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The Krissee Danger Drinking Plan

Let me just say this: I love brunch. I know that sounds bougie, but I just do. I can’t help it. Unfortunately, my love for brunch is exceeded by one thing and one thing only, and that’s my love for drinking. Sometimes, my two loves conflict. To remedy this situation, I vowed not so long ago to find the happy middle ground—stay out all night and drink right into an early brunch. Read more »

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Their Truck Runneth Over

While food trucks are all the rage, coffeehouses are fading. Why?

What statistics demonstrate online is visible on the streets of Las Vegas, where the independent coffeehouses of the past decade-plus—from Café Copioh near UNLV to The Cup Stops Here in Henderson—have been done in either by Starbucks, high rents or both, while food trucks have become the culinary small-business choice of the moment. Read more »

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Picking up the Government Slack

What does civic spirit mean in the age of shrinking municipal budgets?

They could’ve slept in. They could’ve stayed in that pre-2006 slumber, in which their taxes paid for their communities to be cleaned and maintained. Because that’s what tax-funded agencies are for, right? Instead, more than 70 volunteers got up on Saturday morning, Sept. 24, and came to their neighborhood park in Aliante to pick up trash, wash the picnic benches, trim shrubs and paint the curbs. Read more »

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Just Between You and Me (and Gmail)

Remember privacy? Soon you won’t anymore.

So the U.S. Postal Service has a $10 billion deficit. Who doesn’t? That’s no reason to say goodbye to good-old, undeterred-by-rain/sleet/snow/dogs, hand-carried mail. Never mind the nostalgia. There is real value in being able to stuff something in an envelope, seal it, and send it with reasonable confidence it’ll make it to your intended recipient. Most importantly, no one else will read it. Read more »

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Home-school to Harvard

A Libertarian’s view on how to save education—in your own home

The decline of our public school system is a national embarrassment. And Las Vegas is in even worse shape than the rest of the country. The graduation rate in the Clark County School District was less than 45 percent in 2008, according to Education Week magazine. Yet through all this gloom, there is a ray of hope. Home-schooling works. I’ll share my personal story, with the hope and belief that others can also benefit from taking charge of their children’s education. Read more »

Remembering 9/11 (Latest Thought)

Rage Without Resolution

An airman—now a Las Vegas teacher—wanted America’s 9/11 vengeance to be swift and clear. The decade that followed has been neither.

I shook with the desire to see their eyes wide with fear, to salt their fields, slaughter their flocks, burn their bones. I needed to throw my weight behind ramming 500 pounds of screaming iron and tritonal into the dusty hole of every cave-crawling motherfucker who had anything to do with the burning rubble and smoking bodies at the Pentagon, World Trade Center and that field in Pennsylvania. I needed to be part of a terrible, sweeping vengeance. It was quite literally what I had been hired to do. Read more »

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Lessons From Afar

In the spirit of the season, here’s what we learned on our summer vacations—and what it might mean for Las Vegas

In this magazine, we have a regular feature called “Vegas Moment.” These moments—when collaged together, create the week in your city—capture one of the million unique instances that arise from vibrant public places, full of interesting things to look at and diverse people crossing paths. The problem is, outside the nexus of the Strip and downtown, the sidewalks of our city are something of a sensory deprivation zone—they tend to hide their Vegas Moments, daring the eye to look closer. Read more »

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Summer of the Saints

Is this really ‘The Mormon moment’? This Las Vegan says church members still face plenty of bias.

From presidential politics to Broadway, best-selling books and college sports, it’s difficult to turn on the TV or Internet lately without finding references to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A Newsweek cover even proclaimed this “The Mormon Moment.” Bully for us, I suppose. But pardon me if I don’t believe the hype. From this Mormon’s perspective, the recent buzz about all things Mormon is inconsequential. Read more »

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Three Days to Freedom

A Moscow native—now a Las Vegan—remembers the heady days 20 years ago when her country swept communism into the dustbin

Like you, I live in Las Vegas. My son was born here, and my husband grew up here. I’ve come to love this city—the mountains, the big sky, the spectacular August sunsets. I consider it my city. But 20 years ago, I lived in a different country, and, it often seems, an entirely different world. Read more »

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The Morality of Slow

Summertime, creativity and the meaning of intensity

I was midway though a Saturday morning walk when I became transfixed by an icon on the pavement. It stopped my stride, suspended time, pulled me in with its strange perfection: It was a bicycle rider, rendered in three strokes and a dot; the entire bike was captured in two ovals. Read more »

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