The Nevada Legislature, in its infinite wisdom, has set its sights on a grand and noble cause—enshrining a collection of taverns and dance halls as a historical landmark. A resolution, tendered by Democratic lawmakers on Thursday, seeks to recognize the “Fruit Loop” in Las Vegas, a cluster of establishments that cater to the city’s LGBTQ crowd, as a site of great historical import.
Now, there ain’t a soul alive who disputes a man’s—or woman’s, or whatever—right to carouse where they please, but one does begin to wonder if taxpayer monies might get better spent on enterprises less fixated on commemorating the consumption of cocktails. According to the resolution, the area, situated around Paradise Road and University Center Drive, sprouted LGBTQ-friendly businesses in the 1970s and has since been home to such reputable institutions as the Piranha nightclub and QUADZ bar.
Meanwhile, as Nevada’s great minds dedicate themselves to the sanctification of nightlife, the state continues to suffer a mental health crisis that would make a lunatic asylum blush. Hospitals burst at the seams with the afflicted, funding remains as scarce as rain in the desert, and the resources needed to treat the desperate are getting met with the sound of crickets.
There is no hearing date set for this pressing matter, which is to say, even the Legislature has the good sense to delay a foolish endeavor when it sees one. But fear not, for when the day comes, we may all sleep easy knowing rather than tending to the needs of the sick and suffering, Nevada’s lawmakers have seen fit to erect a monument to merrymaking.
There is no word yet on whether the hallowed barstools shall get preserved behind velvet ropes or if the state intends to embalm the cocktail napkins for posterity.
Senators Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen that the Department of Veterans Affairs is engaged in a most peculiar practice—dismissing those individuals charged with caring for the nation’s veterans. The unexpected development has left the senators and the veterans in a state of astonishment not easily put into words suitable for polite company.
Determined to unravel this mystery, the two senators have penned a letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins, demanding an explanation for what inspired the department to thin its ranks. In particular, they wish to know why Nevada has suffered such a noticeable pruning of personnel and whether the affected individuals might be veterans—having traded one uniform for another, only to find that neither offers much security against bureaucratic shears.
“The VA plays a critical role in ensuring that our nation’s veterans receive the care, benefits, and support they have earned through sacrifice,” the senators declared in what can only be an appeal to common sense. “A significant reduction in staff could have serious consequences for both VA operations and our veterans in Nevada.”
Indeed, it requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that when one needs more work done, one might consider retaining rather than discarding those capable of doing it. Whether the VA subscribes to this or believes that medical care, benefits processing, and other essential services should get left to the whims of chance remains to be seen.
The nation’s veterans, no doubt, await an answer with bated breath—though one hopes not for too long, lest their health, too, be left to the efficiencies of modern cost-cutting.
Ever the paragon of forward-thinking, Nevada has generously decided that one solitary crisis call center for the entire state was perhaps not enough. After much deliberation, elbow rubbing, and undoubtedly a good deal of committee meetings where the coffee was plentiful and the solutions were scarce, the Nevada Board of Examiners has greenlit a $49.7 million contract for a second 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline call center in Southern Nevada.
Why, you ask? The first one is positively drowning in calls, and nothing says ‘mental health crisis under control’ like the state scrambling to add another call center two years after launching the program.
According to Rachel Isherwood, who manages the Crisis Response Section, they’re thrilled to support the rising call volume. Now, there’s an interesting choice of words—’thrilled’ about a sharp increase in mental health crises.
That’s like being ‘delighted’ by a three-alarm fire or ‘tickled pink’ about a plague of locusts. But rest assured, this new facility will be part of what officials have deemed the ‘crisis response continuum,’ which, if we may be frank, sounds less like a plan and more like an acknowledgment that the crisis is so vast it needs an entire spectrum of response.
As it stands, Crisis Support Services of Nevada is the lone outfit fielding desperate calls from Nevadans teetering on the brink, valiantly answering more than 3,700 calls a month. One can almost hear the faint hum of a bureaucratic sigh in the statistics.
