(Measured in Months and Excuses) I once knew a man who said the law was a grand and noble machine, precise as a watch, fair as a sermon, and twice as comforting. I did not argue with him, because a man so well satisfied ought not be disturbed. But I have since seen that machine…

I was sitting in a Nevada gas station, watching the numbers climb on the pump like a man scaling a ladder he couldn’t afford, when a letter blew in from Washington. Not literally, letters from Washington never travel that honestly, but the contents arrived just the same. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto has written to President…

In our enlightened age, we have solved many problems by inventing titles for them. A man is no longer merely a man when he is a “juvenile probation officer,” which is a long and respectable way of saying he is trusted to keep wolves away from lambs. It is an honorable post, provided the fellow…

There was a time when a man who didn’t like a thing declined to buy it. It was considered sufficient protest, and it had the advantage of requiring no press conference. But progress has been made, and now we solve our troubles by assembling a coalition and writing stern letters to people who process credit…

Las Vegas is a city that prides itself on bright lights, quick money, and the firm belief that consequences are something that happens to other people. It was therefore no surprise that, on a Tuesday night around 9:35 p.m., the laws of traffic and human decency were both tested at the intersection of Lake Mead…

It was early Wednesday morning that deputies near Sutro and East 11th conducted a traffic stop, discovering an activity that has ruined more unlawful careers, aside from higher education. The subject of this interruption was a 40-year-old gentleman named Edgar Donato, who was conducting a private experiment in the free market, namely, how many bad…

Out beyond Winnemucca, where the land is honest, the fences are tired, and the government is thankfully scarce, a man named Joe Sicking met the sort of end that only modern progress can arrange with such efficiency. It was past noon, that hour when the sensible are either eating or pretending to, when the Nevada…

There are few things in this country as honest as a long Nevada highway. It does not flatter you, it does not guide you with committee meetings, and it does not apologize when you misuse it. It simply lies there, straight as a sermon and twice as unforgiving. On the morning of April 24, out…

In Nevada, we have perfected a small miracle: elections whose conclusions are printed neatly in the margins before the voters have had their say. It saves time, reduces suspense, and spares the candidates the strain of honest uncertainty. The Legislature, being a body of industrious artists, has taken to drawing congressional districts with the care…

There is a peculiar species of optimism in this country that believes that if you give a man “life in prison,” he will take the hint and stay put. Failing that, we offer him parole, on the theory that a gentleman, once convicted of murder, will surely behave himself if addressed politely and given a…