The Local Newsroom
Character Study
Guiding Lights
November 8th, 2012
We heard a lot about Las Vegas’ economic miseries during the election campaign, but here, on a dirt corner near Blue Diamond Road and Rainbow Boulevard, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well and powered by the battery of an SUV. If you’re driving by, let off the gas pedal a bit and look closely. See that? It’s 16-year-old Andrew Choudhry. He’s using the SUV’s dome light as a flashlight, interlocking tessellation-like shapes to form a sphere. Read more »
Long Live the Sun!
November 8th, 2012
Recent stumbles aside, rumors of solar’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. U.S. and Chinese investment, along with technological advances, have already helped push the business toward viability. Photovoltaic cells are cheaper than ever—and our demand for energy is as voracious as ever. Read more »
Infrastructure
Who Will Buy These Sweet Transportation Ideas?
November 8th, 2012
OK, Regional Transportation Commission: You asked for it, you got it. The commission is putting together a plan for the next 20-plus years, and, through Nov. 26, the public is invited to propose priorities as RTC considers the future of transportation in the Valley. Here’s Vegas Seven’s contribution. Read more »
Politics
Election Food for Thought: A Six-Course Meal
November 1st, 2012
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney could help candidates up and down the ticket, but the guess here is that while neither will have long coattails, Obama will help Democrats more than Romney will help Republicans. Read more »
About Town
The Return of the Café Kid
Tamarisk Wood is trying to fund her startup coffeehouse the old-fashioned way: by putting out the tip jar
November 1st, 2012
Tamarisk Wood and I are Las Vegas café kids. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we frequented the same now-defunct Valley coffeehouses—Café Espresso Roma and Café Copioh, and my beloved Enigma Garden Café, formerly downtown at Fourth and Hoover. We didn’t really know each other then, but we knew the places, and we knew the crowds that frequented them. Read more »
Neon Museum
Preserving the (Neon) Light of Our Lives
October 25th, 2012
Neon Nirvana set out to show how an art form shaped a city; instead, the Oct. 24 event at the Historic Fifth Street School demonstrated how Las Vegas’ love of its indigenous art form inspired the city to define itself. Las Vegas may not have invented neon, but the city’s mid-century sign designers elevated it to museum-worthy status. Read more »
Seven Questions
Jon Ralston
Nevada’s foremost political pundit on our Legislature’s biggest problem, why he’d make a poor candidate and the billionaire he believes would be a great public official
October 25th, 2012
For most of the American electorate, Nov. 6 can’t get here soon enough. The unsolicited marketing phone calls, the junk mail, the attack ads—it’s like the 12th round of a grueling heavyweight boxing match, and we’re up against the ropes, signaling for the trainer to throw in the towel. For political columnist/commentator Jon Ralston, though, this time of year is nirvana. Read more »
The Latest Thought
Fifty Shades of Halloween
Somewhere along the way, adults swiped the holiday right out of the kids’ goodie bag
October 25th, 2012
Surely I can’t be the only one who waxes nostalgic for the time when Halloween was mostly about kids taking over neighborhood streets, filling pumpkin buckets and pillowcases with candy until they tore a rotator cuff. I can’t be the only one disturbed by the over-commercialization of yet another holiday. Read more »
Big League or Bust
October 25th, 2012
It comes as no surprise that the United Football League suspended operations Oct. 20 midway through its fourth season. Players in the four-team league haven’t been getting paid, attendance in each city has been dismal and former Virginia Destroyers coach Marty Schottenheimer just sued the league for $2.3 million in unpaid compensation, following a similar suit by ex-Sacramento coach and general manager Dennis Green. Read more »
Tourism
With PBR, Rodeo’s Heart Will Go On
October 25th, 2012
We’re used to early December being rodeo time in Las Vegas; that’s when the National Finals Rodeo takes over the town. But NFR’s not-so-little cousin, Professional Bull Riders’ Built Ford Tough World Finals, shakes the ground at the Thomas & Mack Center through Oct. 28—and it’s become a local institution in its own right. Read more »
