GRAY MATTERS

"We've got favorite honey holes that we know we're going to have to shovel out every week."

—
Lloyd Phillips, head of the city's Rapid Response Team, on outdoor poop spots favored by vagrants; the city is sanitizing a rancid 21-block radius of Downtown with monthly douses of an odor-chomping, enzyme-producing bacteria.

Damon Hodge on how some early birds almost caught a beatdown: Morning rush-hour traffic is road-rage-inducing enough, what with all the cell-phone babblers and makeup appliers, the folks who mistake local freeways for the autobahn and those who drive like Miss Daisy, the omnipresent school zones and discordant highway speed limits (45 mph … on parts of the Beltway … heck, why not just wrap Charleston Boulevard around the whole city?). On Monday, a junior high-ish sextet of three boys and three girls decided to add one more indignity to the morning commute. As the group ambled northbound on Mountain Vista, between Olympic and Russell, the girls waved at oncoming motorists. After each wave, two of them would drop the outside fingers, leaving the middle one up. Yep, walk-by flippings of the bird. The pubescent finks got me. Man, I wanted to tan their hides with my belt, teach them some respect—or at least scare them. I sat there, stewing. The man behind me in the gray Honda, however, returned the bird and mouthed something I presume weren't niceties. The folks in a black truck behind him did one better: A man stepped out of the passenger-side door and glared, prompting the pranksters to scurry, and turning my frown into a smile.

Oh sure, Sen. John Ensign. You get Hollywood to stop showing smokers, people quit smoking, sales of cigarettes go down and ––poof! -–there goes our tobacco lawsuit jackpot! Now who's going to pay for the Millennium Scholarship? It's a vicious circle, smoking cessation is.

• From the Pahrump Valley Times, May 14, 2004

"Ensign tries to curb smoking on movie screen ...

"U.S. Senator, Ensign, R-Nev., believes youngsters still are influenced by what they see on the screen. He mounted a campaign Tuesday to persuade the movie industry to curb depictions of smoking ..."

• From the Ely News, April 22, 2004:

"Lower sales means less tobacco money for Nevada ... Nevada received a payment of $38 million Tuesday from the tobacco industry to cover its share of a settlement that ended cigarette litigation by states in 1998.

"But the amount the state received is less than the $43 million it was projected to get ...because there is less cigarette consumption.

"Tobacco companies signed agreements with 46 states designed to compensate them for some of the Medicaid payments they used to cover tobacco-related illnesses for the indigent, blind and elderly.

"Initially Nevada was projected to receive $1.2 billion over 27 years.

"Annual payments after a phase-in period were estimated at $48 million a year.

"Nevada uses these payments to fund the Millennium Scholarships, prescription drug and assisted-living programs for senior citizens ..."

"Do What Other Weeklies Have Done! For only $7.95 per week, you can receive our in-depth coverage of your community's weather. "

A familiar face appeared in Judge Judy's courtroom Monday morning: Cheryl Luell, owner of A Las Vegas Garden of Love—one of the chapels that's been embroiled in more than a year's worth of wedding chapel wars, complete with alleged hitmen, beaten ministers and cat-fighting chapel owners. Luell was sued by some disatisfied customers hoping to get $5,000. Luell contended that the customers spat racial slurs at her. In the end, a very unimpressed Judge Judy ordered Luell to pay $300. Luell could not be reached for comment before press time.

In describing the on-again, off-again style of the Los Angeles Lakers, the Hawkster says the Shaq and the boys "have more faces than an Eminem video."

What the Hawkster is saying is that there's no telling which team will show up on a given night—the world-beaters or the wusses. As for the Eminem reference: The rapper has played multiple characters in several of his videos. Props to the Hawk for the totally pimp pop-culture reference!

Thanks for watching.