Is a Reno Aces baseball ticket worth $40,000? Maybe if you are hospitalized after getting hit in the face with a line drive. One recent Sparks victim came within millimeters of losing an eye, then got an eye-popping hospital bill. I wonder why my colleagues in the legit media don’t publish statistics about injuries at the Reno Corporate Welfare Ballpark. I’ve asked for … [Read more...]
Perfectly Nevadian: Joe Conforte, 1925-2019
Joe Conforte deserves his induction among the inaugural six honorees in the Nevada Hall of Fame. Nevada author and publisher David Toll (“The Compleat Nevada Traveler”) announced the lineup last week. Mr. Conforte was the only one of the six still alive. Then came news of his death down in the land of Cariocas and breast reductions. The only other name you might recognize … [Read more...]
Guns and Roses, Traitors and Political Poses
The cowboy myth has once again exploded in our faces. As of last Sunday, the 216th day of the year, there had been 251 US mass shootings in 2019. Sorry for the blood-dripping statistics, but numbers generate legislation, the reason the National Rifle Assassination got a law passed forbidding federal agencies from compiling shooting stats. Did you know that about half … [Read more...]
The Sting, Spike Heels, Green Eggs & Ham
To some, The Sting is Paul Newman and Robert Redford’s greatest work. To me, it’s a half -foot thick file spanning more than four decades of my time in Nevada. Back in the 1970s, years before computer incursion became a mainstream topic. I had an election stolen from one of my candidates. I got called crazy when I brought it up on a 1982 election night commentary. … [Read more...]
A Cuckoo Coup and a President, Too
“The firing of Traci Davis was nothing short of a long term, well-orchestrated coup.” That remark represents a consensus from informed sources about the firing of the Washoe School superintendent who will probably walk away with a million-dollar settlement as did her predecessor. This week, the school board starts the process of hiring a high-priced consultant to … [Read more...]
Reno City Council Passes Rent Control
This week celebrates anniversaries of impossibilities. Man on the moon in 1969. The great New York City blackout of 1977 (and the huge spike in the northeastern birthrate nine months later). And the election of Reno Mayor Barbara Bennett in 1979 after she convinced the city council to vote for rent control. Last week came word that the median stick-built home in RenoSparks … [Read more...]
Alfred E. Neuman for Washoe School Superintendent
Last week came news of the corporate assassination of another American cultural icon. Mad Magazine will soon cease publication and go into perpetual re-runs. Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury has been there for years save for current work in the Sunday color comics, another endangered species. Believe it or else, I went to high school with a kid who was a real-life double for … [Read more...]
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Newly defrocked Washoe School Superintendent Traci Davis made two fatal mistakes. First, she decided she liked Nevada and wanted to raise her daughter here. Second, she stayed too long at the fair. A government critic once told me that the average mid- to high-level public administrator jumps jobs every three years. By that time “they’ve gotten too hot to stay any … [Read more...]