Why am I in this handbasket?
I blogged about the Stardust Hotel implosion a few months ago. Thinking back on it, it’s amazing what Las Vegas can get away with. To implode a building with fireworks and spotlights would be completely unheard of anywhere but there. It’s a completely unique American city, full of glitz and neon and sequins and money. And its character is slowly – or maybe not-so-slowly – changing from the hip, cool Rat Pack and Elvis getaway to a “family” vacation destination. What does that mean, in terms of American society? Why is Sin City now being pushed as a place to take the kids over Spring Break? Would parents of the 1950s have been scandalized to think that today’s kids would meet up with free drinks, gambling, and legalized prostitution? Of course. Am I stuck in the 1950s to think that anyone who takes their children to Vegas for a family vacation at the casino is delusional? Perhaps. In general, I think we’ve seen a drift from “wholesomeness” to “anything goes,” and I’m not so sure it’s an improvement. Not that I think it would have been an improvement going the other way either, exactly. It’s a lot easier to pretend you know what the answers are if you’re not responsible for actually enacting the solutions, right?