Local film fest and benefit boost a slow month
This is the time of year when Vegas turns inward and events created by locals gain prominence. That in part is because things are slow historically leading up to July 4 weekend. For locals, it's now easy to buy two-for-one tickets to production shows or to get a local's rate for a staycation room on the Strip. In fact, I am thinking of checking into a resort on the Strip on Sunday night to report on the condition of the place for the Buffet. Obviously, all the promotions geared at locals require a Nevada identification.
But some events created by locals that are happening now are also great fun for outsiders. I have been covering the CineVegas film festival, which is owned by Danny and Robin Greenspun. This is the same family that owns Las Vegas Weekly, where I am on staff. In fact, today one of the films showing at the festival is a documentary on family patriarch Hank Greenspun, whose life, when not creating a media and real estate empire in Vegas, found him constantly in the midst of the national zeitgeist, including important cameos in the Zionist movement, fighting McCarthyism and even Watergate.
Anyway, CineVegas has achieved a lot of success because the Greenspun family has doggedly backed a high-end ambitious film festival in this town, where no one thought a film festival could break through the din of live entertainment in Vegas. Now, after a decade of support, CineVegas artistic advisory board chair Dennis Hopper told me Sunday, the status of CineVegas is finally reaching parity with the ambition the festival has always shown. "The great thing right now is that we are finally getting sponsors and it is beginning to pay for itself and the theaters are packed," Hopper said. "But, really, it took Danny and Robin Greenspun to really believe in this and support this and work hard on this for years to get us to this level."
Another special event in a very different sense also took place this weekend: the Golden Rainbow's 22nd Annual Ribbon of Life benefit variety performance. This year the rotating benefit was hosted at a Harrah's property, Paris. Entertainers make far less than most people realize, and Golden Rainbow was started by Strip performers in the '80s to help peers living with HIV/AIDS.
From the beginning, Golden Rainbow worked at being an intensely local charity. The mission statement printed on each Ribbon of Life ticket: "Golden Rainbow provides housing and direct financial assistance to men and women and children living with HIV/AIDS in Southern Nevada."
This year, along with the show and the silent auction, organizers told me Golden Rainbow raised a record $300,000.
Next year, if you are in Vegas around Father's Day, do not miss the Ribbon of Life show. Though it is now a tradition that has outlasted most casinos on the Strip, it is a show I hadn't gone to until now. I will never miss this event again.
The Ribbon of Life production offers a rare collaboration between performers, choreographers and costume designers from almost every major show on the Strip. And the performance is special because of all the creative working together for this annual benefit of a mere two performances (Saturday and Sunday). One quirk of the benefit is that the shows take place in the afternoon so that everyone can be at their evening performances later. And because the show took place during the day, the audience had the sort of family component you rarely see in a Vegas showroom, with lots of kids.
The show was all pleasure. Performers in Vegas shows often have more talent than a successful production in this town allows them to display. So Ribbon of Life's variety skits are a sort of creative liberation for a lot of performers to go all out. As a result, these skits, while containing many elements familiar to Strip entertainment, were far different from what these performers usually do. Some material, like a skit debating the Iraq war, offered dialog too raw in its politics for tourists. Another routine choreographed to "Eleanor Rigby" captured the song's loneliness and darkness in ways different from the way, say, Cirque's Love treats the same song.
Yet, Ribbon of Live was not artsy and envelope-pushing in the extreme. This was mostly family entertainment. In fact, there were cute touches that no Strip production would offer, such as a Muppet number that featured children in Muppet costumes being guided and/or carried by professional dancers (probably mom or dad). Nothing that innocent and adorable would be in an official Strip show. There were also performers of different ages, sizes and shapes than you normally see on the Strip. But even the elderly showgirls were still capable hoofers. Imagine an amateur variety show put together for charity by world-class entertainers and you get the unique vibe of Ribbon of Life.
My favorite moment was provided by the present and former cast members of "Mamma Mia," called "You Gotta Get a Cirque Show." In the skit (pictured above), the cast members ponder their future in the face of plans to close "Mamma Mia." They realize this means adapting to a Strip gone Cirque. The Canadian circus troupe currently has five permanent shows on the Strip, and Criss Angel is set to open at Luxor in September, Cirque's next show on the Strip. So, there were plenty of Cirque performers among the 300 onstage volunteer entertainers who participated in Ribbon of Life this year. The Cirque performers actually seemed to be laughing harder than anyone as the skit mocked their supremacy and the envy that generates on the Strip. While the number is funny, there is nothing mean-spirited about this act, more rueful.
