The End (And Beginning) Of Yao (And Me)

That, above, is by a large margin my most cherished photo from any story I ever did. Not because I am much of a pro basketball fan or even paid much mind of Yao Ming's career while he played in the NBA, but just because of the bizarre dimensions of the thing and how he grumpy he looks. No, I did not step on his toe.

With Yao announcing in Shanghai the end of his NBA career this week, it seems worthwhile and fun for me to go reminisce on my involvement in its start. That picture was shot on an early April 2001 afternoon in a hotel room in the Chinese carmaking capital of Changchun, where USA Today sent me to chase down Yao at the Chinese Basketball Association's All-Star Game. It was on this assignment that I realized I could be really good at both freelancing about even topics I'm not naturally knowledgeable about and parachuting into foreign lands and finding the news.

In January, I had attended a CBA basketball game in Beijing for two reasons. First, I was curious what it would be like and, secondly, the very first morning after I arrived in Beijing I looked out my 13th-floor apartment window to see the words "NBA" and "I Love Basketball" written in English in the snow on a basketball court. I had gone to China to kick back, take stock and NOT work -- sounds familiar now, doesn't that? -- but great stories slapped me in the face everywhere I turned, the Chinese hankering for hoops being the very first. I soon learned that the Chinese were mad for American basketball and that Chinese TV aired one live NBA game every day overlaid by their own color commentary in Mandarin.

Here's how I described the game in a weekly e-mail missive I'd send to my friends and family from China in the era before blogs:

We found a thumping, pulsating arena -- site of 2008 Olympic badminton, perhaps? -- where we were lucky to get seats together and many fans happily stood in the aisles and along the railings to cheer as the team played beneath a massive Chinese flag. Scalpers lurked outside, a guy in a duck suit roamed the room as Beijing's mascot and the loudspeakers blared Ricky Martin and the Backstreet Boys as a dozen cheerleaders in black tights and shimmering butterfly vests danced about the court during time-outs. I noted there seemed to be few families in the audience, but then realized that under China's One Child policy, there aren't as many children so you're not going to bump into a the irksome broods that make outings at professional sports in America so much fun.

It didn't take long for me to learn about the Chinese stars who wanted to come to the U.S. and the NBA's desperate desire to expand and exploit this mammoth new market. In fact, that basketball game was the first time I saw any non-tourist black people in China; they were NBA rejects. Each Chinese team was allowed to hire two foreign players.

It seems obvious now that the U.S. was about to have a Chinese NBA invasion, but Americans had not heard much of a peep about this when I landed. Sports Illustrated had written something about Yao and another Chinese player named Wang Zhizhi, but they hadn't interviewed them and their story was at least two years old.

Timing and drama conspired in my favor. The Chinese didn't want Yao to come to the U.S. yet because his team, the Shanghai Sharks, hoped he'd help them win their first national title first. Also, Chinese culture demanded that the older, 23-year-old Wang go first, and Yao couldn't enter the NBA draft on his own anyway at that point because he was under 21. In the end, Wang came that year, and this was how I wrote about his entry into the draft on the front of USA Today's sports section in March 2001:

BEIJING -- He's a basketball player, so he's supposed to be tall.

But when 7-foot Wang Zhizhi strides through a Beijing restaurant en route to a private karaoke lounge to conduct an interview, it's hard not to be stunned by how close his head comes to the ceiling.

The Chinese gape because Wang, 23, is one of the most famous basketball players in China. American tourists stare, too, wondering who the giant might be.

They'll likely find out soon enough. Wang is in the final stages of securing a release from the top military basketball team in China to sign with the Dallas Mavericks, which could occur as early as Thursday. He's likely to be followed this year or next by 7-6 center Yao Ming, 20, as the first two Asian players in the NBA.

After that, though, I kept hearing how openly displeased Yao was with his forced deferral, and I convinced my editors at USA Today to let me track him down in Changchun. I don't even remember how I did it; I worked a circuit of translators and NBA sources but I swear there was also a little hotel camping-out involved.

What I got was this:

CHANGCHUN, China — Yao Ming doesn't want to be here anymore.

The potential No. 1 pick in this year's NBA draft isn't interested in putting on slam-dunk performances for the Chinese masses at their All-Star Game here. He absolutely loathes having to sit for questions from the Western media about his future. And he cringes at the growing likelihood that he may be forced to skip this year's draft to stay in China another year or two and continue to play for the Shanghai Sharks.

The mind of this anxious 20-year-old with almost no say in his own destiny is an ocean way, in a land where scouts are buzzing about his vast potential and where his compatriot, Wang Zhizhi, suited up Thursday night as a Dallas Maverick. Yao says he wants to enter the draft this year if he is permitted to make himself eligible, which he called "almost a sure thing."

This was an important piece for a few reasons. First, it was a thorough introduction of this monumental figure to the United States audience on page 1A of the largest-circulation newspaper in the nation. And second, it actually showed Westerners that Chinese people can, under very specific circumstances, get away with criticizing the government and official decisions. This circumstance was that this was an extraordinarily gifted athlete and potential cash cow, not a grunt. Later, the Chinese authorities would confiscate a fairly sizeable chunk of his NBA earnings.

Here was the money line from Yao, who spoke through an interpreter because he was years away from speaking English:

"I appreciate the CBA and I am happy playing here. But now I am ready. I want to be with the best."

The next year, after Wang broke us in over here, he got his wish. He was drafted No. 1, and I covered the machinations of that, too. After that, the story was the province of sports writers, not folks like me more interested in the geopolitical and fiscal implications than on-court action.

Years later, a university student in America contacted me. He was doing a piece on people faking photos on the Internet. He was sure the shot above was bogus. I assure him -- and you -- it was not. It was an awesome moment in time.

Wait . . . Steve Wynn Voted For Obama?!?

[UPDATE: Ben Smith of Politico picked up this item and added that ex-RJ scribe and Politico writer Molly Ball notes it's even more surprising that Wynn claims to have voted Obama because he was the 2008 GOP presidential campaign co-chair in Nevada.]

Steve Wynn appeared for about six minutes on Fox News today in a town hall setting with Republican pollster and savant Frank Luntz. Luntz is an old friend of Wynn's; Wynn had told me long ago that Luntz field-tested Le Reve versus Wynn Las Vegas to decide which to call his resort.

You can hear the audio of that TV appearance by clicking here. Thanks to Hunter at RateVegas.Com for grabbing that for me.

