REPORTERS’ NOTEBOOK

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

California racetrack spoofs Las Vegas ad

The "What happens here, stays here" advertising campaign has spawned a myriad of imitators.

But one such ad for a thoroughbred racetrack in San Mateo, Calif., caught the attention of a trio of San Jose Mercury News business writers.

"Now, we really like those TV commercials from the original Sin City," the Mercury News wrote.

"But we think there's nothing less than marketing genius behind the new Bay Meadows Racecourse spots that spoof the Vegas campaign."

The business writers described their favorite: "A heart-decorated fingernail pushes a doorbell. When the man of the house opens the door, an exuberant young woman jumps into his arms, squealing in joy while kissing and squeezing him. The man's wife then appears farther back in the doorway and asks, 'Honey, who's that?'

"Next comes the voice-over: 'Unfortunately, some things don't stay in Vegas. For more fun and less trouble, come to the track.'"

SEN. JIM DeMINT, R-S.C., WAS SPOTTED LIMPING around the Capitol a few days ago, the victim of a tennis match against Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

"I hit a really good serve, and he pulled a muscle trying to get to it," Ensign said with a chuckle.

Ensign, who at 49 remains one of the best athletes in Congress, said he and DeMint frequently play tennis early in the morning.

DeMint "almost always wins," reported The Hill newspaper, which first noticed the hobbling senator.

TONY BATT

WHEN A PHARMACIST SAYS A DOCTOR'S PRESCRIPTION ISN'T RIGHT for you, who do you trust: the physician who prescribed the medication or the pharmacist who's an expert on medications?

Such was the subplot of an episode of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," in which the show's creator and main character, Larry David, is driven to madness by the dilemma: "Doctor ... pharmacist ... doctor ... pharmacist ...."

Evidently, the rivalry is real.

Harry Rosenberg, who holds a bachelor's degree in pharmacy and is president of the University of Southern Nevada, Nevada's only provider of pharmacy degrees, stiffened when asked the question.

"I may be a bit biased," he said, before he explained what could settle the debate: "The pharmacist is liable if the prescription is wrong."

LAWRENCE MOWER

AT A COMMENDATION CEREMONY WEDNESDAY, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie gave out a number of medals to police officers for a myriad of brave acts. One medal went to Officer Dave Corbin, who ran into a burning home and was able to get a teenaged boy to safety.

Gillespie said he sometimes jokes with his counterparts in Las Vegas Valley fire departments that it seems like "we enter more burning buildings than they (firefighters) do."

FRANCIS McCABE

THE RAELIANS, THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL-BASED RELIGION best known for its 2002 claim to have cloned a human, came out last week in favor of legalizing prostitution in Nevada.

"Rael, founder and spiritual leader of the International Raelian Movement, reminds us that some people sell their brains as intellectual workers, or their hands as factory workers, or their creativity as pop art, and that all of these things constitute prostitution," Raelian Bishop Guide Ricky Roehr of Las Vegas said in a statement. "That's especially true when what they're doing to make a living keeps them from doing what really fulfills them. As long as money exists, there will be people doing things to obtain it. Whether they obtain it by working with their hands, brains, creativity or sexuality, as long as they do it for money, it's considered prostitution under the Raelian philosophy."

Then call Reporters' Notebook a hot pants-wearing prostitute. That is until we can convince someone to pay us for kicking it in a hammock.

THE RENTING OF MOBILITY SCOOTERS ON THE STRIP to able-bodied people has been panned by a number of media outlets in recent months.

"There's lazy, and then there's Las Vegas lazy," began an Associated Press story on the trend.

The fake-news kings at "The Daily Show" parachuted in to mock the practice, saying it should be covered by the "ADA -- Americans with Disinclination to Walk Act."

That made a nugget in The Los Angeles Times last week all the more amusing.

"Are there any appealing alternatives to driving the notoriously congested Strip?" asked writer Beverly Bayette in a travel piece for the newspaper.

"How about a mobility scooter? You know, those three-wheel electric numbers. In Las Vegas, they're not just for disabled people. At a maximum speed of 5 mph, they can cruise along the sidewalk -- passing the sweating, blister-footed masses -- into the casinos and right up to the tables or slots.

"Let's be practical: Walking is always an option, but in summer and early fall, when temperatures soar well above 100, that can be daunting, if not downright deadly."

Leave it to Los Angelenos to give the use of mobility scooters by the able-bodied a thumbs up.

How did that song go? Only a nobody walks in L.A.?