Get out while the getting’s good or they’ll come for you next

Jane Ann Morrison with a Strip performer’s ape. (R-J file pix)

Run, Jane, run. Get out while you can with your reputation intact.

On page 1B of the Sunday newspaper Jane Ann Morrison announced she was voluntarily shoving aside her columnist keyboard. On the back of the Viewpoint section columnist Daniella Greenbaum reported that she had been basically shunted aside for failing to be politically correct.

Greenbaum wrote that she resigned from her post as Business Insider columnist after she wrote that actress Scarlett Johansson taking a movie role in which she would portray a transgender man was just make-believe and actors should be allowed to take on any roles they wish. The piece was spiked and she bailed. Johansson also dropped the planned role when the politically correct pique hit the roof.

After reading that I looked back at Jane Ann’s reminiscence about her decades as an ink-stained wretch and wondered if some self-styled animal rights zealot might take issue with that photo of her with a Strip performer’s ape. There’s always something. Eventually anyone who espouses an opinion is bound to run into the politically correct buzzsaw.

Two of today’s letters to the editor, conveniently, took umbrage with recent screeds by columnists Victor Joecks and Wayne Allyn Root for being insensitive.

An alert reader took the opportunity this morning to email a bit of anonymous satire someone had posted to the web:

It had been snowing all night. So at ….

8:00: I made a snowman.

8:10: A feminist passed by and asked me why I didn’t make a snow woman.

8:15: So, I made a snow woman. Now I have a snow couple.

8:17: My feminist neighbor complained about the snow woman’s voluptuous chest saying it objectified snow women everywhere

8:20: The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned it should have been two snowmen instead

8:25: The vegans at the end of the lane complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and not to decorate snow figures with.

8:28: I am being called a racist because the snow couple is white.

8:42: The feminist neighbor complained again that the broomstick of the snow woman needs to be removed because it depicted women in a domestic role.

8:45: TV news crew shows up. I am asked if I know the difference between snowmen and snow-women? I reply, “Snowballs” and am called a sexist by the TV reporter.

9:00: I’m on the News as a suspected racist, homophobic sensibility offender bent on stirring up trouble during difficult weather.

9:29: Far left protesters offended by everything are marching down the street

Moral: There is no moral to this story.  It’s just the world in which we live today and it’s going to get worse.

By the bye, Jane Ann says she plans to give a shot at that novel that everyone is supposed to have inside of them. I can’t help but wonder if it will be set in a small desert, mob-infested gambling town called Three Cacti. (Hint: Obscure “literary” reference to one of her, and my, favorite mystery writers.)

 

 

 

 

Telling like it is about Harry Reid

AP photo of Harry Reid accompanying Jane Ann Morrison column online at R-J.

I’m sure Harry Reid chuckled heartily at today’s newspaper column by Jane Ann Morrison in which she rains on his retirement celebration today by saying of him in her opening line: “Harry Reid is rude, ruthless and deceitful. He spent his political life embracing the Machiavellian motto that it’s better to be feared than loved.”

Having covered Reid for 37 years, she knows whereof she speaks. Morrison was there when mobster Joe Agosto was caught on tape saying, “I gotta Cleanface in my pocket,” meaning Harry, then head of the Gaming Commission.

She was in court when they played the video of phony Harry pretending to outraged at being offered a bribe.

Morrison recounted:

In 1979, Reid testified in court about a bribe attempt. The year before, Las Vegan Jack Gordon offered a $12,000 bribe to Reid, hoping to win approval for two new gaming devices. Reid reported it to the FBI, and his office was set up to videotape the meeting. When the bribe was offered, FBI agents entered to arrest Gordon. Reid erupted, saying, “You son of a bitch, you tried to bribe me!” and started to choke Gordon. He had to be pulled off by agents.

As I watched the video in court, it seemed somewhat fake. Reid, a lawyer, knew he was being videotaped.

Somewhat fake? Morrison is too kind by half.

She also recounts a time when he flat out lied about saying something to her that she had clearly taped. But that’s never affected Harry, who has changed course countless times over the years and then denied doing so.

Morrison gave Harry his due. He did accomplish a number of things, mostly for himself and his party.

Even Harry’s former Senate colleague Richard Bryan vouched for him embracing the fear over love methodology.

Bryan has said Reid “has a memory like a political elephant. You cross him, he’ll never forget that. There will be a price to pay. Certainly there are people who paid the price.” Bryan declined to name names.

Harry’s one-time spokeswoman, Susan McCue, a woman who turned the term media relations into an oxymoron, once told a reporter Reid looks at a person’s vulnerabilities to “disarm, to endear, to threaten, but most of all to instill fear.”