Ribbon of Life's longevity has made this performance a beloved Vegas tradition. But as one of the organizers of the benefit, Thomas Bruny (who by day is director of marketing at Fremont Street Experience) reminded me, "I love doing this show. But when we started doing this, I would have been crushed to know 22 years later, we would still be doing it. There is an entire new generation at risk. So, while I love this show, each year I think about more people who aren't here anymore."
(Photo by Sarah Gerke)
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Helldorado Days Parade
In many ways Saturday night's Helldorado Days Parade in Las Vegas could have been any small town. It was hosted by the Las Vegas Elks. An honor guard of firefighters took the lead in dress uniforms with flags. There were high school marching bands, chanting Girl Scouts groups, the Shriners in their little buggies and community groups that I never heard of, such as the Nevada Gay Rodeo Assn.
The Helldorado Days Parade claims to be the oldest tradition in Las Vegas, boasting a 103-year-old legacy. Of course, like most truths about Vegas, there is some fudging around the edges. For example, the parade was discontinued for a while in the '90s, has been moved (the Fremont Street Experience stands on part of one old parade route) and shrunk and, finally, perhaps to attract more people, moved into the evening (avoiding the necessary heat-braving attitude implied in the Helldorado Days name).
And, like everything about Vegas, Helldorado was a tradition originally created to bring tourists to Las Vegas. Helldorado Days was started in 1935 after the completion of the Hoover Dam (and the departure of thousands of workers who built the project) caused the city fathers to feel that the nascent city of Las Vegas was threatening to become a ghost town.
But nowadays Helldorado is the rare Vegas event definitely geared to locals. Fans given out on wooden sticks urged support for local judicial candidates. "I like to see the politicians," Monica Patalong told me as she monitored a group of four children watching the parade. She added: "I like that they moved it to the evening instead of during the day. The history is important, and in Las Vegas it is always good to have something you can bring kids to."
In fact, families and seniors lined much of the parade route, making up the majority of spectators. Carol Layland, 70, told me she has come to more Helldorado Days Parades than she can recall. "This brings back many memories," Layland said while awaiting the start of the parade. "It used to have a much longer parade route. But I still enjoy it every time."
Perhaps the most recognizable presence in the parade this year was Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, bearing a supersized version of his trademark martini. After waving to every person he could find, Goodman explained his take on the Helldorado Days Parade to me: "This is what Las Vegas is all about, a sense of community. It is absolutely a locals' thing."
(Photo by Sarah Gerke)
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The wind cries Vegas
Usually Las Vegas keeps nature under control for tourists. You can't look into the sky on the Strip and see the stars; only resort lights are visible. About all of the real world you need to face is the walk from the valet to the resort door, and even that limited engagement with outdoors is transformed by heat lamps in the winter and misters in the summer.
Las Vegas is all about defying nature.
We offer faux lakes and water shows in the midst of a barren desert. The possibility of Las Vegas actually running out of water won't change the illusion of plentiful resorts.
Within resorts there are all sorts of microclimates. There are shark tanks at Mandalay Bay and the Golden Nugget. The Bellagio has a plush greenhouse. Lion and tiger habitats are at the MGM Grand and Mirage. Anyway, the point is that nature is used as a harnessed and controlled attraction in Las Vegas; except for pools in the summer and walking the Strip, tourists rarely face the actual forces of nature here.
But yesterday was an exception. In a one-hour period, just after rush hour, the temperature dropped 20 degrees -- from a comfy 70 to 54 degrees. But it was the desert wind that made for a night I will not soon forget.
According to the Review-Journal, in a lead story, my experience was minor. The winds hit 67 mph last night, knocking out power for some people, destroying street vendor operations and canceling flights at the airport.
National Weather Service meteorologist Clay Morgan tells the Review-Journal, "It is winter. Now's the time we have strong winds." OK, that may be a reality, but this is Las Vegas, and we aren't used to letting Mother Nature win. Last night was an exception.
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Fat Vegas? Don't believe the hype!
"Congratulations Las Vegas, you're the New England Patriots of the Fattest Cities list-perennial championship contenders. In fact, Sin City is the Fattest City in America for the second consecutive year, due largely to poor eating habits."
