sapphire Lounge 4) Plaza 5) Convention Center

Elbow Room Bar, 2002 Victorian Ave., Sparks, 359-3526: Th, 7pm, no cover Hangar Bar, 10603 Stead Blvd., Stead, 677-7088: Karaoke Kat, Sa, 9pm, no cover

HARVEYS LAKE TAHOE

1) Carrie Underwood, 8pm, $89.50-$175.50

18 Hwy. 50, Stateline; (775) 588-6611 1) Outdoor Arena 2) Cabo Wabo Cantina Lounge

JOHN ASCUAGA’S NUGGET

3) DJ/dancing, 5pm, Rustlers’ Heat,

Murphy’s Law Irish Pub, 180 W. Peckham Lane, Ste. 1070, 823-9977: Steve Starr Karaoke, F, 9pm, no cover

1100 Nugget Ave., Sparks; (775) 356-3300 7pm, no cover 1) Celebrity Showroom 2) Rose Ballroom 3) Gilley’s

Ponderosa Saloon, 106 South C St., Virginia City, 847-7210: Steel Rockin’ Karaoke, F, 7:30pm, no cover

55 Hwy. 50, Stateline; (800) 648-3353 1) Theatre 2) Opal 3) Blu 4) Outdoor Event Center 5) The Zone

MONTBLEU RESORT

Spiro’s Sports Bar & Grille, 1475 E. Prater Way, Ste. 103, Sparks, 356-6000: F-Sa, 9pm, no cover

PEPPERMILL RESORT SPA CASINO

West Second Street Bar, 118 W. Second St., 384-7976: Daily, 8pm, no cover

SANDS REGENCY CASINO HOTEL

2707 S. Virginia St., (775) 826-2121 1) Tuscany Ballroom 2) Terrace Lounge 3) Edge

2) Ike & Martin, 7pm, no cover

345 N. Arlington Ave., (775) 348-2200 1) 3rd Street Lounge 2) Poolside

SILVER LEGACY

2) Bonzai Thursdays w/DJ Trivia,

8pm, no cover 407 N. Virginia St., (775) 325-7401 1) Grand Exposition Hall 2) Rum Bullions Island Bar 3) University of Aura, 9pm, no cover 3) Aura Ultra Lounge 4) Silver Baron Lounge

RN&R

JULY 17, 2014

1) Broadway Showstoppers, 8pm, $33.40-$42.40

1) Zac Brown Band, 6:30pm, $59.50-$135.50

3) DJ/dancing, 5pm, 11pm, Rustlers’ Heat, 7pm, no cover

5) Island of Black & White, 9pm, no cover

1) Frank Caliendo, 9pm, $54.50-$64.50 3) The Male Room, 8pm, $23 5) Sil Shoda, 9pm, no cover

2) Ike & Martin, 8pm, no cover 3) Salsa dancing, 7:30pm, $10 after 8pm, DJ Chris English, DJ ((Fredie)), 10pm, $20

2) Ike & Martin, 8pm, no cover

1) Boogie Daddies, 8pm, no cover 2) Jason King Band, 6pm, no cover

1) Jason King Duo, 7pm, no cover

1) Move Live on Tour w/Julianne & Derek 1) Lani Misalucha, 8pm, $38-$58 Hough, 8pm, $49.50-$65.50 3) Seduction Saturdays, 9pm, $5 3) Fashion Friday, 9pm, no cover

3) DJ and Bikini Bull Riding Competition, 5pm, 9pm, no cover

3) Locals Night, DJ, 5pm, M, Classic Rock Night, 5pm, Tu, Ladies Night/Toughest Cowboy Competition, 7pm, 9pm, W, no cover

2) Chris Williams Presents, 6pm, no cover

2) Chris Williams Presents, 6pm, M, Tu, W, no cover

2) Moon Gravy, 6pm, W, no cover

2) Recovery Sundays, 10pm, no cover 3) Industry Night, 9pm, no cover

2) Gong Show Karaoke, 8pm, Tu, Country-Rock Bingo w/Jeff Gregg, 9pm, W, no cover

For a complete listing of this week’s events, visit newsreview.com/reno

Wa n d e r l u S t S q u aW va l l e y The annual festival brings together the world’s leading yoga teachers, musical acts and DJs, renowned speakers, top chefs and winemakers to the Truckee-Tahoe region from Thursday, July 17, through Sunday, July 20. Yoga instructors include Seane Corn, Eoin Finn, Shiva Rea, Rod Stryker, Elena Brower, among others. Musical acts include Big Gigantic, The Polyphonic Spree, Nanko and Medicine for the People, RJD2, DJ Krush, MC Yogi and the Mark Sexton Band. Tickets range from $105 for a one-day pass to $525 for a four-day pass. The festival takes place at Squaw Valley USA, 1960 Squaw Valley Road, Olympic Valley. Visit http://squaw.wanderlustfestival.com.

