The Old Blog in the Desert

By a Disbelievin’ Observer of Modern Wonders

Well, now, would you believe it? The highfalutin’ Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles—known far and wide as the bastion of long lines and stern looks—has finally opened the doors of the Internet to the proud owners of yesteryear’s iron steeds. That’s right–folks can now renew their classic car plates right from the comfort of their rockin’ chair, using somethin’ called the MyDMV portal, which is a kind of electronic post office for people who ain’t got time to line up behind twelve other souls and a fellow tryin’ to title a go-kart.

“This enhancement is a big milestone for the DMV,” said Director Tonya Laney, with all the pride of a schoolmarm whose class just recited the Gettysburg Address backward and in Latin. “We’re givin’ the people what they want,” she said, meanin’ less standin’ in stuffy government rooms and more clickin’ and tappin’ from home.

That sounds mighty fine.

Before you go thinkin’ this is some free-for-all, hold your hosses. Online blessings only apply to classic, old-timers, and classic rods—vehicles with more character and chrome than a pawn shop. The DMV still insists that these wheeled antiques be insured, and they best not be gallivantin’ more than 5,000 miles a year, or they’ll find themselves back in line quicker than you can say “Model T.”

“We are excited,” said Laney, with a grin I can only assume was real, “that our customers with this plate now get the option of online renewals.”

Well, bless their hearts. The times are a-changin’–and if the DMV can shed its molasses pace and step into the modern age, maybe there’s hope for us all. So pour a cup of Sassafras tea, tip your hat to the new century, and give your old roadster a loving pat.

By all accounts, Nevada has hitched its wagon to the sun and made a mighty fine show of it. The Silver State, once known chiefly for its silver and gambling dens, now boasts the second-highest solar electricity production in the nation—enough to make its neighboring states look like they’re still rubbing two sticks together to light a fire.

One out of every four electrons in Nevada is born from the desert sun, and as of 2024, solar is growing like a weed after a rainstorm, thanks in no small part to Washington’s generous hand. But here’s the rub–the hand that giveth is the taxpayer’s, and that hand is getting mighty tired.

Nevada’s solar boom didn’t come from pure grit or gumption. It came from Uncle Sam opening his wallet wide and emptying it into what ought to be a private enterprise. Through the Inflation Reduction Act—passed by one party while the other stood back and rolled its eyes—the federal government has lavished the solar industry with tax credits, subsidies, and grants as if it were a newborn baby needing swaddling.

These tax credits cover everything from manufacturing solar panels (45X) to installing them on suburban rooftops (25D) to helping companies build clean energy facilities (48E). The credits have made it so that companies hardly have to sell their wares the old-fashioned way—by earning their keep—but instead rely on tax breaks like a drunkard leaning on a lamppost, more for support than illumination.

Industry folks like Mr. Stephen Hamile of Las Vegas’s Sol-Up say, “Without the tax credit, those players in the market… would be unlikely to stay.”

If that ain’t a red flag, I don’t know what is. Imagine running a business that only survives because the government pays the tab. That’s not free enterprise; that’s a government-sponsored pageant.

With a Republican Congress sharpening its budgetary knife to carve $1.5 trillion from federal spending, the solar sector is sweating under the collar. And rightly so, as the tax credits weren’t supposed to be a lifelong pension. They were sold to the public to jumpstart clean energy, not to underwrite an industry indefinitely.

Supporters argue the tax credits build factories and create jobs, and that’s all fine and dandy until you realize those factories and jobs are on a shaky cliff of federal largesse. Let one Congress with a mind toward fiscal sanity come along, and poof.

There goes the whole edifice, like a sandcastle when the tide rolls in.

It gets worse. Even programs like Solar for All, which sounds noble on paper—helping low-income Nevadans harness the sun to slash their electric bills—are built on this same taxpayer-funded quicksand. Without 48E and 25D tax credits propping up the industry, the program would lose a third of its impact. That’s not a stable program; that’s a taxpayer-backed balloon, ready to deflate at the first sign of prudence.

Now, I’m all for innovation and clean energy. If Nevada can turn sunlight into prosperity, God bless’em. But let the sun do the heavy lifting, not the taxpayer. A business that needs perpetual subsidy is a charity in disguise, and the American people aren’t signing up for more donations—they’re asking for relief from the taxman.

