The Old Blog in the Desert

In the Silver State, where the spirit of the frontier once bloomed like sagebrush after a storm, the Assembly has lately taken to whittling away at the Constitution as a man might shave down a stick of kindling. By a vote of 27-15, they passed Assembly Bill 245, a measure that aims to forbid any citizen under the ripe old age of 21 from owning a semiautomatic gun.

Now, I reckon if a man is old enough at eighteen to shoulder a musket for Uncle Sam and be sent to far-off lands to fight strangers, he ought to be able to mind his gun at home. The wise gentlemen of the Assembly seem to think otherwise, placing their tender faith in the idea that the Second Amendment is a matter of preference rather than a binding guarantee.

Under the newfangled law, any young soul who dares to possess the wrong iron will be declared guilty of a gross misdemeanor–a stain on his name that no soap will wash off. And should he slip again, whether by stubbornness, ignorance, or mere accident, he’ll find himself branded with a category B felony, caged for no less than a year, and maybe lightened of $5,000 besides–enough to break a man trying to earn an honest living.

The bill now ambles toward the Senate, where one hopes cooler heads might prevail. But if not, the State of Nevada may soon be a place where you can sign a mortgage, marry a woman, go to war, and die for your country–but heaven help you if you so much as touch the wrong kind of firearm before blowing out twenty-one candles.

A violation of the Second Amendment? I’d say so–as plain as a steer in a bathtub, but these days, common sense is as rare in politics as rain is in July.

I took a day hike into the Eastern Sierra Mountains—not that far from home. Just a short three-mile loop from the parking lot, a modest climb up and down the ridgeline, meant more for stretching the legs than seeking adventure.

It was one of those perfect days–sky so blue it seemed painted on, sunshine filtering through pine needles, and a light breeze that carried the clean scent of earth and granite. I had the dogs with me—our German Shorthair mix, Buddy, always brave, and Honey, our American Staffordshire Terrier, the more cautious soul.

As we approached the summit, both dogs stopped dead in their tracks. Buddy’s hackles rose from the nape of his neck down his spine, and Honey’s tail shot out straight, rigid as a stick. I know their body language well.

They weren’t scared. They were warning me.

“Bear,” I thought immediately, tensing as I scanned the brush ahead.

That’s when I heard it. A heavy crack, like something huge, shifting its weight in the thicket.

Then silence. Not a birdcall or the breeze. The hairs on my neck stood up.

I tightened the leashes and pulled the dogs back gently, pivoting to retrace our steps down the path we had climbed. I didn’t speak. I didn’t run. I didn’t want to set off the dogs’ instincts or whatever was out there watching.

My senses sharpened with every step—ears twitching at every branch creak, eyes darting to catch shadows. But it was my nose that warned me the most.

The breeze carried a stench—rotten eggs, moldy leaves, and something else. Something foul and decaying.

I’d smelled it before.

If you’ve ever been close to a place where something not quite right is hunting, you never forget it. Some say it’s a territorial musk. Others claim it’s just the scent of death.

But I knew at that moment, somewhere up that trail, there was a Sasquatch. Probably following the deer migration, maybe circling the area for a kill. I didn’t need to see it—I could feel it.

Nearly back to the parking lot, when my old truck was parked, waiting faithfully, a young couple with a child started up the trail. They looked like they belonged in an outdoor catalog—matching packs, bright smiles, eager to touch the wild.

They must have seen something in my face.

“Is everything okay?” the woman asked.

“Now it is,” I said, glancing back toward the path. “But I wouldn’t go up there if I were you. Not today.”

“Why?” the man asked, half a grin forming.

“I think I just walked into Bigfoot’s backyard,” I said.

They laughed. The way people laugh when they think you’re crazy.

I gave a short nod and left them to it, loading the dogs into the back cab behind my seat. I sat there for a while, listening to the wind, thinking about that smell.

Then I heard footsteps—rapid ones. The couple came jogging down the path, the kid clutched tightly between them, their earlier smiles replaced with wide, panicked eyes.

They didn’t look at me as they rushed to their compact foreign car and didn’t say a word. But the man’s hands were trembling as he fumbled for his keys.

