Imagine a basketball game. Overtime. The home team attempts a flurry of desperate buzzer-beaters from half-court. The shots rattle out, but everyone agrees they were close enough, so the squad declares a victory, issues a statement: "We knew if we just played our game, we could win." The audience left long ago. There wasn't actually another team.
Hey, sports fans, let's hear it for yoooouuurrr 2005 Legislature!
You're right, that's a stretch. The basketball analogy isn't working; its intimations of teamwork are of no use at all in assessing Nevada politics. We can't help it, though: man's search for metaphor and all—humans need some framework with which to make sense of a Legislature that completed its best work (capping property taxes) on April Fools Day and then seemingly forgot to change the calendar.
This hasn't been like the embittered, tax-divided 2003 session, when the reigning metaphor was obvious early on: Heart of Darkness, with 63 lawmakers stranded up that crazy river, succumbing to jungle fever, with pundit Jon Ralston as Marlowe with a Blackberry, frantically thumbtyping descriptions of cannibalism and human sacrifice to a disbelieving civilization.
This time, not so simple.
We despaired at the thought that there might be no metaphor for the 121-day gathering (a day longer than constitutionally mandated) that finally jerked to a halt Tuesday. How can you tidily encompass in one idea a session that saw lawmakers gift-wrap $100 million-plus in new buildings for higher ed while penny-pinching all-day kindergarten and bickering over how best to underfund Millennium Scholarships? That saw, as Sun columnist Jeff German noted, Sen. Mark Amodei vote for the neighborhood casino bill his law firm lobbied for? That was so emotionally inscrutable that the Sun, on Monday, could write about how collegial the session has been, while on Tuesday the R-J could write about "the deteriorating relationship" among legislative factions—both with equal conviction? That had as one of its hottest flash points Canada? That finally ended in a dribble of mini special sessions as lawmakers, like college students cranking term papers, eked out bills they could have finished a long time ago?
It took someone wiser than us—which is to say: Gallagher—to provide the metaphor we needed. After slapping an audience member in Laughlin, the onetime comedian told the R-J, "It got a laugh, and that's what this is about." That's it, of course. Imagine the action in grainy black-and-white—gubernatorial opponents Dina Titus and Richard Perkins bonking each other on the head; everyone tugging spastically on the tax rebate, the better to claim credit—accompanied by boingy sound effects: The 2005 session was a 63 Stooges movie. Just not a short.
Suddenly, politics makes a new kind of sense. If Carson City books this show next time, we'll be ordering tickets early.
Let's Do the Math! |
+1 Stolen DMV licensing gear found. "It didn't magically fall out of the sky," Secret Service spokesman affirms.
0 Monorail ridership down. Monorail fares may rise. Monorail apathy holding steady.
-1 LV city manager, top officials given hefty raises after closed-door meeting as money magically falls out of the sky. (Meanwhile, County manager seeks modest raise, open deliberations.)
-3 Gallagher slaps patron in laughlin; that's minus one. Two additional demerits because we were forced to think about Gallagher (and Laughlin)
Final Score
-3
Exit Interview |
John Clare, classical program manager for KCNV 89.5-FM—memorably profiled in these pages on June 10, 2004—is leaving Las Vegas for a radio gig back east. A bon vivant, encyclopedic classical resource and Eskimo, he'll be missed. The vitals:
Last day on the air: June 17.
Came to Vegas: September 2001. "I was packing on 9-11; didn't get much done that day."
Came from: "Dallas, Texas, where I was a freelance violinist and teacher."
High point here: Winning an Electronic Media Award for best radio show for 20/20 Hearing, October 2004. "I had no idea it would dazzle anyone other than myself and a few listeners."
Less smarmy high point: "Volunteering on Sunday afternoons at the Las Vegas Art Museum from July 2002-March 2003.
Miss most about Vegas: "The synergy (or sin-ergy) of the town, scantily clad cocktail waitresses and smoking a cigar wherever I want. Did I say scantily clad cocktail waitresses?"
Won't miss: "Heat, traffic and large parking garages that I can never remember where I parked."
The Miscellany |
Best moment of the session?
Exchange between Bob Beers and Chris Giunchigliani during conference on Millennium Scholarships. Very tense, very pointed. Two lawmakers who know their stuff and have strong points of view. Line of the session there from Beers: "We concede the Assembly's point to offer the scholarship to illegal aliens."
Worst moment?
When it became clear that in this session of nothing, they would need overtime. You could hear the collective sigh.
Most comic moment?
Bob Coffin's speeches about National Guard funding and his putative fasting for the troops. They went on and on and on. Sadly, tragically comic.
"Seniors doing better on math testing" —Sun headline, June 2
"Sophomore test results: reading, math down" —R-J headline, June 3
Correction: Last week, I riffed on quotes drawn from the Review-Journal and the Reno Gazette-Journal and forgot to properly credit the papers. I apologize to both for the oversight.
Scott Dickensheets is a Weekly writer at large. Give him crap (or cake) at
[email protected] .