Morrison accurately called that Machiavellian.

In the chapter on Reid in Peter Schweizer’s book, “Extortion: How politicians extract your money, buy votes, and line their own pockets,” the author recounts countless self-serving deals Harry cut over the years.

Schweizer opens that section with a quote from “The Godfather” by Don Corleone, “Do you spend time with your family? Good. Because a man that doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

The book then describes a scene at a restaurant hours after Reid was sworn in on Jan. 4, 2005, for his fourth term and became Senate majority leader. “Reid was seated in the quiet backroom of the restaurant. The lobbyists, who represented the largest and most powerful corporations in the world, took turns saying hello to the new leader. ‘It was like a scene out of “The Godfather,”’ one lobbyist told Roll Call. ‘He was in the room and people were lined up to greet him and pay homage.’”

Schweizer concludes the chapter by writing that Reid “runs the Democrat Party’s toughest family extortion syndicate …”

There are a few columnists Reid appears to like — those who fawn over him and his Machiavellian ways and snipe at those who dare to question his deviousness and vindictiveness and self-serving deeds.

A few years ago, Reid had this to say about one of them:

Some are watchdogs. Some are lapdogs.

 

A dedicated journalist who covered the world still does … in a way

A rainbow formed in Red Rock Canyon as friends gathered to spread the ashes of a colleague.

Laura Myers covered the world for The Associated Press and several newspapers, including the Las Vegas newspaper, now a little a bit of her ashes have been spread in far flung reaches of the world.

On Sunday a dozen friends and former co-workers spread the last of those ashes at Red Rock Canyon, where she loved to hike and climb. Ashes also have been spread at Lake Tahoe and in California, I think, and recently Jeff and Jenny Scheid left some along the Camino de Santiago in Spain, which Laura had said she wanted to hike. Myers died of cancer in June of 2015 at the age of 53, before that could happen.

Her obituary by close friend Jane Ann Morrison described her passion:

She lived to work. Though diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in March 2013, she worked steadily until six weeks before her death. Despite excruciating pain, she was a prolific writer, breaking news and crafting stories that were thorough, accurate, clear and fair. She kept her personal political leanings to herself and out of her stories, though activists from each major party often accused her of leaning one way or another.

She was so concerned about not showing or even forming any inkling of bias toward any of the candidates she covered that she told me she refused to vote in any of the races she was covering.

Myers was inducted in the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame a year ago to commemorate her remarkable career, which began in 1984 at the Reno Gazette-Journal:

The Associated Press hired her in 1988, first to cover news in Carson City, then San Francisco-San Jose, Calif., where she covered the Rodney King riots.

She would leave and return to the news cooperative several times over a 20-year career. Her first departure was in 1992, when she joined the Peace Corps in a remote village in Togo, West Africa.

In 1995, the news agency offered her a plum job covering politics, foreign affairs, the military and national security in Washington.

The AP had to wait, though, because Myers had a three-month contract with the American Refugee Committee, managing logistics at a refugee camp in Goma, Zaire, now the Congo.

During the 1990s and 2000s, aside from her day jobs, she worked with Habitat for Humanity in Uganda, Mongolia and New York.

After another stint with AP, in 2007 she worked for Food for All of Washington, distributing food to the needy and the elderly.

As Morrison explained, Laura Myers was a huge movie fan, and it was the movie “The Way” that inspired her desire to trek the Camino de Santiago.

I hired Laura in 2010 to cover the senatorial campaign on the recommendations of two of her friends and former co-workers — Morrison and Laura Wingard.

Laura Myers

I think I first understood what a talented reporter Laura was when I read her profile of Sharron Angle, then a long-shot but the eventual nominee of the Republican Party to take on Harry Reid in 2010. It was the first time the people of Nevada got an unvarnished glimpse of this hard-driving, tough-talking, and deeply-devout politician.

You can tell the true mettle of a journalist by what she has written.

Myers and friends on a peak at Red Rock

The profile was skillfully crafted, using metaphors to paint a word portrait of a many-layered candidate. It was matter of fact, without the judgmental tilting so many liberal journalists resorted to in reporting on Angle as a Bible-thumping, pistol-waving grandma — though Laura conceded later that she was a bit surprised when Angle showed her the pistol she carried in her pickup.

Laura wove anecdotes into political insight. The story was no cream puff though. It noted that four out of 10 voters did not recognize Angle’s name with less than three months until the primary. It quoted one of those ubiquitous experts as saying her chances for the nomination were slim.

