The Latest Thought
The Latest Thought
The Breakup
Urban life lessons with LeBron
July 22nd, 2010
It still means something to be from a place. Loyalty matters. Roots are still important in these days of highly mobile communications and capital. Betrayal, even if it’s only the perception of betrayal, still stings like a son of a bitch. That’s one lesson to take from LeBron James, the erstwhile Cleveland Cavaliers basketball star who earlier this month announced, on a self-aggrandizing hourlong ESPN broadcast, that he was departing for the Miami Heat to join friends and fellow free agents Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade in forming a virtual all-star squad for the next half-decade. Read more »
The Latest Thought
Look No Further
The best superintendent for Clark County schools may be right under our noses
July 15th, 2010
Fifty thousand dollars. That’s what the Clark County School District is paying a Nebraska consulting firm to find a new superintendent. And the focus is national, so, come fall, we’re bound to wind up with a pool of outsiders who—and the firm seems confident about this—will not have any embarrassing legal or financial problems. Read more »
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Bigger Isn’t Always Better
Las Vegas is out of whack, but that may not be a bad thing
July 8th, 2010
The Latest Thought
We Don’t Need New, We Need Next
What some of the world’s oldest cities can teach one of its youngest
July 1st, 2010
When you’re in a city famous for its simulacra of other cities, it’s reassuring when you actually check in on some of those other cities. The Luxor may be able to beam a light into outer space, but the pyramids—you know, the real ones—have been standing for more than 4,000 years. It might have been the sheer newness of Las Vegas that recently drove me to visit Athens, Cairo and Istanbul—three of the longest-running shows on earth. And the cities did not disappoint, with their intoxicating blends of people, culture and history. Read more »
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The Winning Hand is Not to the Swift …
The author of Ecclesiastes would have understood the World Series of Poker
June 24th, 2010
You’ve got to feel bad for Brian Meinders. Earlier this month, in Event 23 at the World Series of Poker (six-handed limit hold’em, $2,500 buy-in), he did the right thing and still lost. If we’re muted in our sympathies, maybe it’s because the same thing happens to us so often. Read more »
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Sing, Sing, Sing
Lessons my dad, legendary bandleader and Vegas staple Louis Prima, taught me
June 17th, 2010
I was born on Father’s Day in 1965, the last child and only son of the multi-talented singer, songwriter, trumpet player, bandleader and legendary voice, Louis Prima. Read more »
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If You Can’t Stand the Heat …
It may be because of the way Las Vegas was designed and built
June 10th, 2010
We desert rats living in the Mojave have a patented response to visitors’ questions regarding our summers: “Yeah, but it’s dry heat—and everything’s air-conditioned!” If we lived in a more sustainable place we wouldn’t be relegated to the indoors 24/7 for most of June, July, August and two-thirds of September. Read more »
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School’s Out
Out of sight, out of mind and, next year, out of money
June 3rd, 2010
If you have kids, you know that June 2 was one of the most-anticipated days of the year. Besides Christmas, there is no day that looms as large on the calendar, or that holds as much promise for a marked improvement in the quality of life. It was big—end-of-the-school-year big. Read more »
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Vegas vs. Dallas
It’s a fight we can’t afford, but can’t afford to lose
May 27th, 2010
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has made it clear: He’s targeting Las Vegas with his new $1.2 billion stadium. What else can you read into the news that the man who built the Cowboys into one of the nation’s most lucrative sports franchises wants to host a November championship boxing bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao? Read more »
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Why the MFA Is the New MBA
May 20th, 2010
I’m often asked—when it leaks out that I have a master of fine arts degree in imaginative writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and not an MBA—how it is a guy who set out to write the next Great Gatsby ended up in business, and more oddly still, a financier on the Las Vegas Strip, that gaudy dream-twin of L.A. smack in the Mojave Desert, developing some of the biggest stores of entertainment ever conceived, including Mandalay Bay and Luxor. But it makes perfect sense to me. Read more »