Solar ought to stand on its own feet. Let it shine or sputter on the merit of its technology, its cost-efficiency, and its ability to serve the market—not on the whims of Washington’s political winds. When the government props up one industry over another, it’s not picking winners and losers. It’s just picking favorites—and sending the bill to the rest of us.

So if the sun is so mighty, let it pull its weight. Let the solar barons dig into their pockets instead of yours and mine.

Energy’s future ought to be bright—not because Washington says so–but because it works without Washington having to foot the bill.

How to Become a Public Spectacle Without Tryin’

Now I reckon it ain’t often that a man can sink himself with both feet in the Walker River mud of his mouth, but Edward “Owen” Dickie done managed it with the flair of a vessel goin’ full steam into a sandbar. Mesquite, that warm little Nevada town better known for golf carts and retirees than scandal, found itself the unwilling host of a barnstormin’ sideshow when Mr. Dickie stood up to speak and fell to infamy.

The whole affair came to light when a passel of townsfolk gathered at a regular city council meeting—not irregular–though the tone soon was. They didn’t come with torches or pitchforks–those are for other times and places–but they brought a fine stew of indignation, and rightly so.

One resident, boiling over with plain talk, said, “We went from the safest city to the racist city.” That’s the kind of sentence that’ll get stitched on a protest banner quickly.

Mr. Dickie, whose tongue has been out on parole without supervision, had previously confided to the now-former Police Chief Maquade Chesley that he might just head on down to Louisiana and hire himself a “6’5” Black woman chief”—whom he called an “Aunt Jemima”—to “whip” the department into shape.

His words, spoken in a “private conversation,” were about as private as hollerin’ across the river with a megaphone, got recorded and spilled to the press quicker than a pot of second-rate gumbo.

To his credit, or perhaps his confusion, Dickie admitted his folly. “I am sorry, those words were not right,” he said, which is what most folks say after hoisting themselves up the flagpole of public opinion and are fixin’ to get lowered without ceremony.

When a goodly portion of the townspeople called for his resignation, Dickie replied, “I am good with that,” which is the kind of resignation that sounds more like someone orderin’ pie than quittin’ public office. But a motion was made, votes were cast–including a delayed vote by Mayor Jesse “Blink and You Missed It” Whipple–and Dickie got booted with a firm 5-1 majority.

Let us not forget–Dickie is a man who said, “The gist of what I was trying to say was that maybe the department needs some diversity.”

But, before you get to waggin’ your finger too hard, remember–they’re still tryin’ to cancel Mark Twain for using a word that was common coin in his day—used not to glorify, but to expose a sickness in society.

So Mr. Dickie, in his fumblin’, foot-shootin’ way, finds himself in good company though a poor Huck Finn.

So take this as a lesson, young and old–if you find it tempting to make remarks that might curdle milk or ruin your career, keep your mouth closed. You can always fix your opinions later, but you can’t recant once it’s out, recorded, leaked, and dressed up for Sunday news.

And as for Mr. Dickie—well, I reckon he’s free to head on down to those Louisiana parishes, though he’d best go quiet and leave the metaphors at home.

Now, gather round, you sovereign souls, and lend your ears to a tale both bewilderin’ and familiar, concernin’ the land of dust and dreams they call Nevada. The good folks in Carson City have been stirrin’ the pot, hopin’ to make stew outta land, law, and justice—though whether it’ll fill any bellies remains to be seen.

The foremost of their recent ambitions is a proposition so bold it’d make a gambler sweat–a call to the federal government to loosen its grip on some of the Nevada territory it clutches like a miser his coin purse. Uncle Sam owns 88 percent of Nevada—an arrangement more suited to monarchies than democracies–if you ask me.

So, with all the pomp of a parade and half the fanfare, the Assembly passed AJR10, askin’ Congress to release enough of that sacred soil to patch up the growing hole in the housing supply.

Senator Jacky Rosen stepped forward to support this plea, pledging to balance growth with preservation—protectin’ the wilderness while makin’ room for folks who’d like a roof that don’t flap in the wind. Her plan would release 25,000 acres for buildin’ homes and barbershops while setting aside two million acres for Mother Nature to do as she pleases.

But no plan worth its salt sails smooth as conservationists, led by the Great Basin Water Network–a name more longwinded than a preacher at a potluck–raised a ruckus about water.

They say, “We ain’t got the wet stuff to keep up with this dry hustle!”