In her obituary Morrison quoted then-Deputy Editor James G. Wright, who had worked with Myers in Algeria, as saying,  “Laura was absolutely fearless, and she was one of the smartest and toughest people I’ve ever known. She had a great sense of humor, truly cared about people and was intensely loyal to her friends, but at the same time she was a loner. She made her own way in the world, on her own terms, and she didn’t give a damn if anyone else liked it or not. She embodied the Nevada spirit.”

Hers was an indomitable spirit.

Friends gather to spread ashes.

 

A good journalist lost too soon

Longtime friends Laura Wingard, Laura Myers and Jane Ann Morrison in 1987 (From R-J website)

We lost another good journalist this week. The Review-Journal’s political reporter, Laura Myers, 53, died Friday of colon cancer, which she had been battling for more than two years.

I hired Laura in 2010 to cover the senatorial campaign on the recommendations of two of her friends and former co-workers — Jane Ann Morrison and Laura Wingard. (Morrison wrote both a news obituary and a column for today’s paper. Both pieces tell a comprehensive story about the heart and soul of a dedicated journalist and humanitarian.)

I think I first understood what a talented reporter Laura was when I read her profile of Sharron Angle, then a long-shot but the eventual nominee of the Republican Party to take on Harry Reid in 2010. It was the first time the people of Nevada got an unvarnished glimpse of this hard-driving, tough-talking, and deeply-devout politician.

You can tell the true mettle of a journalist by what she has written.

The profile was skillfully crafted, using metaphors to paint a word portrait of a many-layered candidate. It was matter of fact, without the judgmental tilting so many liberal journalists resorted to in reporting on Angle as a Bible-thumping, pistol-waving grandma — though Laura conceded later that she was a bit surprised when Angle showed her the pistol she carried in her pickup.

Until I tracked down the story this morning, I had forgotten that it opened with an account of Angle being nearly paralyzed by a tumor on her spine years previously. That was a little unsettling.

Laura wove anecdotes into political insight, such as when she wrote about Angle singing a silly song with her 2½-year-old grandson. The song was from a then-popular cartoon movie “Veggie Pirate.”

Laura wrote:

“We are the pirates who don’t do anything,” the cartoon vegetables sing in nasal tones.
“We just stay home and lie around.
“And if you ask us to do anything.
“We’ll just tell you, we don’t do anything.”

Angle explained that it reminded her of Washington gridlock.

The story was no cream puff though. It noted that four out of 10 voters did not recognize Angle’s name with less than three months until the primary. It quoted one of those ubiquitous experts as saying her chances for the nomination were slim.

The piece ended thusly:

“They are just going at it,” Angle smiles, referring to her top two GOP opponents. They have all but ignored Angle, a tactic they might regret if she overcomes long odds and makes a primary comeback.

The GOP warfare somehow reminds Angle of the book she wrote and self-published called “Prairie Fire.” It centers on the tragic death of a member of her German-speaking immigrant family several generations ago after they moved to South Dakota from Europe following the Civil War.

Those settlers used to live in dugouts, or sod houses, that were essentially buried underground, protecting them from the cold in winter and the heat in summer.

A fire raged across the prairie one day. Most of Angle’s ancestors survived by huddling in the sod house as the blaze overran it. But her great grandmother burned to death while trying to salvage a few pieces of laundry from the clothesline before the fire engulfed the dry grasses.

“The fire got her,” says Angle, whose best hope might be to let the GOP primary flames ravage the exposed competition, leaving her the sole survivor, gathering up enough votes to win.

Frankly, that is a pretty decent metaphor for what happened.

As a political reporter she tried to be as objective as possible — to the point of telling me she refused to cast a ballot in any political race she was covering so her own mind could remain as open as possible.

Journalism and humanity have lost a good one too soon. Over the years cancer has taken and/or crippled too many good people I have known, loved, worked with and admired. Cancer research charities are good ways to remember and pay tribute to those we’ve lost in hopes that in the future good people can stay with us longer.

Sharron Angle with her grandson. (R-J photo)

 

 

 

Another change of pace and face at the Las Vegas newspaper

In politics it’s called “the optics.” No matter what you say or do, it also matters how it looks.

With today’s farewell column by Jane Ann Morrison — she’s being switched in the “reorganization” from general interest news columnist to covering city hall, she says — the visible staff of the Las Vegas Review-Journal is visibly bereft of distaff faces and voices.

Jane Ann Morrison’s farewell column.

