I Just Love That Sign

Thank goodness nobody ditched it. People don't realize how tall it actually is. And it's further out from the Mandalay Bay resort than people think. Since I had no car when I first visited Las Vegas back in 2006 for the state Democratic convention, I got off the bus at the Mandalay Bay and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked what must have been a mile to the sign itself.

Somebody was kind of enough to take my picture alongside the sign. I have it framed alongside a black and white postcard. Naturally I have a slew of memorabilia with the sign design.

Article:

Designed by sign-maker Betty Willis, who never sought a copyright for her work and instead donated it to her beloved city, the 25-foot-tall kitschy cartoon has become a full-flush symbol of this gambling mecca, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"I just think it's cool. Who knows if those Rat Pack guys once stood here," Utah resident Marsha Hatch, 48, said on a recent Saturday evening. "It's like the Hollywood Walk of Stars, but it's ours. This sign belongs to Vegas."

Willis, now long retired, doesn't speak to reporters anymore. But in past interviews she said that back in 1959 — when Wayne Newton was a teenager and Frank Sinatra joined Dean Martin for the first time on stage at the Sands — the sign's diamond shape was unlike anything on the Strip. She added "fabulous" as the most fitting word to describe this 24-hour resort town.

There is also a much-smaller sign in downtown Vegas with a similar design to the original. The sign says, "Welcome to Fabulous Downtown Las Vegas."

At Least Nevada is Not Number One

in this survey, but it will do for now:

Leadership Problems: 10

The extramarital affair recently acknowledged by Republican Sen. John Ensign hardly compares to the tabloid richness of GOP Gov. Jim Gibbons' one term. Even state Republicans acknowledge that Gibbons has been an unmitigated disaster -- and it actually began before he won office in 2006, with allegations that he had touched a woman inappropriately outside a restaurant. He was also dogged by questions about his dealings with a defense contractor when he was a U.S. House member.

Gibbons later underwent a nasty divorce, which prompted the news that the governor had used a state phone to send more than 800 texts in six weeks to a married woman who was not his wife.

"Gibbons is perhaps the worst governor in Nevada history and a national joke," Nevada political analyst Jon Ralston wrote in a recent Las Vegas Sun column that half-jokingly compares Sanford favorably to Gibbons. The Nevada governor, Ralston added, "also has made all manner of ludicrous appointments, some of which were rescinded, and has not forged any relationships with legislators, creating a vacuum in the executive branch that has impeded policy on various levels."

Coming from Ralston, that's high praise indeed.

Nevada has pretty tough competition. It's more crooked and dysfunctional than Illinois, but not quite on the level with New York.

Give it time...

And speaking of dysfunctional, some asshole or assholes vandalized the iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada" sign.