With the Colorado River lookin’ like it’s on a permanent diet and climate change tossin’ more heat than help, they’d prefer infill development—buildin’ where buildings already sit—lest we plant homes in the desert and forget to bring the water.

Meanwhile, the legislature’s been busy cleanin’ up other corners of the barn. Take AB 503, a bill with enough teeth to bite a bandit. Copper wire theft—a mischief most foul and devilishly—is now punishable by law with increased vigor. Stealin’ under $500 gets you a misdemeanor.

Over that, it’s a category D felony. But if you knock out someone’s lights—literally—it becomes a category C felony. The law even outlaws the mere possession of used utility wire unless you can prove you didn’t swipe it from a telephone pole or transformer.

If your heart’s grown heavy with such harsh talk, let me soothe it with a tale of canine kindness. Cindy Lou’s Law (AB 487), named after a little pup who met a tragic fate in a pet store, passed with enough votes to make a dog wag his tail in heaven. It outlaws the sellin’ of dogs and cats in stores, puttin’ an end to the puppy mill racket and codifyin’ what many localities already took into their own hands. Break the law, and you’ll be meetin’ a misdemeanor.

Then there’s Lizzy’s Law (AB 198), born of sorrow but aimed at salvation. After a tragedy involving a runaway inflatable in 2019—one of them bounce castles that seem innocent till the wind gets frisky—lawmakers said enough. Now, every inflatable must be licensed, insured up to a million dollars, monitored for wind speeds, and anchored as if Paul Bunyan swung the hammer.

Local officials may impose further demands, as governments are wont to do. This bill becomes law in 2026, should the governor lend his signature.

Lastly, there’s the tale of a unanimous agreement—a rarity so uncommon it ought to get preserved in a jar. AB 176, the Right to Contraception Act, guarantees Nevadans access to FDA-approved contraceptives and shields the hands that dispense them. It cleared the Assembly like a greased pig at a country fair and now heads to the Senate. A similar effort was vetoed in 2023 by Governor Lombardo, stirrin’ no small amount of ire among folks who prefer choice in their medical matters.

For those unfamiliar with Nevada’s legislative cookpot, here’s the recipe–the bill simmers in committee, is stirred on the Assembly floor, tossed into the Senate’s cauldron for another boil–and–should it survive carried to the governor’s desk. Senate-originated bills take the opposite path, like salmon swimmin’ upstream.

And so, dear reader, Nevada marches on, pullin’ together laws like a quilt in winter—some patchwork for justice, some stitched for growth, and some designed to keep the wind from blowin’ too hard on the commoner.

An outsider in a world with no place for him. No kin, no blood to call his own. His wife was gone, cold in the ground, and his son absent on purpose, leaving him hollow.

Old now, his bones creaked with the weight of years, and he wondered how to slip free of it all.

“How do you die when the heart keeps beating stubbornly against the ribs?” he thought.

A man’s got no people, no reason to stay. He’s just a shell waiting to crack. Suicide was a coward’s game, too quick, too sharp. Starvation gnawed slowly, and it hurt, and he’d had enough of hurt.

So he turned inward, willing the spark to fade, to let the dark take him quiet. For weeks and months, he hunted for a way out.

Something clean, something soft, he told himself, and I’m tired of its company. He found nothing to ease him.

The French had a name for it—l’appel du vide, the call of the void. It was a pull to step off the edge.

The Native Americans spoke of Ghost Sickness, a wasting away when the spirit broke.

“That’s me,” he thought, “broken, wasting.”

But still, no answer came.

Then, on the flickering screen of his phone, a stranger’s words caught him. Sencide.

An old rite, elders stepping aside for the young, for the tribe. A name, he thought, for this ache I carry.

Maybe.

And it steadied him, like a hand on his shoulder. Others felt it, too.

“I ain’t alone in this,” he thought.

The weight lifted, just a hair, but enough. The man woke with a flicker of something—life, maybe—and stepped outside.

The lawn stretched wild, a tangle of neglect. The man gripped the mower, its rumble a pulse in his hands, and cut through the mess.

Sweat stung his eyes, but he kept on, alive in the motion. Neighbors peered from their windows, shadows behind glass, watching him move like he hadn’t in years.

They see me now, he thought, not just a ghost in a house. The mower growled, and he felt the sun sharp on his neck. Then came the roar of a car–wild, tearing down the street.

Tires screamed, the curb buckled, and it leaped toward him. No time to run, no time to think.

