|
|
 |
 |
|
|
Thursday, January 15, 2004 Quick and Dirty: a notebook of news and politics
Sin City asylum In last week's State of the City address, Mayor Oscar Goodman revealed that Las Vegas is slated to become the North American hub of the City of Asylum project, which gives persecuted writers around the world asylum in member countries. Big deal, right? Actually, that designation isn't just ceremonial. In fact, it might come in handy sooner than you think. The European umbrella City of Asylum program, based in Paris, is being starved of government funding, and it's just be a matter of time until North America shoulders most of the burden of providing aid to persecuted writers, according to North American Cities of Asylum Network executive director Sarah Ralston. As of now, the three official cities of asylum in the U.S. are Las Vegas, Ithaca, N.Y., and Santa Fe, N.M. Now administrators are drafting more candidate cities--including Baltimore, Seattle, Iowa City, Iowa, and Madison, Wis., among others--to handle an anticipated backlog of persecuted writers, many of them from Haiti and Sierre Leone. They're also considering placing more than one writer in a city at a time. "Paris no longer has the financial ability to place writers," says Ralston. "They had for many years support from the European Union, but they lost that funding. That's part of why we were able to step in here and take over some of those functions." The designation of Vegas as the North American hub, Ralston says, "gives a beachhead to writers who are backlogged in the system." About 20 writers worldwide have requested asylum from the network.--AK
Fifth Street agora Last week, many Las Vegans probably heard the term agora for the first time; that's where ancient Greeks would hang out in their robes and shoot the philosophical breeze. The word came, of all places, from the lips of Mayor Oscar Goodman, who in last week's State of the City address talked about turning the historic Fifth Street School into a cultural center--filled with bookstores, cafes, music stores and lots of urbane people to patronize them. As soon as Metro Police move out of the historic school (as early as this month), Goodman says the project should get under way. Likely first order of business: a bona fide boutique bookstore downtown--a chain version, anyway. Goodman says he's already in talks with a major chain bookstore to gauge whether there's interest in opening a small shop on the property. "I went up to the Barnes & Noble in the northwest to see whether or not there are any miniature Barnes & Nobles around the country," Goodman says. "If not, we'll make the first test case for a market. We're not going to have a big [chain bookstore] down there for a long time." Goodman says he wants to model the store on one of his fave bookstores, Bay Books in Coronado, Calif. "I want the people who choose to live downtown to feel that where they live is different from anywhere else in Las Vegas." (As for the recent shuttering of the Horseshoe, Goodman doesn't take it as a bad omen for downtown's prospects. "It's just a blip on the screen," he says. "[Its closing] has nothing to do with downtown. It has to do with not having the best management in the world."--AK
Tower o' power Last week, when the Clark County Commission gratefully accepted a compromise reached between Summerlin residents and Station Casino execs over tower height and room numbers at the company's Red Rock Station resort, the Culinary Union sat mysteriously quiet. Oh, its members packed the house, though not as much as at an earlier hearing at which the commission refused to make a decision and sent the rattled, angry opponents off to negotiate with the casino company. The Culinary, earlier in this debate, was pointed out in the media as a powerful force against Station's plans to build a 300-foot tower and two slightly smaller ones. Some surmised it was a union thing--Station isn't union. The Culinary denied that, saying it was a quality of life thing. And after last week's hearing, there was nary a mention of the Culinary in any of the media reports. And the Culinary didn't speak at either hearing. They just sat there, en masse, filling the seats and sporting their round "Don't Bring the Strip to Red Rock" stickers. Culinary spokesman D. Taylor says people realized, along the way, that it was the outraged residents who carried the day in opposition to the tall towers. The Culinary was just there to support them, he says. And, he says, the Culinary got nothing union-wise out of the compromise, which brings the tower down to 198 feet (still 98 feet higher than acceptable to some opponents such as the Sierra Club and a few still-bent residents), eliminates two time-share towers and