OMBUDSMAN'S CORNER |
with Horton Veal Back in my day, someone's skeleton would be rotting in a cage outside the Weekly's office over this: A headline in last week's As We See It section referred to Nevada's "four electoral votes." This is 11 kinds of stupid, as Nevada now has five. The editor seemed contrite about the mistake, chalking it up to a hurried schedule, then shamelessly blaming the interns. Informed that the Weekly has no interns, he hung his head and slunk from the building for a consoling expense-account lunch. In other errors, an AWSI item on kooky candidate Aaron Russo mistakenly placed his gubernatorial bid in 2000 instead of 1998, and further implied that Nevada's governor is elected every two years. Good idea, but still wrong. Lastly, there was a misplaced comma on page 30. Under a fundamentalist interpretation of the AP stylebook, someone should have a typing finger cut off. Alas, no one follows the old ways anymore. |
Nick Christensen's February 5 commentary chastising Neonopolis for spurning a gay nightclub brought this response:
Nick Christensen's commentary was RIGHT ON! I live four easily walkable blocks from Neonopoplis. My neighborhood (Biltmore Bungalows) excitedly awaited the finished Neonopolis. The newest revitalization project. We watched as it took shape, only to notice that it was designed entirely for tourists.
Most Las Vegas residents and thousands of tourists view Neonopolis from its Las Vegas Boulevard and Ogden intersection. This intersection, its most highly visible, freeway-accessible entrance, is completely lost, merely a brightly colored box that has some directions that say after a few more blocks and right hand turns, you're sure to lose interest and miss it. Aside from the colors, there is nothing welcoming about it. It only revived one-quarter of the area it needed to rejuvenate.
The fact that private and public-sector business leaders chose to equate an alternative dance bar with financial ruin says volumes about why Downtown Las Vegas is still 15 years behind most metropolitan districts and financially stagnant.
It's obvious that for many years the minds behind Neonopolis, the Fremont Street Experience and City Hall spend NONE of their free time in this area. They clock out, run to their cars and drive home to their master-planned communities. It's hard to believe the same leaders who are trying to seduce club owners into creating an entertainment district really think they can accomplish that without a gay club! Even Pleasure Island in Disney World has gay clubs.
This breathtakingly ignorant blunder, along with its Army Corps of Engineers design, makes us wish that Neonopolis and its managers will be chosen by the fab five as their next season's makeover conquest on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Dan Romano
Hey, Let's All Waste Water!
Well, so much for any type of lawsuit to stop the absurd water usage at Lake Las Vegas! Not even a squirt of a lawsuit (pardon the pun) or investigation of waste was started by anyone ... but I have a great new idea!
Instead of a lawsuit to stop the rich and the stupid from wasting water (they have all the money to defend themselves anyway), how about equal opportunity to waste it by everyone ?
I see it this way: All that water being used at the lake to simply hydrate the air certainly should be shared by everyone! So every company and housing development that has a fountain or entrance waterfall turned off should be able to send a water truck to the lake to fill their fountains. When the fountains get low, they can just run out there and fill up again. Right?
Just think, we all can have our beautiful fountains turned back on because everyone would simply be using the same water that is going to be wasted and evaporated by a select few. We can turn it into more widespread and unproductive waste by so many more.
I love water fountains, waterfalls, girls in water and so on, but when it's time to preserve and make do with less, then let's look at the largest water disasters and stop the waste.
Don Edmonds
Insert Gratuitous, Unfunny 'Puck' Reference Here
Josh Bell's February 5 review of Miracle prompted this response:
Josh Bell wrote: "I have to admit right away that not only am I not a hockey fan, nor a sports fan at all, I also had never heard of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team that beat the Soviets in a stunning upset to win the gold medal at Lake Placid, New York."
Trust me, you had to be there. I was at college an hour away from Lake Placid, with a bunch of friends who were serving as interpreters during the Olympics.
I don't care what sport you do or don't follow, the 1980 hockey team's victory will stand at the top of upsets from the 20th century. You had never heard of the 1980 Olympic team? I assume that you are in your early 20s and don't follow sports too much, and assume you have never seen snow in your life.
This movie will resonate, especially in the Northeast and the upper Midwest, among fathers in their 30s and 40s big time.
Go long on Disney stock this week, my friend.
Mike Wyatt
Editor's note:
Good points, Mike, to which we can only add: You've just violated a long-standing company policy against using the phrase "go long" in connection to Josh Bell. Yikes!