—Kelley Lang

S t e a mp unk tav e r n S t r ol l / S t e a mp unk e x p o

W he r e iS t he Gol d ?

Dress up as a Victorian-era, neo-futuristic, sci-fi character and go from tavern to tavern tasting libations, playing parlor games and enjoying some old-timey entertainment during this steampunk-themed pub crawl. The crawl begins at 8 p.m. on Saturday, July 19, at the 1864 Tavern, 290 California Ave. Tickets are $10 and include a commemorative mug and map to six taverns. The crawl is also the official after party to the 3rd Annual Biggest Little Steampunk Expo taking place earlier in the day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Wilbur D. May Museum at Rancho San Rafael Park, 1595 N. Sierra St. The expo will include a Steamy Tech Custom Coasters Workshop, a contra dance workshop, a costume workshop and steampunk persona building workshop. The expo workshops range in fees from $25 and below. There will also be multiple vendors selling steampunk apparel, jewelry and accessories and local food truck vendors. For info on the pub crawl, visit http://www.steampunkstroll.com. For info on the expo, visit https:// www.highdesertsteam.org.

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Brewery Arts Center presents this Wild West melodrama and murder mystery dinner set aboard a vintage Virginia and Truckee Railroad steam engine train on Friday, July 18, and Aug. 15. Where is the Gold? combines Comstock legend and lore with a whodunit mystery. The audience will be invited to help the cast of characters solve the mystery of who stole the gold and who is responsible for the death of Mr. Big. The steam engine will depart at 6 p.m. and al on iti ad ill feature tr w head into the Carson River canyon for a 45-minute murder al iv st fe al dancing and The 47th annu mystery train ride as the play unfolds on each of the cars. mes, Basque ga d an om ns fr io n re competit ities for child Passengers in each car will be witness to Mr. Big’s demise. Mr. tiv ac d an ld od 19, at Wingfie music and fo Big will meet his doom three times, once in each passenger turday, July Sa on n. w m do p. in 10 am. to 4 gton Avenue lin car. Passengers from each train car will cast a vote on who Ar d an reet uma Says No Park, First St they think the murderer is. Upon return to the Eastgate train ort break, Am sh a r te of Af m . ra town Reno esent a prog depot around 7 p.m., passengers will be treated to a western . Idaho, will pr ting at 6 p.m from Boise, ar st g in barbecue. The case of the missing gold and the murder of Mr. nc d da an ic t us si m Basque 2-3577 or vi Big will be solved in the final summation of the play later in free. Call 76 Admission is lub.org. ec qu the evening. The murder mystery trains depart from the V&T as www.renob Eastgate Depot, 4650 Eastgate Siding, in Carson City. Tickets are $75 per person. Call (877) 724-5007 or visit www.vtrailway.com.

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Think Free

Pierre pressure I’m an 18-year-old woman, recently asked out by a handsome, charming 34-year-old guy from France. He took me out to a nice restaurant, and everything was wonderful until he admitted that he has a girlfriend, though he explained that they always fight and break up. He said he isn’t ready to leave or cheat on her, but he is very attracted to me and wants to keep seeing me platonically to see where our “relationship” goes. I believe him but feel like some second option. After dinner, we ended up making out in his car. Things were going way too far, so I had him take me home. I really like him, but I don’t want to waste my time wanting someone who already has someone, even if he is “confused” about her. Some men take their monogamy very seriously: “I’m not ready to cheat on my girlfriend. But I might be ready after dessert.” Yes, the guy reeled you in like a dazed trout, but you shouldn’t feel too bad about that. In addition to his being an experienced 34 to your inexperienced 18, he’s also French. If there’s a French national sport, it’s probably seduction. Nobody calls making out “North Korean kissing.” French seducers are particularly good at romantic spin, like how this guy told you he wants to “keep seeing you platonically,” which, it seems, is French for “grope you in the car.” The French also tend to be more relaxed about the boundaries of monogamy. In a Pew Research Center poll, when asked whether an affair is “morally unacceptable,” only 47 percent of French people said it is, 28 | RN&R |

