Score a blow for art, baby! City Manager Doug Selby, who we gently ribbed earlier today for allowing two nude-but-unrevealing sketches of women to be scotched from an art gallery at City Hall, just called to let us know the art is back where it belongs. “It’s hanging up right now,” Selby said.

Earlier, Selby had said it could take a couple weeks to decide whether the art — drawn for a city-sponsored art contest — could be restored to the gallery. (It was an art death sentence, too, since the exhibit is scheduled to run only until Oct. 27, a week from tomorrow.)

The whole thing got started when a disgruntled employee, who had been told to take down pinups in his cubicle at City Hall, decided to be a dick and ruin it for everybody by complaining about the oh-so-tasteful nudes via an anonymous e-mail hotline to Selby. Selby put human resources on the case, and they stripped the art from the walls.

Selby said City Attorney Brad Jerbic indicated he’d rather fight a hostile workplace lawsuit under Title 7 of the Federal Code of Lame-ass, Politically Correct Regulations than fight a lawsuit that accuses the city of violating the First Amendment. Now that’s the first bit of common sense we’ve heard since this whole ordeal began.

“In hindsight, we reacted too quickly,” Selby admits. It’s true: With everybody so worried about getting sued, nobody can feel free to truly express themselves. We’d like to say to the anonymous tipster: Get a life, dude. We can’t put pinups up in our office, either, and we’re the friggin’ boss! So get over it and realize, when it comes to pinups, that’s what the wood-paneled walls of your room in your parents’ basement are for.

We at Various Things & Stuff have been trying to get in touch with Mayor Oscar Goodman about a pair of nude female sketches that were taken down from the “Bridge Gallery” at Las Vegas City Hall, after an anonymous worker complained they were offensive. This is, after all, a city of asylum, where persecuted writers can go to practice their craft without fear of government oppression. The sketches were part of a display of a city-sponsored art-contest.

The Review-Journal got on to the story today, although it was broken by our friend Scott Dickensheets in the Las Vegas Weekly last week.

Apparently, an employee who may or may not have been denied permission to put pin-ups in his cubicle at City Hall availed himself of an anonymous e-mail system that allows pussies — er, make that, concerned city employees — to complain directly to City Manager Doug Selby.

Selby’s reaction was typically bureaucratic: He passed the Pussy Hotline complaint (hey, did we write that out loud?) to the human resources department, the equivalent of telling an avid book burner where the last remaining public library is located. The weasels — er, make that, dedicated human resource workers — determined that the drawings were potentially in violation of federal law, which bans hostile workplaces, and ordered them removed.

Color us totally unsurprised. But consider this: The drawings were published in today’s R-J, and anybody with a lick of sense can see they’re so tame, they could be … well, published in today’s R-J.

Do we have some quotes, and the sarcastic, cynical remarks about those quotes, that we’re well known for? Of course we do! (Thanks to new R-J City Hall reporter David McGrath Schwartz for the material.)

“The first reaction was prudent, considering the potential for lawsuits,” Selby said. Actually, the first reaction was stupid, cowering, feckless, lame and evidence of a total misunderstanding of federal law, but what the heck, right? This is government we’re talking about.

Get this, though: After the artwork was removed, other city employees started complaining about the removal of the art in the first place! Why, it’s a grassroots First Amendment fire!

“We’re reviewing the action taken to see if they shouldn’t be put back up,” Selby said.

Hallelujah! It’s a mob mentality on Stewart Avenue! All we have to do is hope that there are more complainers on the good side than there are on the bad side, and right will prevail! When one employee uses the Pussy Hotline, we’ll just have to get 10 employees to utilize the newly created Counter-Pussy Hotline, and hope to outvote the original complainers.

So when will the art be put back up, Mr. City Manager, so turbulently tossed upon the sea of varying public opinion, unmoored to the pier of common sense?

“It isn’t the most pressing issue in the city of Las Vegas,” Selby said. “We’re hoping to be diligent and make a decision in the next couple of weeks.”

OK. It should only take a couple of nanoseconds, but whatever. A couple of weeks will do just fine. Let’s see, that would be no later than Nov. 2, right?

Great. Too bad the display from which the drawings were snatched ends Oct. 27.

Problem solved, municipal style. Hey, does anybody have that anonymous e-mail address to Selby’s office? We’d like to complain about the leadership at City Hall.

We sure do wonder what Goodman thinks about all this.

We at Various Things & Stuff were clipping newspaper articles on Tuesday, and we found a couple of good ones in the Review-Journal. The first one was a wire story from the Washington Post, all about how Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald focusing on Vice President Dick Cheney and his aides in his probe of who leaked the name of a CIA operative to reporters.

“Lawyers in the case said Fitzgerald has focused extensively on whether behind-the-scenes efforts by the vice president’s aides and other senior Bush aides were part of a criminal campaign to punish [former Ambassador Joseph Wilson] in part by unmasking his [CIA operative] wife,” the story says.

Hmmm. Interesting. The next article we clipped out says that Cheney himself will be in town on Monday to attend a fund-raiser for U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, at the Summerlin home of Bill Brady. Political junkies will remember Brady as the man who mysteriously dropped out of a state Senate race in 2002, citing vague “threats to his business.”

It costs $1,000 to get your picture taken with Cheney, or $250 to just sip cocktails with him. If history is any guide, the fund-raiser should be a barn-burner: Cheney raised $100,000 for Porter in January 2004 at the Bellagio, according to the story, written by our colleague Erin Neff.

You know, it sure seems like Porter hangs out with some nefarious folks. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, currently under indictment in Texas, came to Nevada when he was just the House majority whip back in 2000 to raise money for Porter. And now Cheney, who may yet face indictment, or the indictment of one of his staffers, is doing the same. Well, we suppose that as long as they do the fund-raiser before they’re actually indicted, Porter can always play the innocent-until-proven-guilty card. That usually works. But we wouldn’t be surprised to see O.J. Simpson headlining a Porter fund-raiser soon!

Then again, given that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is being investigated for alleged insider trading, and President Bush’s approval ratings are hovering in the Richard M. Nixon Subbasement of Public Opinion, Porter’s options for a big-name draw are limited. Maybe Bruce Willis or Clint Eastwood is available?

Seriously, we wonder what people will talk about with Cheney at the fund-raiser. Can’t do the war, that’s not going so well, even though Cheney said months ago the insurgency is in its “final throes.” Can’t do the special prosecutor thing. Can’t do CIA; word is, despite several visits to Langley to “discuss” intelligence before the war, Cheney doesn’t much like those CIA guys. Can’t do Katrina, not with Cheney’s old firm Halliburton making so much cash on those no-bid rebuilding contracts. Awkward.

Hey, how about those White Sox, Mr. Vice President?