Ideas of the Year

"I was an idiot," Treasures attorney Mark Fiorentino told city officials this summer, by way of recanting his 3-year-old promise that if even one dancer from the upscale strip club was convicted for prostitution, the club owners would forfeit their license. "I had no idea what I was saying." (Treasures, having lost its liquor license, is now closed.) Speaking of being idiots, the backers of a medical marijuana initiative confirmed every stoner stereotype by forgetting to turn in a box containing 6,000 petition signatures. Not the best argument for your side, fellas. Also not making a good argument for himself was Las Vegas Convention and Visitor's Authory chief Manny Cortez, who joked, "Frankly, the biggest thing I've had to do the last few years is find a way to stay out of the way and let [the staff] do their jobs." Cortez's LVCVA salary: $243,360. "How much," R-J columnist Steve Sebelius asked, "is staying out of the way worth these days?"

The MGM-Mirage's Project CityCenter. The garden of high-rise apartment buildings sprouting around the Strip and, possibly, Downtown. Loft projects Downtown and in Green Valley's The District. The increasing sophistication of First Friday and the arts scene in general. The presence of Donald Trump. Rarely has Vegas felt more big-city than it did this year.

The Las Vegans who made the Brawling Bag Ladies video began the project as a documentary about homelessness in Las Vegas. Next thing you know, they're peddling footage of poor people humiliating themselves. "We have also [produced] what in retrospect may be mentally ill," one creator admitted. And surely Oscar Goodman, when he offered to raffle a street name to the winner of a Jane magazine contest, didn't mean for it to become a bullet point in the ongoing debate about his ethical bona fides. He was just working that mayoral mojo, doing his thing—extending the Vegas brand.

Then there was the case of Lora Mazzulla, a Manch Elementary librarian who caused an uproar in February when she taught a lesson on segregation by dividing students into groups of black and white—and letting the black kids taunt the whites. Reported the R-J: "An Ivy league education expert opined that Mazzulla's intentions were good but misguided."

Soon to become a staple on The Boredom Channel.

"People don't give these rats the credit they deserve for being intelligent creatures," one vermin-control specialist said about the rodents that infested a few neighborhoods and quite a few column inches this year. Other expert analyses: "Trapping and killing alone will not significantly reduce their numbers." "We have to take steps to prevent them from coming here."

You can see how, by replacing "rats" with any group in need of convenient demonization (presidential candidates, Yucca Mountaineers, editors of weekly newspapers, Oakland raiders fans), we have a whole new way to frame discussions.

"It certainly violates the spirit of what we were trying to accomplish," a Water Authority spokeswoman griped when Triple Five Nevada Development Corp. kept its Boca Park mall's fountains going—despite an ordinance to the contrary—by trucking in water from out of state. You can call that creative, or, like the Water Authority, you can call it "creative" but really mean "cute idea, but totally wrong."

Likewise, when hiker Christine Asleson allegedly got lost for five days in Red Rock and claimed to have survived—creatively!—by eating flowers and drinking her own urine, well, to many, that violated the spirit of biological likelihood. "To live on our own urine is an impossibility," said Dr. Tony Alamo. Cute idea, but totally wrong!

They were the gremlins of the 2004 campaign—dubious peddlers of petitions, odd people claiming to be on voter-registration drives. No trip to a supermarket, library or DMV branch was complete without a gauntlet of waving clipboards. Some were funded by out-of-state organizations; there were allegations that some signature-gatherers were being paid per signee—which is against the law—and were none too strict about the veracity of the information they gathered. The Democratic Party prompted state and federal authorities to look into claims that a GOP-backed registration group tossed out forms signed by Democrats.

With an electorate already partitioned by mudslinging politics and confused by accusations, counter-accusations and counter-counter-accusations, shenanigans at the very cellular level of democracy—signing up to vote—don't bode well.