The Latest Thought
The Latest Thought
The Morality of Slow
Summertime, creativity and the meaning of intensity
August 11th, 2011
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 »
Latest Thought
Best Way to Finally Build a New Stadium
We’re celebrating plenty of things we do have. Let’s take a moment to dream about one big thing we can’t seem to get.
July 28th, 2011
Let’s admit it, Las Vegans: Stadium ideas are beginning to bore us. They come, like celebrity deaths, in threes, but they’re much less conclusive. Billion-dollar sports-venue proposals never die; they just retool and relocate. Once you’ve got a nice flying-saucer ballpark rendering for, say, Symphony Park, you can always move it to Hacienda and Russell with an easy click-and-drag. Read more »
The Latest Thought
The Wagers of Sin (City)
Finally, we can bet on just about anything here in Vegas. Here are some props we’d like to see.
July 21st, 2011
The Nevada Gaming Commission, looking to expand revenue streams, amended its regulations and opened the door for sports-book operators to take action on nontraditional events. Read more »
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Hotfoot
A summer camp, a rivalry and a hot concrete slab
July 14th, 2011
For a few wonderfully scorching summers in the late 1970s and early ’80s, I spent weekdays between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. at Summer Thing. Summer Thing—let me repeat the name; it’s delighted my mind’s ear for 30 years—was an old-fashioned, all-around-fun kids camp at UNLV. Read more »
The Latest Thought
The Neighborhood Menace
So you want Vegas to have sweet urban enclaves with their own distinct identities? Be careful what you wish for.
July 7th, 2011
Las Vegas needs walkable neighborhoods. I’m not going to lie to you. One of the main reasons I moved to Seattle in July 2002 was the promise of neighborhoods—a multiplicity of civic subsets, each with its own personality, assets and liabilities. Read more »
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Days of Magic
A Harry Potter childhood and the lost dream of ‘family Vegas’
June 30th, 2011
Ten years ago, I was a 16-year-old standing in line with my family for the Excalibur buffet, talking a mile a minute about how Las Vegas should add a Harry Potter hotel to its sparkling list of resorts. Read more »
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My Residence, Myself
Reflections on getting slaughtered in the housing market
June 23rd, 2011
We were actually idiots, of course. The worst kind—vain, undereducated idiots. Our identities were indeed associated with our homes: overvalued. When the bottom fell out, we had to consider not only the blow to our finances but to our self-esteem. Were we foolish or victims—or perhaps foolish victims? This became a nationwide concern, deep down, in the gut of our identity. Were we, as Americans, really the bloated ignoramuses the world accused us of being? It began stewing. It was an argument we didn’t clamor to take up. Read more »
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The New Villains
How did teachers and firefighters turn into the bad guys?
June 16th, 2011
Somehow in this season of economic finger-pointing, we’ve decided to vilify these professions—ironically, two of the few that hold some nonmonetary value to us. In popular discourse, firefighters have become overpaid bureaucrats and teachers lazy parasites, both abusing the public dole. Read more »
The Latest Thought
Slots for Tots
Not enough money to keep the school afloat? Time to bring in the bandits.
June 9th, 2011
Despite my admission, I ask you to consider two possible ideas, either of which would go some way toward solving our education funding problem. My proposals would make a virtue of a vice, enable politicians on both sides to claim victory, allow those who profit from human weakness to stand as proud benefactors, and possibly make parent-teacher nights way more fun. Read more »
The Latest Thought
King of the Roads
You can say what you will about Las Vegas, but you’ll say it from a fast-moving car
June 2nd, 2011
I drive only occasionally in Seattle—the car-sharing service Zipcar is a godsend whenever I need to do a major shopping trip—but when I visit Vegas, I drive like a 16-year-old who’s just been tossed the keys to his mother’s Subaru wagon. I take long, lazy cruises up Charleston to the Red Rock Canyon overlook, or out to Boulder City simply to get coffee. I drive down the Strip (only one block at any given time, then a hard right or left) with the radio blasting booming techno or big dumb metal. I drive at the upper reaches of the speed limit through the sprawl of Summerlin and Green Valley, amazed there are still places in this world where a man can go 45 miles per hour. Read more »
