Just got back from Vegas and had an absolute blast. Not sure when (if) I will find myself there again though. But, I am sure my tacky quotient will dip low again at some point and I will need to replenish myself at the mecca (or hit up Orlando.........its a coin flip). Vegas is the only place I can think of where an ultra trendy upscale mall like the one at Caesar's Palace where stores that I can't afford to even browse in sit alongside of a frozen Daiquiri store and has animatronic shows on the hour (including one character brandishing a sword that was engulfed in real flames). Only ended up down about 50 bones, so not bad overall. Up $50 would have been nicer still.
Vegas is a city of dichotomies in regards to prostitution as well. Despite the fact that prostitution is illegal in Henderson county, advertisements abound promising "girls to your room in less than 20 minutes" through moving billboards and an ungodly amount of pamphlets and various other handouts that festoon the walkways. What reason do these scantily clad (if not entirely unclad) women have to come to your room with such rapidity if not for an exchange of currency and services? I don't know why, but I find the lack of pretense amusing. They at least don't pretend, like in south Florida, that they are running a perfectly legal massage parlor that, oh by the way, happens to have no windows you can see in, a door buzzer, and is open at 3am on a Saturday. Still, how in the hell they can so brazenly advertise without authorities getting involved is beyond me. I personally could care less either way, but either have a law or dont and move on.
It is the same kind of blatant hypocrisy that surrounds other vices in this country. We allow gambling in Oregon, but only certain kinds and only then under the auspices that you are 'helping' some cause or another such as the lottery and the 'assistance' they provide education (a blatant untruth as it often displaces other monies earmarked for education funneling those monites elsewhere and leading to a zero sum gain for education overall) or Native American owned casinos which ostensibly is our belated apology for taking their lands and leaving them a largely destitute community. In other states some version or another of the same thing exists. One of the more amusing things is in the paper every week: the line for football games (and other sports). For what reason, other than gambling, would you need to know that Indianapolis was favored this weekend by 6pts? If you weren't betting on it, would you really need to know anything other than who the person in the paper thinks might win? Yet, you can only gamble on sports legally in a very few places in the country.
Drugs are another vice that we can't seem to find a stance on that makes any sense. How, for instance, can something that we know has no positive health association, cigarettes, be legal whereas something that has some positive effects (pain relief, increasing appetite in cancer patients), marijuana, be illegal? How can we sell liquor all week, but not on Sunday (in Florida at least, with other states having their own curious laws) until noon? How can we tell people that drinking is ok, but not until you are 21 years old because they aren't old enough for the responsibility while, at the same time, asserting that those same people are adult enough to go to war? To kind of tie it all together, how do we manage to say that prostitution as a whole is illegal, while pornography, where 2 consenting adults (or more) are being paid to have sex on camera, is completely legal?
My own views on all these things is the same: I view them all with a libertarian bend. So long as you aren't affecting me, I don't care. We all view things through our own moral lens. One drink a night might seem excessive to some, while to others it is part of a healthy adult lifestyle. Same with weekend bingers. Some will view a person who has three or four beers a night to be a functional member of society unwinding after a long day, while viewing the same person who smokes a joint as shameful. Is it really ok to buy lottery tickets and scratch offs but not ok to bet on the winner of a football game? If so, why? I don't have an answer, but I cannot help but laugh at our inane attempts to continue to have our cake and eat it too, all while trying clinging desperatively to the idea that there is an acceptable measurement of just how much cake is enough.
Got together with some old classmates who, serendipitously, moved to Portland. It is so nice to catch up without the spector of classes hanging over us one and all. Plus, both are just pleasant to be around. It will be nice to have some fellow travellers on the road as we all begin to navigate the profession here in town.
Off to another early sunrise.
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