it was a bad week for local xenophobes and the closed-borders crowd. First came news that Nevada is trending toward becoming a "minority majority" state, in which nonwhites will eventually outnumber Caucasians. According to the state demographer, minorities make up 39 percent of the population; it's 44 percent in Clark County, although the numbers are surely skewed in some fundamental way by all the white kids in my neighborhood who think they're black. This development plainly marks the last gasp of white cultural hegemony, although it does bode well for the restaurant scene. You can practically hear the White People's Party scissoring eyeholes in their sheets from the agitation.
Then followed an even scarier breach of the state's borders: last week's Star Trek convention. If there's any greater threat to white cultural hegemony than the tidal immigration from Mexico, it's middle-aged white guys who wear GEEK T-shirts and think chicks dig guys who speak Klingon. It's hard to take a demographic seriously after that, although the Trekkies don't see it that way. "I'm destroying the stereotype because I'm cool," one attendee told the R-J.
Just seven words, but so much to think about.
Still, if only as an antidote to the bitterness of the anti-immigration mind-set, you have to appreciate the tolerance, optimism and chicken soup for the universe that makes up the Star Trek philosophy. "It shows humans as having matured a little bit," one conventioneer said. "We will get better than we are now."
Better than we are now: Talk about your small steps for mankind.
As evidence that we carbon-based life-forms are still a few parsecs shy of that Trekkian ideal, let's note that it's not just racists, xenophobes and Romulan extremists who want to keep outsiders out. It's also Nevada's doctors. Fearing a harmful immigration of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, local physicians are guarding their turf like Minutemen as a way to insist, Hey, we can do doctor stuff, too! The latest: Instead of asking Pittsburghers to help operate a Downtown medical center—thereby creating complex issues of who gets to boss whom around—why not dedicate our resources to expanding existing hospital programs? "I think it's just as simple as protecting their own territory, which is very reasonable," said university Chancellor Jim Rogers. As Dr. Benjamin Venger told the R-J, "What we have is actually as good or better than the rest of the country." Never mind that no local hospital made U.S. News and World Report's annual hospital ranking, while the University of Pittsburgh did. Damn it, Venger is a doctor, not an interpreter of statistical rankings!
There's very obviously a lesson to be drawn here—from the suspicion of those who are unlike us; the uneasiness with change—and this is what I've learned: Nevada has a state demographer. Sounds geeky, but I'll bet he's destroying the stereotype because he's cool.
Let's Do the Math! |
-2 Congressman Jim Gibbons: Offshore drilling "environmentally safe!" Well, OK, as long as it's safe!
+1 Gaming board urges approval of Beverly Hills casino in NLV. If you're excited, you might be a redneck.
+1 City to spend $700,000 to move bike path from busy Charleston to Alta. Still undecided: How Billy Walters will profit from it.
-2 School district swaps student addresses for editorial control of family magazine. Bad for privacy, but at least "means to promote [school] programs" sounds like a fun read!
Final Score
-2
This Week's Best Dan Rather Imitation |
"We're going to kiss a lot of frogs before we decide which prince we're going to take to the dance."
The Vegas Rorschach |
Match the Psychologically Revealing Shape to Its Closest Interpretation
A.) The clearest explanation yet of the logic behind Las Vegas gasoline pricing.
2.) The dried, blackened husk of Western Utah after we take their water. (Note to Southern Idaho: We won't be so gentle with you.)
III.) Is that ... Jim Gibbons ... drilling for oil ... in Wayne Newton ...? Yes! No, wait—it's a salamander.
D.) Mom.
Answer: Because this is psychology, there is no "correct" answer, except 2. Sorry, Mom.
Scott Dickensheets is a Weekly writer at large. Give him crap (or cake) at
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