NY Times: Vegas is a Predator (of women)

[zengrifter]

Monday, September 03, 2007

City as Predator

By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times
September 4, 2007

Las Vegas

There is probably no city in America where women are treated worse than in Las Vegas.

The tone of systematic, institutionalized degradation is set by the mayor, Oscar Goodman, who told me in an interview that the city would reap “tremendous” benefits if a series of “magnificent brothels” could be established to cater to johns from across the country and around the world.

HERE - http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=7534

[zengrifter]

Vegas Mayor Threatens to Kill N.Y. Times
Columnist After Anti-Sex-Trade Column

By Wolfrum
September 7, 2007

Remember the scene in the movie "The Untouchables" where Al Capone, as played by Robert DeNiro, brutally murders a lackey with a baseball bat in order to prove a point?

For Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, the scene was obviously how he views the real world.

"I have no use for him. I'll take a baseball bat and break his head if he ever comes here," Goodman said of New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, after Herbert's column "City as Predator."

The point the mayor wanted to prove? That if some N.Y. columnist wanted to shine a light on the sex trade and prostitution business of Las Vegas, he'd murder them with a baseball bat.

...more - http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/wolfrum/61859/

[zengrifter]

Knappster

You're telling me there's SEX sold here?!

BY GEORGE KNAPP
LAS VEGAS CITYLIFE
September 14, 2007

NEW YORK TIMES columnist Bob Herbert is my new role model. He talked his bosses into picking up the tab for a jaunt to Las Vegas where he spent most of his time hanging out with hookers and strippers and Steve Miller. A lot of guys visit our town for these very same reasons -- except the Steve Miller part -- but not all of them get their employers to pay for it.

Herbert is a talented writer, but he is the latest in a long line of what we call "parachute journalists," that is, reporters from big-time news organizations who drop out of the sky for just a day or two but are somehow able to get a handle on exactly what's wrong with Las Vegas and how we should fix it.

FULL COLUMN: http://www.lvcitylife.com/articles/2007/09/13/opinion/knappster/iq_16636304.txt

[zengrifter]

September 20, 2007


Grow up, Las Vegas

EDITORIAL

O.J. Simpson found out what happens in Vegas doesn't stay there.

The rest of the country might ponder that lesson in a much larger context.

When New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote about the exploitive underside of prostitution in Las Vegas, Sin City Mayor Oscar Goodman responded by saying he'd like to take a baseball bat to Herbert.

That response should put to rest any remaining arguments about the prevalence of violence in a culture built on a deep disrespect for human dignity.

The issue here is not whether Vegas should keep lowering the bar on decency just so the rest of the nation can stop in for an occasional naughty, anonymous weekend.

Nor is this about whether the so-called "sex industry" is really just another career opportunity for today's modern woman. (It's not.)

This is about who we are.

....more - http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0920thur1-20.html

[zengrifter]

Originally Posted by zengrifter

Vegas Mayor Threatens to Kill N.Y. Times
Columnist After Anti-Sex-Trade Column

By Wolfrum
September 7, 2007

Remember the scene in the movie "The Untouchables" where Al Capone, as played by Robert DeNiro, brutally murders a lackey with a baseball bat in order to prove a point?

For Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, the scene was obviously how he views the real world.

"I have no use for him. I'll take a baseball bat and break his head if he ever comes here," Goodman said of New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, after Herbert's column "City as Predator."

The point the mayor wanted to prove? That if some N.Y. columnist wanted to shine a light on the sex trade and prostitution business of Las Vegas, he'd murder them with a baseball bat.

...more - http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/wolfrum/61859/

Everyone caught our illustrious mayor, above? zg

[aslan]

I was surprised to hear from a casino employee that at least one large Vegas hotel casino has its own hookers that it will send up to your room on request. I suppose such persons are on the books as secretaries or the like. I guess, then, that they are not literally hookers, since you would be the one actually doing the hooking. lol