You see, the state proudly declares that 76 percent of these calls are being answered—meaning, by simple arithmetic, that a quarter of those reaching out in distress are met with the ever-comforting sound of silence or rerouted to a national backup center where a stranger from who-knows-where does their level best to help someone in a place they’ve never been.
But worry not, dear citizen!
The state assures us that 95 percent of calls will get answered within 20 seconds at the upcoming center.
How comforting to know that in just under half a minute, someone in crisis may reach a professional trained to de-escalate them—provided their particular brand of despair adheres to a neat and orderly timeline. And for those whose suffering refuses to be so accommodating–there’s the national center.
And let’s not forget Carelon Behavioral Health, the lucky recipient of this $49 million contract. They’ll be absorbing Crisis Support Services of Nevada into their operation, folding the experience of a battle-hardened crisis center into their national network.
It means that Nevadans will soon benefit from improved technology and ‘multiregional administration,’ which, translated from the language of bureaucratic optimism, likely means more paperwork, more metrics, and more hoops for people in crisis to jump through before receiving help.
As a final flourish, 988 Crisis Counselors will be seated alongside 911 dispatchers in Clark and Washoe counties. Officials promise it will allow for seamless call transfers, ensuring that if a person in crisis has dialed the wrong number in their moment of need, they will get redirected—because nothing soothes a tormented mind quite like being put on hold and handed off like an unwanted casserole at a potluck.
So, there you have it. Nevada is taking bold action, which is to say, the state is hurriedly patching holes in a rapidly sinking ship while pretending it meant to install a swimming pool all along. Thus, the crisis response continuum trudges forward, expanding, never solving, and always promising that the next call will get answered in time.
If any man with a working set of morals ought to expect from his attorney general, it’s that he’ll spend his days making sure that criminals are made uncomfortable, the innocent are kept safe, and that law and order are as sturdy as a brick outhouse. But in Nevada, folks have a peculiar sort of misfortune
.
Instead of a man with a backbone, they’ve got Aaron Ford—a fellow who seems to think his chief responsibility is making certain Chinese nationals have an easier time skirting the law than a greased pig at a county fair.
Ford is handing out “Know Your Rights” guides in Mandarin—giving illegal aliens a handy little playbook on how to avoid deportation.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when an attorney general starts working harder to protect illegal aliens rather than his constituents, it’s time to check if he’s getting his paycheck in yuan. While Nevada families are left to deal with crime, fentanyl, and a border that leaks like a screen door on a submarine, Ford is too busy rolling out the red carpet for folks who have no business being here in the first place.
Of course, this sort of mischief doesn’t come cheap. While your hard-earned tax dollars should be going toward making sure the streets are safe, Ford is using them to put together instruction manuals for people who already broke the law when they set foot in the country.
And to top it off, some of these upstanding “newcomers” have been linked to the Chinese military. But don’t worry–Ford’s making it so they have all the legal resources they need to keep living in Nevada, rubbing elbows with the good citizens who belong here.
Naturally, Ford isn’t satisfied with being the best friend an illegal alien ever had. He’s also trying to stop the federal government from keeping its house in order.
He cheered a court decision that halted the Department of Government Efficiency from searching out wasteful financial dealings, claiming it was about protecting Nevadans. More likely, it’s about making sure the swamp stays murky and that the wrong people keep getting their pamphlets.
Here’s a man who wants to be your governor in 2026. If you’re fond of a state where the law applies to everyone except criminals, where your tax dollars get spent on pamphlets for people who shouldn’t be here, and where the highest lawman in the state is more worried about making Washington bureaucrats comfortable than making Nevada families safe—well, Ford is your man. But if you’d prefer a Nevada where common sense isn’t outlawed and law-abiding citizens don’t take a back seat to foreign interests, it might be time to put Ford where he belongs—out of office and out of excuses.