It struck, and he was gone, a crumpled heap in the grass. The neighbors stood still, witnesses to the end of a man who’d found a name for his pain, only to lose it in a breath.

From the car poured his son–he had come home after all.

A Money Tree We’d Rather See

In the grand circus of Washington, where fine folks gather to jaw and jostle over the nation’s doings, Representative Mark Amodei, a son of Nevada’s sagebrush and silver, has fixed to plant a Jefferson American Elm on the Capitol’s lower West Terrace, come April 29 at nine in the morning, Eastern Time.

It ain’t no regular sapling, mind you, but a hardy specimen chosen for its knack of thriving in all manner of soils and weathers–much like the stubborn spirit of Nevada itself.

It ain’t the first time Nevada’s tried to root itself in the capital’s sod. In ’83, when Harry Reid was a young congressman with a spring in his step, he sponsored a Jeffrey Pine to stand for the Silver State near the Cannon House Office Building.

Like many a prospector’s dream, the tree has since gone to dust, and the ground lies bare.

The ceremony’ll draw the Nevada delegation, staff, and a passel of special guests, all to watch this elm take root on the south side of the West Front, a grand gesture, to be sure, and we tip our hats to the sentiment.

But if I might speak plain, as is my custom, the good people of Nevada ain’t so much pinin’ for a tree as they are for a permanent tax cut —a relief that’d lighten their burdens more than any shade an elm could offer. Unless this Jefferson Elm’s a peculiar habit of sproutin’ greenbacks from its branches, we’d be mighty obliged to see it grow tall and fast.

So here’s to Amodei’s elm and the hope that Nevada’s voice in Washington remains as sturdy as the tree’s promise. But if the choice is between a sapling and a lighter tax load, we’d take the latter–unless that tree’s fruit is silver and gold.

By a Man Who’s Seen Saints and Sinners Wear the Same Robes

Governor Joe Lombardo, with all due solemnity and not a hint of side-eye, has ordered the flags of the United States and the Great State of Nevada lowered to half-staff in honor of His Holiness Pope Francis, who recently departed this world for the next—presumably the better half.

It comes by way of a proclamation from President Trump, who declared that the flags should hang low in national mourning until the day the Pontiff is laid to rest. The official statement read, “Honoring the Memory of His Holiness Pope Francis.”

Now, it ain’t my place to speak ill of the recently deceased—nor is it my nature to make saints out of men just because they’ve finally stopped talking. Pope Francis was, without question, a man of robes, rings, and remarkably vague pronouncements. He waved kindly, traveled often, and said many things about peace, poverty, and contrary to Catholic beliefs.

Still, the flags fall—not for the man, perhaps, but for the chair he sat in. That’s how these things go. We don’t lower the flag for what a feller did—we lower it for what he represented, even if that was mostly lip service and complicated footnotes.

So let the flags dip, the people nod, and the headlines write themselves. As for me, I’ll stand here, hat in hand, wondering—as always—why we mourn the passing of power more than we mourn the passing of the poor.

Requiescat in pace, Your Holiness.

If it ain’t the finest example of “catching a fish right after it jumps in the net,” Deputies in Crescent Valley, a place most folks couldn’t find with a map, have managed to seize around 4,500 pounds of marijuana, all processed and ready for the kind of business no good citizen would want a part of.

On the 10th of April, as if they were suddenly awake to the scent of something a little too green in the air, the Eureka County Sheriff’s Office and the Eastern Nevada Narcotics Task Force—who I imagine were each sporting an expression somewhere between a hound dog and a law officer—hauled in a sizeable catch. A mountain of marijuana got tucked away in a place where the only thing you’d usually find in excess is dust.

The deputies were alerted by someone or something to the stash, and—well—what are law officers supposed to do when a juicy crime practically presents itself like a pie cooling on a windowsill? They seized the stash quicker than a gambler grabs a good hand of cards.

As for the investigation, they say “ongoing,” as it’s hard to follow the trail when the suspects have long since disappeared—probably already across state lines, waving goodbye and wondering if their next shipment will be bigger than a shipment of gold bars. So, hats off to the Eureka County deputies and the Eastern Nevada Narcotics Task Force for catching this crop before blossoming into something regrettable.

If only they’d catch who is making all this green gold, maybe Nevada could turn this to its advantage, like a good ol’ gold rush—but with less dust and more “morning after” regrets.

