Thursday, November 20, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Quick and Dirty: A notebook of news and politics

Fuzzy split

Where's my Mozart! What have they done with John Clare! Why can't I get Nevada Public Radio's new station, Classical KCNV 89.7-FM, on my radio?

Regina Olivares, communications and media relations manager at Nevada Public Radio, says a few calls like that are coming in. KCNV was created when the old KNPR 89.5-FM split into two stations on Oct. 31, with KNPR moving to 88.9 and going all news. A flurry of fall fundraising, spiced with the promise that the change would double our pleasure, preceded the split.

Olivares offers a tangle of reasons for some people's fuzzy reception. The stations' antennas are on Mount Potosi (higher than the old site at Mount Arden) and have joined a host of other radio stations' antennas on the towers there. The towers are anchored by metal guywires. The guywires up near the tops of the towers where the antennas are placed are nonmetal. Below the antennas, they're metal. Metal interferes with radio reception. Classical KCNV, low man on the totem pole, got stuck down among the metal guywires. Olivares says the station plans to change those within the next couple of weeks to see if that helps. Also, she says, "Black Mountain acts as a shield to Mount Potosi, so there still might be spots where reception might not be great."

And then there's wattage. "When we were approved by the FCC to launch 89.7, we were approved by the FCC for 550 watts," says Olivares. The new all-news KNPR, on the other hand, got to keep the 25,000 watts the old KNPR already had back at 89.5. "The reason for only 550 watts [for KCNV] is there's another radio station at 89.7 in Arizona, and the FCC didn't want us to invade their wattage," says Olivares. Furthermore, she says the FCC wouldn't let Nevada Public Radio test the new classical station before the split, because it was so close to 89.5 that it might interfere with it.

A potential home fix, says Olivares, is to place a "T" antennae on your radio. These cost a couple of bucks at a radio supply store, she says.--HW

PATRIOT Action

An all-American mishmash turned out last Thursday in front of the federal courthouse to take part in or simply witness the unleashing of the Nevada Campaign to Defeat the PATRIOT Act. Similar tableaus occurred in Elko and Reno. At the event, campaign organizers released to the media copies of "A resolution relating to the USA PATRIOT Act"--marking Nevada citizens' official entry into the civil liberties defense movement that to date has swept up more than 25 million people and 210 communities across the nation.

The Las Vegas event was attended by reps from the Libertarian Party, ACLU, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, Coalition to Prevent the Erosion of Human Rights (which formed specifically to combat the act shortly after it was passed, as director James Tate pointed out), Nevada Eagle Forum, Nevada Republican Liberty Caucus, Culinary Union and Mexican American Political Association. Speeches were made, and political leanings were announced to enunciate the diversity. Attorney General John Ashcroft was denounced. President Bush was called Hitler (by Tate).

Standing on the edge of the gathering was Bob Brady, in an orange "ASU Go Gold!" sweatshirt. "I'm here to keep an eye on those guys," he said, skittering a glance at the uniformed guards. "I don't trust the police." Later, after the speeches, he added: "I knew as soon as I saw the news about Sept. 11 that this country was going to get worse. I don't know what scares me most [about the government]: the fact that they can do this, or the fact that they're so incompetent."

Charles Schneider walked over. Earlier, he'd been flashing his copy of the U.S. Constitution--pocket-sized--on which he'd written "Politicians' Joke Book." Which are the best jokes in there? "All of 'em," Schneider said. "They violate all of 'em."

Then Eugene Sullivan came over, hoisting a huge Libertarian sign. He said he came to America because he believed in the ideology. "Back in Ireland, in the '70s, people would be arrested for coming to a [gathering] like this," he said. "But they broke no laws. They just offended the unelected government."--HW

Investments safe

Imagine Kathy Besser's surprise last Friday when a flood of phone calls came into her office. Irate parents called the state treasurer's office after seeing a KLAS Channel 8 report that the state-run college savings plan had gone bust and that $6 million in investments had vanished. "We were inundated with calls," she says. Besser, chief of staff for Treasurer Brian Krolicki, went into damage control, issuing a statement denying Channel 8's report. "It's not gone," she said of the money.

The televised report was based on publicized problems with Strong Capital Management, under investigation by the New York attorney general's office and federal securities officials for allegedly conducting market timing practices, buying and selling stock at quick rates, and increasing the fees charged to investors. The Nevada 529 program, which allows parents to invest money for their children's college expenses, was invested in Strong's mutual funds.

