The Latest Thought
Latest Thought
Moving Mountains, Building a City
How a Vegas pioneer helped shape the Valley’s soul
May 17th, 2012
We’ve all heard the stereotype: Las Vegas is nothing more than a transient city, a plastic place where no one puts down roots, neighbors remain strangers, and the only civic duty is every man for himself. It’s not true, of course, and it never has been. But with the constant media flow of Vegas “mythology”—often delivered by our very own marketing gurus—sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we are a real community, built by people willing to devote their lives to an improbable dream. The recent death of Stuart Mason, a builder of the real Las Vegas, is occasion for such a reminder. Read more »
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Working Warriors
For Nevada's Guard and Reserve members, serving the nation is only half the battle
May 3rd, 2012
Gary Sallee drops into a chair across from me in the otherwise empty Nevada Department of Transportation training room and, in his soft Kentucky drawl, tells me a little about his journey as a U.S. Air Force Reservist. Read more »
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The Upside of Greenwashing
How a low-down, double-dealing dark art just might be raising our consciousness
April 19th, 2012
Green marketing purports to sell us products, but what it really sells is a more benign vision of the world—and of ourselves. It starts from the assumption that we know something is wrong with the way we’ve been living, proceeds to flatter us with the assumption that we care about fixing what’s wrong, and then proposes that we can fix it by buying the right stuff. Read more »
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Downtown, Unbuttoned
The city wanted to keep the homeless from sleeping in a downtown plaza. So it ruined the plaza.
April 12th, 2012
Earlier this year, the city affixed more than 200 hard white plastic “buttons” onto the benches of the corridor and the planters of the adjacent plaza. Against the sandstone benches and mauve planters, the white buttons look ludicrous. They’re normally used as roadway traffic devices. Needless to say, roadway traffic devices are neither an intelligent solution to homelessness nor a way to craft quality public space. Read more »
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The Terror of the Inexplicable
Madness, atrocity and a world without answers
April 5th, 2012
The hearing was the surreal thing that all post-tragedy hearings are. The family sat in the second row, waiting for the judge to arrive. The news media—the familiar gaggle of camera tripods and cellphones and TV faces—stood 15 feet in front of them in the empty jury box scrutinizing their every move, taking pictures in the awkward silence. The courtroom was so small it forced an intimacy, a direct imposition of the public eye on a confused and traumatic moment. Read more »
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Karma, Bottled
Our intrepid, water-drinking reporter decided to break off her relationship with plastic. That’s when the past came back to haunt her.
March 29th, 2012
Mother Nature kicked my ass. I’m lying in bed barely able to move, and now, I get it. I deserved this. Somehow, after years of contributing plastic water bottle waste to the Pacific Ocean garbage patch, I had this coming. Read more »
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Teacher, Mentor, Facebook Friend
Should educators allow students to ‘friend’ them?
March 22nd, 2012
I have 621 friends on Facebook—no, wait, 623. I just accepted two of my 10th grade English students’ friend requests. In fact, well over half of my Facebook friends are current or former students. Read more »
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Yes, High Culture Has a History Here
How The Smith Center fits into the past—and future—of our resort town
March 15th, 2012
As a world-class, centralized home for the performing arts, The Smith Center brings something new to the Valley. But high culture itself goes back a long way in Las Vegas—even on the Strip. And to this day, the priorities of casino moguls and arts patrons aren’t as disconnected as you might think. Read more »
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Don’t Try This at Home
For the ultimate March Madness ritual, there’s no place like Vegas
March 8th, 2012
The main action happens during the opening Thursday-Sunday stretch, when 48 games shrink the tourney field from 64 to the Sweet 16. For these four days, the energy generated in a sportsbook makes a Saturday night at Tryst seem like a book-club meeting. Read more »
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The Two-Year Turnaround
How long does it take for a newcomer to fall for this town?
March 1st, 2012
I got a lot of advice before moving to Las Vegas in April 2010, most of which fell into two categories: 1) “Don’t,” and 2) “I got really drunk at Caesars Palace in ’06 and puked on a slot machine. You’ll love it!” Which is to say that the advice, sourced exclusively from people who had never lived here, was worthless. Many such opinions are, because in the final analysis any place is what you make of it. Some people are happy living in Nebraska, apparently. Read more »
