OUR BLOGGERS ARE SAYING…

Art guru or billionaires' lackey?

From Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith:

Art critic guru and author David Hickey was his usually reserved self in an interview with Dave Berns Monday morning on "KNPR's State of Nevada." With Las Vegas art scene insider Libby Lumpkin at his side, Hickey clobbered much of the local scene and knocked UNLV's system of hiring in the process.

At Texas universities, he reasoned, the hiring is tied closely to university presidents and provosts, not to middle managers and department heads. The "top down" method ties the reputations of university bosses to the quality of character they hire.

"Here it's basically, 'Get my friend from Alaska a job,' " Hickey said.

Hickey is brilliant and funny. But he's also been part of the machine that focused so much attention on the billionaire art collectors on Las Vegas Boulevard at the expense of a "ground up" arts movement that's important to growing the culture in our wonderful wasteland.

Those billionaires are precisely the people who aren't actually creating art foundations that benefit the entire community. They use art for marketing and aesthetic macho positioning. And Hickey has been their go-to guy.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/smith/

California studies online poker

From gaming writer Howard Stutz:

California lawmakers soon might be looking at a bill that allows the state to regulate online poker as long as the players and wagering hubs are inside the state's boundaries.

The proposed legislation was first reported by IGamingNews.com, which posted a January draft of the bill on its Web site. Under the plan, the California State Gambling Commission, in conjunction with the state Department of Justice, would draft and adopt regulations for an online intrastate poker network.

California's licensed card rooms and California American Indian tribes with active state compacts would be allowed to operate the sites. Only poker games currently approved for play in California casinos and card rooms could be offered. Gaming taxes would be collected on a rate similar to what card rooms currently pay.

The legislation also allows players to set limits on what they can wager over a 24-hour period and offers safeguards that insure deposits and wagering activity.

IGamingNews.com said the bill was submitted to the California legislative analyst earlier this year.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/stutz/

Which is it, Harry?

From Publisher Sherman Frederick:

Sen. Harry Reid can't have it both ways. He's either against abortion, or he's for it.

He says he's personally against abortion. But as leader of the Democrats, he acts in ways that can only be called abortion tolerant. And for my money, given what's at stake, that makes him pro abortion.

For example, he is now moving to call for a vote to confirm President Barack Obama's pick for secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. Though she is Roman Catholic and will tell you that (like Harry) she's personally against abortion, as an elected official she does everything in her power (even taking money from late-term abortion doctors) to facilitate and encourage abortion. She's a horrible pick in that regard.

Even her church calls her the "greatest disappointment because she has publicly and repeatedly betrayed her Catholic faith."

If you don't like Obama's pick in Sebelius, an effective approach would be to let Harry Reid know you will hold him accountable at the voting booth for Kathleen Sebelius if he facilitates and votes for her confirmation.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/

Be leery! Be very, very leery!

From Editor Thomas Mitchell:

When I get one of those e-mails from some snide person gloating over the fiscal woes of the newspaper industry and saying, "I get my news from the Internet anyway," I am tempted to print it out so I can wad it into a ball and fling it across the room.

When I hear one of those conservative talk show radio hosts engaging in a bit of schadenfreude over the pains of the "liberal" media, I want to curse at the radio and call in to ask just where he thinks he gets all the news on which he is commenting.

But now an alert reader has sent me a photocopy of an article containing the most concise and most illustrative explanation I've yet seen. It is in an article in National Review by James V. DeLong under the headline "Black and White and Dead All Over."

In it DeLong, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, explains why conservatives should be leery of many of the ideas being floated for rescuing the newspaper business.

"To say that you don't need newspapers because you get your news from the Internet," DeLong writes, "is like saying that you don't need to burn coal because you rely on electricity."

He suggests conservatives would be wise to help newspapers find a free market answer to their profitability problems lest they become dependent on foundations and government subsidies -- which have brought us the monolithic ideology and political correctness we find on university campuses.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell/