Get that woman an eyepatch!

By "that woman," of course, we mean Molly Ball, the Review-Journal’s political reporter, who clearly has both of her eyes on the job currently held by King of Vegas Gossip Columnists, Norm Clarke. In today’s Political Notebook, Ball decided to try out for Clarke’s job by reporting the intimate details of U.S. Rep. Jon Porter’s love life.

Pardon us, but this is news? Political news? Hard news, that belongs in the news section of the newspaper?

We at Various Things & Stuff are surely not Porter defenders, as the congressman himself would tell you if you asked. We have some disagreements with Porter on policy issues. But in this case, it’s easy to take Porter’s side. His personal life is his personal business, unless you can draw a nexus to his official duties. (And no attempt was made to do so in the Political Notebook.)

Which brings us back to Clarke: Watch your back, buddy! You’ve got somebody hot on your tail!

» Speaking of Review-Journal employees, the Road Warrior is still all over the traffic scene! In his Sunday column, he just can’t tell you how badly things are backed up on U.S. 96, U.S. 69, U.S. 496 and don’t even get him started on Highway 43 (you know, West Grand River Avenue?).

Oh, no, wait. He was writing about Las Vegas still, wasn’t he?

If those other highways aren’t familiar to you, then obviously you — unlike Road Warrior Omar Sofradzija — don’t live in Lansing, Mich. Sofradzija’s lived there since mid-July, working his new job as editorial adviser to The State News.

Is it hard writing about Las Vegas traffic from 2,653.89 miles away? Probably not; Sofradzija worked in Las Vegas for years.

Is it hard to justify him penning the column from 2,653.89 miles away, given that the R-J has repeatedly editorialized that state traffic planners should live in Las Vegas to share our misery on the blacktop? Oh, yes.

» Well, there they go again. If you read the Las Vegas Sun’s Friday story on those anti-obesity demonstrators picketing the Big Beautiful Woman Network Bash, you’ll learn that "Flamingo security guards threaten[ed] to call the cops."

Now, don’t get us wrong. As a member of the Hefto-American Community, we abhor discrimination against us fatties. We can’t help that we love to shove huge quantities of food into our gaping pie-holes! But that’s not the issue, damn it!

When are hotels on the Strip going to educate their employees about a little thing called the Bill of Rights? If protesters are standing on the sidewalk, even if they are distributing a mean-spirited, discrimination-filled hate speech, they have the absolute right to be there! It’s been tested as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, people!

To us, ignorant security guards who try to chill free expression are worse than the worst hate speech. And they should be subject to arrest themselves for blatant, knowing, willful violations of the civil rights of the ordinary citizens who speak their minds in public fora, such as the Strip.

» Oh, great. Just as we in the Various Things & Stuff Legal Department finish a day’s worth of reading to conclude that the Clark County Commission does have the legal authority to redistrict between the decennial census, board chairman Rory Reid goes all wussy and pulls the item. We’re still going to charge you legal fees, Reid!

» Seriously, the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party didn’t even know that Nevada’s Republicans had moved their primary to Jan. 19, the very date chosen by South Carolina? Well, why should we blame him? Nobody else seems to know, either.

» Of course, when faced with what is clearly a moral and legal wrong — a university system hiding behind a policy that is obviously at odds with state law — the board of regents decides to … do nothing! A regents committee decided it wanted "more information" before making public disclosure forms that detail outside employment of taxpayer-employed university professors.

Here’s some "more information," regents: NRS 239.010. It’s called the public records law, and it generally trumps university rules and regulations.

» We must say, we did very much enjoy R-J Editor Tom Mitchell’s Sunday piece about confounding a bunch of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson’s lawyers. (Adelson is suing R-J columnist John L. Smith for libel over Smith’s book about casino moguls.) It seems Mitchell was wise enough to audiotape his own deposition in the lawsuit, by placing a digital recorder on the table. It went unnoticed until the end of the deposition, when lawyers realized what he’d done, and demanded he erase the recording.

Mitchell refused, despite threats and ridiculous assertions that he had no right to record the proceedings, which were being videotaped, audiotaped and recorded by a court reporter. Nevada law, he correctly noted, gives him the right to record in-person conversations in which he’s a participant.

Now, does anybody have even the slightest doubt that, if Mitchell were called at trial and gave an answer that differed in any respect from the ones he’d given in his deposition, those same lawyers would jump down his throat with a copy of his deposition, demanding an explanation? Of course they would! And, since deponents are generally afforded a right to review their own deposition testimony once it’s printed out by the court reporter, why would Adelson’s lawyers be afraid of Mitchell having his own audio record of the proceedings?

We say, good for him for standing up for his, and our, rights.