Quick and Dirty: A notebook of news and politics

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According to Huntridge Theatre owner-operator Eli Mizrachi, the much-hyped, multimillion-dollar renovation on the Huntridge Theatre has been delayed again. Originally slated to begin last December, the construction--which will add three bars, a 250-seat VIP balcony and a 3,000-square-foot restaurant to the historic building--will now be put off until at least June.

"We tinkered with the plan a little more, so we had to go back to the engineers and get the paperwork filed and all that," says Mizrachi, whose family owns neighboring Cima's Furniture. "Everything is a process. We do one little thing, and it inevitably takes 30 days to get approved. It doesn't even matter if we're just adding a light bulb, it's going to be a 30-day delay."

In the meantime, the Huntridge--which has been dark for the past six weeks--will begin hosting shows again. Already on the schedule are recently reunited local rockers 12 Volt Sex (Feb. 28), alt-metal powerhouses Papa Roach (March 14) and acclaimed indie-popper Ben Kweller (May 1).

When the construction finally does begin, Mizrachi expects it will take until 2005 to complete. "They told me four to six months, but I never trust them," he says. "The problem is that we're dealing with a 60-year-old structure. I mean, God bless them if they can do it in four to six, but I think six to eight months is way more reasonable."--NB

Nuke nominee

You know, sometimes the White House just goes and does something crazy. No, not crazy as in leaking the names of CIA operatives or cooking up a war based on flimsy intelligence. Crazy, rather, because it makes such sense. Last week, the Bush administration formally nominated Greg Jaczko for a seat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the body that will license--or not license--the proposed Yucca Mountain nuke waste repository, possible home to 77,000 tons of the nation's nuclear waste.

Who's Jaczko? That's the surprising part. He's Sen. Harry Reid's nuclear adviser and an outright foe of the the dump. Those involved in the ongoing fight chalk his nomination up to a bit of masterful political maneuvering on Reid's part. It's a move that--if the state's handful of lawsuits against the site fail this year--might provide the coup de grace to the project. If nothing else, Jaczko will ensure that science and safety--not politics--prevail for a change.

"I can't tell you how huge this is," says Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, the state's dump watchdog. "It's great to have someone there who can keep the rest of the commission and staff honest, and that's the whole ball game at the NRC." Jaczko's nomination hearings haven't been scheduled yet, but Loux thinks his chances of landing the nomination are good.

Loux says the licensing process isn't immune to political tricks if the project does go before the NRC. For instance, he says the Department of Energy might try to talk the NRC into agreeing to suspend checking health and safety standards until after the project is built. Jaczko provides a bulwark against such chicanery. "Behind the scenes," says Loux, "a lot of people at the DOE and NRC are scared to death."--AK

Voice of reason

Nevada journalism--and Nevada generally--lost a good one over the weekend. Ruthe Deskin, longtime columnist and executive at the Las Vegas Sun, died Saturday at age 87. Deskin, a native Nevadan from Yerington, was a key player at the Sun for five decades. In her capacity as assistant to the publisher, Deskin provided a down-to-earth, open-minded viewpoint as a weekly columnist and especially within the Sun's byzantine executive hierarchy. Untainted by political connections or business alliances, Deskin often served as the newspaper's conscience. While reporters and low-level editors feared speaking their minds to intimidating Sun bosses such as Hank Greenspun, Mike O'Callaghan and Brian Greenspun, Deskin had no such reservations. While her column was known for its folksy observations, she also would occasionally voice strong political viewpoints. For example, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, her longtime friend, was pierced by Deskin's pen in 2000 when she chastised him for not revealing the funding sources for a political action committee. Stung by Deskin's disapproval, Reid disclosed the financiers.

Deskin also was an important fount of institutional knowledge, which is so important--and undervalued--in the newspaper business. With young reporters and editors coming and going each year, Deskin was a constant resource of historical context and accuracy. The Sun could have used someone like Deskin just this week when it published a news story describing Michael Green as a CCSN "philosophy" professor. Green, a Mercury columnist, is a longtime history professor. That's something Deskin would have known.--GS

Six degrees

For those who think Las Vegas somehow is the center of the universe, here is further evidence. Last week, the New York Times reported "The Right Has Begun Standing a Little Less Behind Bush," which may explain why the White House press corps actually has shown signs recently of having guts. The article quotes J. David Hoeveler, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who has written about the history of conservatism in America. His daughter, Sarah Ralston, once anchored the news at Las Vegas Channels 3 and 13 and now is in the PR world, working with the City of Asylum writers program. Hoeveler said his "local conservative radio host, Charlie Sykes, had begun sounding less exuberant about Mr. Bush." Sykes is the son of Jay Sykes, who was a journalism professor in Wisconsin who had a student named Ned Day, who appeared on Channel 8 and was a columnist for the R-J and, before that, the Valley Times. As the Comcast effort to take over Disney already had proved, it's a small world after all.--MG

War stories

A Nevada veterans leader made the New York Times. Ed Gobel, whose name appears on a local veterans center, is running in a Republican primary for a seat in the Nevada Assembly, but says he is opposed by a candidate who has the backing of the party. Gobel contributes the news that he attended a meeting with officials from the Bush-Cheney campaign. "Basically, they're saying don't bring up veterans' issues and don't bring up Vietnam," he said, and that figures to be difficult, given his service.

Not that it's Gobel's fault, but he appeared in one of the most disgusting stories about this year's election so far, a demonstration that the Bush campaign is so incapable of telling the truth that it's downright hysterical. The Bush campaign's media lackeys, such as Rush "Just Say No" Limbaugh and Sean "Don't Confuse Me With the Facts" Hannity, are among those attacking Sen. John Kerry because he opposed the Vietnam War. If Kerry and his campaign have any brains, they will point out that while Bushies supported the war and their candidate deserted his National Guard post, Kerry decided to oppose it after getting wounded a few times. By the way, one of Kerry's Nevada co-chairs, state Sen. Terry Care, served in Vietnam.--MG