Finding a Good Society in the Mud of Burning Man

Humans Are Human—And Governments Need to Help Them Achieve Self-Reliance and Avoid Panic in the Face of Disaster

Since leaving Burning Man, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the role that principles play in a society, and what to do when people don’t live up to them.

Burning Man attracts more than 70,000 people each Labor Day weekend to an inhospitable dry lakebed called “the Playa” in northwestern Nevada. Burners marvel at incredible art installations, boogie to electronic dance music, and create and engage in hundreds of different participatory experiences at camps with a staggering variety of themes. These activities range from walking the catwalk after picking …

What Nevada Stole from Its Native People

Senator Pat McCarran’s Vision for the Desert Carried a Tradition of Dispossession Into the Mid-20th Century

Today, tourists from all over the world flock to Nevada to experience selective amnesia. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” the slogan goes. But Las Vegas’ culture of forgetting …

Why Do So Many Nevadans Still Die on the Job?

Decades After 187 Laborers Perished at the Hoover Dam Construction Site, the State’s Safety Rules Are Out of Sync With Modern Workplaces

In the span of 18 months in 2007 and 2008, Nevada was the scene of 12 worker fatalities at casino construction sites. The disasters were not small: A 7,300-pound wall …

Why Nevada Should Get Hitched—to California

The Golden and Silver States Share a Certain Moral Flexibility, and a Big Enemy in Washington

Dearest Nevada,

Marry me.

My proposal may seem sudden, but ours shouldn’t be one of those late-night quickie weddings at a chapel off the Strip.

I, California, want a real grown-up marriage with …

Dear Mom, We’re Broke

A Letter From Las Vegas

We hear so much about presidential candidates-and so little about life in the states that elect them. In “Beyond the Circus,” writers take us off the trail and give us …