Dear
HCN:
Regarding “Sinful Las Vegas’ (HCN, 4/3/95),
I would like to ask why the predictable, banal cliché that Las
Vegas is “sin city” can’t be abandoned.
What is
here is legal and above board. Are you suggesting other cities
where gambling and prostitution are illegal are “sinless’? Come on.
Las Vegas has about 1 million people, most of whom enjoy casinos,
good food and the glitz and glitter. But we are not, most of us,
preoccupied with it. We don’t run around on the strip amok – as
some tourists are inclined to do from time to time. And, this may
come as a surprise, there is a life outside the strip which
includes boating, water sports, skiing, rock climbing, hiking and a
vibrant cultural life through a college and a university. And it’s
not only Las Vegas that gulps water.
It’s more
than “water and wages’ that redeem this place – its uniqueness,
unparalleled anywhere in the world, is what redeems
it.
John H. Esperian
Las Vegas,
Nevada
The writer is an English professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
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