Negative coverage hurts Moulin Rouge project

The Moulin Rouge deserves a chance.

The history of the Moulin Rouge must be told and retold so that the atrocities faced by blacks in Las Vegas are never repeated. Blacks in Las Vegas face discriminatory practices. Black neighborhoods are slighted by lending institutions and are cut off from the rest of the city by the federal highway system. Black communities become dumping grounds for the city’s indigent.

The redevelopment of the Moulin Rouge is a badly needed project that will help stimulate major change in a community that suffers from racism. The Review-Journal is helping to spread the racism. It picked up an outdated photo and concentrated on the personal business of one of the owners (“Moulin Rouge officer ordered to pay,” Monday). The story had nothing to do with the proposed new activity.

This is the type of irresponsible, negative energy that helps to thwart positive change. It’s the type of reporting that has driven away other major developers and potential investors in the past.

Why is the personal business of one of the owners so important today? Why doesn’t the Review-Journal concentrate on the positive achievements of the developers, the obstacles they have overcome, the hurdles they have jumped? Why doesn’t the newspaper print the positive activities in the community where its headquarters is located?

The Moulin Rouge Museum & Cultural Center is a nonprofit organization created to uncover and preserve the history and culture of African-Americans in Las Vegas. The organization comprises leading citizens in the community who have for years volunteered their time and resources to help the museum’s goals.

We were responsible for the Moulin Rouge gaining a listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. We are collecting memorabilia, artifacts and stories about the Moulin Rouge with the hopes of preserving them in future museum exhibits. We are asking the community to assist with the future museum’s development.

It is our belief that an entertainment establishment that promotes black history and traditionally black entertainment, especially in jazz, blues, reggae, etc., will attract not only black tourists but the entire international community.

KATHERINE DUNCAN

LAS VEGAS

THE WRITER IS FOUNDER OF THE MOULIN ROUGE MUSEUM & CULTURAL CENTER INC.

Domestic surveillance

To the editor:

President Bush’s labored rationale for continuing a secret domestic surveillance program, while granting immunity to telecom companies that participated, is problematic on its face.

This administration says that if the companies are not protected then they will face many lawsuits. Well, lawsuits occur only when some crime has occurred and victims can be identified. If a telecom is subjected to lawsuits that are in the “billions” of dollars range, as the president asserts, then he is indicating that the crimes are probably very extensive and serious.

Next, the president says that he will lose a valuable tool against terror if the program is shut down. Well, if it’s illegal, then it needs to be shut down. We did not make warrantless searches and torture and the like illegal because they don’t work! We made these types of activities illegal because without protection against them we are not free, we are not represented nor protected from overt government intrusion.

All that we stand for is seriously compromised if we allow these types of activities without review.

We are supposed to be in control of our government. Our Congress would be complicit, or probably aiding in crimes, if they were to do as the president asks. Making illegal activities legal — after the fact — would seem to be unconscionable. We should not allow these types of activities to be swept under the rug when the president’s arguments collapse under the slightest scrutiny.

Tim Farkas

LAS VEGAS

Yucca Mountain safety

To the editor:

Readers would have been better served if your Feb. 22 editorial, “Nevada quake,” had sought to enlighten readers about seismic issues rather than simply alarm them.

Scientists studying Yucca Mountain have found that the risk of damage to surface and underground facilities from faults “is small because the amount of movement on local faults has been small, with possibly many thousands of years between movements,” according to their environmental report.

Earthquake damage is a surface phenomenon. Scientific research on seismic issues at and near Yucca Mountain, including even nuclear explosions underground at the Nevada Test Site, show that underground structures can withstand ground motion greater than that anticipated from earthquakes.

Last week’s earthquake in northeast Nevada was a greater distance from the Yucca Mountain site than Cleveland, Ohio, is from Washington, D.C., though details like that seem to pale in the face of the opportunity your newspaper seized to rattle Nevadans’ cages.

Scott Peterson

WASHINGTON, D.C.

THE WRITER IS VICE PRESIDENT OF THE NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE.

Tax ‘donations’?

To the editor:

In Patrick Lee’s letter to the editor in Monday’s Review-Journal, we see one more example of how casually language can be abused.

In his letter, Mr. Lee decries “casino moguls” who seek to “avoid donating more profits” by challenging initiative petitions that would place on November’s ballot a measure to increase the gaming win tax. Mr. Lee notes that the casino’s high-priced lawyers probably cost more than the casinos “would be asked to contribute.”

Of course, if a gaming tax increase were passed into law, casinos would not be “asked to contribute” anything. They would not be “donating” anything. Contributions and donations do not materialize through a law. What Mr. Lee advocates is that casinos be subject to fines or loss of license, or their leaders imprisoned, if they “choose” not to donate the percentage of the casino’s income deemed proper by Mr. Lee.

By couching his criticism in warm, fuzzy terms of charity, Mr. Lee seeks to hide the fact that what he advocates is a naked money grab through the tyranny of the majority. If Mr. Lee believes casinos should be punished for their success, fine. But, if the tax increase is such a good idea, why cloak it in dishonest language?

Gary Ashman

LAS VEGAS

Desert farming

To the editor:

In response to the Sunday letter from John Pierre Menvielle, board president of the Imperial Irrigation District: What about farming in the desert does Mr. Menvielle not understand? The irrigation of massive desert farms in the Imperial Valley is the main reason Lake Mead is being drained. Eighty percent of Colorado River water goes to these farms. Growing crops in the desert makes about as much sense as planting grass in Las Vegas yards.

Punishing residential water users into submission and poverty is exactly the wrong approach to any real solutions (“Rates rise in April for water,” Feb. 20 Review-Journal). Clark County should mandate that all front yards be converted to desert landscaping and allow only planted grass in 25 percent of each back yard. Clark County and the city of Las Vegas should also stop issuing building permits until Lake Mead is full again. This will help solve our housing market crash, too.

If all of these power and water rate increases don’t end soon, there won’t be anyone left who will be able to afford to go to these new casinos or to live in any high-rise condos or new houses, anyway.

Unfortunately, all of these rate increases are automatically passed with no real consideration to public opposition.

J. Collier

HENDERSON