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…

Nevada comes blessed with a political class that can spot a principle at fifty yards, provided it is not moving and does not require any inconvenience to capture. Enter Madam Nicole Cannizzaro, who aspires to become the state’s chief law officer, a position traditionally tasked with enforcing the law. Though in recent years it has…

There are a few things in this country more dependable than a red light and a citizen convinced it is for someone else. At 11:18 on a respectable Tuesday morning, when decent folks were minding their business, and the rest were minding their phones, Sparks Police were summoned to the intersection of Sparks Boulevard and…

Reno keeps a certain kind of citizen who believes in hard work, provided it belongs to somebody else. Mr. Robert Kindell, age fifty-eight and still ambitious, appears to have been one of these self-starters—though his startup capital came at gunpoint and his business plan smelled faintly of pepper spray. The police say Mr. Kindell spent…

There are few things in this world more reassuring than a government exercise that promises danger, delivers smoke, and sends everyone home in time for supper. Out in the hills behind Hidden Valley this week, a fine collection of Reno and Zephyr Cove high school students is being turned loose upon a “Mock Fire,” which…

There stood, just beyond Miller’s split-rail fence, two pastures that had not spoken kindly to one another since the invention of wire. In the west field lived a mule of advanced years and settled opinions. His name was Jasper, though no one called him anything to his face without first consulting the weather. He possessed…