How D'ya Like Us Now?!
Last week brought two more signs that a nation that traditionally looks at Las Vegas through green-felt glasses is beginning to see the city as the world-class place our mayor says it is. First came the announcement that the NBA All-Star Game is coming to Las Vegas in 2007. Then came Elsa Walsh's long, admiring profile of Harry Reid in The New Yorker, following his career from Searchlight to Henderson to Vegas to Washington and, in the end, essentially crediting him for President Bush passing over more controversial Supreme Court hopefuls in favor of John Roberts. But the full measure of our newfound international respect did not become clear until this Tuesday morning, when the Review-Journal informed us, in the business section's lead article, that a paradigm shift is truly upon us: "Foreigners Flock to LV."
Las Vegas, it seems, is finally on the map as an international tourist destination.
Zumanity, Schumanity. To Truly Turn Sin City Into a XXX-Rated Town, We Look Toward ... a Bunch Of Sesame Street Knockoffs.
Broadway smash Avenue Q, arriving next month at Wynn Las Vegas, features "full puppet nudity, including graphic simulated sex between puppets."
* In related news, bootleg copies of an underground sex tape made by Miss Piggy early in her career, Oinkin' & Boinkin', is being sold on the Internet. Meanwhile, Kermit has filed a lawsuit to stop distribution of his own embarrassing sex tape, It's Not Easy Bein' In Your Jeans.
(* Attention small children and lawyers: We're only kidding.)
From Desert to Desert
Salam Pax, whose blog Where is Raed? describes life in Baghdad, recently went to Las Vegas. In the current issue of Black Book magazine, he describes his impressions, much of which consists of him trying to find the exit at a hotel-casino. See? Iraqis are just like us!
"Here, no army on the streets! No checkpoints! Just lights and people in skimpy clothes carrying drinks. Ahhh, this is the life."
"... I go to 'Paris,' but I think I have developed an allergy to painted skies."
" ... I have lost my ability to tell apart what is real and what is not. Actually, it is more like I have lost interest in the difference."
"After a half-hour drive, we reach the end of the power lines and houses. No piped music, no bright lights, just mountains. And it is beautiful."
World Market Amazes World!
Vegas World Market organizers expected 40,000 people to attend the four-day event at the end of July. More than 62,000 attended. The market occupied 2.5 million square feet of permanent and temporary exhibit space, the largest trade show launch in U.S. history. It was so successful that the Market's founders, developers Jack Kashani and Shawn Samson, announced last week that they will shorten the construction timeline for build-out of the entire 12 -million-square-foot campus from more than 10 years to seven. In a press release from the Market, the modest flacks noted that attendance in Las Vegas was well ahead of opening-day traffic for any event in High Point, North Carolina, the current industry center. Oh, Vegas does love a fight!
Neighborhood Watch
A story about Hispanic gang violence in the Washington Post should be a warning to the local law enforcement. Mara Salvatrucaha, or MS-13—a violent El Salvadoran gang that's spread across the country and has alleged (though so far unproven) links to al-Qaeda—is being investigated for involvement in six stabbings in Montgomery and Prince George's counties.
The Latino liaison for the Montgomery County Police Department, Officer Luis Hurtado, told the Post that he's been asking for assistance in addressing gang violence for the past 14 years: "We have been trying to ring the alarm forever. We have been saying somebody is going to get killed. It's gone on deaf ears."
In a late March story on local MS-13 activity, Metropolitan Police Department Gang Crimes Det. Tony Morales told the Weekly that MS-13 isn't a particularly onerous threat. (MS-13 members frequented the area behind Jerry's Nugget on Fifth Street in the early '90s before moving to Pennwood and Arville, Maryland Parkway and Tropicana and Meadows Village.)
"We can't treat them special, or it will go to their head …They haven't been particularly active here. We've paid no particular attention to them. I've read articles about the hype on MS-13 and its alleged al-Qaeda link, but so far it's just hype."