I turned my engine over and watched in the rearview as they tore out of the lot, gravel spitting behind their tires. They quickly passed me, flying down the mountain road like they were trying to outrun something they didn’t believe in until then.

Some trails lead you to peace, while others remind you that the wilderness still keeps secrets—and one of them walks on two feet.

I always liked to end my week out at Pyramid Lake—just me, my truck, a couple of cold beers, and a quiet you can’t buy. Right after the sun sank behind the mountains, I backed my old Ford into a shallow hollow by the lake’s edge.

There was a tall tufa formation to my east, almost like a sentinel, and a knuckled ridge of sandy rock to the right. I couldn’t pick up a single radio station where I was parked, just a lot of static, so I clicked the knob off and let the silence settle in.

The night air carried a slight chill, and the water slapped the shore with a lazy rhythm. It was peaceful, too peaceful. That’s when I heard it.

At first, I thought it was wind whistling through the rocks, but the more I listened, the clearer it became–soft, sweet, feminine—carried on the night air. She was singing. I couldn’t make out the lyrics, just long, sorrowful notes that seemed to bend and drift like smoke over the lake.

I sat up straighter. “Someone out there?” I asked the darkness. Nothing replied, but the song floated on.

Curious, maybe even enchanted, I pulled my flashlight from the glovebox and flicked it on. The beam sputtered—weak batteries. I cursed under my breath, reached behind the seat for the spotlight, and plugged it into the truck’s lighter. A loud click and a burst of white light shot out over the water.

I swept the shoreline—nothing. The reeds stirred a little, and the water glimmered, but I didn’t see a soul. Still, that voice pulled at me. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It just was. Like it had always been there, waiting for me to notice.

Leaving the spotlight behind, I grabbed the flashlight again and started walking toward the sound. The voice seemed to drift east, so I followed, stepping slowly and quietly like I didn’t want to scare it off. I made it a hundred yards before I realized the song had moved. Now, it came from the West. I turned and followed.

“Hello?” I called out, feeling a little foolish.

Silence.

Then something splashed, quick and sharp. I snapped the light toward it, seeing only water.

“Probably a fish,” I muttered.

Then—laughter. High, airy. A girl’s giggle, just at the edge of the light’s reach. I froze.

My beam danced across the water. That’s when I saw a shadow, just beneath the surface, sliding like a seal through the shallows. Then it vanished.

The hair on my neck rose. I knew the old stories. The Water Babies—little drowned spirits of Paiute legend. People said they cried like infants, lured you close, and then pulled you into the deep.

“Nope,” I whispered, backing up three, maybe four steps.

I was starting to turn when my heel caught on a rock, and I hit the dirt hard. The flashlight flew from my hand and rolled into the brush. Before I could even curse, the song that had lured me turned into a scream—shrill, long, full of rage and pain.

Scrambling to my feet, I ran up the hill, back to the truck, heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my ears. I fired up the engine, threw it in gear, and sped off like the devil was after me.

The voice didn’t follow me, but the scream echoed in my head down the dusty road.

As the lake disappeared in the rearview mirror, I remembered something from a book I read once. About how sailors used to leap from their ships, enchanted by the singing of sirens. Voices so sweet you didn’t even mind dying.

I cracked a fresh beer with shaking hands and didn’t take my eyes off the road.

That night, Pyramid Lake didn’t just feel lonely.

It felt alive.

It might be time for stirrin’ up hornets’ nests on purpose when I see a man gettin’ walloped for tryin’ to do right by the ladies and the little folks of the state. Lieutenant Governor Stavros Anthony, a gent with more backbone than a sawmill mule and more common sense than a Carson City windbag, found himself lately the target of legislative shenanigans by the upstandin’ Democrats of the Nevada Legislature.

The reason? He had the gall—the nerve, mind you—to propose that women’s sports ought to be for, well, women.

In my day, if a fella stepped onto a girls’ baseball field with a beard and a baritone, he’d have been laughed back into the barber’s chair. But in modern times, where sense and sentimentality mix like oil and vinegar, Anthony’s efforts to protect the fairness of females are branded a “crusade” by folks who think truth should come second to fashion.

