{"id":21292,"date":"2018-03-05T08:50:44","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T16:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=21292"},"modified":"2023-01-17T07:27:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T15:27:10","slug":"mandalay-bay-victims-compensated-elton-john-goes-nuclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/mandalay-bay-victims-compensated-elton-john-goes-nuclear\/","title":{"rendered":"Mandalay Bay victims compensated; Elton John goes nuclear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is no dollar value adequate\u00a0for a human life but the going rate this week is $275,000. That&#8217;s how much will be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wfaa.com\/article\/news\/nation-now\/families-of-vegas-shooting-victims-to-receive-275k-each\/465-e1b40e97-e700-4312-8200-b0ec1a638d00\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"broken_link\">donated to the families<\/a> of each of the 58 people killed at <strong>Mandalay Bay<\/strong>. According to <strong>WFAA-TV<\/strong>, &#8220;$275,000 also will be paid to 10 other people who were paralyzed or suffered permanent brain damage in the Oct. 1 <img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-12994\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Mandalay-Bay-pic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"207\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Mandalay-Bay-pic.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Mandalay-Bay-pic-150x103.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>shooting on the <strong>Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>.&#8221; Interestingly, the victims fund that is making the payouts has a gaming-industry connection, having retained <strong>Golden Entertainment<\/strong> spokesman <strong>Howard Stutz<\/strong> to be its media representative. The gaming industry is among the 90,000 donors\u00a0chipping into this <strong>GoFundMe<\/strong> campaign that grew into a nonprofit corporation. Seven hundred dimes came from the industry&#8217;s <strong>Vegas Strong<\/strong> concert, while an enterprising <strong>Henderson<\/strong> school raised another $66,000 (!) from T-shirt sales. And no, they probably don&#8217;t say, &#8220;I was shot in <strong>Las Vegas<\/strong> and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.&#8221; As far as how the money was divvied up, that was the determination of &#8220;a committee of victim advocates, mental health and medical professionals, lawyers, donors and others.&#8221; They done good.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Indecline<\/strong>, the activist group behind the naked <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> statue has struck again. It changed a <!--more--><strong>Battlefield Vegas<\/strong> billboard from &#8220;Shoot a .50 caliber for only $29&#8221; to &#8220;Shoot a school kid for only $29.&#8221; I suppose I should deplore the vandalism but I find myself <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chron.com\/news\/education\/article\/Vegas-gun-range-billboard-changed-to-Shoot-a-12719996.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">admiring its panache instead<\/a>. It seems one of the more creative ways of raising awareness in the post-<strong>Parkland<\/strong> climate. Also, I&#8217;d like to add that at every Las Vegas gun range I&#8217;ve patronized, the instructors&#8217; first and foremost priority is firearm\u00a0safety, a sober demeanor that is 180 degrees removed from the foaming-at-the-mouth hysteria of <strong>National Rifle Association<\/strong> President <strong>Wayne LaPierre<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>* An <strong>Elton John<\/strong> concert at <strong>Caesars Palace<\/strong> got a little too touchy-feely for Sir Elton&#8217;s taste. He retaliated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/3am\/celebrity-news\/you-fed-up-furious-elton-12116617\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with a flurry of f-bombs<\/a> and harrumphed offstage. Feeling the need to explain himself, the singer-songwriter later wrote,\u00a0&#8220;Last night in Las Vegas a fan put his hands on the piano keys while I was playing and continued to do so even after I asked him to stop.\u00a0He then proceeded to reach over the piano and try to take pictures, completely disrupting the performance.\u00a0I bring fans onstage every evening when we play <em>Saturday Night<\/em> in the set, it is always a lovely part of the show where I get to meet them, shake their hands and have them right there with me while I play.They have always been very courteous to the fact we are in the middle of playing a song live. This guy was rude, disruptive and had no care or respect for our show and so I let him know how I felt, then left the stage until they had removed him.&#8221; The moral is, don&#8217;t get on Sir Elton&#8217;s bad side or you&#8217;ll find yourself out on the street.<\/p>\n<p>* There was a time when some Las Vegas casino companies were hellbent on suppressing Indian gaming. Now they stand to benefit as the <strong>Indian Gaming Tradeshow &amp; Convention<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/ggbnews.com\/issue\/vol-16-no-9-march-5-2018\/article\/indian-gaming-moves-to-vegas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"broken_link\">comes to Vegas for the first time<\/a>, dropping anchor at the <strong>Las Vegas Convention Center<\/strong> on April 17. It&#8217;s not just Sin City that&#8217;s benefiting. The show is drawing over 40 first-time vendors, in part because of the size of the venue and partly because, well, it&#8217;s Vegas. If you like, you can review the convention program and see if there&#8217;s something of interest.<\/p>\n<p>* The Trump administration is still bent on confiscating tip income and reattributing it to management. If you&#8217;re opposed to this, it&#8217;s not too late to <a href=\"https:\/\/actionnetwork.org\/letters\/sign-and-send-a-message-to-congress-stop-donald-trumps-tip-theft-attempt?source=Feb2018SWTipsPA&amp;referrer=group-peoples-action&amp;link_id=1&amp;can_id=ac8286c9356d49a98902d7311d1f12ca&amp;email_referrer=email_311239&amp;email_subject=lies-and-robbery-do-not-belong-in-our-government\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">take action<\/a>. And if you think&#8217;s it&#8217;s good policy, you&#8217;re free to add your two cents as well. <strong>Unite-Here<\/strong> seems to be sitting this one out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is no dollar value adequate\u00a0for a human life but the going rate this week is $275,000. That&#8217;s how much will be donated to the families of each of the 58 people killed at Mandalay Bay. According to WFAA-TV, &#8220;$275,000 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/mandalay-bay-victims-compensated-elton-john-goes-nuclear\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,4,97,7,75,228,9,20,196],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21292"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21292"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32214,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21292\/revisions\/32214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}