T.R. Witcher
Story Archive
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Taxes
Crash course
Thursday, June 11, 2009 What’s up with all the officer-involved accidents lately? And who’s paying the bill?
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Politics
Empathy ratings
Thursday, June 4, 2009 In choosing Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, President Obama said he was looking for a judge with empathy. Let’s apply our Empathy Meter to see how some of the city’s biggest names fare.
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Politics
Wary Harry
Thursday, June 4, 2009 Reid’s numbers may be down, but can any Republicans beat him?
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Health
Handicapping a need
Thursday, May 28, 2009 If you think catching a cab is hard, try spending a morning with Santa Perez, who has cerebral palsy.
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Literature
Granta is good
Thursday, May 28, 2009 The powerhouse literary journal Granta kicks off its 30th anniversary with its latest issue, showcasing fiction by established masters and up-and-coming young writers.
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Environment
Mining opposition
Thursday, May 28, 2009 In tough times, you’d think the proposed development of a new mine on the outskirts of town might be a plus. Yet, the “outskirts of town” have been swallowed by the city. Which is why residents of Henderson are fighting a proposed mine near I-15 at Sloan.
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Barack Obama
The Gods must be crazy
Thursday, May 28, 2009 Barack Obama must be something like the Hindu god Shiva.
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Economy
Broken pencils
Thursday, May 21, 2009 Architects across the state are trying to stay afloat. No one's building - not offices, not hotels, not condos.
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Theatre
Chatting with legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow
Thursday, May 14, 2009 What was it like cross-examining your friend, legendary American lawyer William Jennings Bryan, during the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925?
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Issues
Feel the space—and space, and space ...
Thursday, May 14, 2009 Yes, it’s all a bit obscene in this economy, these enormous houses with their dozen flat-screen TVs and their nouveau riche mediocrity of taste, but that hasn’t stopped any of us from coming.
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Environment
Sun and heat everywhere!
Thursday, May 14, 2009 Our politicians say Nevada can become energy independent by 2020. Are we just kidding ourselves?
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Government
The Searchlight stalwart
Thursday, May 7, 2009 Back in march, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid lent his voice trying to urge a resolution to financial woes at MGM Mirage, which were threatening to sink its flagship CityCenter project.
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Literature
Mind-melding
Thursday, May 7, 2009 Playing a Vulcan can be a real head trip: It was enough to lead the most famous Vulcan, Leonard Nimoy, to title his first autobiography I Am Not Spock, and to title his second I Am Spock.
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Entertainment
Leaps of faith
Thursday, May 7, 2009 This is a story about fear. Not fear of the economy. Not fear of death. But fear of the unknown, the uncertain. Alvin Tam calls this the oh shit moment.
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CityCenter
Staying the cultural course
Thursday, April 30, 2009 MGM Mirage is moving forward with an ambitious, $40 million public art program—which makes sense, since the company bought or commissioned the works two years ago, before the economy went bust.
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Federal Government
Memos on a scandal
Thursday, April 30, 2009 The 10 techniques under discussion were: (1) attention grasp, (2) walling, (3) facial hold, (4) facial slap (insult slap), (5) cramped confinement, (6) wall standing, (7) stress positions, (8) sleep deprivation, (9) insects placed in a confinement box and (10) the waterboard.
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Film
The Informers
Thursday, April 23, 2009 Los Angeles. Early ’80s. Vacuous, rich and pretty blond boys and girls get drunk, get high and get laid; a few come to a vague realization that their lives are, um, vacuous.
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Intersection
Liar, liar, car's on fire!
Thursday, April 23, 2009 As the recession burns, more Las Vegans are taking a match to their own rides.
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Taxes
Off-shore accounts (in the desert)
Thursday, April 16, 2009 There was more than an air of cry-baby defensiveness a few weeks ago at the G20 Summit in London, when Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, accused the U.S. of harboring tax havens
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Art
Through the looking glass
Thursday, April 16, 2009 We don’t think much about architecture in the Valley, because, frankly, outside of the Strip, there’s not much to talk about. The latest master-planned community, no matter how nice, is, as a design issue, a rote matter, as are the shopping plazas that fill in the gaps of the city’s fabric.
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Economy
Ask not what your state can do for you …
Thursday, April 9, 2009 Budget shortfall? What about a $5 Statewide Sex Act Tax. Let’s see, if half a million people have sex once a week … that's $125 million.
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A&E
Gefilte fish can be fun
Thursday, April 9, 2009 Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad comically solves some of the mysteries of Judaism—like what’s in the middle of gefilte fish—and jokingly celebrates hamantaschen, triangle-shaped pastries.
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Literature
Decorating death
Thursday, April 2, 2009 Local lawyer and writer Franklin Levy has figured out a way to combine literary muscle and good design.
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Economy
Yes, we can—but maybe later
Thursday, April 2, 2009 Now, with Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget on the line, the foot soldiers of his campaign are being summoned to collect signatures.
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Art
Pinching pennies
Thursday, March 26, 2009 Here’s the good news. One: The federal government’s economic stimulus bill, the $789 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, includes $50 million in funding for the arts, administered through the National Endowment for the Arts. And two: It’s happening fast.
