The biggest critique of Las Vegas is that it is a soulless city devoid of real culture. Next year marks my 20th year in Vegas and I’d argue that it is a surprisingly generous community with a unique culture. Hell, five of the 10 editorial staffers I worked with at CityLife are authors. So, if…
Every day I drive through a time loop called East Fremont Street. I want to be clear that this is not the newly branded Fremont East, denoted with fancy monument signs and the fire of ex-Burning Man sculptures. This is the Fremont that time forgot – a dozen or so blocks that take a hard…
[Trigger warning: domestic violence, violence, murder] The story of Phoukeo Dej-Oudom and her family is one you may have missed during all the recent events around #BlackLivesMatter, but Phoukeo’s story is one that deserves to be heard. In an all too common occurrence, Phoukeo and her three children were killed by Jason Dej-Oudom, her husband…
If there is one uniting theme in the 2016 presidential campaign season it is the rise of Privilege Panic. Again and again, across parties and at venues all over the country, we see a deep well of anger exploding with the landing of fists and the hurling of chairs (and death threats). From BernieBros to…
It was much easier for me to roll my eyes at Sheldon Adelson’s antics when his use of the dark side relegated him to a kind of ineffectual evil lord, not unlike The Emperor. I felt a kind of insulation from his political machinations when it was reserved mostly for using his billions to back…
Are you ready for this? This is The Sin City Siren’s ninth birthday! That’s right. The Sin City Siren started on May 6, 2007 – a month before the first iPhones went on sale and the same summer that J.K. Rowling released Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was also the same year that…
It was only a matter of time until things were going to go sideways at the Las Vegas Review Journal* campus. A stranger-than-fiction mystery buyer drama that got headlines from around the nation (and revealed billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson as the new owner) earned intrepid RJ reporters the esteemed Ancil Payne Award for Ethics…
Downtown is stupid. There, I said it. Over the course of living in the Las Vegas Valley for 17 years, I have had an occasion to work downtown a handful of times. It has never, in any of those years, been fun or easy to work downtown. I know. I know. I’m a defacto Las…
Happy Women’s History Month! If you haven’t seen it, yet, there’s still time to pick up the latest copy of Vegas Seven, in which I have three stories that celebrate badass local feminists! Its the unofficial Women’s History Month issue, by yours truly! First, check out my profile of Cristina Hernandez, the director of the…
At the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department “Choose Purity” event on Saturday, girls (and only girls) were treated to such a feast of fear-mongering and baseless scare tactics that it’s hard to believe that the event happened in real life and not as the plot point of a dark comedy in the vein of Election…
The Sin City Siren 