Columnist Susan Snyder: List has us feeling inferior

Tuesday, May 27, 2003 | 8:20 a.m.

Did disappointment quietly creep into the comments of public officials after Las Vegas was spurned by the Feds' Top 30 Terrorists' Hit Parade?

Or did it reverberate like a jackhammer in a slot canyon?

Sheriff Bill Young, who honestly is doing a fine job leading Metro Police and never would wish anything evil on the community he protects, told Las Vegas Sun reporter Jen Lawson last week: "I find it incredible. It's like we don't even exist."

We are among the nation's top two tourist destinations. McCarran International Airport is the nation's eighth-busiest airport.

A guy accused of operating a terrorist sleeper cell even said they called Las Vegas, "The City of Satan."

Philadelphia -- "The City of Brotherly Love" -- rates and we don't?

Hmph.

But the aggravation isn't all visceral. The exclusion means Las Vegas won't be getting a cut of the $500 million in federal money set aside for areas in most need of protection from terrorism.

Apparently the Department of Homeland McCarthyism (Don't call. We've had this conversation, and you lost) examined threat information, population and critical infrastructure in determining which cities would get money.

Well, for pity's sake, we have critical infrastructure. Our infrastructure is so critical it may already be dead. In fact, it's beginning to stink. Take a whiff of our road system.

But that's not the point. The feds say terrorists figure we aren't worth the anthrax it would take to kill us.

Apparently, they're more likely to attack Cleveland. But Clevelanders already are safe because most of them are here on vacation. Go count the number of new, white Keds walking the Strip in 100-degree heat.

As for threat information, we have no way of knowing who hates us. We know certain school districts in Utah won't let their students take field trips to our art museums. And we keep hearing from business development leaders that we can't get any smart people to move here.

Hey, we've all managed to dodge the terrorism bullet. So who's dumb?

St. Louis is on the list, which figures if the terrorists visited the city in August. Even the humidity gets a rash in St. Louis in August.

I'll bet the people of St. Louis would help terrorists blow up the place if they managed to somehow get all the city's air conditioners to stop at once. All they'd have to do is work a deal with the power companies like the one that sent rolling brownouts through California a couple of years ago.

Interestingly, Orlando -- typically considered the nation's other top tourist destination -- didn't make the Terrorists' Top 30 either. But then, Orlando has Michael Eisner with a mouse in his pocket. Disney likely would use an attack to publicize the grand opening Axis Of Evilworld.

As for us, the National Education Association released a report last week that says Nevada ranks dead last nationally in the amount of money its schools receive from the state.

Perhaps the terrorists figure the worst they can do is leave us to ourselves.