It was really a weird appearance. He spoke of how "only in the control of the people and the better life of my people" does the enterprise flourish, that employees who are uncertain or whose standard of living is in peril won't attend as well to his guests. I get what he was trying to say, but I'm fairly sure Luntz would not have advised the use of the word "control."

But the bit that stunned me was Wynn claiming he voted for Barack Obama in 2008. We know that soon-to-be-ex-wife Elaine was gaga for Barry and that she forced Steve to socialize with the Obamas, where Wynn admitted to being charmed. But is it not a bit of a surprise that in all the many, many rants that Wynn has made to me, to Jon Ralston, to whoever on Fox or CNBC flips on a camera for him, he has never once said this before? He gave not a cent to Obama and the legal limit to John McCain -- and gave the legal limit again for McCain's 2010 Senate campaign, by the way -- but he VOTED for Obama?

I'm not saying it isn't possible. In fact, Wynn and I spoke at length in December 2008 as Encore was opening and he actually told me off the record -- although now that's moot because he has now said it on national TV, too -- that he had, in fact, voted for Obama. But there was something about the moment that rang false to me anyway; it felt like he was trying to seem like he had picked the winner after the game was over. I felt like if he really had, he would say so publicly then when Obama was popular and see what sort of benefit he could derive out of being "in," either genuinely thanks to Elaine or opportunistically on his own, with the White House.

But if Steve Wynn did vote for Hope and Change, why's he so mad about the health care reforms Congress has passed? This was precisely what Obama promised he would do, it was a cornerstone of his campaign; did Wynn think the president was lying about how important this was to him? If anything, the reforms that were passed are less intense and government-driven than those that Obama spoke about on the stump.

And another thing. Wynn said on Fox today that his health care costs had been increasing by 8 percent a year since 2005 and that since the new law -- which has not even gone into effect yet in any meaningful way -- he's up 10 to 12 percent. And then he tells Luntz that what he wants is for the government to "get off health care. Let private enterprise figure it out."

But didn't he just say that private enterprise, the system as it was, was responsible for consistent 8 percent increases in costs every year? That's sustainable? Health costs rising ridiculously faster than inflation is a way to keep his employees' standard of living intact? What? Does any of this make sense? He was OK with 8 percent increases EVERY YEAR but a 10 percent one is suddenly the worst thing that has ever happened?

Finally, and only slightly off topic, I will observe with fascination whom, if anyone, Mr. Wynn supports in our upcoming special Congressional election between Republican Mark Amodei and Democrat Kate Marshall now that Amodei has posted this as his first TV ad:

Can Steve Wynn seriously afford to support a China-bashing candidate for Congress from his own state? China is the reason why Steve Wynn has been able to keep so many of his employees employed! Were it not for the obscene profits in Macau, Wynn surely would have laid off many more people and been as imperiled by the horrific Vegas economy as MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment. It's easy, in fact, to make the case that Amodei's "nightmare" of China kept the official Nevada unemployment rate from hitting 20 percent.

Oh, the political pretzels we twist. What a fun summer ahead!

MGM CEO Jim Murren At Chinese State Dinner

A day after the re-elected senator he stumped heartily for called the Chinese president a dictator, MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren and wife Heather are on the White House guest list for tonight's state dinner. They're one of two sets of Nevadans on the list; Limin Liu and Dr. Hugh Shapiro of Reno are the others but I don't know them.

It's an interesting invite. Murren is one of the three gaming CEOs doing serious business in China. It stands to reason that Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn wouldn't be invited given how outspoken they've been against the Obama administration. Still, Murren is also the only one who has not made absurd, suck-up remarks about how terrific Beijing is to its citizens. So who knows how these things are decided?

Sen. Reid is not attending. Interestingly, his decision not to go was not overanalyzed the way House Speaker John Boehner's was. Hmm.

Last night, I caught the bit in Jon Ralston's daily email about Reid's remarks that Hu Jintao is a dictator and posted a piece on Politics Daily later that evening. From there, it spread across the mainstream media, although nobody else had any first-hand knowledge of how sensitive Beijing is to such remarks. I, of course, was editing Chinese propaganda a decade ago.

Also tangentially related to Vegas on the guest list or just plain interesting: Maya Lin, Yo Yo Ma, Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendy (sans Rupe), Jackie Chan (with a male companion, his agent), President Carter, Herbie Hancock, Michelle Kwan, Barbra Streisand (with Mr. Streisand), Vera Wang, Anna Wintour and out gay actor B.D. Wong (with his mom, I think).

Communism, communism, Steve & The Steve

Here's this week's Las Vegas Weekly column. Back to normal after last week's blowout edition, albeit it down here in Florida with my parents for the week assessing the damage left by Hurricane Jeffrey. More soon. -sf

Why Steve Wynn should—and shouldn’t—fear China
By STEVE FRIESS

The Las Vegas media lately have spent a whole bunch of ink and digital space attacking and analyzing Steve Wynn’s suggestion that he might move his corporate headquarters to China. Much of that has been appropriate, but again and again writers go for the cheap shot—claiming irony in the notion that a capitalist like Wynn believes he can find safe harbor among “communists”—without understanding how geopolitically incorrect they’re being.

I know a thing or two about this. I lived and covered the Middle Kingdom for two years, I went back to cover the SARS outbreak, the opening of Sands Macau and the opening of Wynn Macau. I even attended a rave on the Great Wall in 2001 the night before then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin celebrated the 80th anniversary of “communism.”

So here’s the deal: Yes, the ruling group in China is known as the Communist Party. But no, China has not been a little-C communist nation for decades now. There is no wealth distribution to the masses, the state has increasingly ceded control over major industries to private or publicly traded interests and, best of all, not everyone is a comrade. In fact, only about 5.6 percent of the nation’s population are members of the Communist Party.

China today is more akin to a gigantic corporation I’ve for 10 years been calling PRC Inc. The CPC is the board of this, the world’s largest company, setting the rules and, no doubt, reaping an untold and unaccounted-for fortune from its operations. As would be the case in the U.S. if Wall Street and major manufacturers really had their way, China today offers unrestrained capitalism of the sort we saw in late-1800s America, before the existence of labor unions, antitrust laws and other restrictions on the free market. There’s little in the way of environmental law, work-safety legislation, even proper jurisprudence to adjudicate civil disputes or protect the rights of crime suspects the way we understand it. It’s the Wild, Wild East.