JULY 17, 2014

compared with 87 percent of Americans. Former French President Francois Mitterrand’s wife even invited his mistress to his funeral, where they stood together over his coffin. Still, even in France, there are lines you just don’t cross. In the words of actor Yves Montand: “I think a man can have two, maybe three affairs while he is married. But three is the absolute maximum. After that, you are cheating.” Unfortunately, you missed your cue to activate the ejection seat—the point at which the guy mentioned having a girlfriend. A guy with a girlfriend is a guy who’s not available, not even if he says they’re on-and-off and suggests sampling you as a way of deciding whether they should be off-and-off. The problem is there’s a time when this sort of clarity comes more easily, and it isn’t when you’re in the heat of the moment. You need to go into a date with a set of standards— standards you come up with ahead of time for what you will and won’t accept. If, for example, one of these is “Never become somebody’s backup sex,” it won’t matter that the man in question is very attracted to you and says so with a French accent. As France’s big gift to the United States, the Statue of Liberty, says on its base: “Give me your tired,” not your “tired of their girlfriends.” Ω

Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave., No. 280, Santa Monica,CA 90405, or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com).

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by rob brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “I have

complete faith in the continued absurdity of whatever’s going on,” says satirical news commentator Jon Stewart. That’s a healthy attitude. To do his work, he needs a neverending supply of stories about people doing crazy, corrupt and hypocritical things. I’m sure this subject matter makes him sad and angry. But it also stimulates him to come up with funny ideas that entertain and educate his audience—and earns him a very good income. I invite you to try his approach, Aries. Have faith that the absurdity you experience can be used to your advantage.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Bananas

grow in Iceland, a country that borders the Arctic Ocean. About 700 of the plants thrive in a large greenhouse heated by geothermal energy. They don’t mature as fast as the bananas in Ecuador or Costa Rica. The low amounts of sunlight mean they require two years to ripen instead of a few months. To me, this entire scenario is a symbol for the work you have ahead of you. You’ve got to encourage and oversee growth in a place that doesn’t seem hospitable in the usual ways, although it is actually just fine. And you must be patient, knowing that the process might take a while longer than it would in other circumstances.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): While at a

cafe, I overheard two people at the next table talking about astrology. “I think the problem solvers of the zodiac are Cancers and Capricorns,” said a young, moon-faced woman. “Agreed,” said her companion, an older woman with chiseled features. “And the problem creators are Scorpios and Geminis.” I couldn’t help myself: I had to insert myself into their conversation so as to defend you. Leaning over toward their table, I said, “Speaking as a professional astrologer, I’ve got to say that right now Geminis are at least temporarily the zodiac’s best problem solvers. Give them a chance to change your minds.” The women laughed, and moon-face said, “You must be a Gemini.” “No,” I replied. “But I’m on a crusade to help Geminis shift their reputations.”

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Mozart

debuted his now-famous opera Don Giovanni in Prague on October 29, 1787. It was a major production, featuring an orchestra, a chorus and eight main singers. Yet the composer didn’t finish writing the opera’s overture until less than 24 hours before the show. Are you cooking up a similar scenario, Cancerian? I suspect that sometime in the next two weeks you will complete a breakthrough with an inspired, last-minute effort. And the final part of your work may well be its “overture”; the first part will arrive last. (P.S.: Mozart’s Don Giovanni was well-received, and I expect your offering will be, too.)

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “We must learn to

bear the pleasures as we have borne the pains,” says writer Nikki Giovanni. That will be apt advice for you to keep in mind during the coming months, Leo. You may think I’m perverse for suggesting such a thing. Compared to how demanding it was to manage the suffering you experienced in late 2013 and earlier this year, you might assume it will be simple to deal with the ease and awakening that are heading your way. But I’d like you to consider the possibility that these blessings will bring their own challenges. For example, you may need to surrender inconveniences and hardships you have gotten used to, almost comfortable with. It’s conceivable you will have to divest yourself of habits that made sense when you were struggling but are now becoming counterproductive.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I would hate

for your fine mind to become a liability. As much as I admire your native skepticism and analytical intelligence, it would be a shame if they prevented you from getting the full benefit of the wonders and marvels that are brewing in your vicinity. Your operative motto in the coming days comes from Virgo storyteller Roald Dahl: “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” Suspend your disbelief, my beautiful friend. Make yourself receptive to the possibility of being amazed.