It was a long road to disappointment for the Fernley Vaqueros as they saddled up for their season opener, only to get sent packing by the Galena Grizzlies in a 21-2 drubbing on Saturday. The loss extends a streak of misfortune that has dogged Fernley since last season, now stretching to an unlucky seven in a row.
Despite the rout, Riley McCullar proved he wasn’t going down without a fight, turning in a perfect 3-for-3 performance at the plate, crossing home once, and swiping two bases in a futile but spirited effort.
With the dust of this contest settling, both squads now look ahead to friendlier confines. The Vaqueros will hope the home turf offers better luck when they host Palo Verde Valley at 10:30 a.m. Thursday. Riding high, the Grizzles will take on Varsity Opponent at 3:00 p.m. that same afternoon.
For now, Galena’s faithful can rest easy knowing their boys gave them what they wanted—a decisive statement to open the season.
Having soared through the regular season with the grace and dominance of a bird of prey, the Spring Mountain Eagles found their wings clipped when they met the Virginia City Muckers in playoff action.
The Muckers, showing no inclination for mercy, steamrolled their way to a decisive 65-35 victory, handing Spring Mountain its most lopsided defeat since the chill of January 2. The Eagles, finishing with a record of 15-7, will have time to reflect on what went wrong as their season ended.
Meanwhile, the Muckers, improving to an impressive 24-3, have now strung together two straight wins and look every bit the team to beat. But for now, both squads find themselves without a future contest on the horizon—one relishing a triumph, the other lamenting a hard fall from grace.
The richest life you can ev’r lead
is always found in moments near.
A morning breeze upon your face,
a laugh that rings so bright and clear.
The sun will set, the stars will rise,
and time will pass like flowing streams.
But if you hold the now within,
you’ll find the gold within your dreams.
If there’s one thing history teaches us, Nevada has never been short on mischief, calamity, and the occasional bit of justice—though not always in that order. From stagecoach robberies and suspicious deaths to prison riots and masked men reclaiming their legend, the past proves that some things never change, except maybe the price of bail.
One hundred fifty-five years ago, Mr. Delevan decided to capture the noble image of a group of Washoe Indians on the Plaza. Fortunately for him, the locals seemed to enjoy the attention and, more importantly, understood that his camera wasn’t some newfangled shooting iron. If only all frontier encounters went so smoothly.
Fifteen years later, in a different part of the state, a man named Gilson found himself in legal trouble for selling liquor to Indians. His defense was a peculiar one—he claimed that, while tending to nature’s call in an outhouse, a group of squaws helped themselves to his basket of spirits. Whether the judge believed him is unclear, but his bail was set at $200, proving that, in those days, being careless with one’s whiskey was nearly as bad as selling it.
One hundred twenty years ago, Dr. Newman, a European eye specialist, arrived in Carson City for a single day, ready to cure poor vision, headaches, and the nervous afflictions of aging. One wonders whether the good doctor could have done anything about the short-sightedness of the state’s politicians, but alas, his talents were limited to spectacles, not miracles.
By sixty years ago, entertainment had replaced scandal for a moment as the Carson City High School concert band prepared for its annual midwinter concert. Director Albert Saliman promised a program of light, bright music, and even drum majorettes—perhaps to distract from the growing troubles elsewhere in the state.
For just forty years ago, Nevada’s prison system was bursting at the seams, strained to the breaking point by sentencing laws and tight parole restrictions. Officials warned that riots—like the one at Indian Springs that weekend—were becoming more common. When you squeeze a system too tight, something is bound to burst.
In 1869, a Wells Fargo & Co. stagecoach robbery had the town in an uproar, even though loot got recovered. Unfortunately for the driver, suspicions lingered that he had been in on the crime. There’s no record of whether he protested his innocence, but history suggests that when a man gets suspected of robbing a stagecoach, he tends to find himself in a hurry to leave town.
By 1884, Nevada had its royal scandal brewing. Princess Sarah Winnemucca, long a vocal critic of the Paiute Indian Agent William Gibson, found herself accused of a rather un-princess-like crime—gambling with and then robbing a Bannock Indian, leaving him beaten and penniless.