In a press release fired off to the television station, Krolicki called the report "categorically wrong." He said he had received assurances from Strong that if any earnings were affected, the company would make restitution. He also insisted the market value of the mutual fund investments of the college savings programs does not appear to have been affected by the investigation.

Besser says if there are any problems, the state can cancel its contract with Strong or just pull the money out. The pre-tuition program, which was set up only for tuition costs, was not affected, she says. About $400 million has been invested in the state's various college programs.--LW

Irked by institute

Sunday's Las Vegas Sun included a long article about the Nevada Cancer Institute and the plans of its founders, Jim Murren, president and CFO of MGM Mirage, and his wife, Heather, who will be the president of the institute and was a highly successful Wall Street analyst before moving out here. No one is unhappy about the possibility of a cancer research institute in Las Vegas, of course, but some local oncologists are not alone in being irked about it. What bugs them is that those associated with the institute have been saying it will make available comprehensive cancer treatment to Southern Nevadans that are now available only by traveling to California. In fact, comprehensive treatment already exists at several local facilities. Maybe the Nevada Cancer Institute will do it better and cheaper. But the institute won't be alone--unless it turns to those oncologists to do its work, especially when rumor has it that the Culinary Union will be giving the institute its contract for treatment.

Smart growth

While Las Vegas' growth has continued to swell the valley, the local chapter of the Sierra Club--which nationally has a gargantuan membership--has appeared to stagnate, even shrink. No wonder the chapter, which relies heavily on volunteers, seems puny at times as it takes on mammoth issues: air quality, zoning changes, water supply, sprawl, highway expansions, Yucca Mountain. But the group has decided to add on, at last, and is looking for a conservation organizer to help the other conservation organizer, J.J. Straight, in beating the pavement for supporters.

"We just identified that it's a part of the country where we want to do more grassroots organizing," says Straight. "Over a hundred people came to our Yucca Mountain event at the Flamingo" recently--that many came, she says, despite it being a Saturday night with a big fight in town and difficulty negotiating the traffic-clogged Strip.

The new organizer will join the Sierra Club's new outreach strategy "to really get out there and educate people about these issues," says Straight. There'll be more "going into the neighborhoods, talking to people one on one, house parties, phone banks."--HW

Petroglyph protection

The Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area embodies the collision zone between urban growth and a near-pristine desert. One minute you're immersed in soothing Starbucks and orderly neighborhoods, the next you're wandering amid the mute, ragged tones of Mojave scrub and stumbling into surprises like the 1,700 ancient Indian designs pecked into the patina-dark rocks.

The newly designated conservation area also embodies this region's clever two-step with nature and development: $63 million from the sale of an adjacent 482 acres to developers will go directly toward protecting the resources of the 48,438-acre conservation area from the very hordes that the new development will house on its brink.

Ironic. But inevitable, here.

"You've got to do something," said Stan Rolf, Bureau of Land Management archaeologist, at a Monday workshop held by the BLM to launch the public involvement in developing a management plan for Sloan. "It's going to be a basalt island in a sea of tile roofs. So I think we've got to be proactive."

Rolf envisions limited visitation and guided tours into the petroglyph area. The city of Henderson envisions trails in some of the non-wilderness, non-petroglyph areas. BLM botanist Gayle Marrs-Smith envisions restoration projects and more plant discoveries. And the public?

The public has until Dec. 31 to submit its ideas. There's one more workshop tonight, Thursday, 6:30-8:30, at the Gardens Community Center in Las Vegas. Or you can submit your comments to Charles Carroll, BLM, Las Vegas Field Office, 4701 N. Torrey Pines Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89130. To submit electronically, go to www.sloancanyon.org.--HW

O, the humanity!

Tony Hileman, executive director of the American Humanist Association, was in Las Vegas last week for a board meeting. He wanted to talk, so he called. And even though Humanists are about more than denouncing religion's intrusion into public life, that's where the conversation headed.

Are we going to hell in a handbasket?

"I think the Bush administration is trying to move us toward a theocracy," Hileman said. "I think that it is very dangerous when we turn to supernatural revelation as guidance, because then you rely solely on the interpreters. It is a leap of faith." Which is fine in personal life, but not when "it's imposed on others," he said.

Well, how bad is it?

"I think we are less superstitious today as a nation, as a people, as humanity than we were two centuries ago," he said. "I don't think we'll see a return of the Dark Ages."

The Humanists are holding their 63rd annual conference in Las Vegas next May. Speakers might include honorary president Kurt Vonnegut.--HW