Not a Potted Plant

One of the reasons I’ve resisted Twitter for so long has exploded into reality less than a week since I opened an account. That reason is my dislike of noise. Worse, the noise is arising between parties I have regard for on both sides of the windy dispute. I refer to this morning’s Twitter war between Kurt Schlichter and Conor Friedersdorf.

I see no reason to endorse or defend Chris Hayes’ now-apologized-for and walked-back remark over Memorial Day weekend  that not all active duty military servicemembers are heroes.

Nor do I see any reason to use Hayes as a whipping boy once he did actually walk back his remarks when it was pointed out that he went a bridge too far.

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Stephen Taylor picks up a line by EDK and runs with it:

While I can understand why a given person might have a philosophical gripe about specific policies in given European country, the contempt that the continent as whole is held by some members of the American right is, honestly, rather remarkable.

Not really. At least, I don’t think. There are a few factors at play:

1. How different is the American right from the European left in this regard? The sneering is hardly one-sided. We can say “But European sneering at us is justified while our sneering is just us being Ugly Americans.” This response touches of #2 and #3.
2. The sneering isn’t particularly limited to the American Right or European Left. Yeah, our right does it with the megaphones, and maybe our politicians do it more than theirs (or maybe not), but they do it in part because it is effective with more than just the base. Not without reason, but I get the impression that more Europeans spent more time sneering at us than vice-versa.
3. The other issue is American intramural sneering. Which is to say, if someone is of the general mindset that America is a backwards place, they are as likely as not to look at Europe as a counterexample. They’re what we’re not. They’re better than us. Where we are different than them, well that’s a deficiency on our part. This breeds a particular sort of reaction. This isn’t an American thing, but rather a human thing (though it’s a human thing that Americans are at least somewhat more prone to indulging than others, I’ll grant.). “Why can’t you be more like them breeds resentment towards them. Even if the “you” is “we.”

As has been said elsewhere, it was simply a blast. I’ve never had a meeting-of-Internet strangers that went so well. I wouldn’t say so if there was anyone I didn’t like and come away calling a friend, but I liked everyone and felt like everyone there was a friend. Even the spouses that I’d never communicated with before and those with the blog that I’d only communicated with casually.

I didn’t gamble a dime. This wasn’t the plan, but I was too busy doing other stuff or getting downtime.

I wouldn’t say that I am a “Las Vegas person,” but I knew that going in. And as a tourist on a few-day jaunt, you don’t need to be a Las Vegas Person. You can spent that time just absorbing everything. There is a lot to absorb.

Which is not to say that Las Vegas never got in the way of the Vegas trip. Namely that every bar seemed to think it needed loud music. I mean, I understand that’s why a lot of people go, but you would think that at least some place would position itself in contrast for people like me. According to Burt, they do have non-smoking hotels and casinos. If only they’d had a bar and called it The Quiet Bar or something.

I’m a doofus that likes to keep an earpiece in my ear and listen to audiobooks when I am walking from one place to another. And in Vegas, there is a lot of walking. But no audiobooking. Too much noise to even try.

All of that being said, I gained a new appreciation for why some people love the city so much. There are some things that I really envy about it. Particularly the entertainment options. I kept seeing sign after sign for something that interested me. I’m a sucker for live shows. We went to see a musical, though it wasn’t very good unfortunately. First-rate talent, but weak material.

I’ve never seen a city so smoker-friendly as Vegas. It’s a little jarring to be able to smoke virtually anywhere (it’s also bad for my lungs). My fellow Leaguesters were great about it, and I tried to keep it limited when in their company. It feels so weird smoking indoors that I went out about half the time anyway. There was a woman that was pestering smokers that were doing the same (smoking outside). I thought to myself “Boy, is she in for an unpleasant surprise.”

Along those lines, one of the things that impressed me about Vegas was how well the city seems to know itself. It knows that it’s to its advantage to have liberal smoking laws. The hotels apparently know that late check-out times are a good idea because their guests are as likely as not to be hung over. In contrast, a while back Colosse (the pseudonym for my home city) passed its smoking bans and went after the strip clubs on the basis that it was hurting our image when it came to conventions and such (at the same time arguing that we were getting more conventions than ever). What they apparently did not realize was that the strip clubs and freewheeling bars was one of the reasons that they came to Colosse in the first place. It certainly wasn’t for the muggy weather and chemical-infused air.

The gaudy nature of it all really grew on me. At some point they decided that the new casino they wanted to build had to look like something, so why not make it look like a giant pineapple?! (There is no building to my knowledge that looks like a pineapple… but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were.)

One of the things that jumped out at me with regard to the city as a whole is the comparative lack of Spanish. I figured it would be like other cities in the area where a whole lot of signs are in English and Spanish. I saw some, but not as many as I had expected.