The Lieutenant Governor’s bills—one to create an office to help small businesses, another to support Nevada’s ranchers through agri-tourism, and a third to give children a scant 20 minutes of sunshine durin’ their school day–heaven forbid–were all left belly-up by the rulin’ party. Why?

Because Anthony’s been raising a ruckus about biological men in women’s sports.

He didn’t curse, call names, or raise a fist—but he stood up, and it seems that’s all it takes these days to get labeled a villain.

Assemblywoman Selena Torres-Fossett and Senator Melanie Scheible, bless their dooficatin’ sensibilities, advised Mr. Anthony to mind his official duties–namely, tourism and business, as if one can’t walk and chew gum simultaneously. When Anthony reminded them he’s elected and had some thoughts, too, you’d have thought he proposed digging a canal through the Capitol Buildin’.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to check with those two legislators on what I should do as lieutenant governor,” said Anthony, with dry wit. “I’m the lieutenant governor. I’ll do whatever I see fit for the state of Nevada.”

And fit it is, to stand for fairness. Whether there’s one biological male or ten or a hundred in women’s sports is beside the point–if one steals a medal meant for a girl who worked her heart out, that’s one too many. And if you think it’s all fantasy, wait till it’s your daughter left in the dust by a fellow built like Paul Bunyan.

The good lieutenant guv even took pains to clarify—more than once—that his task force isn’t out there wavin’ torches or pitchforks against transgender folks. His aim’s as narrow and precise as a needle–to keep the playin’ field level for female athletes.

Just rules and reason. But reason, like a beaver-skin top hat, is out of fashion in Carson City.

They call it “retaliation,” and by gum, that’s what it smells like. When Torres-Fossett kills a small business office while praising small business support, and when a tourism bill dies because Anthony dared speak a truth unpopular in Capitol circles, it ain’t politics anymore–it’s personal.

As for Anthony’s outdoor recreation bill–dead on arrival–it must have been too radical a notion for Nevada’s ruling class–children, outside? With the sun on their faces? It’s a wonder they didn’t arrest him for incitin’ joy.

Yet, Anthony remains unbothered, undeterred, and unwhipped. He even offered to debate Assemblywoman Torres-Fossett on live television, mano a mano–or a quatro, as he gallantly invites her to bring reinforcements.

That’s the mark of a man who knows his case is clean and his footin’ solid.

The winds of politics may blow foul in Nevada’s halls–but in the open desert, the ranchers, miners, mothers, fathers, and athletes know the truth–fairness isn’t hateful, and standing up for women isn’t a partisan act–it’s plain decency.

So, three cheers for Mr. Anthony. He’s outnumbered but not outmatched.

David McNeely, private investigator, just got told by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that he doesn’t have a First Amendment right because he didn’t exercise it properly, even though nobody ever did say you had to wave a flag to keep your liberty from gettin’ stepped on.

See, McNeely’s name got dragged out into the open like a cat out of a burlap sack after a trackin’ device turned up on Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve’s car. The thing was stuck there without her say-so, and when the Sparks Police Department went sniffin’, they came up with McNeely’s name–then promptly handed it to the press like a prize squash at the fair.

They didn’t charge McNeely with anything, mind you–just had his privacy and professional reputation cracked open and aired like yesterday’s laundry. When he said, “Hey now, that ain’t right,” and filed suit, he figured the Constitution might have something to say about it.

It turns out–it did–but by judges telling him he misunderstood it.

Judge Larry Hicks tossed the whole shebang in May of 2024, saying McNeely didn’t correctly allege a First Amendment claim, didn’t have any real expectation of privacy, and hadn’t shown that the cops acted “outrageously,” because these days, publishing a man’s name without cause is just business as usual.

Hicks got hisself run over and kilt the same month and year while possibly jaywalkin’.

McNeely took it up to the Ninth Circuit, hoping someone there might squint a little closer. But no such luck.

The panel said he failed to allege “a cognizable legal theory,” and that he hadn’t shown a causal link between the City’s actions and any retaliatory motive–because, of course, if the City doesn’t admit to being vindictive, it must be entirely above suspicion. What they didn’t say, but might as well have, was, “You didn’t shout loud enough, Mr. McNeely, so your right to speak don’t matter. And since you didn’t tape a sign to your chest and parade through the town square, you don’t get to say your privacy was violated either.”

