Opinion
Back to School? Not for Me.
A teacher confronts the limits of passion
August 23rd, 2012
My reason for walking out of the high school classroom after five years is that I have no answer to my friend’s question. I have no clue how to improve my own classroom, let alone all of public education. The suspicion that I don’t make much difference despite 70-hour workweeks and a true love of teaching has been steadily creeping up on me for the past year. Read more »
The Latest Thought
A Hollow Core
The Common Core Standards were designed as a bulwark against bad teachers. They just might drive the good ones out of the profession.
August 16th, 2012
The education profession is a comic freak show ripe for reality TV, a bickering marriage of the Socratic and the Bureaucratic who stay together “for the kids.” One loves to teach; the other loves to prove that the right things have been taught. It ain’t pretty. Read more »
Green Felt Journal
A Boardwalk Homecoming
August 9th, 2012
The Atlantic City I left was on the other side of history: a city left for dead, one that maybe, someday, might come back. Like Las Vegas, it blew up its past; some of my earliest memories were the implosions of the grand Boardwalk hotels. But this wasn’t replacing the Dunes with Bellagio. Old Atlantic City—the Traymore, the Marlborough-Blenheim, Million Dollar Pier—hadn’t been improved upon; gold had been replaced with concrete and red neon, when anything was built at all. Unlike Las Vegas, you never could shake the sense that you were one or two generations from the golden age Read more »
Green Felt Journal
Debt Matters
July 19th, 2012
It’s the dark matter of the Las Vegas casino business: there, but not readily apparent to the naked eye. You can spy reflections of it in deferred maintenance and longer check-in lines on the Strip. It’s casino debt, and it could remake the Strip over the several next years. Or not. Like other businesses, casino operators borrow money for a variety of reasons: to cover start-up costs, to expand and to keep up appearances. When revenues keep pace with borrowing, that’s not a problem. Read more »
The Latest Thought
Jury Envy
What do you do when duty calls … and then stands you up?
July 12th, 2012
I have an embarrassing little confession: I was looking forward to reporting for jury duty in June. For years I watched friends and colleagues being summoned, legally required to skip a day’s work, smirkily complaining about the banality of civic duty. It was a bitter, compulsory club, and I craved to belong. Finally, I’d been chosen. Read more »
Why Double Action Roulette Will Catch On
July 5th, 2012
Lower labor costs will be the key to Double Action Roulette's success. Read more »
The Latest Thought
No, You Don’t Need Your Own Nonprofit
Making a difference starts with the realization that it’s not about you
July 5th, 2012
Maybe it’s the ego-tinged duality of do-goodism: There’s charity, and then there’s being known for one’s charity. Or maybe it’s an extension of managing one’s money well: If I’m going to give money to a cause, I want to be super sure that every penny goes exactly where I want it to go, not wasted on unnecessary office supplies or staff outings. Read more »
Green Felt Journal
How to Set a Fresh Table
July 5th, 2012
No one knows if Double Action Roulette will be the next Three-Card Poker or will disappear after its evaluation (early reports are favorable). But it’s crucial to the casino business that Richard Fitoussi and those like him keep fighting the good fight. Because even though most games never make it on the casino floor, those that do offer enough novelty to keep the business moving forward. And that is the only way, in the long term, it will continue to have appeal. Read more »
The Latest Thought
Character Assassination
A costumed menace on the Strip? This sounds like a job for the Copyright Gestapo.
June 28th, 2012
No, the most unsavory thing I’ve recently encountered while walking the Strip—the one thing that gets my blood going—is that rat bastard Mickey Mouse. I wish I knew how it happened or why, but sometime between when I left Las Vegas in 2002 and when I returned last month, this town became infested with people—drunk men, mostly—dressed up like superheroes, pirates, ninjas, anime sprites and, yes, Disney characters. Read more »
Comrade Grumpy’s Peeve of the Week
Sheep Art
June 21st, 2012
It always scares me. I’m driving down I-15 near Russell, and suddenly (and repeatedly) a massive bighorn sheep jumps out at me. I brake and doubletake. WTF is a massive bighorn sheep—or a horse; is that a horse next to that sheep?—doing so close to the freeway? Read more »
