Friday, March 14, 2003 | 5:01 a.m.
GET A LEASH, Sherm, your boy is running out of control.
No, it isn't Mitchell this time, it is the faux vox populi fellow, John Smith. I must have hit a very raw nerve last week because he came unglued in your newspaper and spewed venom all over me.
Little does he realize that I love the attention, so whatever personal attacking he wants to do is fine with me. It does, however, bother a few of my friends. Two, in particular, Fred Smith and Dr. Brian Cram, took issue with Smith's attempt to sartorially splendor me: "You have never dressed good enough to be criticized," they explained. "Your closet hasn't a clue what a Gucci loafer or an Armani anything looks like," responded the chorus.
My goodness, he even called me rich. Has he no shame, or has that green-eyed monster taken up residence in his computer?
Seriously, Sherm, you have got to get your hands around this problem before it gets way out of your control. I know you like the give and take between the Sun and the Review-Journal. So do I. I can write this column every Sunday for the next 38 years -- assuming I live and care that long -- and you guys will just have to live with the insults. Frankly, I rather enjoy the exercise.
But someone should give a damn about the readers. Remember them, Mr. Publisher, they are the people who live and work in this town and whose livelihood, in many respects, depends upon the environment the media helps create in which our major industry must prosper. It appears to me that neither you nor your "man of the people" have reached that level of understanding because you have allowed him to take an issue of unprecedented importance to Nevada and trivialize it through what Smith calls the scent of Armani. Frankly, that odor from down your way is more akin to something one might find in a pasture.
Just for the record, Sherm, encouraging Smith to call me names is pretty childish, counterproductive and a waste of precious newsprint. I call myself names, talk about the treachery inherent in my passion for golf, and admit to many interests but no conflicts. No need for him to restate the obvious, unless he has nothing else to say, which I suspect is the more likely reason for the name calling.
You don't hear me talking about the owners of your newspaper and their complete and unabashed surrender to the siren call of the links. No, that serves no purpose. What I do talk about, though, is their anti-Nevadan editorial stance on Gov. Kenny Guinn's plea to the Legislature for the tax revenue needed to keep this state afloat rather than to remain awash in the same kind of red ink that is sinking and stinking up the lives of so many of our sister states.
And while I will admit that taxes are never fair -- someone always gets hit a little worse than others -- there comes a time when they have to be imposed for the common good. We have reached that time and that place in Nevada history when courage must supplant greed and selfishness.
Nevada's families are fortunate that Guinn has the strength of purpose and political fortitude to press the case that Nevada needs what he is asking the Legislature to pass. And he will not relent.
For the Review-Journal, through Smith or any other of its hatchetmen on this issue, to attack me or other members of the Governor's Task Force on Tax Policy is to blame the messengers for bringing a measure of truth to the debate.
Are there areas in which the Legislature can act in a manner different from that recommended by the task force? Of course there are, and they should be debated and changed where appropriate. But for Smith and the rest of the anti-Nevada group at his newspaper to think that by attacking me they are going to make headway against the governor, well, that's ludicrous.
And for Smith to think he can marginalize me by attacking Cox Communications -- the cable company of which my family owns a small piece, which we have never failed to admit -- is an admission that whatever he is smoking, it is not strong enough for him to pettifog his readers. No matter how many red herrings you throw up, John, your sincerity is still fishy.
Cox Communications was one of the first companies in this town to step forward to embrace the gross receipts tax on businesses -- which the Review-Journal hates because it will keep an insignificant piece of their huge profits in this state before they are shipped back to Arkansas -- because Cox understood the needs we have and it realized that the money was not going to come from thin air.
I am sure they did it because it was the right thing, but I also suspect that my being part of the task force weighed somewhat on their decision. So, rather than feather my own nest by exempting them from new taxes as Smith implies, Cox acted against my own, short-term financial interests. So much for the conflicts of interest you wish were there, wouldn't you say?
So, Mr. Smith, make fun of golf and golfers all you want. But remember when you do you are impacting thousands of inner city children who, for the first time, have the opportunity to change their lives through that sport and go to college. That's just one of the really good things that "rich" golfers are doing for this community.
By the way, John, what good have you done lately?
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