The Latest Thought
The Latest Thought
Tony Hsieh’s Really Big Shoe
Dreams of the legendary 23rd Floor of the Ogden
September 13th, 2012
I would write up my visit to the 23rd Floor, but I would leave out every detail that might make you want to go up there and take away my Fernet-powered boat and smoking-hot actress wife and simply tell you that Tony Hsieh has a great vision and we must support it at all costs. Read more »
The Latest Thought
Name Games
Why stop with McCarran? Let’s rebrand everything!
September 6th, 2012
There’s been plenty of talk this summer of renaming McCarran International Airport. At first, it seemed like a lot of talk from people who hadn’t thought much before talking: A name change would be neither cheap nor easy, and this isn’t exactly a time when the public coffers are overflowing. But with Sen. Harry Reid recently declaring that he thinks a name change is in order, this is clearly a subject that needs further discussion. Read more »
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Dream On …
He was so close to the payday of a lifetime ... and then he fumbled
August 30th, 2012
I went to bed on Dec. 3 with $10,500 in my pocket … and it was literally the saddest fucking moment of my life. Because only a small fraction of the cash was really mine. It’s not that I robbed anyone. Instead, I felt like I’d been robbed. By the gambling gods. Again. Before I get into the specifics of how $43,800 slipped through my fingers, here’s a little backstory: I’m a square, a betting sucker, a casino’s best friend … or as I like to think of myself, a dreamer. Read more »
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 »
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The Summer Our House Went Lousy
Warning: The following may cause itching
August 23rd, 2012
It was almost spring break, and our family had been infested since Christmas, when my third-grader—the youngest of our three children—brought it home from a sleepover. Unfortunately, it took us two weeks to discover she had pediculosis (lice), by which time it was already a thriving case—a couple of dozen nits, visible to the naked eye. We set straight to work to keep the little buggers from spreading. “I’ll get the heads,” I told my husband, “you get the beds.” Read more »
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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 »
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 »
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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 »
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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 »
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Siegel’s Shadow
Sixty-five years after Bugsy got whacked, an old associate’s got some theories to share
June 21st, 2012
The police never solved Bugsy Siegel’s murder. There is no shortage of suspects or theories; Siegel was a violent man in a brutal world with more than his share of enemies. Estes Kefauver, chairman of the U.S. Senate’s early-1950s mob-busting committee, thought that a squabble over the race wire doomed Siegel. Or it might have been his role in a Mexican heroin-trafficking operation gone bad. Bernie Sindler has his own theory: Siegel, always a volatile man, got abusive with Hill one time too many; she fled to Europe, but not before one of her six brothers, a marine with an expert rifleman’s badge stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., vowed his revenge. Read more »
