America's Party at Fremont Street, Las Vegas in the New Year's Eve

The Fremont Street Experience in downtown Vegas will again to hose the New Year's Eve America's Party to ring in 2015. The adult-only (21+) party starts at 6:00 p.m. with 9-hour live concerts on three stages, performed by 13 tribute bands: Crimes of Passion (Pat Benatar Tribute), Doobies Inc. (Doobie Brothers Tribute), Rio (Duran Duran Tribute), Don't Look Back (Boston Tribute), Generation Idol (Billy Idol Tribute) Jumping Jack Flash (Rolling Stones Tribute), Led Zepagain (Led Zeppelin Tribute), No Duh (No Doubt Tribute), Queen Nation (Queen Tribute), Fan Halen (Van Halen Tribute), Aeromyth (Aerosmith Tribute), Bonfire (AC/DC Tribute) and Red Not Chili Peppers (Red Hot Chili Peppers Tribute),  as part of the “TributePalooza.” The giant Viva Vision screen will feature a spectacular light show and virtual fireworks at the count down.

Postcard US-2545733 to Czech Republic shows the light of the neon reflects off the cars parked along the Fremont Street, adding to the feeling that it was never dark in downtown Las Vegas, even in its early years. From neon circles under the Fremont Hotel to the Indian head atop the Hotel Apache sign, Fremont Street is a destination 24 hours a day. At the end of the street, the neon sign for the train depot can be seen.

Discovering North America

522 years ago, Christopher Columbus reached the Americas on October 12, 1492. The landing has been celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States as a Federal Holiday since 1934. It has been fixed to the second Monday in October since 1970 as a result of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.

However, Columbus Day has met with a long history of opposition. As a blog article in the Washington Post pointed out, Columbus did not really discover North America, because he never set foot in North America but on various Caribbean islands. More importantly, his brutal ruling at the Caribbean islands where he landed resulted in atrocities against native peoples on the islands. It was a prelude to the indigenous population collapse during the European colonization of the American continents that followed Columbus' "discovery". 

Therefore today people are celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day in Berkeley, California; Native American Day in  South Dakota; a combined Columbus Day and American Indian Heritage Day in Alabama; and Discovery Day in Hawaii and the Bahamas.

Postcard US-2849020 to Philippines shows a map of Native Tribes of North America. 

Remembering 9/11 in Las Vegas

Postcard US-1952982 to China shows the New York-New York Hotel and Casino. A memorial sprung up spontaneously after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, with a collection of first responder T-shirts, handwritten notes, and flowers decorating the wall in front of the harbor by the fire boat below the 47-story replica of the Empire State Building. However, Casino expansion pushed out the 9/11 Memorial in 2013.

Today, 13 years after 9/11, a giant U.S. flag was hoisted by two firetrucks at the annual Las Vegas Firefighters 9/11 Tribute and March in downtown Las Vegas. At 7:30 p.m., hundreds of firefighters, police officers, military personnel and community leaders marched along the 3rd Street and paused for a moment of silence with bagpipe performing at the 3rd Street Stage at the Fremont Street Experience. 

Viva Vision Light Show at the Fremont Street Experience also paid tribute to the lives lost during 9/11.

Human Nature

Postcard US-2452490 to Norway is an advertising card for Human Nature, an Australian pop music vocal group. It was originally formed in 1989 as the Four Trax by four schoolmates in Sydney. After signed by Sony Music and renamed as Human Nature, it released the debut album Telling Everybody in 1996. In Australia, the group has seventeen hits in the country's Top 40 music chart, and five hits in the Top 10; three of their albums reached multi-platinum certification, and four reached platinum; and sales of over 1.6 million records. After transitioning from a boy band to a Motown tribute group, they are currently performing at the Sands Showroom in the Venetian Hotel and Casino. (Human Nature will be DARK from November 28, 2013 to December 26, 2013)