30 | RN&R |

JULY 17, 2014

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Kris Kristof-

ferson is in the Country Music Hall of Fame now, but it took a while for him to launch his career. One of his big breaks came at age 29 when he was sweeping floors at a recording studio in Nashville. He managed to meet superstar Johnny Cash, who was working there on an album. A few years later, Kristofferson boldly landed a helicopter in Cash’s yard to deliver his demo tape. That prompted Cash to get him a breakthrough gig performing at the Newport Folk Festival. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were able to further your goals with a similar sequence, Libra: luck that puts you in the right place at the right time, followed by some brazen yet charming acts of self-promotion.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In her poem

“Looking Back,” Sarah Brown Weitzman writes that she keeps “trying to understand / how I fell / so short of what I intended / to do with my life.” Is there a chance that 30 years from now you might say something similar, Scorpio? If so, take action to ensure that outcome doesn’t come to pass. Judging from the astrological omens, I conclude that the next 10 months will be a favorable time to get yourself on track to fulfill your life’s most important goals. Take full advantage!

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec.

21): “There is no such thing as a failed experiment,” said author and inventor Buckminster Fuller, “only experiments with unexpected outcomes.” That’s the spirit I advise you to bring to your own explorations in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. Your task is to try out different possibilities to see where they might lead. Don’t be attached to one conclusion or another. Be free of the drive to be proven right. Instead, seek the truth in whatever strange shape it reveals itself. Be eager to learn what you didn’t even realize you needed to know.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Archi-

tects in ancient Rome used concrete to create many durable structures, some of which are still standing. But the recipe for how to make concrete was forgotten for more than a thousand years after the Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century. A British engineer finally rediscovered the formula in 1756, and today concrete is a prime component in many highways, dams, bridges and buildings. I foresee a similar story unfolding in your life, Capricorn. A valuable secret that you once knew but then lost is on the verge of resurfacing. Be alert for it.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Beginning

in 1798, European cartographers who drew maps of West Africa included the Mountains of Kong, a range of peaks that extended more than 1,000 miles east and west. It was 90 years before the French explorer Louis Gustave Binger realized that there were no such mountains. All the maps had been wrong, based on faulty information. Binger is known to history as the man who undiscovered the Mountains of Kong. I’m appointing him to be your role model in the coming weeks, Aquarius. May he inspire you to expose long-running delusions, strip away entrenched falsehoods, and restore the simple, shining truths.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In the

simplest, calmest of times, there are two sides to every story. On some occasions, however, the bare minimum is three or more sides. Like now. And that can generate quite a ruckus. Even people who are normally pretty harmonious may slip into conflict. Fortunately for all concerned, you are currently at the peak of your power to be a unifying force at the hub of the bubbling hubbub. You can be a weaver who takes threads from each of the tales and spins them into a narrative with which everyone can abide. I love it when that happens! For now, your emotional intelligence is the key to collaborative creativity and group solidarity.

Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text message horoscopes. The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at (877) 873-4888 or (900) 950-7700.

by Brad Bynum

Miles ahead

How’s the tour been? The tour’s been great. We started July 2. We did a pre-party for High Sierra [Music Festival] in Quincy at Main Street Bar. We played in Tahoe. We did a big kickoff Reno show at The Alley after the fireworks on the Fourth. My favorite show so far was down in Hollywood. We played this crazy, illegal afterhours speakeasy warehouse. We played from 2:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. We were on a set break, and this guy came up and asked if he could sit in on trumpet for a couple of songs. And we were like, “Yeah. Why not?” … So he plays a couple of songs with us, and it sounds like he’s played the songs more than we have—and they’re original songs that he’s never heard. So, we get off stage and the people that we booked the gig through came up to us, and they’re like, “That was the trumpet player from No Doubt!” And we looked online, and sure enough, that’s who it was. That was definitely one of the highlights.

Spike McGuire The Reno Americana band Six Mile Station is raising funds on Kickstarter to release its debut album. We caught up with Spike McGuire, the band’s singersongwriter-guitarist during a pit stop on their current tour. For more information, including a free download or to contribute to the band’s Kickstarter fund, visit www.sixmilestation.com.

Where are you? I’m in Bremerton, Washington. We’re playing tonight [July 14] at a place called the Voyage Concert House. We’re actually playing with a band we met in Reno called Letters. We played at Biggest Little City Club with them. And it worked out in our routing, and we told them we were headed up this way and they were happy to put together for a show for us.