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Culture
Edifice complex
Thursday, March 19, 2009 While Artistic Director James Canfield and the ballerinas are calm and focused, outside, it’s a different story
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Entertainment
Straight outta Persia
Thursday, March 19, 2009 On came a young MC to briefly throttle the joint to attention. She was decked in black pants, a red top, a black vest, a red truckers cap perched high above a camouflage bandana, neither of which could corral her long black hair.
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Development
Dirty work
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 Even in the midst of an economic downturn, there are always plans in the Las Vegas Valley for new homes. And in Henderson, those plans are not small—or easy.
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Casinos
Ocean of glass
Thursday, March 12, 2009 Modern and contemporary architecture is in large part defined by its generous use of glass.
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Crime
Crime-fighting pays
Thursday, March 12, 2009 We encourage our prosecutors to try cases,” says Clark County District Attorney David Roger. “We believe that in order to move 60,000 cases through the system, we need to develop top-notch litigators.”
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Economy
Adventures in debt reduction
Thursday, March 5, 2009 “This is Jane with Credit Contact at 866-213-7580. I’m calling about your high credit-card balances." I get these damn calls all the time.
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Art
Culture Crash
Thursday, March 5, 2009 Apart from the staff of the Weekly, which came to tour through the Las Vegas Art Museum last Thursday, there were not many other visitors. The few I found were from out of town.
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Crime
Swept away
Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009 There are two ironies about the city of Las Vegas’ Downtown Beautification Office, which sends people with parking tickets, DUIs and domestic-violence offenses on to the streets of downtown Las Vegas to clean them up, in lieu of fines or jail time.
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Film
The man behind Madea
Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009 While you were watching the Oscars, Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail was the No. 1 movie in America, pulling in $41 million at the box office over the weekend.
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The Strip
The impossible dream
Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009 First things first: the Washington, D.C.-based architect Nir Buras hates modern architecture. Second: He wants to remake Las Vegas' most famous street. Completely.
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Development
Making designs on Vegas
Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009 We tend not to see the built environment, though it’s all around us, and of all the arts forms, architecture is the one that tends to have the most tangible impacts.
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Nevada
Shutting the doors
Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009 Nevada State Prison in Carson City, which dates back to the 19th century, is the oldest prison in the state, and one of the oldest in the country. But its long history may be over.
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Congress
Extremely even Steven
Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009 A politician’s life is necessarily a dance between praise and criticism, between the handshakes that build consensus and make nice PR and the stinging words that establish differences—and also make nice PR. And so it goes for Steven Horsford, the first African-American to hold the post of State Senate majority leader.
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Economy
Hey, Reb, where you going?
Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009 Fridays at UNLV are usually sparsely attended; the campus moves at a lazy pace. But the campus sits under an uneasy cloud following proposed budget cuts announced last month by Gov. Jim Gibbons.
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Culture
The museum we can’t use
Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009 At the north end of the Springs Preserve, construction crews are wrapping up work on the large new Nevada State Museum—the state’s most ambitious museum.
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History
Century markings
Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009 When the city of Las Vegas celebrated its 100th anniversary a few years ago, Mark Hall-Patton, administrator of the Clark County Museum, knew that his institution would have to rise to the challenge—because the county’s centennial is this year.
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Culture
Forbes to Henderson, North Las Vegas: Whatever
Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009 Forbes, last month, has gone and named North Las Vegas and Henderson two of America’s 10 most boring cities.
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Economy
The states we're in
Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009 Look around. Everywhere, mixed signals. At lunch the other day, the Yard House in Town Square was packed. You wonder, this is a recession?
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Literature
Different times
Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009 At a time like this, when the bubble has burst on Las Vegas’ collective psyche, it’s nice to recall the good old days of sun and fun and money, when a writer could say of the city, without irony, “It is the most incredible oasis the world has ever known.”
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Conventions
The recession will be televised
Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009 The question on everyone’s mind was how CES would do in a down economy, and whether people still needed all the gizmos and devices the consumer electronics industry peddles here every year.
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Henderson
Up from the streets
Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009 It’s safe to say there’s not a lot of street art on the streets of Henderson. But in John Martone's online gallery, vegasstreetart.com, which he operates out of his home in, of all places, Henderson, there's plenty.
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Real Estate
The house loses
Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009 There is construction at Inspirada, the massive master-planned community in the southern reaches of Henderson, tucked behind the Henderson Airport, but most of the land on the 2,000-acre site is vacant dirt,
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Art
Paint the town
Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008 The three-story building at 601 E. Fremont, at the edge of Downtown’s Fremont East District, has seen duty as a Sears store and a fingerprinting lab used by Metro. It was almost the site of a 10,000 square-foot nightclub.
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Poverty
Feeding the city
Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008 On a chilly Christmas Eve morning, Julie Murray, the CEO of Three Square Food Bank, and her staff were on the job well before 8 a.m., readying their giant warehouse for its daily ritual.
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Development
Union rules
Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008 Admittedly, it feels like a sign of the economic times, when the Culinary Union, the 55,000-member collective of hospitality workers, decides to pick a fight with City Hall.