Reporters’ Notebook

MEMBERS OF THE ASSEMBLY FEASTED ON A RARE CULINARY delicacy Monday, during a break in a mammoth floor voting session. Assemblyman James Settelmeyer, R-Gardnerville, and members of his family spent Sunday castrating 350 calves on the family's Carson Valley ranch and served "Rocky Mountain oysters," cooked up by Assembly Sergeant of Arms Terry Sullivan, to lawmakers.

There are many names for Rocky Mountain oysters.

"Montana tenderloin, prairie oysters, swinging sirloin. It just comes down to the fact that most people don't want to call them testicles," Settelmeyer said.

So how did they go over with his colleagues? "There were individuals who decided to eat them and individuals who did not," Settelmeyer said.

One of the biggest fans, according to Settelmeyer, was Assemblywoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-North Las Vegas.

"She told me when she was pregnant she remembered eating 'turkey nuts,'" Settelmeyer said.

ED VOGEL

THE VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTINGS BROUGHT SOME UNWANTED attention to a Review-Journal reporter last week.

Crime reporter David Kihara, who is Asian, was checking out a bomb threat in a Henderson office on Thursday when a woman approached him and demanded to see his ID. Not satisfied with just his press badge, she wanted to see his driver's license, a debit card and finally a business card.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you," said the woman, Renee Williams. "An Asian man in his 50s came in here earlier and threatened some people. He said, 'I'll do what they (Seung-Hui Cho) did.'"

In addition, the reporter's red shirt was identical to the one worn by the man who made the threats, she said.

DAVID KIHARA

SEN. JOHN McCAIN ARRIVED FOR AN INTERVIEW Thursday afternoon with a large wet spot down the front of his pink tie. An aide explained that a wet-wipe had been applied to the tie, on which the Republican presidential candidate had spilled coffee. But McCain sported it proudly as a Review-Journal photographer snapped photos of him.

MOLLY BALL

McCAIN MUST SPEAK TO THE SCOTTSDALE ROTARY CLUB pretty regularly.

In a speech to the Clark County Republican Party on Thursday, the Arizona Republican quipped, "Thank you for that kind introduction. It's far nicer than the one I received at the Scottsdale Rotary Club last week, when the guy said, 'Here's the latest dope from Washington, Senator John McCain.'"

McCain used the same joke in a speech in Las Vegas last June, when he addressed the national convention of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

MOLLY BALL

THE REVIEW-JOURNAL INTERVIEWED ASTROLOGER DEBBIE MARKS last week about her struggle to obtain a business license from Clark County. She also spoke at length about her abilities to foresee the future.

Marks said she and several other Las Vegas psychics predicted something very bad unfolding on April 16. That was the day student Seung-Hui Cho slaughtered 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus before killing himself.

"We talked about something very violent happening nationally," Marks said of her circle of seers. "Some said volcanoes or an earthquake. I said it was going to be something more emotional because Mars was in Pisces."

Marks cryptically said the mass carnage is not over, meaning some of you might not want to get out of bed tomorrow.

"Something very bad is going to happen again on April 23rd," she said.

MIKE KALIL

DURING MONDAY'S RECOUNT OF THE WARD 2 Henderson City Council election, Clark County election chief Larry Lomax reported that one voter had mailed in an envelope with no ballot inside. The same thing seems to happen at least once every election, he said.

"We also get blank ballots all the time. They come in, and there's nothing on them," Lomax said. "I don't know if that's a protest vote or not."

HENRY BREAN

NEWLY ELECTED HENDERSON MUNICIPAL COURT JUDGE Mark Stevens was sworn in during Tuesday's City Council meeting, and his mother, Joyce Stevens, was there to present him with his robe.

"He might be a judge, but she robed him first and she'll robe him last," Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson said.

True to form, Joyce Stevens had to button her son's top button for him.

HENRY BREAN