High-speed rail to Las Vegas is “on” again, with China emerging as Sin City’s savior. The budget for the China Railway Group/XpressWest Enterprises joint venture hasn’t been disclosed but $100 million in startup capital has been committed to 
fund the 230-mile route, with September 2016 penciled in as the starting date. Now, it’s a 270-mile drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, so that raises the question of whether the train will link the two cities or drop off passengers somewhere else (like Primm).
Four years in the making, the agreement is meant to herald Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the states. Factories in China are already building subway cars for Boston, so the idea of a Chinese-made train scooting across the desert Southwest doesn’t seem so far-fetched … if it can get priority over Union Pacific freight trains, another question that has been begged for the time being. China can boast of 10,565 miles of high-speed rail back home, which far exceeds anything on the U.S.’ resume. Since previous attempts to link Las Vegas to the City of Angels by rail have come up snake eyes, it seems only fair to give the Chinese a shot at it.
* While he was on the East Coast, wooing the Georgia Legislature, MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren stopped in our nation’s capital to drop of a $1 million check for the Smithsonian Institution‘s National Museum of African American History & Culture, slated to open next year. The museum will trace African 
Americans’ history, from its ugly beginnings in slavery through the Civil Rights movement and beyond. Reiterating MGM’s commitment to corporate diversity, Murren added, “MGM Resorts is proud to support the Smithsonian’s addition of this museum in honor and celebration of the unique role of African Americans in the evolution of America into the great nation that it is today.” If you visit the National Museum of American History, you can preview the NMAAHC in the form of two temporary galleries entitled, “Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 and The March on Washington, 1963” … kind of a ‘greatest hits’ compilation of American progress.
* In its newest installation of public art, MGM has imported Tatsuo Miyajima‘s Hoto (“Treasure Pagoda”), a Crystals-sited sculpture 18 feet tall and six feet in diameter, studded with almost 4,000 LED numerical displays. They symbolize both the universal language of 
math (but without any zeroes) and the cycle of life. The inspiration for Hoto, derived from Buddhist scripture, is “a monumental bejeweled tower that emerges from the ground, floats midair and covers half the world, symbolizing the importance of every human life.” Murren says “we continuously search for new and innovative ways to celebrate” Japanese art and tradition. We applaud the initiative but we’d also call it “sucking up to Japan,” as MGM is the most ardent wooer of that company’s political establishment, pursuing one of those oh-so-evanescent Japanese casinos. You might say they’re the Hoto of the gaming business.
* That bush you see might not look like much but it literally embodies 140 years of history. Yes, that Mormon grapevine (transplanted from Toquerville, Utah) has been here since the early 20th century, back when Wilbur Clark put Las Vegas on the map. The Nevada Department of Transportation was sufficiently reverential of this grapevine that it transplanted it to Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Park, where it will hopefully live for another 140 years. Its former site, Meyers Electrical Maintenance, which is slated for demolition as part of the Project Neon corridor, which will widen I-15 and had placed the old grapevine in danger. As Nevada Department of Transportation spokesman Tony Illia said, “We were presented with a unique and unexpected opportunity to save a piece of living local history.” Amen to that.
