Thursday, April 03, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Backstory: Don't worry, be...afraid

By Michael Green

The symbol of Mad Magazine, Alfred E. Neuman, said, "What, me worry?" Today's theme is what we should be worrying about:

¥ Several Las Vegans are in a dither over Black Book member Joey Cusumano visiting Oscar Goodman's house for a party celebrating the engagement of the mayor's daughter. Goodman represented not only Cusumano in fighting his inclusion on the List of Excluded Persons, but some of Cusumano's friends and associates, very few of whom are likely to be on the list for the next Congressional Medal of Honor.

This is news? Goodman spent most of his legal career questioning the Black Book's constitutionality and defending freedom of association. And to attack a person over his associations--especially when Goodman's home has no slot machines; if he were in gaming, it would be another matter--smacks of the McCarthy era, when a conversation from 20 years before was enough to get you hauled before a congressional committee and accused of traitorous behavior and being a communist. That's especially true when more important politicians have associated or continue to associate with people far more dangerous to the public trust--and go uncriticized.

Of course, Goodman's critics are right, too. A public figure should be more cautious--not that the mayor needs to fear for his job. And this hardly means Cusumano is about to be named city manager, but even in politics the smell test matters.

As we discuss this, Nevada officials have suggested delaying employee paychecks a few days and cutting back services to a population growing by thousands each month. Meanwhile, hotel-casinos are rolling in money or teetering on the brink of disaster if gaming taxes go up more than 0.25 percent, depending on whom you ask.

Nationally, Richard Perle resigned as head of a Defense Department advisory board after the conservative news media finally noticed a corporation he is closely associated with figures to benefit financially from the war in Iraq--as will Vice President Dick Cheney's old corporation.

The Bush administration is growling because we are shifting in our seats over the war's length and bloodshed, and we should know better--although government officials and their media lackeys who wanted this war made it sound as though it would be a tea party and disdained the need for other countries to join us. These men, most of whom avoided war themselves, and their associations have done a lot to get people killed. That war could, on a more mundane level, kill Nevada's economy. And people worry about who hangs out at Oscar Goodman's house?

¥ The Clark County Regional Transportation Commission's Older Americans with Disabilities Transportation Advisory Committee voted unanimously against plans to spend $10 million on 10 new high-tech buses that have the potential to improve our public transportation system. Why? Because the buses are French-made.

One advisory board member thought veterans would be insulted to ride such buses when we could buy American-made buses instead. But, apparently, no American company makes such buses. What matters most is that France opposed the war with Iraq.

Supporters of the war have claimed France's motivation is that it depends on Iraqi oil. That may be partly true. Of course, that's like suggesting we are there exclusively because we want to build an Iraqi republic in our own image. To suggest that other countries act out of self-interest but we don't is not merely to ignore history, but to deny that it exists.

One of our biggest problems is how the Islamic world feels about us--not just terrorism, a relatively new wrinkle for us, but access to oil. One of the ways we can wean ourselves off dependence on oil, from the Arab world and elsewhere, is by promoting more frequent use of public transportation. Instead, the Bush administration's contribution to improving energy policy is to hold secret meetings with energy industry officials whose market manipulations cost us money daily, encourage nuclear power by trying to force nuclear waste upon Nevada, and try to destroy the Alaskan wilderness.

And people worry about whether buses are French-made?

¥ Some folks seem almost frenzied about municipal judge races. Fair enough. They are important. But attorney Mathew Harter is claiming the judges work less than four days a week and that one of his opponents, incumbent Toy Gregory, yells at attorneys too much.

First, most people, convinced that attorneys are evil (they aren't, and you will agree when you need one), probably consider that a good thing. But last week the U.S. Supreme Court showed signs of thinking that the state has a right to bust into your bedroom and, if you are gay and engaged in sex, arrest you. This week, they are hearing a case that may lead to a decision saying your college admission should be judged simply on the record and not whether you might have suffered racial discrimination--and with it the likelihood that, if a minority, you attended underfunded, undersupplied schools.

And people worry about whether a municipal judge yelled at someone?

¥ A lot of you are caught up in the NCAA basketball tournament. And people worry about this? Come on! It's baseball season.