Wynn should certainly be wary of placing too much faith in the Chinese government, but not because it’s communist in the sense that one day PRC Inc. will seize his land and run his casinos. No, he should worry because ...

Read the REST at LasVegasWeekly.Com

Elaine Wynn on MGM Change, China & Sarah Palin

As you saw in my Portfolio piece on Tuesday, many people took umbrage to MGM Mirage's announcement that they'll be asking shareholders to change their name to MGM Resorts International. Some were defensive on the Wynns' behalf, noting that expunging "Mirage" from the corporate title is a way of distancing themselves from the portion of the part of the company that Steve Wynn built. MGM Mirage, of course, came into being after MGM Grand Inc bought Mirage Resorts in 2000.

MGM brass insisted the sole purpose for the switch was to refocus the company as a worldwide hospitality brand with properties that both do and don't offer gaming. Commenters at RateVegas.Com's blog, among others, weren't buying it, but you know who could care less?

The Wynns. At least not publicly.

Steve Wynn is in Macau opening the new 414-room Encore and stirring up trouble with a suggestion he might move the company's HQ to China. We'll get back to that in a moment. But I happened to have Elaine, his ex-wife and a board member and equal shareholder for Wynn Resorts to him, on the line for two unrelated stories I'm working on.

So I asked and she answered.

"I accept [MGM's] explanation [of the name change]. They don’t need to have their name be a mouthful. They’re entitled to call it the XYZ Co., if they want to."

Doesn't she still have an emotional attachment to the Mirage hotel and name as the entity that sent the Wynn reputation into orbit?

"I will always and forever have an emotional attachment to Mirage and Mirage Resorts. Whoever owns it or sells it doesn’t change that. ... I think most people recognize who built that brand. The brand served a very real purpose in establishing Wynn credibility. That’s what allowed us to use the name Wynn. It allowed us to show that it meant something."

I tried to get Mrs. Wynn to discuss Mr. Wynn's statements to CNBC that the company could become more of a Chinese company than American one. She avoided that bit except that she noted that with Wynn now trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, it is, indeed, factual to say that it's Chinese company.

Finally, we wandered onto the topic of Sarah Palin. I can't provide the full context without disclosing what the stories are I'm working on, but on the same day as Mr. Wynn is all over the news claiming that Obama's policies could run him out of the country, Elaine said this of the former Alaska governor and potential 2012 opponent to Obama:

"If anybody thinks that Sarah Palin is a paragon of virtue and a moral compass for this country, they’re not speaking for me."

Mrs. Wynn was a huge and early supporter of Obama and had tempestuous public rows with her McCain-supporting now-ex-husband in 2008. Mr. Wynn said last month that had nothing to do with the divorce but that the two have "agreed not to discuss" politics because "it never ends well."

Still, on the merit of Sarah Palin, they seem to be of similar minds. Steve Wynn was more cautious in response his view of her, perhaps because he'll end up supporting her if she's the GOP nominee in 2012. But he said he was more a Mitt Romney fan and said of Palin:

"It is very difficult to ascertain who she was. ... The problems that face America are not given well to sound bite treatment."

The Show is UP: Danny Gans' Muse

I've got a few interviews in the can right now for upcoming shows, including Carlos Santana, but with Danny Gans' passing it seemed most appropriate to run our conversation with Jeff Foxworthy, whose comedy clearly inspired a substantial portion of Gans' act. Foxworthy is at the Orleans Arena on May 16. This chat took place before Danny's death, so it's bittersweet. Anyhow, you know the drill: click on the date below to listen or right-click and save to your computer. Or subscribe (it's free!) via this iTunes link or via this Zune link. -sf

May 7: Danny Gans' Muse

Las Vegas is in stunned mourning this week following the shocking death Friday of impressionist Danny Gans. We’ll talk about that at the top of the show, but it’s also fitting that our guest this week is comic Jeff Foxworthy because Gans spent at least 10 minutes in every show doing Foxworthy and his trademark redneck jokes. Foxworthy talks about Gans, about performing for presidents Clinton and Bush and about hosting dimwit adults on the hit TV game show "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?"

In banter: Danny Gans’ death, Jim Murren’s defense, China’s wacky swine flu response, Peepshow’s surprisingly great, Peppermill’s surprisingly classy and Vegas stocks are inexplicably way up.

Links to topics discussed:

Jeff Foxworthy’s website
Tickets to Jeff Foxworthy’s May 16 tickets at The Orleans
LasVegasSun.Com’s piece following Dave Navarro in Vegas via Twitter
VegasHappensHere.Com coverage of the death of Danny Gans
The press release for Beyonce ticket prices at Encore
MGM’s earnings as covered by Howard Stutz of the Review-Journal
VegasHappensHere.Com on swine flu in Macau
The YouTube clip of Carrie Prejean and Pat Robertson
The YouTube clip of Kelly Pickler and Jeff Foxworthy
The Peppermill Coffee Shop’s website
Ex-Milwaukeean chef Paul Bartolotta’s hometown blog on his 2nd James Beard Award
Carol Cling’s “Shooting Stars” column on Top Chef gossip
The Twitter feed for Miles’ station, KVBC
The Reno News & Review on gay-rights legislation pending in Nevada

How China Deals With Swine Flu

Since I've been helping The New York Times cover the swine flu scare over the past week, a friend in Hong Kong sent me an email describing how China is reacting to its first confirmed case. I spent two months in China in 2003 for USA Today covering SARS -- an actual killer bug that got out of hand solely because the Chinese government spent weeks lying about whether it existed at all -- so it's interesting to see how fast they are to go cuckoo on this one. (And, yes, that photo is of Chinese scientists dealing with swine flu, not SARS.)

Here's the note received yesterday, bold emphasis mine:

"You may have heard that HK identified its first confirmed swine flu case last night, also first confirmed case in Asia, from a tourist visiting from Mexico (flying from Mexico to HK via Shanghai, arriving yesterday in HK, undetected by health measures in both Shanghai and Hong Kong airports). The HK Govt was quick to react and quarantined 354 guests and staff of the hotel where he was staying. Some refused to be quarantined, of course, some ran away and are still missing, some requested to stay off-site, some are already in hospital under treatment, but most are now confined in that hotel for seven days. They're still chasing the passengers who shared his two flights. It's like SARS all over again, but I am more optimistic this time, as HK people are more prepared. So far the fatality rate is also lower than SARS."