Gibson, likely eager for revenge, wired Washington looking for help in arresting her and her accomplices. The feud between the two was far from over, but whether Sarah was guilty or merely framed is a question history will likely never settle.
Meanwhile, in 1904, the town was shocked to hear that Frank Craven had been found dead in a well east of Carson. Witnesses had last seen him in a drunken state, and suspicions of foul play swirled until the coroner declared it was nothing more than death by alcoholism and exposure. Whether that ruling brought any comfort to his widow and son is another matter entirely.
Sixty years ago, Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank McNamee was also in bad shape, though not like Craven, McNamee had a fighting chance. After a brutal beating left him in a coma for a week, he began to show signs of consciousness. His attacker, a 21-year-old named Phillip A. Denning, was sitting in a St. Louis jail, awaiting extradition on charges of attempted murder and robbery.
Meanwhile, justice proved elusive in the case of Elia Joan Williams, accused in the Harvey’s Wagon Wheel bombing. A hopelessly deadlocked jury resulted in a mistrial, and the foreman expressed doubt about trying the case again. Justice, it seemed, had wandered off for a drink.
Three days after the initial reports, the truth behind the 1869 Pine Grove stagecoach robbery was beginning to take shape. A Pine Grove constable had unearthed the stolen money, buried near Wellington’s Station. Whether the driver’s involvement was a case of unlucky proximity remained unclear, but there’s no doubt that if someone accused you of stealing, you’d best have an alibi—or a fast horse.
In 1884, the feud between Sarah Winnemucca and William Gibson continued. While Gibson insisted she was a criminal, her supporters countered that no amount of accusations could tarnish his “honorable record.” It seems unlikely that Sarah agreed with that assessment.
Meanwhile, in 1904, the final word on Frank Craven’s fate came in—no foul play, just the unfortunate effects of drink and a cold night. The coroner’s jury ruled it an accident, but accidents of that nature seemed to happen often.
In recent times, Nevada’s lawmakers were busy debating the need for a constitutional convention. The state’s century-old governing document was full of outdated provisions, and some legislators felt it was time for a fresh start. Whether they succeeded in bringing Nevada into the modern age is debatable, given that politicians are often more interested in arguing about laws than fixing them.
But perhaps the most satisfying news came from Hollywood—or at least from an old cowboy’s heart. After a legal battle, Clayton Moore, better known as the Lone Ranger, finally reclaimed his famous mask. Five years earlier, a court order had forbidden him from wearing it, but justice had prevailed, and with a hearty cry of “Hi-Ho, Silver, away,” he rode into legend.
One cannot help but wonder if Nevada might still need a masked man to set things right.
The Lyon County Board of County Commissioners convened on Thursday, February 20, for one of those meetings that had a little bit of everything—land disputes, heroics, and the always-thrilling procurement of government vehicles.
The most electrifying topic of the day—at least to those with a keen appreciation for power lines—was a request from Arevia Power for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) to construct a 4.7-mile-long, 345-kV generation tie-line linking the Libra Solar project to the Fort Churchill Substation. Now, lest anyone get too excited about this meaning the commissioners had suddenly taken up solar farming as a pastime, officials quickly clarified that their jurisdiction extended only to the gen-tie lines within Lyon County as the actual solar project itself lays in neighboring Mineral County, where it was someone else’s headache.
The permit’s approval wasn’t without disagreement, as these things tend to go. Commissioners Keller, Hendrix, and Cassinelli voted in favor, as Commissioner Hockaday objected, likely because of some deeply held convictions regarding the placement of such lines or perhaps to keep things interesting.
Commissioner Jacobson, meanwhile, was absent and thus spared from any controversy. The permit came with conditions, including roadway paving and drainage improvements along East Walker Road. After all, what is a good government decision without a few strings attached?
