A Day in the Life of Chaos

Civil Service is such an innocuous term.  It sounds like it could represent a myriad of different things none of them having anything to to do with being an anonymous government employee.  In reality it is a time honored term to represent those that give their lives and careers to government in a belief that it has a role to play in society.  These days the very guardians of our Civil Service seem neither civil nor dedicated toward service.  Instead of dignity and courtesy we are treated to a barrage of indignity and down right insolence.  Esteemed former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "The central conservative truth about politics is that it is culture not politics that determines the fate of society.  The central liberal truth is that politics can help change a culture and save it from itself." While Senator Moynihan does a brilliant job of phrasing the philosophical clash of ideals between liberals and conservatives at its heart is an underpaid and often

Las Vegas is forever evolving.  I imagine the place as a kind of organism that is alive and constantly metastasizing into different forms.   It is not just metastasizing it is in a constant state of metamorphosis.  I almost think a new word should be invented to describe the condition, perhaps "metastasorphosis."   It is precisely this change that intrigues me so much.  I have often said that if I could change my way in life I would have been an urban planner.  There is something about the re-invention of design and function that fascinates me.  Very few urban planners begin with a blank slate, a canvas with which to completely adorn with their own image of perfection.  While this might seem idyllic, in truth I think it is a recipe for disaster.  Cities created with such an open canvas tend to be Stalinistic monolithic nightmares or organized chaos.  Brasilia was carved out of the jungle as a model capital and is instead an urban horror of concrete steel and glass that is