Viva Las Vegas?

I am so glad to be home. I have been to Vegas one other time, but I was sick so I spent all of my free time in bed. This time I got to really see it. I have to ask, what in the world do people see in this town? It has few redeeming qualities in my opinion, but I'll start there. There are pools, the water show at the Bellagio, and Broadway (which I'm not so sure is so great except that it employs actors). Yep, that's about it.
I don't mean to offend anyone who really enjoys Vegas, but it just is mostly disgusting to me. I was there on business, but we had a lot of off time. I spent most of that time alone. Vegas is definitely not a place to experience alone especially as a woman. I decided that I would walk the strip from my hotel, The Riveria, to the Luxor which is at the opposite end of the strip. A friend from college is in the revue at the Luxor and I was waiting for her call. In between each hotel or anywhere there was construction were Hispanic men and sometimes women handing out cards to all the men passing of naked women. The way that I knew what was going on was because several of the people were wearing t-shirts that said, "a woman to your room in 20 minutes." Disgusting. Add to that the billboard I saw coming from the airport that gave a phone number to call if you are the victim of sex slavery. Prostitution is a crime against women and it is so gross that it is so advertised there. The fact that the women don't have to actually walk the strip for work actually makes it easier for men to take advantage of them. It means that the only people they come into contact with are their pimps and the men that pay for sex with them. I have to say I was surprised at how many people made Vegas their family vacation. How exactly do you explain to your child what those men are doing and what their shirts mean? Vegas really should be a place exclusively for adults.
People smoke everywhere. When you step out of the elevator and into the casino there is an overwhelming smell of smoke. Yuck! Thank you Michael Bloomberg for making New York non smoking. It isn't until you are subjected to a place like Vegas that you realize how nice it is to not be barraged with smoke every time you go out.
Gambling is a confusing past-time to me. It is probably because myself and my family have been directly affected by the negative aspects of gambling. My dad is a recovering gambler. My dad would gamble to the point where he would have to come to his thirteen year old daughter and ask for money. I didn't realize at the time what was going on. I only knew that I had babysitting money and sometimes I would give it to my dad so he could fill his gas tank. We didn't discover until a few years later exactly how bad it was. I observed many people gambling while I was in Vegas and it just seems so sad to me. The majority of the people playing slots were by themselves shoveling money into a machine that offered no intellectual stimulation, but the hope of thousands of dollars all at the push of a button. Something for nothing. There were definitely different groups of gamblers. There were those with the money to lose. These people could go into private rooms with high limit slots. There, people put hundreds into the machines instead of dollars. These were the type that already shopped at the Cartier, Louis Vuitton, and the Manolo Blahniks. It didn't matter if they won or lost. Winning means more money and losing just means an expensive night out. There were the people that really have fun with it too, but I didn't see them at the slots. They tended to be at the card tables. There is some skill involved in cards and if I was good at those games I might be tempted to play. But, the saddest to me were the people by themselves who poured money into the slot machines with no smiles on their faces and a blank stare at the machines that held their dreams and took their money. I know why people do it. It's obvious. All the materialistic things you ever wanted could be bought with money and the distortion comes when you start to believe that your happiness can be achieved through money.
And last, but certainly not least is the fact that Vegas is a desert and it is environmentally unsustainable. People flock there to live and it is not a viable environment. I think that Hurricane Katrina provided a unique opportunity for us as a country to examine the sustainability of the places we have made our homes and continue to make our homes. People have begun to realize that maybe the bowl that is New Orleans is not a safe or sustainable place to make a home, but we also have to add to that places that the population is swelling like Vegas that were not meant to be a place where so many can live. Water will eventually be depleted, and I can only imagine that the people to get the water will be the wealthy and the casinos. You can read about Arizona's water woes here. Because it is cheap today doesn't mean that it will be tomorrow and the people left in these places when they dry up will be the poor, just like in New Orleans.