The Beacon On The Hill

If America is the shining beacon on the hill, an example to be emulated by the rest of the world, the light of that beacon must shine the brightest from Las Vegas -- a city that exemplifies everything that America is and is becoming.

A city of bright lights, prostitution, gambling and enormous buffets, Las Vegas is the ultimate playground for adults. It is a place where men flock to strip clubs and brothels, women wear the sluttiest outfits in their closets in the hope of receiving attention from a broader spectrum of horny males and morbidly obese people indulge themselves on $9.99 all-you-can eat buffets. It is the center of the universe for all those chasing the pipe dream of hitting the jackpot.

Behind all the blinking lights and ringing slot machines, however, it is an incredibly sad and depressing city. Las Vegas does not sustain $300-per-night hotels on the miles-long strip with winners - the town thrives and survives on losers. Loser men who chase fleeting feelings of manhood through strippers and prostitutes; women whose bodies are worth more than their humanity; pathetic senior citizens gambling their social security checks in the hopes of experiencing some excitement in the twilight hours of their lives (Harrahs was the first casino to stop cashing welfare checks). The blinking lights add excitement to their otherwise empty existence.

Las Vegas is Super Sized America. The enormous football field buffet, hotels that give you new towels each day, all the alcohol you can drink as long as you obediently pay homage to the slot machine god, massive electricity use, never-ending construction in a town that has to buy water from neighboring states and there is no recycling program in place.

When foreigners turn their heads toward the beacon on the hill, they will see the light shining from the top of the Luxor pyramid.

And that light emanates from the city that symbolizes the cancer that consumes the American body politic. Left untreated, the cancer will obliterate the desert, the water, and left in its wake will remain nothing more than hollow bodies that once housed souls (one only need to travel to Atlantic City to see a place ravaged by the cancer).

The brightness of the beacon on the hill blinds its viewers from the darkness that dominates the landscape.