User profile: christopher

You can not create a program that is going to make people better parents across the board, and like odog said, social promotion to a higher grade without meeting the requirements along the way is largely to blame. You don't earn your grade level any longer, or at least, you aren't required to.

To make matters worse, gifted and talented education programs - to help our best and brightest meet their potential - get little to no funding because it's seen as singling out or giving special treatment to people with more potential in many areas, while football teams get treated to dining out after games. For years there has been talk of "leveling the playing field." This is what you get with a level playing field: below average students are promoted, mediocrity is rewarded, and the outstanding are penalized because the time and money is spent on students that are not serious about their education. The entire system is a disaster area.

I read the comments on the Sun's pages about local issues and I always ask myself, "who are these people and where did they come from?" More specifically, "why did they move here - to Las Vegas."

We provide entertainment of an adult variety for profit in Las Vegas. That is the reason the city has flourished since the post World War II times. From divorces, drinking and gambling to strip clubs and outcall adult entertainment, we profit from homogenized America's desire to leave the "normal" and have a little adult fun. People enjoy it here so they think "hey, I'll move there," and then bring their middle America, suburban regulations and Bible-belt morality with them in an attempt to make Las Vegas more like the places they just left. It's absolutely ridiculous. If Las Vegas ever stops being Las Vegas it will no longer have a bright, profitable future in front of it. Companies of all types have a constitutional right to advertise how they see fit. In Las Vegas, protecting those constitutional rights is as important as anywhere else in the country, because they are constantly under threat, just like they are in this latest inquisition by those who would have Las Vegas become Salt Lake City.

-=- christopher, writer for the "While Las Vegas Sleeps..." blog

Saying "depression" or not is not going to matter one way or another. I don't think we could possibly suffer the economics of the 1930's again because of the huge lessons we learned. I do think, however, that some of the rules that have been rolled back should be reestablished, including the uptick short sale rule (I have shorted stocks effectively when the uptick rule was still in place - it's completely unnecessary to have that removed) and I personally felt at the time the rules were changed about banks selling securities that that was a potential big mistake, and it clearly was. Unfortunately, if they rolled that one back the effect on the business stability of the banks would be further negatively affected, so that's not likely to happen. The fact is that this country has dodged numerous recessionary bullets. The last major one was in the 80's. The ones in the years since then have been very minor and a major correction was way overdue.

-=- christopher, blogger at http://www.whilelasvegassleeps.com