Today in the Las Vegas Sun, Brendan Buhler examines flaws in how Men's Fitness does the survey. It turns out there is Fattest City and fattest city. I wish I had written this story.
Las Vegas never reflects accurately in parlor games like this one because of a failure to distinguish between residents and our 40 million annual tourists. Cookie-cutter urban surveys are usually meaningless when applied to the unique facts of Las Vegas.
So, for example, Buhler discovered that Men's Fitness measured the number of bars in a city in relation to population. That information may tell you something about other cities, but that number is meaningless when you consider the number of bars on the Strip that serve tourists. Going to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Buhler discovers a far more accurate number:
It turns out Las Vegas is not even close to the fattest city in the country. Buhler found that on the CDC list of obese places, Las Vegas occupies the far less glamorous 33rd spot.
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Vegas running dry?
Don't worry, there is no shortage of alcohol.
But Reuters has posted an article on a study by the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography at the University of California San Diego released today that
argues that there is a 50% chance that Las Vegas' major source of water, Lake Mead, will go
dry in 13 years, 2021. Wow, that is better odds than a casino will give a customer on
a bet! Right now, Lake Mead, best known as the setting for Pam and Tommy's movie, supplies 90% of our water. Officials quoted in the story say Las Vegas is searching for new sources of water. This could be very awkward. Anyone have an elegant solution? If not, just order another drink of alcohol to conserve the remaining water. (Photo by Sarah Gerke)
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Vegas: questions and answers
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Flag Flap
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NBA All-Star Controversy Continues: Was Vegas Racist?
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How Vegas Views Hunter Thompson
If you write about Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson is someone you get asked about a lot. Of course, Thompson never lived here, but his tourist experience in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas formed at least one generation's view of this town. Even today, Fear and Loathing likely remains the most influential book ever written about Vegas. I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas countless times as a kid, saw Thompson speak twice when I was a student, and count myself as an admirer (most recently of his two volume collected letters). Yet, since moving here, as a book about Las Vegas, I have always found Thompson's masterpiece lacking insight to the point of being useless. I once put this odd circumstance this way: "For a writer with a sociological bent, Las Vegas remains the ultimate Rorschach test. Hunter Thompson, as it were, brought the fear and loathing with him to the desert." | Bookmark it:
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The Sorrows of Fat City
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Rich Little Won't Belittle Bush
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Free seats for locals
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Warning: There is Gambling in Vegas
Buying a condo yesterday I had to sign my name on so many documents that at a certain point I retreated into a fantasy world in which it was copies of my debut novel I was signing for my worshipful readers. But then one piece of paper leapt out at me: Gaming Disclosure form. By Nevada statue the seller must warn me that there is gambling in Las Vegas. I signed. Then I was required to sign a map with the Strip marked to prove that I was duly warned where this gambling takes place. Finally, I signed yet another form acknowledging that I had got the original gaming disclosure form. Obviously, this is not Casablanca, and no one is allowed to be shocked, shocked that there is gambling taking place in Las Vegas. Oh, unless you rent.
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Urgent Need for Santas
Yesterday I got an emergency e-mail from a publicist: "Las Vegas Urgently Needs More Santas." You better believe it.
But in this case the call out was for a very specific purpose: a 5K Santa run. Apparently, Liverpool, England holds the record for the most running Santas at 3,991. Last year, Las Vegas attempted to best that total and came about 1,000 Santas short. This year, the head Santa will be Oscar Goodman (don't ask that Santa if the homeless have been naughty or nice). Fellow blogger Robin Leach will be the Santa emcee.
The Las Vegas Great Santa Run takes place Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Fremont Street Experience. The hope is that enough Santas will show up this time to beat Liverpool; the organizers would really like more Santas, so if you've got the suit and are up for a morning run, walk or even stroll....
If, for some reason, Vegas does not take out the town that birthed the Beatles this year, on the bright side then, Vegas will likely try again next year. Regardless, the entire event raises money for the wonderful local charity, Opportunity Village.
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Vegas Juice vs. Electric Company
Review-Journal columnist Jane Ann Morrison has a good look at Vegas juice in action with a story today about County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates. Gates has a truly imperial personality. In fact, I got to watch her work her stuff once at a meeting of the Clark County Commission, and it amazes me she doesn't just refer to herself with the royal "we." Everyone knows not to get on the wrong side of the royal we.