The second day I went to Walmart to pick up a bathing suit, which I’d forgotten to bring. I got an ostentatious one with an American flag design (if you have to get a bathing suit, why not one in the shape of a pineapple?). I’ve been to a lot of Walmarts and have never seen it before. I suspect that it’s actually marketed to foreign visitors rather than rednecks like me.

The hotel actually charged for WiFi. This is the first time I have run into that in a long time. And I’m not sure I’ve ever run into a situation where the charge was per-device, as it was here. Fortunately, I only attached one device.

Vegas (or at least the strip) has a way of warping your perspective when it comes to price. The notion of $80 for dinner ceases to sound all that crazy. Nine dollars for a pack of cigarettes? Okay, I guess. To be fair, the food was really good. The cigarettes were the same, though.

On the way in and the way out, I passed by the building of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. I felt a desire to buy some eggs and throw it at the building due to their involvement in the whole Righthaven mess.

Hendricks gin. Tonic water. Cucumber. Ice.

Shouldn’t taste bitter. Did the guy use club soda instead of tonic?

As indignities suffered in airports go I realize this isn’t going to elicit tears of outrage. But all the same I’m paying a premium price so I think I have a right to expect a decent drink because I’m bloody well PAYING for it.

I pay for high speed Internet at home. And I have a legacy data package from my cell phone provider that gives me all-I-can-eat data. And I have a “tablet” that works exclusively on wi-fi and not a cellular network. All of these things need airless Internet access to be really useful.

But my home provider is through my cable company, which has a local monopoly. There are competitors for that segment of the market, just as there are competitors for my mobile phone and data needs.

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I may or may not get around to writing a full post on this, but I did want to put something out there in case I don’t have the time to expand on it:

Soldiers are one of the comparatively few groups that conservatives are considered to have in their tent that there are strong social norms – across mainstream ideology – against ever saying anything remotely negative about. Thus, when something not-actually-all-that-negative (in this case, the expressed absence of something unremittingly positive) is said about them, it’s one of their real opportunities to get on a high horse about it. And they do. It’s very satisfying to get on one’s high horse and tell people what they cannot say.

This is not to say that I agree with Hayes’s comments or (more especially) the timing of it. I don’t. I can, however, explain why without saying that he hates the military or that he is in no position to say such a thing because he never served.

I wish I could go on, but I’m at a Super-8, it’s getting late, and I have another day of driving tomorrow. I am also positively rejuvenated, as far as blogging ideas go, and have gone from trying to think of something to write about to trying to figure out which thing I should write about. The Vegas trip was that good for me (thanks, Burt!).

Sixteen people who have never met before somehow spend the weekend feeling and acting like old friends. Extraordinary.

Planning for a large group, especially in an environment like Las Vegas so full of distractions, needs a light touch. People are going to do things they want to do so my idea was just pick a few things to do as a group.

The main event was a group dinner. This turned out very well indeed. With a big dinner, the only way to handle the check is to split the total evenly. Yes, someone winds up having more than someone else but it’s never going to work out trying to figure each individual’s share. Count heads and divide the bottom line and be done with it.

There is something about a Las Vegas hotel spa that makes even cleaning oneself and doing something healthy seem decadent. I love the Temple of Hot Water. Three Jacuzzis at different temperatures, dry sauna, and steam room — leaves the most hung-over party-goer feeling like a new man. Or a new woman, as the case may be.

Truth is, I don’t party nearly as hard now as I did in my twenties. Neither good nor bad, just is. A chance to sleep with no scheduled wake up time or pets to attend to is luxury itself.

Leaguefesters returning to the East Coast are leaving this morning. What with time changes they won’t be home until late tonight and can use Monday to fall back into the routines of regular life. That’s how time zones work. Shame, though; I’d have enjoyed another day of their company. As for me, a four hour drive tomorrow takes me home so that’s easy by comparison. But really, where but Las Vegas should such a thing as this take place?

The consensus for Leaguefest 2013 appears to be “D.C.” But there is another venue it seems few have considered that deserves serious thought — New Orleans.

Both Will and I will be at Leaguefest this weekend. Expect posts to be short, like this, since I’ll be leaving my computer behind. Monday trivia is teed up as usual. Follow the action on Twitter using #leaguefest. I’m still not sure I like Twitter all that much but I’m giving it a shot.

I filled out my absentee ballot to vote in California’s June primary yesterday. California has recently adopted a “jungle primary” law, in which all candidates from all parties appear on the primary ballot for most political offices. The two top vote-getters compete in a runoff election in November. I noticed that this did not apply to the Presidential primary — I only got one party’s slate of candidates.

It did apply to the election for U.S. Senator. There was an entire page of candidates, seemingly two-thirds of whom were Republicans, all randomized and taking up an entire sheet of the ballot book. “Confused” would understate my response. The cluttered, random mess that is the jungle primary has earned the ire of both lefties and righties in California as well as those who, like me, are disaffected with both flags. And it is simultaneously a symptom of the dysfunction of politics here in the Golden State, and a factor which will aggravate rather than mitigate the inability of Californians to govern themselves.

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