Quick and Dirty: a notebook of news and politics

9/11 mural gets second chance at museum

When Greg Etchison's 9/11 mural goes on display next month at the Las Vegas Art Museum, it might not be the first you've seen it. As early as August 2002, the sprawling mural was taking shape on a wall near Bonanza Road and Main Street; Etchison had arranged with the owner of the building to put the work up. The ambitious piece, employing media from oils to glitter paint to discarded tennis shoes, was about a one-fourth completed when Etchison says he showed up one day to find the wall completely whitewashed

"It was very graphic, but it wasn't gory," Etchison says. "While I never heard from him, I knew exactly what happened. It scared him."

Now the Las Vegas Art Museum has taken on the project, and Etchison is hard at work on "9-11: The Day," a work that encompasses a 12 by 60 foot canvas that captures "the craziness of that day," Etchison says. "Because we're out here in the West, we don't grasp the scope of what happened that day. The whole country seemed totally confused, and I hope the scope of this thing will remind people of the incredible things that went on that day."

In trying to capture that chaos, Etchison says he's using materials that are rarely seen in mural work, including phosphorescent paint and oil sticks. "I want it to be spontaneous, aggravating and agitating, like graffiti on a wall would be," says the magnet school art teacher. "I want people to say, 'Oh my God, I remember that chaotic day.' I've had people break down and cry, and the painting's not even done." But Etchison insists he's not going for morbidity or shock. "This is dedicated to the living," he says, "to us, the survivors. It's not about death, though it does have its elements.

"My biggest challenge it trying to let people know it's not over," he says. "It wasn't over then, it's not over now. I'm not trying to get in people's faces, but this painting will put you into the story."

Gregory Etchison's "9-11: The Day" and Barbara Lamdin's "9-11 City Views" will go on exhibit July 16 at the Las Vegas Art Museum. Info: 360-8000.--AK

Kerry campaign blames Bush for Nevada bankruptcies

So maybe they didn't come out and say, "George W. Bush is the reason why you're all poor," but a recent report issued by the Kerry campaign came awfully close. According to the June 14 release, more than 20,000 Nevadans filed for bankruptcy in 2003--a 48 percent increase from 2000. It doesn't take a genius to do the math: Bankruptcies are up, so the economy is down, right?

Not necessarily, says Effie Sahihi, an associate attorney and bankruptcy specialist at the law office of Koppe and Koppe. "I've been doing this for six years, and I have not seen a dramatic rise in bankruptcy filings. A big part of that could be the fact that the market has also been flooded with quite a few attorneys, but in my experience, bankruptcies are at least reasonably consistent."

Sahihi says bankruptcy filings are often seasonal and/or contingent on local and national socioeconomic factors. For example, she says, "people are more likely to file after the holidays when debt has been incurred. There was also an increase in bankruptcy filings after September 11 when there was a dramatic cut in people's tip income."

She also suggests that low interest rates may have contributed to the increase in bankruptcy filings. "The lower interest rate helps a lot of people get into their homes," Sahihi says. "But then because it's so easy to qualify, a lot more of them are looking at foreclosure when they hit a bump in their income. It's kind of a double-edged sword, you know?"--NB

Police crack down on two-wheeled menace

This summer, the police are going to make the streets safe again. No, they're not going to crack down on drunk drivers or uninsured motorists; they're setting their sights on kids with motorized scooters. According to a press release, Metro and the police departments of Henderson and North Las Vegas "are going to place a new focus" on these vehicles, issuing fines and citations to operators lacking proper safety equipment and a valid driver's license. The mandate comes after motorized scooters have been implicated in at least three deaths and two serious injuries since April, but not everyone is convinced of its necessity.

"The license law was basically written for motorcycles. Scooters weren't even an issue back then," says Alan Chapman, owner of Have Scooter Will Travel at 1631 E. Sunset Rd. "I think the police have thus far been very sensible in their enforcement of the law, but if the media continues to beat this into the ground, scooters will be a thing of the past in Las Vegas."

The fine for operating a scooter without a license in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas is $640. Violation of equipment requirements--including mirrors, lights and horn--will cost $190 per missing item.--Newt Briggs

Local author pens books razzing Dems and GOP

This political season, the ongoing joke seems to be that nobody's voting for any presidential candidates, but only against presidential candidates. With that gangland vibe making this look like another poisonous season of attacks ads and mud-slinging, Dr. Kevin Peterson--a.k.a. Scott Hove of Henderson--reminds us not to take things so seriously.

How? With the publication of two books, the Encyclopedia of Democratic Knowledge and the Encyclopedia of Republican Knowledge. Open up the suspiciously slim volumes--to say, a chapter called "Everything Democrats Know about Business" or "Everything Republicans Know about Compassion"--and you'll find the pages are...blank? Ha! Get it?

It's a fatuous, one-joke affair that Hove ("hoe-vee") admits cribbing from earlier spoof books such as Everything Men Know About Women, but the pastor who once ran for office himself (for North Dakota's nonpartisan State Tax Commissioner, a race he lost) says it's high time everyone lightens up.

"We need to laugh at each other and ourselves," he says. "I believe that's one great thing about this country, our ability not to take ourselves too seriously. I think maybe as each party has gotten a little more extreme, we've lost that."

As for the books, which dish out blank-page grief on both sides of the aisle, Hove says the equal-opportunity bashing reflects his independent political leanings. "I'm really quite independent," Hove says. "Nobody can convince me that one side or another has all the answers, so in my perspective, I look at how the person stands on the issues." How independent is he? Well, he's still undecided on what box he's gonna check on Nov. 2. "I haven't made up my mind yet," he says. "Maybe I'll just write in Dr. Kevin Peterson."--AK

Literary culture on the Strip--almost

Much has been made of the Reading Room since it opened in December in the shopping wing of Mandalay Bay known as Mandalay Place. Book lovers took notice; culture mavens pricked up their ears and even longtime locals accustomed to shunning the Strip did a double-take: Could this at last be a slice of real, civil culture on the Strip? A little bit of Alexandria in the middle of Gomorrah?

To a point. The Reading Room does manage to be an unlikely haven of bookish calm in a storm of Strip carousing, the tiny store selectively stocked with heavy-duty stuff from Anatole France to Zadie Smith. But a reading last Thursday by novelist and former Las Vegan Heather Skyler provided an almost comic reminder that, carefully as the Strip might aim for serious culture, it'll always be its own worst enemy.

See, the reading took place not inside the Reading Room--three is truly a crowd in the thumbprint of a bookstore--but rather out front, beneath an escalator, in an open space that felt like an airport gate. With rows of chairs fanned out in front of her lectern, Skyler did a fine job reading from her novel, The Perfect Age, with the help of a small microphone and speaker setup. But listeners frequently had to dust off their lip-reading skills, thanks to the constant roar washing in from the casino--crowd chatter, coin plunkings, pop Muzak--and the occasional tourist wandering behind the Skyler and her audience, invariably looking bewildered as though wondering if he'd just stumbled onto a movie set. None of it was enough to sour the event--heck, the irony of a book reading on the Strip is just too delicious to pass up--but it was a reminder that casinos striving for culture will always have to contend with casino culture.--AK