Anyway, Gates is now building a custom palace, I mean home, and like some other builders in the neighborhood she had the same bureaucratic hassles with installing her electric box. But according to the Review-Journal, unlike some of the neighbors, Gates was able to get her complaint to the Nevada Power president, and the bureaucrats immediately backed off. Of course, the president of Nevada Power insists he gave Gates no special treatment; but he admits no one else could have reached him with such a ground-level issue. Nonetheless, according to Pat Shalmy, Nevada Power president, nothing untoward happened, because in a hypothetical situation, like if a miracle happened, and Joe Blow citizen had ever managed to actually reach him (which could never really happen), "But if Joe Blow had, I would have acted the same," Shalmy said.
That makes me feel better. Meanwhile, Gates apparently feels she was just Joe Blow, because while she didn't actually say that was her name, she defends herself by telling Morrison she only identified herself as Yvonne Gates to Nevada Power (a company regulated by County Commissioner Gates). "I don't go around telling everybody I am Commissioner Gates," she said.
Of course, she doesn't have to. As this example shows, her subjects already know her quite well. Long live Her Highness, Yvonne Atkinson Gates. But I don't blame her on this one; she is dealing with the reality on the ground. In Vegas, as this seriously shows, even for the stuff you are entitled to do, you often need to know someone to get it done.
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Two Updates: Private Vegas and Smoking Ban
Two updates on items from yesterday:
As if in answer to my question "Who Is Buying Vegas," from yesterday, arrives this in today's Las Vegas Sun "Casinos See Private Funds as a Way to Go."
The short answer according to reporter Liz Benston is that Wall Street's focus on quarterly profits no longer makes sense for Vegas:
"Gaming companies build expensive casinos every few years or substantially revamp existing ones to drive growth...By trading public shareholders for a smaller, more focused group of private owners, executives can make unpopular decisions that make sense longer term, experts say."
Meanwhile, there have been fresh developments in yesterday's item on the smoking ban: some tavern owners have gone to court to stop the new law that bans smoking in some establishments. According to a lawyer for the group, a lot of the problem the tavern owners have is that the law is too complicated for him to understand in order to tell them how to comply with it. Attorney Kirk Lenhard complains to the Review-Journal, "I've got seven years of college education and I'm not sure what it means."
Let me help: It means if your tavern has something called a restricted gaming license(you know, if you have one, there was an application, a hearing: the whole shebang) and you serve food then you are required to be a non-smoking establishment.
In defense of Mr. Lenhard's English skills my guess is he probably could have understood the new law after those first four years of college; his reading troubles probably come from those final three years presumably spent at law school. Messed up reading skills often can be attributed to law school graduation. For now, Lenhard is trying to get a restraining order to delay the law. But the experts interviewed in the story say that in the long term, Mr. Lenhard's legal arguments against the smoking ban are about as likely to prevail as a chain smoker trying to run a complete marathon.
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Vegas Pets
I have spent the past two days in and out of the veterinarian hospital visiting with my beloved cat, Doodle, who is getting the equivalent of kitty dialysis. Her life is very precarious at the moment and this is the first time I have ever written the Buffet without her sitting with a purr on my lap as I type.
As I am thinking of nothing else right now, this gives me the occasion to comment on one area of Las Vegas few think about: Las Vegas residents are truly nutty about our pets. I am not alone. We have not one but two publications for dog owners in Vegas. There is also local freelance journalist Steve Friess' podcast dedicated to Vegas pets.
Some of you will remember that earlier this year Friess gave the Buffet an account of Steve Wynn taking his pooches to Macau with him.
When Rita Rudner (now at Harrah's) was headlining at an MGM-Mirage property, the resort had a no-pets-allowed policy. The comedian went to the trouble to work a bit into her act where her dog more or less just came out for a few moments onstage to act like a dog, thereby securing her pet a performer's exemption. Good doggy.
Then there's Roy Horn. True or not, the story goes that after Horn was mauled, his first words were an order that nothing happen to the giant cat who attacked him.
We have more than our share of private shelters for animals, including many exotic ones retired from Strip shows. Then there are people; there are many, many unheralded pet fanatics, too, in the Las Vegas valley.
