Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: The matters of the day

TODAY IS cleanup day. A few matters on my desk need saying so here goes:

The first one is a column written by my good and longtime friend, John Moran Jr. John's guest column came in but we just ran out of days to run it. The good news is that he is used to my mistakes -- this one had something to do with the number of invitations to write divided by the number of days available to publish. The bad news is that I have to try to do in two paragraphs or so what John did in an entire column.

The shorthand version is that the Wildlife Commission of the State of Nevada, on which John sits and for which he recently served as its chairman, is a very undernoticed and overachieving group of citizens whose job it is to make sure that Nevada's wildlife remain plentiful, healthy and available, not only for this generation but also for those yet unborn.

I don't know much about hunting -- thankfully -- but there are many Nevadans who do, so the work of the commission to protect the endangered animals and reduce those herds whose overabundance threaten the health of the general animal population, has not gone unnoticed. In fact, I believe it is safe to say that the hunters among us have seen a marked improvement in the way the fish and game are managed in this state.

The same can be said for the commission's work in making sure that endangered habitat is rehabilitated so that young people interested in visiting those places have something to see that is worthy of their visit. The work is never ending and grossly underfunded, which makes the volunteer work of the commission members all the more remarkable.

There was much more that John had to say but let me sum it up in just these few words: As most things go in Nevada, people are unwilling to spend what is needed to make this state's wilderness programs the kind and quality about which we can all be proud. If it weren't for the kind of leadership that drives that commission, many Nevadans would never have the joy of seeing animals in their natural habitat and learning about them. Like most things, many Nevadans are content to let someone else do the work. Fortunately, we have some people willing to step up and make sure the work get done.

How long will that last and what price will we pay when the music stops?

I don't care where I was this summer or who I talked to, the subject was almost always the federal investigation into public and private corruption in Las Vegas and San Diego. Perhaps it was the subject matter -- strip bars and nudie clubs have a built-in audience -- or perhaps it was the notoriety that "anything Las Vegas" brings to the table, but the fact remains that what is happening to some politicians and their "well-heeled and eager to spend it" friends is the topic du jour. Every jour!

I am not sure who is talking the loudest or the straightest but my guess is there are any number of "good citizens" who are plenty nervous. Some probably should be and some will probably be shocked when their names are linked. That, of course, is the danger inherent in these efforts to roll one target over on the next and so on. Sometimes innocents get dragged into a story being told by a defendant just trying to save his or her own backside.

So beware the leaks and remember what this country stands for -- you know, the innocent until proven guilty thing -- because that's where some danger lies. The lawbreakers will likely get nailed on this one but we must take care not to ensnare those who don't belong in the fishnets being cast wide over the many just to catch the very bad few.

One more thing. I don't know what is happening to the "'road map" the Bush administration has drawn for the parties in the Middle East to follow towards peace, but it is clear to everyone that no one over there is paying the least bit of attention to the directions.

Nobody said this work was easy. In fact, I can't think of anything harder to accomplish than peace between Israel and her reluctant neighbors. But one of the reasons Americans changed the regime in Iraq was to shake up that part of the world enough to send a message that the United States was not going to tolerate bad actors and that peace in the Middle East was one of our highest priorities.

So, what happened? We are bogged down in our hunt for bin Laden. We can't yet get our arms around Iraq or our hands around Saddam. And our handpicked leader of the Palestinians quit because he couldn't handle the heat. We know this work is hard and we know it won't get done unless the United States is engaged completely. And, even then, the odds aren't great.

But, for peace to have any chance, America must lead the way. And the first thing we must do is give Yasser Arafat a new road map. One that leads him far away from the peace process and nowhere near the work that good people are trying to accomplish.

archive