Epistemological violence in America

I fell asleep with the afterimage of neon burned in my vision and awoke with the call of the common slot machine in my ears. The air conditioner/heater could only blow hot or cold air; there was no way to turn it off. A good half of the thirty or so stations on the hotel television showed horse racing. A sign hung above the toilet informing me that tons of detergent and millions of gallons of water are wasted daily to wash towels unnecessarily.
Las Vegas is an interesting place to be on so called Earth Day. By interesting, I mean largely baffling and somewhat frightening. And endlessly entertaining, but more anthropologically than hedonistically. The observation of humans in action often makes for the best pastime.
Excess defines Las Vegas. It’s entirely founded on and sustained by surplus wealth and consumption. The mob, looking for a place to hide their cash, began opening casinos and hotels in the 1940s. Today, most jobs are in services, particularly restaurants, hotels, casinos and other things related to tourism, but there is a growing number of folks in the financial services as well. Either way, other peoples’ cash drives the entire operation. The city caters to surplus cash, or at least cash temporarily stripped of necessity. It’s all about leisure dissolving into vice, overindulgence, and spectacle.

As I walked along the Strip, passing through parties on sidewalks and plazas, deflecting offered glossy cardboard ads for escort girls from Mexican men wearing orange t-shirts (all of which men have a habit of sort of snapping the cards against their palm to get your attention) I realized that, unlike short-term festivals such as Taste of Chicago or Mardi Gras, Las Vegas never really ends. There are peaks and valley, of course, high and low seasons, but the movement of people looking to fill their every desire and compulsive need does not come to an end.
I witnessed loads of bachelorette/bachelor/wedding parties, and an endless stream of three- and four-dude platoons cruising for action. Packs of business casual conference goers and foreign tourists. Kids too young to drink legally and old folks too haggard to stand, let alone chain smoke and gamble for hours on end. The point is that in Las Vegas, someone, somewhere, at all times, is looking to party.
Back to that sign hanging over the toilet, which reminds me of the one thing that will bring the party to a cruel, abrupt halt: the seemingly inevitable day when the city’s taps run dry. Most of the water comes from Lake Mead (home of Hoover Dam), which some believe may run dry as early as 2021. We drove to Red Rock Canyon, some 20 miles from the strip, and saw a beautiful set of sandstone mountains where wild burros roam and Californians hike with their muscular dogs.
Along the way we passed by solid sprawl, subdivisions in the sand sporting countless Spanish tiles and square feet of blacktop. Luckily, I hear that the city government is acting aggressively to promote conservation, for instance by encouraging homeowners to ditch the lawn of imported grasses that requires tons of water and lay down nice rocks and native plants.

Here's what looks to be a golf course in the middle of the gods damned desert.

At the Fremont Street Experience, a serious assault on the senses combining the lights and noise of casinos with a street festival including multiple, simultaneous musical acts, all of which occurs beneath a vaulted LCD display/ceiling that shows a or video performance every hour on the hour. I happened to catch one highlighting the sounds and fashion of Queen, which affords families from Any Town, USA the opportunity to watch Freddie Mercury trot around in a leatherman outfit.

Finally, on Earth Day, I was not only in Las Vegas but I also flew the approximately 1,500 miles back to Chicago in a plane that spewed out carbon all the way. This website estimates my personal contribution to climate change at 590 pounds for the flight. This probably tarnishes my environmentalist credentials.