But Traffic’s Thinnin’ Out

It appears—though Heaven alone knows how the newspapers still manage to find their way into our outhouses—that Nevada is no longer the booming crossroads of other people’s problems. Only 8.8 percent of the abortions performed in the silver-plated state last year were for folks who’d come from elsewhere, down a whopping 47.4 percent from the year before.

For once, something in America is shrinking that ought to be.

The learned gentry will tell you this is bad news. That people—young women in a state of panic or persuasion—are now “burdened” by restrictions and “forced” to stay home and rethink what they were about to do. To which I say–good. There’s an old saying–“Don’t go lookin’ for a solution that leaves a body in the ground.”

And if there ain’t such a saying, then now there is.

Ever since the Supreme Court finally read the Constitution and realized it didn’t say a blessed thing about abortion—between the commas or otherwise—many states have had the good sense to slam the door on the practice. And, lo and behold–people stopped crossing borders with the same frequency.

Maybe not out of agreement, but out of difficulty—and let’s be honest, virtue sometimes starts by tripping over the apple cart.

Nevada, for her part, still offers abortions like a saloon offers gin—eagerly and without judgment. And groups, like the “Wild West Access Fund,” that’ll pay your way to come and do what should never get done. They say most of their customers are from Utah and Arizona, though Arizona’s traffic thinned out once a judge decided there ought to be a line in the sand at fifteen weeks.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not heartless. I believe a woman should be able to choose a great many things—her hat, her husband, her horse—but not whether a baby lives or dies. That’s not a choice but a tragedy dressed up like freedom and invited to Sunday supper.

Let me put it in plain talk–You don’t kill the calf because the barn door was left open, and you sure as sin don’t kill a child because a nation forgot how to raise them. And if there are laws that help turn young women back toward life—real life, with diapers, noise, and all—then I say God bless the lawmakers, even if they’re mostly lawyers.

So here’s to fewer out-of-state abortions, and here’s to states with enough backbone to say “no more.” Let Nevada keep the gambling, the quick divorces, and the neon prophets.

As for the rest of us, let’s try raising children instead of raising excuses.

Not one to go flingin’ suspicions like a drunkard tossin’ cards at a saloon cat, but when a fellow turns up deceased on the shores of Lake Mead—with no boat, no gear, and no reason for being anywhere near the water—it tends to raise a few eyebrows in any town worth its salt and pepper. And if, by some twist of fate or flat-out foul play, it turns out he’d been introduced rather forcefully to the back end of a mule—or any blunt object equally democratic in its wallop—it might not surprise anybody who’s been watchin’ the papers lately.

Dr. Shawn Frehner, known by trade as a veterinarian and by reputation as something of a controversial horse-whisperer with a boot, was found dead near the Boulder Islands on the 18th of April, his lifeless body lodging in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Identified through dental records–which is a mighty formal way of sayin’ he was in no condition for a family viewing–Frehner had been missing nearly two weeks after vanishing under circumstances that, if not downright sinister, were at the very least odd as a five-legged calf.

The good doctor’s wallet, keys, and telephone—still warm from public scandal—got found abandoned in his truck near Hemmenway Harbor, a place he had no known business with, unless he intended to drown his sorrows or his reputation, both of which were teeterin’ after a viral video showed him kickin’ a horse in the face.

The townfolk of Pahrump remain divided. Some cry cruelty. Others claimed a misunderstanding—an animal doctor under duress, perhaps misjudged in the white-hot glare of internet lightning.

The authorities in Nye County opened an investigation. Meanwhile, the Nevada State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners had already had their dance with Dr. Frehner back in 2016, when he got a year’s suspension for scribblin’ patient notes on the back of napkins and handin’ out prescription drugs like they were after-dinner mints.

And here we are, with a man gone to meet his maker in a manner that invites more questions than a poker player with one eye on the deck. The Park Service, bless their tight-lipped souls, ain’t sayin’ much yet. And the coroner has yet to declare whether Frehner’s fate came by misadventure, malice, or the sort of grim accident that keeps poets and insurance agents up at night.

But I’ll say this–if it turns out this poor soul got walloped by a hoof, a boot, a rock, or a heavy conscience—it would be the kind of irony that would make Shakespeare rise from his grave to spit. Until the dust settles, it’s best to keep one eye on the news and the other on the stables.

After all, horses remember. And so do people.