Now, far be it from me to call a judge blind, but it does make a body wonder–when did the Bill of Rights become a game of “Simon Says?” Is a man’s First Amendment only good if he does the paperwork right and presents it in triplicate?

McNeely’s crime wasn’t planting the tracking device—it’s assumin’ the Constitution worked without needin’ to shout into a bullhorn first. And, maybe thinkin’ a little too highly of a justice system that finds no offense in draggin’ a man’s name through the mud without proof or apology.

So, while City Attorney Wes Duncan crows about vindication and “nothing wrong” having been done, Mr. McNeely is left holding the bill–and the bitter knowledge that a right unrecognized by the court is just as useless as one written down.

Now, ain’t that a thing?

Here’s a curious thing–Mr. Aaron Ford, the Attorney General of Nevada–a state known for desert sands and silver mines has decided his grand duty is not to the folks who sent him to office–but rather to the delicate feelings of foreign trade partners and the poor, suffering Mandarins of global economics. He’s hitched his little wagon to a parade of twelve other state AGs to sue the Trump administration over tariffs.

According to Mr. Ford, the president has “overstepped his authority” by using executive orders to slap tariffs on foreign goods. He claims the tariffs will cost Nevada businesses $985 million.

That’s quite the sum—but I’ve yet to meet a lawyer who could explain economics without getting tangled up in his necktie. And I wager Mr. Ford couldn’t tell you the difference between a tariff and a tip at the blackjack table.

What’s more, the good AG seems to forget he ain’t the global comptroller—he’s supposed to be working for Nevadans, many of whom rather like the fella in the White House with the golden hair and the itchy tariff finger. Trump didn’t get Nevada’s electoral votes by accident, and if he’s charging the gates of China with a tax ledger and a battle cry, a fair number of Nevadans are cheering from the sidelines.

But no matter. Mr. Ford has it in his head that saving Nevadans from their own voting choices is his sacred duty. He’s marching off to court like Don Quixote with a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book in one hand–and a CNBC report in the other, tilting at windmills he doesn’t understand but is sure are dangerous.

So, let the lawsuit roll on. The courts will have their say, and the pundits will fill the airwaves like crows on a cornfield.

As for me, I’ll be out here in the territory, watching these fine gentlemen argue over who’s running the country while the country shrugs and gets back to work. Mr. Ford may be many things—an economist, he ain’t.

And the next time he gets the urge to save Nevada from the perils of prosperity, perhaps someone might remind him who he works for.

Pull up a chair and settle in for a tale as twisted as a mountain road in a spring thaw. It seems the Nevada Legislature, bless their bureaucratic hearts, has cooked up Senate Bill 420 — and while the number suggests something hazy and carefree, the bill itself smells more like a three-day-old fish stew simmering in the sun.

The grand piece of legislative embroidery aims to allow–yes, allow–the good folks of North Lake Tahoe to form what’s called a Business Improvement District, or BID. A BID, for those unacquainted with the alphabet soup of modern governance, is where businesses voluntarily assess themselves a fee for the sake of improving their patch of earth.

You heard right–they want to pay more–not to the state, mind you–but to themselves, so they can keep their storefronts tidy, their streets a little less dusty, and maybe even coax a few more tourists out of their Teslas and onto a local trolley. Now, if that all sounds reasonable enough, that’s where the catch comes in–they have to ask the government’s permission first.

In this age of liberty and lightbulbs, the tavern keeper and the t-shirt seller must tiptoe to Carson City like schoolchildren asking if they may stay after class to clean the blackboard. Forty businesses signed their names in support, like good citizens, with hats in hand, hoping the Senate Government Affairs Committee might grant them the solemn privilege of spending their money in their community.

It, dear reader, is a prime example of government overreach in its Sunday best. For what freeborn soul thought it proper that a business must gain approval from the high court of political desk-sitters to improve their neighborhood? If a man can’t fix his fence without filing a form in triplicate, then liberty is not a roaring fire but a sputtering candle behind a bureaucrat’s desk.

