Oh, how we long for justice

So I'm out on my morning walk in the desert last Wednesday when I come across what looks like a piece of trash wedged at the base of a creosote bush. Being the good, environmentally friendly Las Vegan that I am, I pick it up.

But before folding it and putting it in my back pocket, I notice that it is a photograph ... of me!

Talk about surreal. It's 0-dark-thirty on a chilly morning in the northwest part of the valley. It's that magical half-light time in the desert. The sun is not quite above Sunrise Mountain. And here I stand straddling a creosote bush looking at a picture of myself.

A quick scan of the area uncovered a few more pictures of me and my family, an envelope and a holiday card from some cross-town friends. According to the note, they wished Christina and me a nice holiday and enclosed a few pictures of us they had lying around the house from an old church event.

I then discovered several other envelopes addressed to my neighbors, all of which had been ripped open and the contents taken or lost to the wind.

Then I knew what had happened.

I walked directly to the neighborhood mail box cluster about a mile away. All the doors were wide open. Mail everywhere. Some low-life thief had gotten into the mail boxes, grabbed whatever he could quickly snatch and then threw the remains in the desert.

Many things crossed my mind at the time.

What kind of no-account, bottom-feeding troll would steal holiday mail? Only a person made from the droppings of the Grinch.

What post office genius came up with the idea of mail box clusters anyway? What happened to the good old-fashioned house-to-house delivery? Clustered mail boxes are convenient only for the postal workers and thieves. Customers come last.

In the end, however, I found myself simply giving thanks. It was, after all, only mail.

Stuff.

Important stuff, sometimes. But still only stuff.

Too many fellow Las Vegans have suffered far worse at the hands of criminals. Burglaries in which everything in the house is stolen or ransacked. And, worse yet, sometimes people are at home. Sometimes bound. Sometimes hurt.

In fact, the friends who had sent me that letter I found in the desert were themselves subject to a professional house burglary. Several homes in their neighborhood were ransacked on the same night. They and their young girls were not home, thank God. But their neighbors were bound during the ordeal. I can only imagine the continuing sense of dread and violation such an experience brings.

Look, don't get me wrong. I'm not happy about finding my mail thrown all over the desert. And I long for justice for the two-bit creep who did it. But on the cosmic scale of bad things happening to good people, my victimization doesn't register.

For those who have experienced far worse, my holiday wish for you is justice and peace. Not necessarily in that order.

CNN fumbles again

Last week I criticized the way CNN handled citizen questions in the Las Vegas Democratic presidential debate. I thought the questions sketched only a caricature of the full spectrum of Nevada Democrats.

In particular, I found it unbelievable the network could not find one pro-military/Iraq question from local Democrats.

I gave CNN the benefit of the doubt, suggesting they just didn't work hard enough.

Now it looks like CNN's fumbling is more than just laziness.

In last week's Republican presidential debate, CNN allowed retired Brig. Gen. Keith H. Kerr to ask a question on gays in the military as if he were a normal, neutral citizen. What CNN didn't disclose until after the debate is that Gen. Kerr is co-chairman of Sen. Hillary Clinton's national military veterans group.

A planted Clinton partisan, for goodness sake.

CNN says it didn't know. If you ask me, this kind of performance -- be it laziness or partisanship -- should disqualify CNN from conducting any more debates. They obviously are not up to the task.

Blue Friday

An internet Bozo (as distinguished from a real Review-Journal reader) angrily e-mailed me to challenge my assertion in last week's column that there are real, live Democrats in Nevada who support the military and the war against terrorism in Iraq. He said no Democrat (none, zip, nada) support "Bush's war" on terrorism in Iraq.

I personally know this not to be the case. But I point this out today to show how the Democratic Party needs to take notice of its ever-shrinking tent of ideas, not to mention its dwindling degree of tolerance, especially from the hateful blogosphere.

Which brings me to one final thought this morning: There is a movement afoot urging Americans to wear blue on Fridays in support of our military, especially those fighting terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.

Count me in. Do you think there'll be other Democrats wearing a bit of blue on Fridays? Bet me, Bozo.

Think, Jim, think

My spies at the Northwest Rotary Club in Summerlin tell me that Jim Rogers proved himself a cowardly lion in a speech last week.

He singled out my newspaper as a greedy bad citizen because it doesn't pay any corporate income tax.

Of course, what Mr. Rogers fails to adequately highlight is that his television companies in Nevada also don't pay corporate income tax. That's because there is no corporate income tax in Nevada.

Jim advocates a state corporate income tax as well as a personal income tax. The Review-Journal has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting for free speech in Nevada, so far be it for me to deny Jim his 2 cents.

But with due respect, Jim, you're free to be dead wrong. Nevada's budget woes stem from overspending, not under-taxation. To prove it, just look at our neighbors in California and Arizona. Both those states have a corporate income tax, a state income tax and a hundred more taxes than Nevada. Yet both those states find themselves in worse budget crunches. If higher taxes were the answer, California and Arizona would be in high cotton, no?

No. That's because state spending, not revenue, drives deficits. Besides, giving Jim as the university chancellor more money would do little good. In fact, Jim told the Rotary Club that he doesn't know how to fix higher education.

As one Rotarian wrote me, "If he doesn't know how, and he openly admits it, isn't it time for him to step down as chancellor?"

Well, dear Rotarian, you're not the first to suggest it.

Sherman Frederick is publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and president of Stephens Media. Readers may write him at sfrederick@reviewjournal.com.