There is a marketing director I know who works with a variety of Strip production shows and spends her free time (and more money than she can afford) arranging to adopt and care for abandoned giant dogs with medical issues. An adult star I've known for years offers as her primary reason for not dating that her cat has to sleep on her belly every night.
Off the top of my head, I don't think I know a single person in Las Vegas who does not have at least one pet. Drive around town and you will see more pet-oriented businesses (vet hospitals, very elite gourmet pet supply stores, pet grooming shops and pet supply chain stores) than there are churches or even casinos. Maybe it is because so many of us in Las Vegas are transplants with few family members in town, or maybe the straightforward relationship you can have with your pets lacks the pretension, flash and agendas of so much of the Las Vegas experience. But one way I feel very in sync with Las Vegas is that in a town that can be cynical to vicious about any show of sentimentality most of the time about most every single thing, when it comes to pets, no one smirks at dedication.
photo by Sarah Gerke
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Free Speech in Vegas?
Ever so slowly the city of Las Vegas like some tribal area of Pakistan is being brought into compliance with a distant federal government that has so far been unable to extend its influence this far out into the hinterland.
Apparently, there is something called the Constitution that allows the odd practice of free speech in public forums. Obviously, Las Vegas was sure this distant government back East didn't mean to apply this strange custom to every public forum.
Take, for example, Fremont Street Experience, a gigantic pedestrian walk under a canopy that offers a multimillion dollar light show. Fremont Street Experience was created in 1995 out of closed-off public roads to attract tourists downtown. Las Vegas gets that tourists don't want to see booths with literature on God, or union protestors with leaflets on labor practice or, just imagine it, freaky lefties leading a protest against the war in Iraq. That would be too much like home and this is a vacation. So, always being concerned about our guests, the city of Las Vegas banned such things.
The city decided to simply not allow any of that stuff to go on at Fremont Street Experience. Las Vegas has been working for nearly a decade and spending truckloads of taxpayer money on lawyers to make sure the city can continue to ban free speech now and ban free speech forever (to paraphrase another pandering regional politician fighting the power of the feds). The city has done everything possible to avoid this crazy protection of free speech. It even covers panhandlers!
Perhaps the city was hoping the third time would be the charm; it wasn't. Las Vegas has once again lost a case before the very stubborn 9th District Court of Appeals that again is demanding the city follow the Constitution. This sets a scary precedent by applying federal law to Las Vegas. Where can all this end? What could be next? How far down the road can male cocktail servers be?
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Remembering 9/11 in Vegas
No matter where you are in Las Vegas, you are always close enough to the airport to see and hear plane after plane after plane after plane pass by, importing people to the fantasy palaces that light up the night in this otherwise isolated desert-nothing of a place....
The thing I remember most about Las Vegas in the days after Sept. 11 was the sky. It was empty. It was quiet. There were no planes. This ever cacophonous city turned to a stupor in those days immediately following the attack. On every level Las Vegas was shaken. With Nellis Air Force Base nearby, many families knew what was ahead. The resorts engaged in massive layoffs. And for once, Las Vegas looked to the future with something other than brilliantly blind optimism.
Being an early riser, I saw the events of Sept. 11 on CNN in real time. I woke the general manager of Las Vegas Weekly and we immediately began calling on others to rewrite the about-to-publish issue to reflect the staggering events. I don't think a weekly in Las Vegas was where people turned to in order to be informed that week. But I was grateful for the work to keep my mind busy; I don't know how my colleagues felt about it.
Most of the production shows on the Strip were canceled. One of the few to take the stage that night was Harrah's headliner Clint Holmes. I remember asking Holmes later how he managed to perform that night. He told me that he had no intention of doing so until he was told there were people in the audience waiting to see the show. At that point, he asked me, if on this night those people needed to be taken away from the events for the length of a show, how could he not perform?
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Brittany McComb Uncensored
As promised, here is my phone interview conducted on Friday with 17-year-old Brittany McComb. McComb is the Las Vegas valley high school valedictorian whose microphone was cut off by school officials when her graduation talk departed from the approved text and became what public school officials considered to be too evangelical.