Can you imagine? They're quarantining entire hotels, chasing down passengers of flights, force-feeding Tamiflu to people who aren't sick! There are actual SWINE FLU FUGITIVES in Hong Kong! And the citizenry is grateful for these absurd measures! There's no vague relationship there between the reality of the risk and the response of public health officials.

Of course, this has relevance for Las Vegas interests because just imagine if a guest or gambler at Wynn Macau, the Venetian Macau or the MGM Grand Macau comes down with swine flu? That crazy government will shut them down for a week! That, not Vegas, is where MGM Mirage, Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands must be quaking in their boots over this panic.

This week's LVW col: Woo Restaurant

Here's this week's installment of "The Strip Sense" in Las Vegas Weekly. Enjoy. -sf

A Rock and a Chinese Place

The Woo family’s move to the Palazzo might not have been the best thing for all

By STEVE FRIESS

Sometime back in the 1990s, an eccentric fellow wanted to eat at a restaurant. He sent his advance team to scope out the place and its various exits, baffling the owners of the fine establishment.

“Is the president coming?” Theresa Woo remembered thinking.

No, no. It was just Sheldon Adelson, then the owner of the Sands Expo Center and the construction site that would become the Venetian. Even then, he was a peculiar presence, running with his bodyguards and concerned about perceived enemies lying in wait to kill him.

To Woo, Adelson and wife Miriam became just another well-known pair of clients at the Mayflower Cuisinier, the go-to spot for upscale Chinese food tucked away in a strip mall at Sahara and Decatur.

Yet as the years went on, the Adelsons and other Las Vegas Sands executives started dreaming of bringing the family-run operation to the Strip. And Rob Goldstein, the president of the Venetian, finally made the Woos an offer they couldn’t refuse: Las Vegas Sands would build them a $6 million space on the second floor of the under-construction Palazzo’s shopping area.

There was a catch, though. A tragic, weird, totally unnecessary catch. According to Woo, Goldstein required the family to close the Mayflower. And so, in January 2008, they did.

Woo Restaurant opened shortly thereafter. It’s beautiful and spacious, all dramatic high ceilings and bamboo and worm-eaten butternut. Oh, and, for most of the year that it has been open, hardly the jammed house the always-busy Mayflower was.

We’ll get back to that in a moment, but first you ought to know that there are few classic Vegas stories more charming than that of the Woo family. Ming See, Theresa’s mom, was 6 when her family fled the Chinese mainland for Hong Kong amid the Communist takeover. She met Henry Woo, had two of their three children and then moved to Vegas to become American citizens. Henry dealt cards; Ming See worked as a dishwasher at the Dunes.

Read the rest HERE

Wynn v Adelson, Round 888 or So

The other day, Sheldon Adelson-(barely)-controlled Las Vegas Sands bemoaned Beijing's constricting of visas to Macau.

LVS President William Weidner, discussing the construction stoppage that has put 11,000 Macanese workers out of jobs, told the South China Morning Post:

"There have been some changes in the (Chinese) central government's attitude towards Macau. We don't think it's necessarily all that prudent to put more money in [the project] until we see how that attitude works its way out. ... Macau, because of what has happened, has kind of created for itself unfinished or semi-finished projects. I don't think we're alone in not completing developments."

Well, maybe not. But that didn't stop our good pal Steve Wynn, riding out the miserable world economic conditions with amazing resilience all things considered, from referring to the Chinese as having handled "practically everything beautifully" and having been "more than accommodating, more than understanding." He also told the Associated Press:

"The fact that the economy and the development and expansion of Macau occurred at such a rapid rate has created a great deal of stress on the community. The central government and the Macau government putting ... a slowdown in visitation was an attempt to give the community a chance to absorb the stuff that had been built. ... I think the market is wonderful in China. Macau has always been a tourist kind of place and it's broadened ... its appeal. And I think that's going to continue."

So I guess all of Adelson's sucking up to Beijing, insisting the Chinese mainlander's way of life is just peachy and that there's no such thing as gambling addiction in Asia didn't work out so well, eh?

Please, Ed, Make It Stop!

Apparently, I was wrong in my last post when I assumed that the Review-Journal's sports columnist Ed Graney would move on to start covering what he understands -- the sports of the Olympics -- once competitions got underway. Evidently, despite the fact that Michael Phelps broke his own world record, an American tourist was killed and the U.S. president seemed to get hot and probably completely offended half of his anti-sex religious-kook base back home by frolicking with Team USA's 7/8-naked women's beach volleyball players, Our Man In China was busy writing the idiot's guide to Beijing tourist attractions.

Today's dispatch included a predictable piece on the awesomeness of the Forbidden City complete with a few minor inaccuracies and a reference to "The Last Emperor" as well as, this being a sports writer and all, an obligatory Tiger Woods analogy. You know you're in trouble when the piece starts with "Maybe you saw the movie. Maybe you didn't." Well, gee, Ed. That's kind of what "maybe" means. Thanks for covering all the bases.

But what's worse is the sidebar on weird Chinese food offerings on a stick at Wangfujing Night Market. This offered a particularly interesting contrast because there's Ed rambling about trying the scorpions-on-a-stick and taking note of other oddities and then in the R-J's sports section there's a piece by humorist Dave Barry that mocks all the journalists at the same site doing exactly that and thinking they're so clever. Except, of course, Barry was funny and original and Ed was a cheap, cliche-soaked imitation. Barry also noticed, as Ed did not, that the Chinese weren't eating these crazy things; Wangfujing is an odd tourist trap that profits off of the West's stupidest impressions of the Chinese by playing into it. "I would not be surprised to learn that the Chinese word for scorpion is 'TV reporter food,' " Barry wrote perceptively.

Also, Barry didn't throw in a gratuitous line about the Chinese eating dog parts like Ed did because, I suspect, Barry knows this is an increasingly rare concept, as an essayist in the NY Times noted recently. In all my travels and coverage in China, from sleeping on the floor of an AIDS victim's home in Henan Province to sleeping in a yurt in the remote northwest mountains of Xinjiang, I only ever saw one instance where anyone used dog meat for food. It was in a punishingly poor area near Guilin in south-central China where the desperation was beyond anything I'd ever seen. They eat anything they can in these places and you would, too. But in a modern metropolis like Beijing? Uh, no.

Our Man In China also cracked me up in his blog by going on a little babble about how foreign newspapers were burying the news of the dead American tourist. Uh, hello? Ed didn't write a word about it in today's paper, either, and the R-J ran a long wire story from the Olympics that took well into the jump to get to this news. It appears on page 10A, about 14 paragraphs into a story that is largely about Bush's exciting day. Ed chides the China Daily, where I worked and mocked mercilessly in Editor & Publisher years ago, for putting it on page 5. That's more prominent than the R-J!

