“All your base are belong to us.” The old dawn-of-the Web refrain has been echoing in my head ever since I first heard John McCain talking about how Sarah Palin had excited “the base.” If John McCain had a base and Sarah Palin had excited it, could Democrats hope to claim it on election day? As recently as a month ago, I seriously wondered if it could really happen. Back then, it seemed inconceivable that Nevada—much less any of the other “tossup” states—could turn blue. I read a newspaper editorial that floated the notion. Impossible, I thought at the time. ... (more...)

It probably isn't what pops into most people's minds when they think about Las Vegas, but I find this city an endlessly inspiring and motivating place to write. Maybe it's the ebullient creativity of the place in general, or maybe it's because there are endless quantities of untold stories. One feeling I get regularly is that it's like Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles, a city that's just emerging from a rowdy adolescence into an adulthood it has yet to define. Like the unpaved Mulholland Drive of Chandler's day, there are dirt roads here that will soon be asphalt thoroughfares. There are corrupt government officials who were invincible old boys and girls when the town was little more than an extended ... (more...)