Friday, Oct. 31, 2003 | 8:53 a.m.
AFTER THE CALIFORNIA FIRES are doused and the damage is surveyed more pain may be in store for our neighbors to the west.
With so much ground cover being removed, the winter rains can bring mudslides that outdo anything experienced during past wet weather spurts.
Also, let's not forget those loveable insurance companies as they try to escape paying as much as possible for the losses to homeowners. Then watch insurance rates go up and up and some companies refusing to reinsure people who suffered losses.
Our neighbors are suffering now but the pain won't go away for many years.
An innovative television crew asked several people escaping the fires surrounding their homes what they brought with them. Children, dogs, cats, picture albums, recording tapes and small toys were among the answers.
What if you had to make this rushed decision? My first thoughts would be my wife, dogs, bird, bottled water and animal food. Then checking to see if our neighbors also had a ride to safety.
A reader wondered how long I have known Dr. Lonnie Hammargren, who was the subject of a recent column.
In February 1989 I returned from the Yamales Valley in Honduras where the Nicaraguan Contras were fighting the Sandinistas of Daniel Ortega. The large number of wounded teenagers with nerve damage was on my mind when seeking medical help for them. Las Vegas neurosurgeon Dr. Lonnie Hammargren volunteered to pay his own way and help the wounded.
When circling Tegucigalpa, I told him that there was an old army helicopter, with a cracked windshield and bullet holes, that could get him into the Yamales Valley. I didn't tell him the Contra pilots were only 17 and 18 years old, but it made no difference because it had crashed the day after it brought me out of the valley.
Hammargren, with no sleep, settled for a long ride in a jeep through some minefields with my friend Payo Cabrera. Cabrera, a crusty Nicaraguan who served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and Lonnie immediately became friends.
I went to join the Miskito Indian fighters on the Rio Coco and three days later came back and joined Lonnie at a rehabilitation center, called Rancho Grande, outside of Tegucigalpa. In short order the doctor was showing a local doctor how a wounded boy in a wheelchair could eventually walk. Two days later the youngster was able to stand up and move his feet but still had a long way to go. Several patients were examined by Lonnie with recommendations given to help their situations.
Upon returning to Las Vegas, the doctor told me, "If you need me again, I'll be ready."
The public has been given good reason to ask if our university regents read their mail. UNLV President Carol Harter, in a letter to all regents dated Feb. 1, 2001, told them she had been elected to membership on a corporate board. She spelled out all aspects of her membership and ended it by writing: "Do feel free, however, to contact me should you wish to discuss this further ..."
Copies were also sent to the chancellor and legal adviser. In addition to this, she had already received the approval of the chancellor.
Harter served for only four months on the board of the now bankrupt company.
So what's the problem, regents?
Rapper Sean "P. Diddy" Combs expressed shock when learning that his clothing line is made under terrible working conditions in Honduran sweatshops. Every couple of years an American celebrity, making big bucks by allowing his or her name to be used selling clothes, gets stung with the sweatshop stigma. They immediately cry, "I didn't know." Well, why don't they know? Then they come with an announcement they will make certain the plant producing the clothes will change its operations. Sure, and it also snowed in Honduras last night.
Fifteen years ago I visited several sweatshops in Honduras while purchasing clothes for a San Pedro Sula orphanage. Four years later I found no change in the conditions. That's where I saw large amounts of expensive clothing being made by girls being paid 60 cents an hour.
Several times this situation, plus what is happening across the border in Mexico, has been written about in this column and by other American media.
This year it's P. Diddy's company and next year it will be some other celebrity's company."
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