So here's my prediction for the coming week. Our Man In China will go to the Great Wall, declare it truly impressive and take note of the T-shirt vendors there as a contradiction of capitalism in a Communist nation. He'll go to the Summer Palace and marvel at the big, expensive marble boat that can't float the Empress Dowager bankrupted the Navy to build, making some comparison to some U.S. pro sports team's failure to win despite spending millions on talent. Some Chinese person will ask to take his photo and he'll write with bemusement about the experience. He'll probably get approached by a Chinese hooker who acts demure and wants to "practice her English" and he'll think, "Wow, this is my Front Page Lead tomorrow!"

Or maybe Ed will focus on the sports themselves. One can only hope.

Why I'm Not In China

If you can't quite see behind the glare, that was the odometer reading on my car last night when I got home to watch the Opening Ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics. 88088. On 8-8-8. I am not religious and I am not usually superstitious except for one small illogical fondness I've always had for the number 16. I was born on one and a zillion other things have coincided with the number. And all those 8s that add up to all those 16s...well... whatever.

I've been quiet on this blog for the past couple of days in part because I'm a bit depressed. As I wrote recently, in what seems like another life I lived in Beijing and I had the thrill of dictating my story to USA Today from the madness in Tian'anmen Square on July 13, 2001, when the Chinese were awarded these Olympics. That night, I promised myself I'd find a way to make it back there to cover the Games and then, in this fantasy, I would take the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia and fly home from Paris.

Then my life happened. I returned to the US in 2002, broke up with my first partner and decided to apply the same skills I discovered I had while I lived in China for finding interesting stories and selling them to the national media to a freelance career in Las Vegas. And it has been a richly rewarding decision for many reasons, most importantly because in the process I met Miles and the stability of our life together.

I also slowly but surely lost my grip on what I knew about China. I went back to Beijing a few times, covered SARS for USA Today and did some travel and feature writing, but if I had wanted to remain a go-to journalist on this topic I would have gone over periodically and found some good stories to remain sharp and stay in touch with editors who might later have turned to me for Olympic coverage. I decided after considering it not to further study the language because of the time commitment that would involve, so I'm left with a shadow of the small bit I once spoke confidently.

What's more, with Las Vegas being my primary interest, the part of China that became more valuable for me to pay attention to was Macau, where I've been twice in the past three years. I've not been back to Beijing at this point in almost four years and I hardly recognize it on TV, so great has the transformation been. It's not unlike Las Vegas, a fast-growing and constantly changing place that is best understood from close range. If I left Vegas for four years, I suspect I'd be similarly bewildered and disoriented.

I did toy with the idea of going over for the Olympics anyway. I had Miles' blessing. A friend there offered his couch. I suspected I could've placed myself there and gotten the papers I work with regularly to take some of my material. But the airfares were very high and, on a social level, I suspected all of my friends over there would be madly busy as well.

The amount of resources I'd expend was risky and, unlike those earlier days, I have responsibilities now to my partner as well as my debtors! The secret of my success is a very simple formula: Find a place where there's loads of interest but very few qualified, versatile, industrious freelance writers or bureaus of major news agencies. It worked in China earlier this decade and it works today in Las Vegas as well. This month in Beijing? The whole world is there. Everyone's sending people. Even that stooge Ed Graney from the Review-Journal whose blog posts and snarky news stories are driving me bananas with his juvenile observations and Western ignorance.

But that's another thing. The Beijing Olympics was primarily a geopolitical story until last night's spectacular opening at the Bird's Nest. But as of today, it became primarily a sports story. I'm sure Ed will be great covering what he understands, which is sports and not complicated foreign cultures and international politics.

So I'm sad. I watched last night and saw Yao Ming, who could now speak English but was young, nervous and fearful when I met him as the first Western journalist to profile him in early 2001. As I watched, I knew that this is where I ought to be, in this life working on these stories and spending my time and resources on this family. And it was foolish of me, knowing how uncertain my life was back in 2001, to imagine I'd know where I'd be or with whom I'd be involved seven years later. Miles was patient and understanding and brought in Chinese to make it an occasion. He even let me commandeer the TV for four hours, which is a supreme sacrifice!

Had I known where I'd be now, I'd surely been pleased both personally and professionally. In both instances, I am far more confident and comfortable with my direction. I've got a big piece in tomorrow's New York Times examining Northwest Arizona as the next bedroom region for Vegas and significant pieces due in coming days on politics in both the Times and the Washington Post. And, of course, I'd not be able to participate in the Vegas Podcast-a-Palooza next Saturday if I were among the hoards of journalists all writing the same stories.

But even today, my heart strings were tugged. The stabbing murder of an American tourist occurred at a site, the Drum Tower, that was once a common landmark in my life, where I'd tell taxi drivers to drop me off because there was a tiny bar that my friends and I would relax along a small lake a few winding alleys away. Last I heard, though, the adorable little bars and homes were razed to make way for wider thoroughfares, so I suspect the Beijing I knew in 2001-04 is also significantly less quaint and charming.

I also felt incredibly sad for the Chinese. Yes, I feel sad for the victims. But they were victims of something bizarre and excruciatingly unusual in China at precisely the wrong time. In all my years of following this country, I'd never ever heard of a foreigner even being pickpocketed, let alone suffer a violent crime. That may be a function of what the official police will report and/or acknowledge to the public, but a murder of an American tourist overseas would be something even the masterful Chinese couldn't conceal.

I know I've written some bruising criticism of the Chinese as recently as last week in my Philadelphia Inquirer essay. But that's because I despise the authoritarian rule and the West's willingness to sell the Chinese people short by legitimizing it. But I still want people to go, to witness some of it's majesty, to learn about a place so important and vibrant. And now the brilliance of the Opening Ceremonies, which might have made millions in the West the idea that maybe they might go see the amazing country that can create such extraordinary displays, may be replaced by a fear for tourist safety.

I'd go in a heartbeat. But I'd go when the cost isn't prohibitive and when I can introduce Miles to the people and places that transformed me and led me to him. And these two week in August is just not that opportunity.

So after I reposted my 2001 essay on why China should not have been awarded the 2008 Olympics, my editors at the Philadelphia Inquirer invited me to revisit the topic on the eve of the Beijing Games. Here's what runs today in the paper's Op-Ed section...

