Wednesday, 4/16/25: Friday morning my wife and I will head out on Highway 15 for a 4 hour drive northeast through the Mojave Desert (forecast: calm and mild) en route to Las Vegas.
When we arrive we will walk around the streets and through casinos to watch people gamble, some casting their hopes towards a mystical power, praying that it sends them money, refusing to accept that all power is in the house, and the mysticism is math.
We'll see a show at the Sphere on Saturday.
I'll write about these things, and the news too if there's anything interesting. News is interesting when it has not outlived its shelf life, as the subject of tariffs has. On Friday morning if NPR news starts with the word "tariff" I will barely listen. News cycles often feature at least one striking event- striking in the sense that it impacts huge numbers of people- whether it's a president switching sides in the middle of a war, or the replacing of a world order with uncertainty- whatever the story, it will have a shelf life (unless you're part of the story and it becomes real, as happened to us when the Palisades fire burned down our daughter's house). Ukraine vs Russia? What's the shelf life? My grandfather fled Ukraine at the age of 10 after his father was killed in a pogrom. Should that be somewhere in the story to freshen it up?
If there's no new news to take our minds off the Mojave during the drive, I'll look out the window at the undulating flatness with its infinite life and consciousness and try to connect, until we arrive at the always interesting human rebellion of Las Vegas. Whatever it is, valued reader, you'll read it here first!
