Here’s something I learned the other night: When 15 fiddlers, four guitarists and one fella on the upright base swing into “Pig Ankle Rag,” it’s hard to think about what a mess we’re all in.
Of the acre-feet of response I got to Friday’s column — about the moral calculation of whether to continue paying the mortgage on my overleveraged house, or walk away — none was more startling than this: I might be making the problem worse.
Dear fellow Nevadans, legislative colleagues, trusted lobbyists and out-of-work educators: I stand before you, here in 2013, after my first two years as governor of this great state of Nevada, having not (pause for applause) raised (pause for applause) taxes (enjoy the applause).
Mine is a nice house. Big enough for a family and all of its furniture and clothing and toys and books and papers and dogs and more books and miscellaneous junk and even a cat.
The comments under this paper’s story last week about the governor calling for teachers to accept a pay cut — while sometimes grammatically and syntactically challenging — were gratifying in their way.
So, Las Vegas checks in at No. 52 on a new ranking of the nation’s 75 most literate cities. Are you surprised that we placed so high — and feel free to treat this as an essay question — or a little peevish at being dissed? (Or simply relieved that we beat Bakersfield, No. 73?)
When you buy a gallon of gas, how do you know it’s a gallon? That pound of tangelos you measured at the grocery store — you sure the scale didn’t cheat you an ounce?
This is a big week for desire, even by Las Vegas standards, which is saying something. Here, you can satisfy your appetites any old day of any old week — in a poker room, at a table in Joel Robuchon, in the shops at Cosmopolitan, with a limo ride to Pahrump. Since the state legalized gambing, OK’d prostitution and hired its first showgirl, desire has been what we do.
It’s been a few years since he was in the spotlight, but you remember Charles Bock, right? Once a local — his family has owned pawnshops here for many years — his novel “Beautiful Children,” about lost kids in Las Vegas, was published in 2008 to solid reviews (it was a New York Times notable book), brisk sales and an effusion of media attention. It’s solidly in the Vegas canon now.
“Ahh, you can smell the anointment,” I murmured as I entered the offices of Jones Vargas for a media gathering called last week by Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval.
Dear 2011: I know what you’re thinking: I sure hope 2010 left a little cheddar for me. After all, this year pretty much wrung everything out of Nevada and Las Vegas.
Last week I quacked a bit about education funding, after a minion of Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval warned education leaders to brace for deeper-than-expected cuts. That, I wrote, is shortsighted and self-defeating.
In honor of Time’s man of the year — Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg — let’s break down today’s column into Facebook-style likes and unlikes. It’s the least I can do for the man who made it easy for all the people who never talked to me in high school to friend me now.