China's other games

By STEVE FRIESS

One especially cold week in early 2001, inspectors for the International Olympic Committee were in Beijing poking around in advance of making a recommendation as to whether the Chinese deserved to host the 2008 Summer Games.

It was the heart of a particularly bitter winter, so the dead grass outside the hotel of the IOC emissaries could be forgiven. Still, cameras for CNN caught workers spraying some green substance in the middle of the night to make it seem unseasonably lush. The China Daily would later refute that charge, denying it was paint, calling it, instead, a "color-enhancement substance."

Moral: Nobody should be surprised, as we peer ahead to this week's opening ceremonies for the Olympics, that things are not as the Chinese promised they would be. Painting the grass was only the most ridiculous and unnecessary lie they told to get this far, but it also symbolized just how absurdly far they'd go to secure this honor.

There were more than enough reasons in 2001 to know that this nation - operated by a brutal, greedy autocracy, more adept at stirring up nationalistic fervor than any since the Nazis - was faking its way to the altar with legacy-seeking IOC chief Jacques Rogge and the rest of his gang.

In fact, I listed several of them in these very pages on July 23, 2001. "When the free champagne stops flowing," I wrote then, ". . . those who were swept up in rooting for this accomplishment may wake to the reality that this could be a huge fiasco."

Honey, the alarm clock's ringing.

Read the rest HERE

The Chinese Failure I Predicted

As many of you know, I reported from Beijing in 2001-02. Among the most exciting experiences of my journalistic career, in fact, was filing the story I'm linking to here to USA Today on a cell phone from Tian'anmen Square the night the Chinese were awarded the 2008 Games.

That celebration was thrilling and my ability to describe it amid the pandemonium was a great moment in my life. That's me here with the Beijing Olympic sticker some Chinese woman insisted on putting on my face. God, I look young.

It was exciting, but it didn't mean I believed giving China the Olympics was smart. And as we round the corner to the realization of that moment -- as China reneges on its promises to allow greater civil liberties, to permit unfettered access to the foreign media and to improve its environmental record -- I returned to my archive.

Below is an op-ed piece I wrote that ran in six major U.S. papers in July 2001, including the Philadelphia Inquirer seven years ago today. It also appeared in the Baltimore Sun, San Francisco Chronicle, Hartford Courant, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Cleveland Plain Dealer.

I'm struck by how prescient I was. Not everything is accurate, but an awful lot of it.

Going for the Gold

By Steve Friess

BEIJING: Filthy air. Undrinkable water. Natives hocking wads of phlegm on the sidewalks. Roads crammed with incessantly honking cabbies who can't speak English and refuse to run their air on blistering summer days.

Sure sounds like a place to hold an Olympics.

For a moment, set aside the human-rights problems in the world's most populated nation. Forget about the Tibetan Buddhists and Chinese Catholics, both of whom have seen the Communist regime take over their religions and install leaders of their own.

Ignore the fact that 150 million people live on the streets because, having been born in the countryside and being thus prohibited from ever living in the cities, they've flocked there anyway undocumented to find work.

And don't even mention the mowing down of the liberty-seeking thousands in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Old news. Get over it.

The International Olympic Committee did. And now, despite the obvious flaws that few can miss when they visit, the world will descend upon Beijing in 2008 for some good ol' apolitical athletic activities.

Yet, when the free champagne stops flowing and the local "media" return to their typical mouthpiece duties of bashing the United States and Japan, those who were swept up in rooting for this accomplishment may wake to the reality that this could be a huge fiasco.

The odds are this country will fail. Perhaps that's why the Bush administration and Congress opted not to actively oppose the Beijing bid in the end. If China does well, it will be because it spent the next seven years becoming more like America. If it doesn't, the world's only aspiring superpower will have vanquished itself, and the United States can rest on its laurels again.

There are many lovely people and places in Beijing. It is true that China is changing - rapidly and for the better. And the Chinese people are unfairly misunderstood across the globe, certainly by those who imagine an overt police state with soldiers on every corner.

But this remains a rugged place to visit, a place where people casually clear their throats onto the sidewalks. Where grubby children as young as 5 run amok at 2 a.m. outside the bars that cater to Westerners begging for morsels. Where sunrises and sunsets are impossible to see behind a sheen of smog that makes Los Angeles seem pristine.

It is a dirty, still unmodern town, not a place to go out in your fur and pearls. Heck, you can hardly even find a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Much has been made of the fact that China started preparing for the 2008 Olympics earlier than anybody else ever has, but it also has an awful lot to fix. This has to be the first time the IOC has awarded the Olympics to a place based on the entirely different city it promises to become from what it was when it was selected.

Seven years hardly seems enough time for the transformation Beijing claims to have in store. Yes, they've budgeted $22 billion for roads, facilities and environment efforts, which sounds like a lot, but this sprawling city has 13 million people in it - think Chicago times four - a healthy percentage of whom walk past mounds of decaying, unbagged trash in their alleys to get to their outhouse shower.

More than likely, China's answer will be to attempt the typical sleight-of-hand that got it this far. The IOC apparently didn't notice, for instance, that the government ordered a shutdown of all factories during its assessment visit in February, magically producing blue skies. It also painted the dead grass green outside the IOC hotels, giving off an unnaturally verdant image for a city then in the throes of a bitter winter.

The Olympics will be different. They can't shut down the factories for two whole weeks to clear the air. They can't send every cabbie to charm school. (Driving school should come first, anyway.) And, truth be told, they cannot fix traffic problems so that racing from a hotel at the center of town to the badminton competition will be pain-free.

It was heartening to witness the spontaneous, genuine celebrations in Tiananmen on decision night and to listen to the Chinese people rejoice that they've finally earned the respect of the world. China scholars and economists will say that China's entry into the World Trade Organization later this year will have a more significant, longer-lasting impact on the nation's future and place in the world.

But WTO entry won't stoke national pride like this, won't garner President Jiang Zemin, widely disliked by the average Chinese, the sort of adulation he enjoyed when waving from the veranda of the entrance to the Forbidden City that night.

Indeed, what is now heartening could turn heartbreaking. Neither the people nor their government has any idea what they're up against, the enormous risk they've taken, the price they could pay for humiliation in 2008. That said, look how far they've come in a dozen years.

On July 13, hundreds of thousands of people again assembled in Tiananmen and they declared this an historic moment, a moment of great progress. It was hard to disagree since there wasn't a single tank in sight.