You’ve been on tour for a while? Yeah. I can’t remember exactly what day this is—day 14? We’re on a 20-day tour right now.

Very cool. And the Kickstarter is live now? Yep. The Kickstarter is live. It’s going through August 15.

Tell me about the album. Well, this is our first album, the big debut full-length. It’s yet to be named. That’s actually one of the things you can do on the Kickstarter. That’s our most expensive item.

How many songs? Where did you record it? Twelve songs on the album. There will likely be a hidden track on the CD version, where we have a little more time than the vinyl version. We recorded the whole thing in our banjo player John Underwood’s basement. We engineered it all ourselves. And we took all of the raw recorded tracks and gave those to Tom Gordon. And that’s part of what the Kickstarter is for. The Kickstarter is for two things at this point because we’re basically done with the recording. We need to get it all mixed by Tom Gordon, and we need to get it pressed to vinyl.

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If you watch the video for our Kickstarter, where I sit down and explain what we’re doing, at the end of that video you can hear another one of our songs in its entirety called “Heavy Lies the Crown,” which is kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum of our songwriting, the Gypsy party feel. Whereas the free download is a more traditional folk rock thing, this one swings more toward our darker side, our Gypsy side. We’re doing a homecoming show on this tour. We’re headlining the last day [Sunday, July 20] of the Morris Burner Hotel Folk Festival. So anybody who thought we sounded good at our tour kickoff. We’ve had a considerable amount of more days of nonstop playing. Ω

Is it possible to hear any of it? Yeah, we have a free download, which is one of the reasons we’re on tour. We’re promoting our new single and our Kickstarter. If you go to sixmilestation.com/free, you can download the first single from the album, a song called “Why.”

Obama as Nixon? This morning, I saw the new poll that reveals most Republicans—68 percent—now think it’s a swell time to impeach the president. Mind you, they don’t have a reason to impeach Mr. Obama. No, they can’t be bothered with trifles like that. They just think it would be positively swell to impeach him. Just because, well, you know, because they just really don’t like the guy. Impeach him? Sounds like a party, dude! Hell, yes, sign me up. I’m in! So let me be one of the many to fling a bucket of extremely obvious ice water into the laps of all you hateful Hannity-heads out there in the Neon Babylon and remind you that before you can impeach a president, you have to have an actual reason. OK? You have to be able to show that the president is guilty of unlawful activity in order to bring impeachment proceedings. At times like this I reflect on the Big Picture. There are achievements from the last five years that are worth recalling. Remember the condition of America back in March ’09? Things weren’t real good. In fact, they were pretty damned bad. Unemployment

Any other songs on the album you want to talk about?

∫y Bruce Van Dye easy to bail out altogether. This is a major positive, the hugeness of which simply can’t be overestimated or overvalued or overappreciated. One crummy crapfest of a war is over, and by the end of this year, the other will be finished, too. Interest rates remain microscopic. Amazingly enough, so is inflation. And yet, the Obstructionists continue to have this ridiculous, brainless hard-on for Mr. Obama. Now, this train is steaming straight into Crazytown, which is directly connected to this impeachment nonsense. And Democrats—would you please take the previous two paragraphs and begin pounding that stuff into the ever-thickening skulls of Americans for the next four months? Just pound it, mercilessly, with quick, easy sound bytes galore, exactly the same way the Obstructionists would. That’s the one thing the Raving Minions of Sarah have done well in the last decade. Ω

was in the 9s, headed to 10 percent. The Dow had been gutted, falling to below 7,000, and thereby chopping many middle-class 401k and retirement accounts in half. The real estate market was hemorrhaging. We were still fighting a crummy war in Iraq, and things weren’t getting any better in Afghanistan. It was time to suck it up and get back on track. Cut to now, July ’14. Latest unemployment number is 6.1 percent, and this has been achieved despite constant efforts by the Obstructionist Party (previously called Republicans), to hinder, sandbag, even monkeywrench all efforts to put people back to work. The performance of the Obstructionists in this area borders on nothing less than treason. The Dow has rebounded heroically, now at about 17,000, due in no small part to Obama’s ass-kissing treatment of Wall Street greedheads, but goddammit, millions of middle class Americans have had their precious retirement accounts bailed out and saved, had they been courageous enough to stay in the market at a time when it was very

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