Incline Village and Crystal Bay–fine mountain towns where the air is sharp and the people sharper–want better transit, fewer fender benders, and a cleaner path out when the hills catch fire. They ain’t asking for a handout. They’re offering to roll up their sleeves and do the work–but they must wait on the almighty nod of folks who wouldn’t know a snow chain from a sausage link.

Mark my words–when a business must beg permission to help itself, the tail is wagging the dog, and the poor creature’s dizzy from spinning in circles. Let the shopkeepers run their shops, let the innkeepers keep their inns, and let government mind its own house before poking around someone else’s.

Tell your representatives what for — preferably before they pass another bill telling you how to tie your shoes.

Absenteeism, Federal Funds, and a Shrinking Washington

Now, I don’t pretend to understand all the goings-on of this great American experiment, especially when it comes to matters of money and government—which is to say, fraud and folly—but it strikes me as downright peculiar that Nevada, a state with its boots firmly planted in the dusty soil of self-reliance–or so it says–is whistling Dixie to the bank with a sackful of federal coin as the very hand that handed it out is gettin’ sawed off at the wrist.

You see, the Nevada Department of Education just got itself a shiny new federal grant—one of those highfalutin’ projects with a name longer than a preacher’s sermon–the Stronger Connections Technical Assistance and Capacity Building program, which sounds like it came out of a sausage grinder full of bureaucracy and good intentions. The aim? Reduce chronic absenteeism in the schools by 15 to 20 percent over the next three years, which, if successful, would still leave a good many seats cold and empty at roll call.

But here’s the rub, friend. While Nevada schools’re happy to be getting training, mentorship, and “Check & Connect” schemes—where some poor soul has to check in on young truants and connect with them like a telegraph operator in a thunderstorm—the Department of Education over in Washington is undergoing a slimming more severe than a politician’s principles after election day. Staff cuts, program consolidations, cuts so close they’ll raise gooseflesh—and yet the money flows like the Truckee River in springtime.

So what gives?

Well, let me explain in the plainest way I can–just because the federal Department of Education is shrinking like a wool sweater in a washtub doesn’t mean the spigot’s shut—at least not yet. The grant Nevada received was already baked into the budget cake some time ago, back when Congress was still pretending to like each other long enough to pass things.

These programs, you see, have long tails. Like an old mule, they keep working long after common sense says they should be at pasture.

Besides, when Uncle Sam decides to pass around a few gold pieces for something as noble as helping kids show up to school—well, no politician wants to be the fellow who says, “Let them stay home!” even if his other hand is busy dismantling the very agency that sent the check.

And I’ll wager another thing–Nevada, like most states, is glad to take the money while muttering about federal overreach, the way a hungry man gripes about the soup being too hot as he slurps it down. The state gets to wear two hats—one of the poor-country cousins, pleading for help, and the other of the proud pioneer, suspicious of Washington’s meddling.

So, while the boys and girls at the top trim the tree of federal education, the roots are still feeding the ground in places like Nevada—where the statehouse says times are hard, but not so hard they’ll say no to a few million in taxpayer generosity.

That, my friend, is the American way—complain about the barn while milking the cow.

Helmand Provines, Afghanistan, late 2006 with the Marines. My job was to go on mounted patrols with them, riding in MRAPs—big armored trucks meant to withstand blasts.

For a while, they worked. Then, the Taliban figured it out. They made bigger bombs.

IEDs were their weapon of choice, the cornerstone of their arsenal. They had only so many explosives, so they had to choose: one big bomb or many small ones.

If the Marines found the big one, it meant a few days of peace before the Taliban built another.

It was a war of patience, of deception. They studied us.

They knew what we were looking for. They knew how to hide things where we wouldn’t think to look.

But the Marines had the Kid.

The man wasn’t a kid. He was older than most Lance Corporals but younger than most Sergeants.

He was small, and at a distance, you’d think he was a teenager. Up close, you saw the lines on his face, the patchy beard.

He could have been 30. He could have been 50.

He didn’t know. He only knew he was born during Ramadan, sometime after the Soviets left, but he couldn’t say for sure.

We met him in the fields by his family’s compound. He walked up when he heard our convoy. He did his best to stare down the convoy.

The Skipper got out, uneasy about stopping but wanting to make an introduction. Hearts and minds.

He gave him a “salaam alaikum.” He didn’t smile, didn’t speak.