###

MGM Mirage To Build In China's Armpit

MGM Mirage announced this morning a joint venture with a Chinese company to build a mixed use facility in Tianjin, a very industrial port city about an hour from Beijing. The plan includes two towers that includes a luxury hotel, residential units, a spa and, of course, convention space. Oh, and a 350-room MGM Grand Tianjin plus 50 SkyLofts and 60 residences.

What will definitely be missing? GAMING! The Chinese government won't allow it anywhere other than Macau, at least not yet. Hence we have the MGM Mirage's first step towards moving on globally from casinos. Remember, CEO Terry Lanni recently suggested they might split the company and have one arm focused on hospitality? This would seem like the first significant stop, which surprises me because I thought they'd build some more MGM Grands in the U.S. first.

But here's the real thing. I've been to Tianjin. It's a gross place. Awful. See? Polluted like Beijing, but no culture, no important historic monuments, nothing but an overcrowded port. The third biggest urban area in China, with 10.2 million people. Evidently the city is so low on the totem that, while the 2008 Olympics are being shared amongst several lovely northeastern Chinese cities including my favorite, Qingdao, (home of the Tsingtao brewery, yay!), Tianjin gets just one small role, some early-round soccer matches. I will admit that the Olympic stadium built there does look sensational -- in renderings.

I even have a Starbucks mug from Tianjin from which I am sipping my morning coffee. I love it. That's the best thing I can say about the town. The reason you've never heard of it is because there is nothing touristy about Tianjin. It would be like opening up in Trenton.

So why, why, why is MGM Mirage staking their first overseas non-gaming venture there? I don't mean to doubt the potential profits to be had and I suspect the city has offered an unbeatable tax deal given that this could put the place on the map for the West in a small way. But if they wanted to make a splash, why not Beijing or Shanghai or Xi'an first? Maybe even an MGM Grand Lhasa?

I'm sure they've done their market research and the level of development and investment isn't really that huge, especially at Chinese labor prices, but I'm just puzzled they couldn't come up with something more glamorous out of the gate.

Holy Crap. Cindy Adams Is A Disaster.

Cindy Adams is one of the grande dames of New York gossipland. She's also, so it seems, a total idiot.

Monday's New York Post column proves this. She inexplicably waded into a long blather about Vegas and Macau, behaving as though she alone has unearthed and is breaking this little trend. And the list of errors in her screed are so freaking bizarre that it's a wonder anyone would ever publish her work ever again.

To wit...let's take it apart, shall we? She's in red.

China - which practically owns our paper, our finance, our debt, our businesses, our manufacturing - also owns all our money. Where's this planet's biggest gaming (the new politically correct word) operation? Macao. A 20-minute helicopter ride from Hong Kong or a slightly longer hydrofoil schlep through the South China Sea, this former Portuguese colony was a rathole 20 years ago with a junky casino owned by a man named Stanley Ho. I met him. I was there. I know.

First off, I am sooooo tired of people thinking they're clever mocking the use of the word "gaming" as a euphenism for gambling as if (a) they believe the gamers think they're fooling anyone and (b) it's something new. The word "gaming" has been in use to refer to playing games of chance for more than a century, according to one of UNLV prof Dave Schwartz' books. And, also, it's odd that she's refer to Ho as owning "a" junky casino. He actually owned several. But, hey, she knows. She was there. Mmmhmm. That's nitpicking, though, and you'll love the next bits.

Fast-forward. It's now 28 multimillion-buck five-star hotels like the Phoenician, Wynn's Macao, with all the bells and whistles - butlers, famous chef restaurants, shops such as Chanel, Dior, Vuitton. Five new properties in 14 months.

Unless I'm insane -- and the MacauTripping.Com folks can correct me -- there are absolutely NOT 28 five-star hotels on Macau. I mean, I don't think anyone's actually RATED any of them, but even if we were being overly exuberant and optimistic, TWENTY EIGHT??? Frankly, I'd be surprised if there were even 28 hotels. Also, I thought as I read this, who owns the Phoenician? Maybe it's something I'd not noticed before? We get back to that. Hang tight.

By 2010, visitors will number 35 million per year. Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Malayans, Indians, Indonesians, Thais, Singaporeans, Cambodians, Laotians, 1.4 billion people within 31/2 hours flying time, and it's a gambling culture. Baccarat, not craps, the main game. They are very focussed. Unlike America, Asia has no gambling stigma. Not so much skill as karma, luck and personal superstitions. They bet millions. Last year's revenues - in US bucks - $10.5 bil.

OK. So she's bouncing off the recent reports of 2007's Macau revenues. Fine. But wait, there's more!

They don't do Vegas. Reason? Airplanes don't allow smoking. To import these "whales," or high rollers, on the docket now is a charter that lets them smoke - and gamble - all the way over. Jurisdiction over the skies is being worked out via video camera that starts at takeoff, so all bets, losses and wins are tallied over recorded airspace.

OK. Now we wander into dumbass fiction insanity. The Asian whales don't "do" Vegas? I sure hope someone told MGM, LVS, Wynn and Harrahs, seeing how they're preparing right now for Chinese New Year, the second-biggest gaming weekend of the year and prime time for Asian whales to descend on the city. (See my New York Times piece on this from last February.)

Think about this logically: The only reason why Asian whales would avoid Vegas on account of non-smoking flights would be if they were flying commercial airlines, and why would millionaire bettors do that? They either take their own private jets or the fly the DOZENS of private planes (usually not charter as the resort companies own these vessels) that the big Vegas guys send over.

As for gaming in the skies, you honestly believe that any company with a Nevada gaming license would risk participating in unsanction gaming as she describes? It's an interesting idea and I imagine someone somewhere is trying to figure out how to make it work, but since nothing's ever come before the Nevada Gaming Control Board, it sounds like a 007 fantasy to me.

And let it be known, whoever steers these high rollers gets a piece of the action. And let it be known, if a favored player loses big, like millions big, there's a giveback. Nobody's saying how much. Take a shot at 5 percent.

This one I dunno. Do publicly traded companies really make shady side deals with customers of this type? I'm dubious.

Steve Wynn is learning to speak Chinese.

Yeah, he mentioned this in my Newsweek piece way back when and tried some words out at a shareholder event, I think, but my impression from chatting with him more recently is that he's dabbling more than "learning."

The Phoenician's Sheldon Adelson is building additional hotels.