City editor Mary Hynes was let go some time ago and more recently newsdesk editor Mary Greeley was shown the door, along with many others, now Jane Ann’s auburn locks are being removed from sight. Yes, I remember when she announced “my column would discuss my first time … coloring my hair.” And, yes, to my masculine amazement it generated considerable attention and general amusement among the paper’s readers — male and female. It was a topic that would have never crossed my mind.

The only female face to be seen in the “reorganization” or cronyization is someone named Blue Ash, who was named publisher of Luxury magazine, a niche pub that tilts heavily to the female demographic. Ash was the division sales manager at the magazine and there was no publisher. So, basically she got a new title.

I did not cockroach* Jane Ann’s farewell column so she could move on with her own words out first.

She hit the high points in this last column from her 10 years of alternately sharing the Nevada section cover with John L. Smith. We disagreed on whether judges should be appointed instead of elected. We agreed on giving patients easier access to doctor’s backgrounds and malpractice history. Her pieces on the hoarder were disturbing but accomplished some good for the hoarder and his neighbors — something journalists strive for: making a difference.

As she herself pointed out, (“I was loved and loathed, depending on the reader’s point of view, because I was paid to have an opinion. Now I’ll be paid to be fair and accurate.”) she’ll have a hard time walking up to the mayor, whose state of the city speech she largely panned, and saying: “Hello, I’m here to be an objective reporter. Pay no attention to all those opinions and comments behind the curtain of ancient history.” Jane Ann can do it, but it’ll be a whiplash transition.

I guess that promise in that editorial “to keep popular columns in familiar places” didn’t apply to the news section.

At least, unlike so many others with decades of experience as reporters and editors at the Review-Journal, she has a job for now. But she and all those who remain will have to remember to keep dodging the wrecking ball and hope the boss doesn’t have some crony from L.A. or Denver who wants your job. Good luck, Jane Ann. Keep your head down.

*Cockroach: A old Texas journalism term that describes what happens when someone finds out a competitor is working on a story and decides to jump out in front with a half-assed, half-reported piece that taints the value of the competitor’s scoop. So named because what a cockroach doesn’t eat, it wallows around in and spoils for everyone else.

You’ll just have to drink less, even if you are willing to pay more

Hoover Dam and the ‘bathtub ring’ (NY Times photo)

Water is in the news, especially its scarcity.

Recently The New York Times published a 1,500-word article on this topic, datelined Lake Mead, Nev.

Never mind the credibility of the author, Michael Wines, was blown to hell by his second paragraph in which he says of the Colorado River: “The once broad and blue river has in many places dwindled to a murky brown trickle,” though everyone in the West knows that pioneers used to say of the silt-laden river: “too thick to drink and too thin to plow.” Never broad nor blue.

The article meanders through a series of factoids about drought, attempts to tap lower into Lake Mead for Las Vegas water, conservation, the historic pact that divvied up the river water, recycling and much more.

The article quotes John Entsminger, newly appointed head of the Las Vegas Valley Water District and likely heir to head the Southern Nevada Water Authority, as saying, “The era of big water transfers is either over, or it’s rapidly coming to an end. It sure looks like in the 21st century, we’re all going to have to use less water.”

The Wall Street Journal has a column talking about the shortage of water from one end of California to the other and how it is affecting homeowners, farmers and ranchers.

Jane Ann Morrison had a Review-Journal column about Entsminger’s qualifications to head up the water agencies. She too quoted Entsminger on the likelihood of Las Vegas having to get by with less. “The next chapter is not a discussion of how can we get more water, but how can we all co-exist with less.”

Everyone is wearing blinders. It is all about government allocating existing water supplies, building huge infrastructure, conservation and recycling sewage effluent.

No one but no ever suggests the one and only means of fairly allocating water to willing users: the free market.

I’ve quoted columnist and economist Thomas Sowell on this a couple of times before, but it bears repeating:

“There is no need for government officials to decide arbitrarily – and categorically – whether it is a good thing or a bad thing for particular crops to be grown in California with water artificially supplied below cost from federal irrigation projects. Such questions can be decided incrementally, by those directly confronting the alternatives, through price competition in a free market.”

No bureaucrat who wants to keep his job would ever suggest such a wild and crazy thing.

Life should have theme songs

As Jane Ann Morrison informs us, memories are funny things. They’re not always true, as she recounts in today’s column about former Mayor Oscar Goodman’s book “Being Oscar.”

She was there and has her own version. His appears to be a semi-true story, some he made up and some he forgot.

So, when they make Oscar’s book into a movie, I believe I have the theme song for when the credits roll. Just substitute gin for tequila.