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Riding through Nevada

by: la motocycliste

Thu Oct 01, 2009 at 12:50:50 PM PDT

I have previously remarked that you see a lot while riding a motorcycle. If you look, that boring desert landscape has different hued sagebrush with tiny flowers, weirdly stunted trees, soaring golden eagles and flocks of tiny dark birds.

Eventually, you get tired, and start looking for food, water, a safe place to sleep. In Nevada, most of these amenities are attached to casinos

la motocycliste :: Riding through Nevada

Nevada makes a lot of money off casinos, probably more than mining, its other money making industry. Actually, casinos are just a different kind of mining operation: they mine people's pockets.

All adjuncts to the pocket mining operation are intended to keep the tourist happy and comfortable while spending cash. Luxurious rooms in hotels are inexpensive- the casino hopes you will drop your bags in the room and spend as little time as possible there. If you don't drink or gamble, you can get wonderful deals.

Airconditioning the casino, lighting it and running all the slots consumes tons of energy. Nevada grows very little food, and all of the delicacies needed to keep the gamblers happy must be trucked in and kept cold. You don't see little plaques in the rooms, suggesting guests save water in Nevada. Thousands of hot showers and extravagant fountains rapidly deplete what aquifers there are.

I rode along, thinking that Nevada is the epitome of the unsustainable, the energy inefficient, the blindness and deafness to the world that is 21st century America. At the same time, I was glad of water, a meal, and a clean safe place to sleep.

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Riding through Nevada | 1 comments

It's always fun... (0.00 / 0)

imo, to hear Jim Kunstler's thoughts on Vegas. He always seems to break out his best lines when talking about that "city".

But yeah, Las Vegas is basically the embodiment of everything that has been wrong with America since the end of WWII. We stopped making useful things, and threw a giant orgy. I don't know about the rest of the state, but I'm sure there's something useful out there. Some people have to be doing decent things.

As for Vegas, though? Absolutely nothing redeeming about the place. It's actually an eerily accurate depiction of "The American Dream" once we lost our minds, threw our real cities away, and decided to live in amusement parks. Complete with Potemkin "Main Street" facades, and all...

Should also note here that none of this would have been possible to this extent but for the fact that we're currently on a 40-plus year consecutive streak of the worst presidents and Congressional leaders in American history.

But that's the tragedy of our form of government - a people tend to get exactly what they deserve. And apparently, what we deserve is a place where people think Jesus rode dinosaurs and the highest form of public service is always having somebody at the ready to "kick people's asses and take their gas(es)".

And oh, while they're at it they can grow our food, too. That's "hard work", in the immortal words of our worst president ever, and the single dopiest "world leader" in history.

Remember time capsules? The circa-2000 American version need only include a map of Las Vegas, a Hummer toy from a Happy Meal, and the set of iPod headphones we used to shield ourselves from the nightmarish environment we created everywhere we looked.

That would perfectly encapsulate what became of our society, and would also (symbolically) be buried. Scary, eh?

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

by: JayinPortland @ Thu Oct 01, 2009 at 22:27:45 PM UTC