Shifting from the mundane to the truly remarkable, Sheriff Brad Pope took the floor to recognize a cadre of local heroes. Dispatch Supervisor Eric Engelman, Dispatchers Elizabeth Waid and Mickenzie Stretch, Sergeant Gabriel Santos, and Deputies Jessie Cornett, Ian Foster, Jessica Frontuto, and Travis Masterson were all honored with the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office “Life Saving Award.”
The fine folks had, on January 11, sprung into action to assist a young woman in the throes of childbirth, bringing two newborns into the world who had, at first, seemed reluctant to join the living. Thanks to their swift and skillful efforts, the infants were given the care they needed to survive, proving once again that some public servants do far more than shuffle papers and approve power lines.
Other business was attended to, as it must be in such gatherings. The commissioners approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Lyon County School District, providing an additional $25,000 to place another School Resource Officer in Fernley for the remainder of the academic year, presumably in response to either an increase in rowdiness or a newfound enthusiasm for the protection of scholars. They also saw fit to dedicate the Fernley Senior Center to the late Commissioner LeRoy Goodman and authorize $2,000 for a commemorative plaque, ensuring his memory.
And, of course, no county meeting would be complete without a discussion of government vehicles. The commissioners approved the purchase of seven new cars for the Sheriff’s Office at $475,000, a tidy expenditure from the General Fund contingency.
While there was no word on whether these vehicles would come equipped with any particularly thrilling features, one imagines they will be the sort allowing deputies to continue doing what they do best—keeping the peace and delivering babies in their spare time.
The safest method for igniting a romantic blaze is the old-fashioned way—eye contact across a crowded room, a well-timed jest, or, at the very least, the steady hand of a matchstick, known to the uncharred as a Lucifer. But in our modern age, where love comes at the tip of a finger rather than the twinkle of an eye, one poor soul after another has been drawn like moths to a digital inferno, and none more tragically than the gentlemen who swiped their way into the clutches of one Miss Aurora Phelps.
Miss Phelps, a resident of both Las Vegas and Guadalajara, Mexico, is accused by federal authorities of operating what the sober-minded lawmen call a “romance scam on steroids.” In terms more plainly put, the lady in question did not content herself with pilfering hearts but instead made off with bank accounts, brokerage funds, automobiles, and, most distressingly, lives.
Her alleged exploits, stretching from the neon-lit dens of Las Vegas to the shaded alleys of Mexico City, have left behind a trail of empty wallets and cold bodies, with at least one of her admirers departing this world in an ill-fated wheelchair excursion across the border. The Justice Department, which has taken a rather dim view of her activities, has laid out a 21-count indictment, listing such unladylike offenses as wire fraud, identity theft, and kidnapping resulting in death.
The FBI, ever diligent in affairs of deceit, states that Miss Phelps primarily preyed upon the elderly but was not above hoodwinking younger victims nor even members of her sex. With the aid of prescription sedatives—one must suppose she lacked the patience for sweet words alone—she relieved her suitors of their worldly possessions as they slumbered, then set about converting their hard-earned savings into gold, luxury goods, and, in one instance, a failed attempt at plundering Social Security and retirement accounts.
Authorities believe her schemes drained the fortunes of her victims by the hundreds of thousands, with an attempted heist reaching into the millions. And while a great many men have awakened from her enchantment to find their purses lighter, some have not awakened at all. Three souls have been lost in connection with her exploits, though she faces charges for but one of the deaths.
Presently, Miss Phelps is enjoying the hospitality of the Mexican authorities as she awaits extradition to the United States, where a cell and a lengthy judicial inquisition no doubt await. Should she be convicted on all counts, her romantic pursuits will henceforth be limited to the confines of a federal penitentiary.
As for those still seeking companionship in the treacherous waters of the Internet, the FBI offers this sage counsel–be cautious, ask questions, and attempt—however possible—to verify the true nature of the affections bestowed upon you. Or, failing that, one might consider taking up a good book, a steady dog, or, in times of true desperation, a well-worn deck of playing cards. These, at least, will take your money honestly.
The Old Blog in the Desert 