Kate Silver
Contact: Email
She spent a decade flexing her dauber arm … er, pen in Las Vegas. Her work has appeared in People, Playboy and Spirit magazines, and she was on staff at Las Vegas Weekly and Las Vegas Life. Now Silver is a resident of Chicago, where recently accepted a (temporary) job with the U.S. Census Bureau, and her bureaucratic urban misadventures can be found on her blog, chicagocensusworker.wordpress.com.
Recent Articles
What Happens Here Sells There
How the people who market Las Vegas to the world adjust the pitch depending on the audience
September 30th, 2010
John Bischoff doesn’t speak Spanish, but he knows this phrase: Lo que pasa aqui, se queda aqui. As the vice president of international brand strategy for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, Bischoff has spent the past three years repeating those words in Mexico, and the all-too familiar English version—”What happens here stays here”—in Canada, while working to woo international travelers to Las Vegas.
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Help-O-Meter
Donation Stations for the homeless show shift in city’s attitude
September 23rd, 2010
In April, the city of Las Vegas officially signaled a big change in the way it views the problem of homelessness by installing 10 old coin-operated parking meters around downtown areas known for high pedestrian traffic and panhandling.
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Construction Ahead
If nothing else, they’re still building roads around here
September 9th, 2010
Bulldozers, gravel, orange cones and construction traffic abound around town, thanks in part to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Without those funds injected into Southern Nevada roadways, the economic downturn would likely have meant smaller budgets for transportation projects, according to Tracy Bower, spokeswoman for the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC).
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What We Wouldn’t Give for a New Poäng Chair
If only Las Vegas had its own IKEA! A search for answers to the long-lingering shopping question: Why are certain stores (Crate & Barrel!) still not in our market?
September 9th, 2010
Politics and religion may divide the Silver State, but one question seems to unite all of us: Why don’t we have an IKEA?
The nearest outpost of the Swedish furniture store is nearly four hours away, in Southern California, where there are four within about 50 miles. For years, we Las Vegans have made pilgrimages to this land of IKEA riches, renting trucks and filling them with Bestå/Framstå/Inreda storage systems, Fjellse bed frames and Hönefoss mirrors. We make the trek because IKEA is notoriously difficult when it comes to shipping. Many items aren’t available for online orders, and those that are available come with a heavy shipping price tag.
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Art School
From foreclosure photography to Frida, Clark County School District depends on all artistic aspects of the community to enrich programs
September 9th, 2010
A group of Arbor View High School students will soon take a field trip to downtown’s Contemporary Arts Center, where they’ll look at foreclosed houses. Most of them likely pass at least one foreclosed home every day on the way to school, but this is their chance to also learn about photography, perspective and art at Emily Kennerk’s exhibit, America’s No. 1 Foreclosed City: Las Vegas (through Sept. 18, 107 E. Charleston Blvd., Suite 120, free, noon to 5 p.m. Tue-Sat and by appointment, 382-3886).
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Nobody Bikes in Las Vegas
That’s the traditional wisdom in our car-centric city. But it may be changing
September 9th, 2010
Solar power and wind power have always made sense in Las Vegas. Lately, pedal power is making inroads, too.
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Building Boomlet
Habitat for Humanity finds opportunity in economic downturn
September 2nd, 2010
If there is a silver lining to Southern Nevada’s real estate collapse, Habitat for Humanity Las Vegas has found it. The nonprofit, which works with volunteers to build and sell affordable housing, hopes to build 45 homes over the next three years. That’s more than double what it’s built in the last three years.
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Logging on to Learn
Online schools are free, flexible and getting more popular each year
August 19th, 2010
Bailey Saint-Marc has an easy commute to school every day. All the fifth-grader has to do is roll out of bed, turn on the computer and begin his daily lessons.
Although it might sound like home schooling, it’s not. Saint-Marc is in the gifted program at Nevada Connections Academy, an online charter school—a free public school—that’s part of the growing field of online learning institutions in Nevada, including Nevada Virtual Academy, Odyssey Charter Schools and Silver State High School. In addition, the Clark County School District has Virtual High School, with more than 1,500 students.
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Here Comes the Rain Again
Monsoon season is here and the Clark County Regional Flood Control District is still waging war with water
August 19th, 2010
Last week the Clark County Regional Flood Control District unveiled its newest billboard: an image of a blue car caught in a flash flood with the words “H2OTRAP” spelled out on a Nevada license plate. The winning phrase, submitted to the billboard license plate contest by Clark County resident Cheri Fisher, couldn’t come at a better time.
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Cyber-snooping
A local author says Facebook is a valuable tool for keeping tabs on your kids
August 12th, 2010
Three years ago, Valley resident Linda Fogg Phillips forbade her eight children to join any social networking websites. She didn’t want her kids to be exposed, and she thought she was protecting their privacy.
Today, her kids call her “queen of Facebook” and she’s “friends” with all of them. She’s also working on her second book about Facebook. Her first book, Facebook for Parents: Answers to the Top 25 Questions (Captology Media), coauthored by her brother, BJ Fogg, director of Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab, was published this year.
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