carries Howard Hughes Corp.'s assurance that other casinos planned along the Red Rock frontcountry won't exceed 75 to 100 feet. The Culinary got nothing, that is, but the satisfaction of a pretty place preserved, says Taylor. "Red Rock--candidly, it's the nicest part of all of Vegas, and we didn't want to see the Strip bordering it. And I think we can all agree that the County Commission has not had the backbone in the past to not allow precedents" such as the Red Rock Station towers threatened: one tall tower exemption being followed by a string of others. He compares the Culinary's opposition in this issue to its opposition to the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. "We've been vehemently opposed to that," he says. "We think that has an environmental consequence. And nobody accused us on that of" having ulterior, union-linked motives.--HW
Artful changes The editor of the popular ARTnews, Milton Esterow, will give a lecture at the Las Vegas Art Museum this weekend. The Las Vegas Art Muse-what? Exactly. Over the past few years, the museum, attached to a library on West Sahara Avenue, has been about as lively as a Cezanne still life. That might change, however, with the return of James Mann, who rejoined the museum as curator-at-large in November after a five-year absence. Mann was the original curator when the museum opened in its new space in 1997, but, he says, was replaced in 2001 by a board of directors that wanted to trim the budget; to save money, they hired an executive director, Marianne Lorenz, who would rent traveling exhibits--thereby eliminating the need for a curator to actually create shows. Problem was, that system, too, proved expensive. The museum's board of directors chose not to renew Lorenz's contract in October, according to Mann, and gave Mann--perhaps best known for pushing his "Art After Postmodernism" schtick, with its focus on figurative art--the nod instead. "There's been a regime change," Mann says. "I plan to continue with shows that showcase contemporary and emerging artists, including an exhibit of Latin American artists in February. You might say we'll be broadening the range geographically." And, let's hope, intellectually and artistically as well. Museum director Karen Barrett was not available for comment.--AK
Mad governor Last week, Gov. Kenny Guinn delivered a "message" to citizens that began: "I want you to know what the state of Nevada has been doing to protect the state's food supply from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy." Good thing Guinn's words were issued in written form, because we seriously doubt the governor, not known for his public speaking acumen, could correctly pronounce the scientific name for what most people know as mad cow disease. What, you might wonder, has Nevada been doing to "protect the state's food supply"? Nothing spectacular, really. Mostly, it's "working closely" with the feds, which seems all right.--GS
Taser town The North Las Vegas City Council just granted permission for local cops to buy 100 electronic M26 taser guns at a cost of about a thousand bucks each. When fired, a taser can shoot its two attached darts up to 21 feet and can penetrate up to two inches of clothing. The darts send a five-second, 50,000-volt charge through the body of whomever they hit, causing that not-so-lucky person to lose muscle control and collapse, ostensibly without any long-term side effects or injuries. North Las Vegas Police Chief Mark Paresi says the tasers will more often allow his officers to use "less than lethal force" when subduing overly feisty suspects. Even better news for police, the M26 tasers remember the date and time they're fired, which can help protect cops from charges of--and lawsuits over--misuse of force. Tasers may also lessen the need for officers to tackle or wrestle combative suspects to the ground, thereby reducing pesky workers' comp claims. Tasers are widely used in police departments nationwide. Metro Police recently bought several hundred of them, and the Nevada Highway Patrol is already training some of its troopers in taser use.--LC
Fix your civet All this month, you can take your still-randy-and-viable cats and dogs into any one of 22 local vets' offices and get 'em fixed at no or low cost, so they won't populate the planet with sad, unwanted balls of fur that end up crying at the pound or gobbling up songbirds and tipping over garbage cans. You just have to pick up a "sterilization voucher" from Clark County, first, to bring to the vet. Vouchers are available at 20 community and recreation centers in Southern Nevada. Check the one nearest you.--HW CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 |
|
|
Home | 2AM Club Guide | Archive | Contact | Personals
|