The Skipper put out his right hand, and he offered his left. That was an insult.

Left hand. Wiping hand.

The Skipper didn’t take it personally. Just laughed.

He looked at the Lieutenant, measuring. Maybe impressed or worried.

The Skipper gave him a pack of powdered Gatorade. He took it.

A week later, he came to the outpost with a sick toddler. The Corpsman mixed Gatorade with crushed Motrin.

The youngster got better. The Kid took note.

After that–he waited as we rumbled by. He heard the engines.

He ran out to meet us and said something simple, “Wazir Kalei busy today.”

It was understood–busy meant Taliban, meant bombs, meant death. The Marines listened.

For thirty-six days, there were no IEDs. Thirty-six days of the Taliban going mad, trying to figure out how they knew.

Command listened to their radio chatter. They thought the Americans had drones watching them.

They got desperate. Switched to ambushes.

The Marines were ready for those. They hit the Taliban hard.

They lost men. The Marines didn’t.

Then, one day, the convoy turned onto the familiar road and saw something small. Dark and out of place.

The point vehicle called it in. The Lieutenant asked for a better look.

The Lance Corporal in the lead gave the reply. “It’s the Kid.”

“Clarify,” directed the Skipper.

“It’s a kid,” he said again. “His head.”

The Taliban had figured it out. I don’t know how–none of us knew.

It could have been anyone giving them that intel. The villagers talked to the Marines.

The elders. The farmers.

But somehow, they knew. They knew it was the Kid.

Sometimes, I think about it, and I feel guilty, but not over the Kid’s death because I know that without him, we would be dead. And in some twisted, ugly way, that makes the Kid’s death acceptable collateral damage.

Now, if only what’s left of my humanity could believe that.

By Yours Truly, a Humble Observer of the Human Comedy

The great gears of federal injustice ground on for months, gnashing and hissing like a brokedown steam engine hunting to crush Michele Fiore, a woman of brass spine and no shortage of colorful flair. But when the gavel got raised to flatten her completely, along comes President Donald Trump with a pardon in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the other — and wouldn’t you know, he lit the fuse on the crooked business.

For those not keeping score, Fiore had the misfortune of entering public life with a sharp tongue, a set of cowgirl ethics, and a habit of saying precisely what she meant–qualities that do not endear one to the fork-tongued serpents of federal power. While serving on the Las Vegas City Council, she made some enemies–and not the polite kind you debate over tea.

In October of last year, a jury–handpicked under the watchful eye of the federal star chamber–found her guilty of wire fraud. Six counts, plus one of conspiracy, a word that always sounds suspiciously vague when wielded by bureaucrats with a thirst for scalps.

The case, in short, claimed she’d dipped into political pots and poured the contents into her garden. Never mind that the very foundation of modern campaigning is a web of winks, nods, and financial gymnastics; the difference is Fiore didn’t bow when Washington came knocking.

Despite her pleas of innocence, her call for a new trial was laughed out of court just last week–no surprise there. When you stand accused by the federal government, you might as well be arguing with a train–it won’t hear you, and it’s determined to run you down anyway.

Fiore’s downfall was less about dollars and cents and more about whom she backed and what she believed. She stood with Trump, stood with Bundy, and stood too tall for the folks who like their women quiet and their rebels dead.

The FBI–that proud institution that once surveilled Martin Luther King Jr. and now fritters away its credibility like a drunk gambler–decided Fiore needed humbling. So they stormed in with charges and press releases, leaking and spinning until they had enough smoke to suggest fire. But smoke ain’t fire, and today, the woman they tried to bury has been pulled from the dirt and dusted off by a presidential pardon.

She called it a vindication–and who’s to say it ain’t? She says her faith held firm, her truth was unshaken, and now her name’s been restored.

The Department of Justice should hang its head –but it won’t. The FBI will keep scribbling in its little notebooks, hoping the next target won’t bite back. And the press, who once fawned over Fiore when she made good headlines but turned on her like starved jackals when the script flipped, will now mumble about “accountability” while choking on the fact that the woman they called a crook walks free.

Mark this moment–it was not justice that saved Michele Fiore–it was prayer and the fact that the system’s broken, and Trump knows it all too well.