Thanks to all of the Buffet readers who sent in questions for me to ask her. I only had a 15-minute interview with McComb and did my best to ask as many of your questions as I could. Let me add that one of her lawyers, John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute was on the line the entire time. This required a conference call situation that offered less than ideal sound quality. There are some inaudible portions of the tape and clearly McComb was having a hard time hearing my questions at times. This proved more an inconvenience than a disaster. A lot of questions and answers had to be repeated. In the end, as you can see from what follows, McComb had a lot to say and is quite candid in answering your questions and mine.
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Questions for Brittany McComb
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Don't Feed the Homeless
I did not blog about this yesterday because like an ostrich I wanted to bury my head in Nevada's ample desert sands and see if this went away. It did not. Here is the Review-Journal's succinct summary:
"If someone looks like he could use a meal, be warned: Giving him a sandwich in a Las Vegas park could land you in jail."
The inspiration behind this new law is that some feel parks are being ruined by the presence of homeless people who come to get free food from the sympathetic. Of course, there is a chicken and egg deal here. Is free food bringing homeless people to the park or do people give food there because that is where the homeless already are?
If you are reading this, you probably have a home. But imagine you don't have a home and the temperature is more than 100 degrees; day after day. Where might you go? Anyway, I try to stay clear of politics and don't have a solution to the problem of homelessness in Las Vegas, but this new law seems so mean, pointless and unenforceable. Shame on us. People in a park should never be treated like animals in a zoo.
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Great Job Description
I love this dead-on description from the e-mail newsletter The Circuit by Xania Woodman, nightclub columnist for the Las Vegas Weekly, where I am on staff:
Home again, home again.... Every time I leave and return to Vegas I grow to love it even more. Except when flying into McCarran Airport on an insanely busy Sunday morning as I just did. Then it sucks. But as the plane approaches and everyone cranes their necks to see the Strip, and shares with their neighbor what plans they have for their visit, a wry smile always spreads across my face like I know some sort of secret. In a way, I do. I think to myself, "I know where you're going, what you're eating, where you're drinking, and where you're dancing." It's a privilege to be allowed into their minds this way. It's also comforting. Ah Vegas, you old so-and-so. I love ya!
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The Forbidden Graduation Speech Revealed
I've interviewed the local reps from the ACLU about the Brittany McComb case and I will have that interview on the Buffet in a bit. Also, I was given a digital image of the actual draft of the speech. In it, you can see the cuts McComb's Las Vegas area high school authorities made to her valedictory address. In the approved speech she talks about an emptiness inside her "that couldn't be filled...with friends, with family, with dating, with partying, with drinking, with anything but God. His love is 'that something more' we all desire. It's unprejudiced, it's merciful, it's free, it's real, it's huge, it's everlasting."
All of this the public school was OK with. But what comes next is lined out with a handwritten note in the margin, presumably made by some school official's bureaucratic pen like an instructor's note on a term paper: "Identifies a particular religion." Here is some of the forbidden text:
"God's love is so great that he gave his own son up to an excruciating death on a cross so his blood would cover all our shortcomings and our relationship with him could be restored. And, he gave us a choice to live for ourselves or to live for something greater than ourselves — eternity and his love. That's why Christ died."
And so the school district spared everyone the dreaded Mel Gibson movie summary, and now we all go to court.
Again I ask, do you think that the other students at McComb's public school were protected from the state endorsing a religion or was this young lady deprived of her free speech? To be honest, what she said would not be what I wanted to hear at my graduation and I went to a private Christian school. But Germantown Friends School knew better than to name me valedictorian and assign me to write about what is important in my life. And so the world in June 1986 was spared my chance to offer a paean to the Ramones that even in a public school would have passed any constitutional test down to the last "Gabba Gabba Hey."
I guess what I am saying is that I think that no matter how this turns out I admire the courage, conviction and chutzpah of Brittany McComb.
(Photo: KM Cannon / AP)
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Las Vegas at Center of Constitutional Fight
Here is my interview with John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute. The Rutherford Institute filed a federal lawsuit yesterday on behalf of local Foothill High School valedictorian Brittany McComb, whose microphone was cut off when she included religious remarks the school had ordered her to delete from her graduation speech.
Q: How were your client Brittany McComb's rights violated?
