I've told you often enough that I don't dwell on the national and world news much, sticking mainly to local news in a variety of local localities.

(I would work some more 'local' into that sentence but wore myself out.)

So here's the highlights from my point of view.

School Funding

Maputo Mensah, center, leads Sarah Milner Elementary School students and teachers in an African dance while his brother Mawuenyega Mensah plays drums Wednesday during a multicultural assembly in the school’s gymnasium.

This picture from Colorado makes me sad because over there in Las Vegas, rather than cut jobs in the now-allegedly-impoverished school districts, the books and supplies budgets are being cut in half.

The schools have also cut out so-called non-core classes like art, physical education, and theater in the high schools. In my opinion, the exposure that small-town students get to theater and arts in high school is how some of them find out they have creative abilities and they go on to have acting and art careers. Meanwhile, the school administrators are still pulling down six-figure incomes with raises and bonuses.

There Goes the Neighborhood
Over in Aspen, Colorado, ski town to the uber-rich, the gleam is off, and the richies are no longer building 10,000 square foot second homes. This is hurting the construction, landscaping, and housecleaning sectors of the Aspen economy, plus fewer visitors are spending lavish amounts of cash in the restaurants and bars. Forecasts say more moderate- to large-size attached homes will be built, and the town will depend more on tourism dollars than over-spending by those rich folks who have moved on. They predict the homes in the 10,000 square foot range will be converted to duplexes, co-ops, or some type of assisted living facilities. Talk about there goes the neighborhood, just imagine the zoning wars, as the mansions are made more middle-class friendly. Put a group home in there, and the rest of the richies will flee to Telluride or wherever the new McMansion getaway is. I just deplore all this development of our natural mountain lands, regardless of where it is.

Leaving Las Vegas
Speaking of rich people problems, in Las Vegas, Nicolas Cage's house was in foreclosure and sold. I know, you don't care about him, but I like looking at the real estate photos.

See here for photos.
Nicolas Cage's Former Las Vegas Home Back Up For Sale

It's not just his house, there are many others, he's just been a poster child for The Troubles, as I'm sure realtors in Las Vegas are going to call this period in their lives.

You know I wouldn't embed this next clip unless it was worth watching. You can fast-forward past Las Vegas's Martini Mayor Oscar Goodman telling us the city is going to make lemonade and start bragging about the number of foreclosures making it a bargain to buy a house there. He says the housing crisis was caused by all the hotel maids and porters obtaining easy mortgage loans from the big banks to buy two or three rental houses, and then the economy fell and it was time to pay the piper. I didn't realize it was the maids and porters, I thought it was Californians who were buying up brand-new houses and non-existent high-rise condos as investments to flip.

Fast forward to minute 1:35 for the description of the huge closet and electronic house controller in Nic Cage's house. The closet has three entry doors and its own laundry room.



Another 'home' for sale was built by the brother of the Sultan of Brunei.

"The estate -- with 18 bedrooms, 36 bathrooms, a 20,000- bottle wine cellar, an 11-car garage and air-conditioned stables for 10 horses -- sold for $14 million in 2004 to Eric Petersen, who owned Consumer Credit Services Inc., a Las Vegas-based catalog-merchandising company that closed in 2008. Petersen, 44, said he spent $20 million to make the estate habitable."

Eric Peterson was indicted by the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Nevada for fraudulently marketing easy credit cards to folks who had trouble getting credit. They promised a $2,500 line of credit, a $250 cash advance, and a Mastercard or Visa card.

"Once consumers agreed to purchase CCS's credit products, they were asked to pay a $149.95 fee, either by having their checking account debited or by charging it to a pre-existing credit card account.

Contrary to defendants' representations, the complaint alleged, consumers only received a package of materials from CCS that disclosed, for the first time, severe limitations on their ability to use the credit products promised. First, the $2,500 line of credit applied only to the use of defendants' "CashPlus" credit card (which was not a general credit card, but could only be used to purchase items from CCS catalogues); second, the cash advance was limited to only $10; third, consumers did not receive a VISA or MasterCard, only a form to request an application for a VISA or MasterCard that they must send to a bank; and fourth, CCS's CashPlus card could not be used in an ATM machine."
(Emphasis added by me.)

Did he go to jail? No he reached a settlement with the authorities. Here is what he has to say about his house now on the market:

"It’s back on the block for $25 million -- $9 million less than his investment -- with an offer “for considerably less on the table,” Petersen said in a telephone interview from Las Vegas. He has slashed the listing price four times since October from an initial $37.5 million.

“I gave up on Vegas,” Petersen said. “There’s no opportunity for anything in this town that I can see.”"

In other words, his settlement probably prohibits him from coming up with the next big scam there in Nevada. Regardless, no doubt he's cooked up some new scheme to victimize someone somewhere.

This is one kind of person who can afford to live in those multi-million dollar homes until they get caught, and many never get caught. This is one of the Jones's that people want to keep up with, the kind of lifestyle many Americans want to emulate. No wonder there is so much greed and lack of human regard in our society.

Tornadoes Down South
I'm not a total ostrich, I always glance at the National/World News headlines, and am totally shocked at the death toll in the tornadoes down south - 248 and counting. Millions are without power.

Scoffers scoff at the idea of human-caused global warming, but whatever has caused it, our climate is not in a good place right now.

Meanwhile, we could all do our part to reduce our carbon footprint in daily living. This means using less electricity for one thing. For example, when you come to one of those swinging doors that has the optional electric opener for wheel chair folks, don't hit that button, just use your muscles to push the door open. It's not a matter of ozone layer, smozone layer, it's what your daddy told you when you were a kid: "Shut off the lights, dammit, I'm tired of these *#@! electric bills. (This wasn't in the news, it's from me.)

Time to go stand on the bridge and look for trout in the river. It snowed on Easter, looked like this:



Pretty soon the river will be high with runoff from the snow, and I won't be able to see the fish.