Thursday, July 31, 2003 | 9:13 a.m.
IT IS THE END OF July which signals two things to me.
The first thing is that the long, hot Las Vegas summer is more than half over and I am still hard at work. But that will end, at least for a short while, because of the second thing. And that is that Las Vegas Sun readers, as they have been for over 50 years, will have the unique benefit and pleasure of being able to read in this place the thoughts and wisdom of a wide variety of community business, social and political leaders.
While Mike O'Callaghan and I would love to tell you that we are giving up this precious space to people more knowledgeable about their chosen subjects out of some altruistic desire to benefit our readers, the real reason is the same one that persuaded my father to start this tradition so many decades ago. August is here and that means time away from the office. So we have invited others to cover for us in the hopes that our readers will be enriched by the experience and our own well-being enhanced by the few days respite ahead.
The columns start Sunday with an examination of our water shortage problem and the issue of conservation in a desert community. From there we will move on to efforts to improve transportation in Southern Nevada. Law enforcement, homelessness, taxes, gaming and a host of other subjects will be discussed here by people who are knowledgeable and who will help Sun readers learn more about issues that will be with us for a very long time. In the end, though, it is how we face those challenges and what we do about them that defines us.
As citizens, who want to do the best that we can, we need as much factual information as we can get. Not fluff, not hype and not that baloney fed to us by ratings hounds on radio and television who make money by making us mad. Almost out of our minds mad, if you know what I mean. Rest assured, you can always get the facts right here in the Las Vegas Sun.
But before I sign off for the month of August -- barring a need to write about a compelling issue like a presidential visit and the virtues of telling the truth -- there are a couple of short subjects I need to get off my desk.
While you are getting your kids ready for school in a few weeks, try not to forget how close we came to a much longer summer vacation, more crowded schools than the already overcrowded situation with which we are faced because of our growth, brand new teacherless classrooms unable to open because there would be no money, and nonexistent programs designed to help students achieve and be all that they can be. We came close to educational meltdown because of some very greedy people in the private sector, who insisted that the "other guy" should foot the bill, and an incredible group of political cowards who knew what the right thing to do was but consciously chose the wrong way.
The political experts are convinced that Nevadans will be just like every other voter when the next election comes around. They are betting that the people will forget how frustrated and angry they got at that group of Republican holdouts who tried to hijack the system and the school budget. They are betting that political slogans like tax cuts and high moral tones will carry the day, even for people who cared not one whit for the next generation of Nevadans in need of a quality education.
Those people may be right. Or they could be way off. Think about what is more important to you -- a few dollars more or an educated generation able to keep the United States on top of the world. I know August is hot and there is much to do before school starts. But think what you would be doing right now if the Nevada Supreme Court hadn't stepped in with a courageous decision that forced a do-nothing Legislature to do something. Think about it and remember how you feel come November 2004.
It is difficult to feel sad about Bob Hope. After all, he lived to be a 100 years old and he lived it to the hilt.
I do feel badly, though, for the rest of us, especially those of us who grew up in his day. Whether it was his movies with partner, Bing Crosby, or his comedy specials on television, or his stand-up routines or the knowledge that he was always overseas when our troops were, entertaining them and bringing a little piece of home to them as they fought for our freedom, there was a constant about that man that made us all feel a little better about ourselves.
Bob Hope's comedy was special. It was also clean. I know that in today's world there are some very funny people who are not afraid to use the vernacular to make a point. I am no prude, to be sure. In fact, I have mastered the art of golfspeak that rivals most of the worst of what one might hear in some comedy club or even on an HBO comedy special. But to me there was always something special about comedians who could make us laugh -- at them and at ourselves -- without offending half the people in the room.
I remember the good old days of comedy in Las Vegas when Shecky Green and Buddy Hackett, and before them Myron Cohen, used to hold court. The stories and jokes made you roll in the aisle and hold your sides so they wouldn't hurt so much from the laughter. All without a word that might offend a Sunday audience. Can't find that anymore.
Bob Hope's humor spanned the generations -- Cohen's, Hackett's and even the current one -- and he did it with style and a sense of timing that was hard to match. That's why I feel sorry for the rest of us. We will laugh at the new kids, to be sure, but we will miss the real humor, the kind that reached down deep where we live, and the kind that made us feel so good about ourselves when we were through laughing.
And, finally, I am almost willing to believe President George W. Bush when he says he isn't going to make public a few pages of that terrorism report because it will compromise our national security. But with both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill who are in the know disagreeing with him, and the Saudi government -- which bears the brunt of the finger-pointing of responsibility -- begging him to let the American people see the truth, I am hard-pressed to understand the president's reluctance.
The danger of his position is that he lays himself open to speculation that could be right on the mark or so far off to be ridiculous. Then, to counter the rumors that will certainly fly, he will have to release the pages that cut through his national security argument and fall into the cover-your-backside category.
I say give the Saudis what they want and give the American people the truth. Now there's a novel thought.
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