In a twist to notions of race identity, new 2010 census figures show an unexpected reason behind a renewed growth in the U.S. white population: more Hispanics listing themselves as white in the once-a-decade government count.

In the 1940s and ’50s, a hysteria snowballed across the U.S., leaving in its wake the powdery ashes of burned books. Which books? Comic books. Not just bloody crime and horror books, but also the Batman tales (deemed “homoerotic”) or the scantily clad Wonder Woman.

While Las Vegas continues to mourn the closing of the Valley’s only art museum more than two years ago, the Barrick Museum forges ahead with an art focus, asserting with each exhibit and awareness campaign that it will not falter.

Las Vegas continues to struggle with how to climb out of the current economic crisis. The numbers are overwhelming and all too familiar. The highest foreclosure rate, lowest graduation rate, tops in unemployment and a struggle with diversification.

Cash dries up? Culture could follow.

These days, a blank white wall in a gallery is enough to make anyone in the community salivate over its possibilities. UNLV’s Barrick Museum happens to have such a wall. In a vein similar to its community chalkboard (where visitors voice off about budget cuts and exhibits), the blank wall is home to ideas on its future exhibits.

Yes, things are bad — really bad — out there. But, if Las Vegas follows the long road home, it will come out on top this time, too.

Could the West be going south (colloquially speaking)? Depends on the lens through which you glimpse it — culturally, physically, spiritually — and how you define the heartbeat of the American West.

We have myriad problems facing our community today, but none greater than economic development.