SCREECH!!!!!!!!! This is where Cindy flies off the rails. The "Phoenician" turns out to be ... the "Venetian." AND NOBODY FACTCHECKED HER. Or, for that matter, had even a nominal awareness of Vegas. The Venetian is not some little joint, it's one of the most successful and famous Vegas resorts in our history. Adelson built a steroid-sized Venetian Macao, which opened last summer. And this woman, who "knows" because she's "been there," goofs it up because she evidently MISHEARD it. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!

Whew. OK. I'm better now. Moving on.

MGM is putting up condos. So, these Chinese, who were previously poor Communists, where they getting all this bread? Either they must have really large piggy banks, or some of these piggies know something about the drug culture.

Yes, women pengyou. (That's Mandarin for "my friend.") She just essentially called the entire emerging middle class of China -- a burgeoning group that represents one of the most significant creations of new wealth in modern history -- a drug racket. She just glossed over the fact that the Chinese economy has been rapidly privatizing and expanding at 8-12 percent a year since the late 1980s, that the industrial sector has exploded, that our "outsourcing" has been Asia's "insourcing." No, forget the sophisticated geopolitical and geofinancial explanations for China's growth and diversification. In Cindy Adams' &^**(#-up world, they're all just DRUG LORDS. Oh, and Steve Wynn, Sheldon Adelson and the gang are flying these creeps around the world on private planes because, you know, what's the difference between drug lords and casino kingpins?

These guys who run the operation let no green grow under their feet. They're now organizing portable slots. Take them with you to the can, to bed, to the pool, to who cares. Gamble online.

Sigh. In Vegas, there is expected to be some portable gaming devices, but not in Macau. And it's been slow going moving this along, seeing how I wrote nearly two years ago for Wired that Cantor Gaming was about to start a trial run at the Venetian Las Vegas (or is it Phoenician, Cin?) and it still hasn't happened. The Venetian folks seem indifferent to whether it ever actually does, the MGM Mirage folks have said they don't think it's a necessary amenity. And the Nevada gaming law requires all gambling on whatever devices are to come take place in PUBLIC places. Which eliminates the can or the bed.

And you're worrying about your mortgage?

With morons like you, Cindy Adams, covering gaming matters like this? You kidding me? I'll never go broke.

Huì shuō Zhōngwén ma? Zai Vegas, Bu Yao

I'm in these meetings today and yesterday and, while utterly fascinating almost every single minute, the mind wanders from time to time. And directly out the window I'm facing right now is this billboard for the Thunder Valley Casino-Resort outside Sacramento. You may have to click-thru to expand it because the thing that you need to see is the Web site on it.

It's this: A Chinese language site for the casino. And if you go to the normal site, there's a prominent link to the Chinese version of the site. Thunder Valley is a tribal casino co-owned by Station Casinos that grosses alone half the total gambling take of all the Reno casinos combined. It's also 45 minutes from Reno. I get that I am at a hotel in Chinatown and Thunder Valley is a day-trip market for Chinese-Americans, but I'm still confused by something.

I looked all over the MGM Mirage, Harrahs, Venetian Las Vegas and Wynn Las Vegas websites. I was unable to find a single one of the Vegas interests -- not even Station Casinos, which partly owns Thunder Valley -- that have a hotel site in any other language. Not Chinese, not Spanish, not Japanese or German. And while Thunder Valley isn't competition to Vegas, it still made me realize what a big thing the Strip properties are missing.

Given the international outreach going on by Las Vegas, the fact that Nevada is the only U.S. state with a tourist office in Beijing, and all the activity in Macau for Las Vegas Sands Inc, Wynn and MGM Mirage in particular, it's baffling that neither the Vegas properties nor the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority itself seems to have any microsites in foreign languages. I know they have huge armies of phone operators to take reservations in a zillion other languages. But what about the Internet?

Ultimately, by not having this, they're forcing non-English-reading guests to use travel agents and tour operators who mark up the costs of Vegas trips. That can't be a good thing.

Good readin's

Since today was a travel day, I got to go through several newspapers. Many national journalists claim they read four or five a day, but I don't read that fast. It used to make me feel guilty that I barely ever got through the local newspaper, let alone fill up on USAT, NYT, WSJ, WP, LAT and whatever else the fancy people pretend they read cover to cover. Then I lived in China and had no access to Western newspapers or an unfiltered Internet and realized I could function just fine as a journalist without all that -- and without the guilt.

But I do enjoy reading as much as possible, and today I got to read a lot. A few things worth recommending presented themselves:

* The Las Vegas Sun had a terrific piece by the very talented Kristen Peterson about a crappy downtown motel that got a big facelift and is now going after a boutique-hotel market niche. It's just crazy enough to work; I'm smelling a story in that one for me, actually. Peterson is consistently the best writer on fine arts and architecture in town and deserves more than the back-of-the-insert real estate she is often relegated to.

* The Wall Street Journal, aside from continuing to bring out more damaging information about possibly wrongdoings by Nev. Gov. Jim Gibbons and his wife (dissected on Hugh Jackson's Las Vegas Gleaner site today), had a fascinating center-column piece on miracle fruit -- no, really, that's its name -- from Africa that makes sour things taste sweet. The piece is here but since you can't get it online unless you're a registered subscriber, just go here and read about it on the Eatfoo.Com blog which is written by one of the key sources in the story.

* The Las Vegas Review-Journal's Benjamin Spillman had a good story about a tourism conference focusing on rural Nevada (but held, evidently, in Primm, just outside Vegas.) What amused/fascinated/saddened me about this was the poor soul from the Elko tourism board sort of admitting that the only way to attract, say, Chinese tourists, is to help them pretend like they have business in Elko's gold mines in order to get visas to come to the US&A. The logic was bizarre, but the thrust was clear: There is no legit reason why almost anyone would want to go to Elko for a vacation, least of all overseas travelers. Just give up already and give Vegas your water.

* Jennifer O'Connor of PETA offered a really harsh rebuke of the Iditarod that had me starting out saying "Oh, come on" and ending planning some hard-hitting questions for Vern Halter of Dream A Dream Dog Farm, who showed us dogsledding in Alaska last week, when we get him on The Petcast. Most interesting was her point that the Iditarod would be illegal on animal-cruelty grounds in most other states. (Note: The editorial ran in the R-J but I found it online from a different newspaper. Kudos to the R-J, which is a fairly conservative newspaper, for publishing it even though I doubt the editors agree with it.)