"Sandoville" Isn't a Game. It's Real Life.

Have you heard of "Farmville"? If not, then you're very fortunate. It's this bizarre social networking/virtual reality game that can get very out of hand very fast. I try to avoid it whenever I'm on Facebook.

And I guess Brian Sandoval is trying to avoid actual reality. But unlike Farmville, Sandoville isn't a fictional game. It involves real people.

College students and progressive activists dubbed their tent city outside the Nevada Legislature building “Sandoville” on Monday as they prepared for a three-day campout in protest of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s proposed budget cuts.

About 40 tents were set up in the grass north of the Legislative building by early afternoon on Monday by a bus load of students from the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas and Nevada State College in Henderson. Students from the University of Nevada, Reno later joined them for what was forecast to be a chilly and potentially rainy night. [...]

“We’re trying to send a message that we are already sacrificing and we want them to include revenue as part of the solution,” Neff said. “We have no problem with the fact that you have to have some cuts. We get it the problem is too monstrous to solve without cuts. But all cuts makes no sense to us.”

Several legislators including Assemblyman David Bobzien, D-Reno; Sen. Sheila Leslie, D-Reno and Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, Assemblyman Richard Carillo, D-Las Vegas, and Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas, also participated in the event.

“I’m very grateful these students took the time to come up here,” Kihuen said. “I think it shows how dedicated they are in trying to impact the system. I think it sends a strong message to the entire state that the students are paying attention, that average Nevadans are paying attention.”

Progress Now has even more videos, photos, and updates on Sandoville here.

If Brian Sandoval and certain recalcitrant Republican legislators "keep up the good work", Nevada will cease to exist! We need to wake up and smell reality. Nevada can not survive on gambling alone. We need new businesses here, but they will never come if Nevada can't provide the good education necessary for the kind of well educated workforce that these companies are looking for. We need to wake up, rethink our priorities, and raise the revenue needed to fully fund public education.

Keep writing those legislators until they finally "get it" and do the right thing!