A:They had three valedictorians. They picked them by grade point and they said to them to speak on what is important to you. She did. She is a Christian. I've read the speech. Somewhere in the middle of it she says 'the Lord' and she mentions Christ. That is what is important to her, the God connection. The school sat down and crossed all that out and said this is the official version that she has to give. She was intimidated and nodded her head. But the day of the speech she decided to give the speech she wanted to and when she got 12 words outside the boundary of the regular speech they cut the microphone. We have the visual on our website, and there is just silence and you can see her keep talking. The crowd boos and says "Let her speak." It is kind of moving. But cutting the microphone is the most egregious thing. This wasn't the school endorsing religion. She was one of three people up there. Let her have her free speech. You either believe in free speech or you don't. Let her speak.
Q: Is it odd for you then to be at odds with the ACLU on this since the ACLU endorsed the school's decision?
A:I think it is really strange, the ACLU's position on this. They side with the government to censor somebody. To me at that point they are not a civil liberties group. If it was a teacher I would be against it. If it was a superintendent I would be against it. If it was a minister there praying I would be against it. But this wasn't a prayer; this was speech and for the ACLU to be on the side of the State in saying someone should be censored is odd.
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Christian Right Challenges Las Vegas School
The Rutherford Institute, a Christian civil rights group based in Virginia, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Brittany McComb, the Las Vegas area high school valedictorian whose microphone was cut off during her graduation speech in June after she departed from the approved text by amplifying on the theme of her religious faith.
I have put in a call to John Whitehead, the president of the Rutherford Institute and expect to talk to him about the case later this morning. I will have the Q&A on the Buffet as soon as I do.
But first I need to tell you that it will be a pleasure to reconnect with Mr. Whitehead (a man who calls Jerry Falwell by his first name and was an important cog in Senator Clinton's theory of the vast right wing conspiracy). You see, I used to work for Whitehead at the Rutherford Institute.
Surprised? Actually, it surprises me, as I have never been a Christian and these days the right that is usually on my mind is the turn I take to reach a nearby highway. But when I left graduate school with nothing but some academic publications and music reviews for Rolling Stone under my belt it was John Whitehead who gave me my start as full time magazine staffer.
I'll keep the back story simple. The woman I was living with got a fellowship at the University of Virginia and I moved to Charlottesville, Va., in the '90s with her. My dream was to be a full-time writer. It did not go well for me.
The savings were gone and the moment of truth arrived. I needed to find a story to pitch or get work in a restaurant. Then it happened. Paula Jones sued President Bill Clinton and headlines around the country were made when Rutherford Institute lawyers took up her cause. I am not a political writer, but....
I walked over to their office building one afternoon since the Rutherford Institute was only two blocks from my apartment. Instead of discussing doing a story on them, I left with a job offer to work for Gadfly magazine.
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Sonny King's Letter
At the start of the year I noted that Sonny King, a longtime opener for Jimmy Durante and a fixture on the Vegas entertainment and lounge scenes for decades, was gravely ill. I am sorry to say I neglected to mention King's passing a short time later at age 83. But in Sunday's "Review-Journal" columnist John L. Smith prints an unsent letter recently discovered by King's widow to Smith's young daughter, Amelia.
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Justice and Juice
Las Vegas is a town where District Judge Donald M. Mosley, 59, gave unspent campaign funds to a girlfriend. He called it a loan. She said it was a gift. Canon 7 of the state Code of Judicial Conduct said a judge or a candidate for judicial office "should not use … campaign contributions for purposes unrelated to the campaign." Mosley acknowledged six years ago in a deposition that he provided her with $10,000 of his political money. Mosley said it was restored to his campaign fund, but his girlfriend said she did not repay it.
Mosley's campaign fundraising reports leave the matter unresolved. They show that the money was neither withdrawn nor paid back.
In a written statement, Mosley said he had been subjected to absurd and unsupported allegations by political opponents and by the girlfriend, with whom he eventually fought for custody of their child. "Neither these individuals nor their attacks," he said, "deserve the dignity of a response."
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Mayor Takes on the Homeless
Today Las Vegas celebrates being officially awarded the Guinness world record for the biggest public drinking event ever. (The official Guinness word has yet to come back on our world's largest birthday cake attempt.)| Bookmark it:
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Graduation Incidents Plague Vegas
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Vegas Parents
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Pool Crashing
I was more than 30 years old when I arrived in Las Vegas. There are advantages to that. The temptations of living here would have been a lot more distracting for the younger me. Still, even when I was a young, I didn't bother doing pool crashing (where you go about the neighborhood taking unauthorized dips into homeowners' backyard pools).| Bookmark it:
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