The Week
The Week
Sometimes, It's All About the Game
May 17th, 2012
Dancing off third base after Philadelphia Phillies lefty Cole Hamels purposefully drilled him in the back with a first-inning fastball on May 6, Washington Nationals rookie Bryce Harper saw his chance for payback. As Hamels tossed a second pickoff attempt to first, Harper shuffled down the line before accelerating toward the plate. The 19-year-old Las Vegan slid in ahead of the tag, stealing home and amassing yet another highlight in his first two weeks in the big leagues. Read more »
The Week
Appropriating Downtown, With Fries
May 3rd, 2012
There’s a new McDonald’s on the Strip, a place where you can order your Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken, accompanied by a McCafe Iced Caramel Mocha, and eat in a test-marketed atmosphere of faux-graffiti murals and faux-brick walls, loft seating and chandeliers befitting of a sophisticated urbanite such as yourself. (Hey, sophisticated urbanite: Why are you eating at McDonald’s anyway? Eh, never mind.) Read more »
The Week
Heat, Happiness and the Same Old City Hall
April 26th, 2012
Former City Councilmen Michael McDonald and Frank Hawkins—both of whom violated state ethics laws as councilmen in previous sweetheart deals—got approval for a new development using $11 million in public subsidies. They’re planning to build low-income senior housing near Decatur Boulevard and Vegas Drive at the obscenely high cost-per-apartment unit of $97,975, in a city with a glut of vacant single-family homes at a median cost of $107,000. Read more »
The Week
Let’s Take a Medical Tour!
April 19th, 2012
Do you like to be punctured in moving traffic? Do you like to take on-the-go intravenous medications from phlebotomists in fishnet? Do you like to wear split-back hospital gowns and eat really big burgers? Then Medical Tourism in Las Vegas is for you! Read more »
The Week
The Rising, the Falling and the Forgotten
April 12th, 2012
Each day, another piece of this new era falls into place—choice bits of history are preserved, others destroyed, and new contexts arise. If you stand here at the fenced-off Motel 6, next to faded racks of porn and across the street from the bustling Beat coffeehouse, you feel like you’re right in the thick of history—of this modernizing, or post-modernizing, of downtown. Read more »
The Week
Bunker Mentality
April 5th, 2012
Courtesy of the Great Recession, we already knew the walls of a gated community can’t keep out economic reality. Terse notices about uncut grass and mandated paint schemes proved no match for a rising tide of sinking property values that easily swamped those stuccoed seawalls. It didn’t matter how strictly residents adhered to the rules; the ugliness flowed right over the top. Read more »
The Week
When the Running Stopped
March 22nd, 2012
This was to have been the year when Las Vegas’ stage-parent college basketball fans could bask in the more luxurious sort of vicarious living. Dizzy on a rich cocktail of decades-old glory, lingering bitterness about a dynasty denied and wild hopes raised by a Nov. 26 win over North Carolina, UNLV fans thought that—to paraphrase the prescient cover of the Rebels’ 1989-90 media guide—The Big Year Was Here. Again. Read more »
The Week
Who We Are
March 15th, 2012
For insight into the recent opening of The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, we turn to the erstwhile NFL coach Dennis Green. Read more »
The Week
Good Intentions
March 8th, 2012
On a windy morning in Henderson, a few Occupy Las Vegas protesters tucked orange fliers onto the windshields of cars parked at the Walmart Supercenter. “WARNING. If you buy any of these products, you are helping their manufacturers write and pass laws that serve their own interest, not yours ... THIS IS NOT DEMOCRACY!” Read more »
The Week
The Clotted Artery of Interstate 15
March 1st, 2012
On first glance, what California gas prices beget from a Nevadan is this: HAHAHAHAHAHA! A more reflective take might be this: Oh, shit, we’re next. And on a higher level of discourse—that’s “interdependence,” for you Stephen Covey fans out there—the response would be this: If it costs ’em a fortune to get here, maybe they won’t come. Read more »
