WASHINGTON "Seattle's nice," says photographer Regina Johnson, "but it isn't Paradise." Courtesy Regina Johnson.

UTAH AND WYOMING

Could Second Amendment defenders have gone too far, even in this gun-loving region? If two calmly reasoned editorials in Utah and Wyoming's major daily newspapers are right, you'd have to say, yep, looks like it. Editorializing last month, the Salt Lake Tribune took the Utah Sheriffs' Association to task for its "rant" accusing President Obama's administration of planning to seize people's guns, even as the group questioned the legitimacy of any federal limits on gun ownership. The paper remarked that the group's dire predictions were overblown, but that in any case, the Article VI, Clause 2, of the U.S. the Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, makes federal law supreme over state law, including state law officers. The paper concluded that "the threat of the Sheriffs' Association and one hot-headed legislator to arrest federal officers attempting to enforce any new restrictions on gun ownership -- after they have passed both houses of Congress -- is nothing but grandstanding." In Wyoming, a Star-Tribune editorial Feb. 3, titled "Gun gluttony stopped," congratulated the state's House of Representatives for shooting down a flurry of gun initiatives, one of which would have allowed guns to be brought into any government meeting. This was an unfortunate idea, the editors noted dryly, because "high emotions and well-armed citizens don't always mix well." Unless the citizens in question feel the need to storm the county commission, they added, why bring a gun to talk with elected officials? Only if your purpose is intimidation, the editors said. No government should "bend to the whims of whoever is most heavily armed."

IDAHO

Meanwhile, in Idaho, guns of all kinds have been allowed at the Capitol since 2008, when the state Legislature gained exclusive power to regulate guns in Idaho. However, a video taken Jan. 10 shocked lawmakers when it revealed a man with a handgun following Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts around as they toured the Legislature. The man was seen rifling through trashcans, photographing representatives' desks and going through any papers lying on top, reports the Idaho Statesman. When an unarmed guard confronted him, he said, "If I'm not being arrested or detained, I don't have to answer your questions." He was later identified as Bryan Carter of Meridian. "It broke my heart that I caused the Legislators a concern," Carter told the paper. Since Legislators saw the video, they've been talking about how to beef up security. At this point, certain things are banned at the Legislature including the following threats: men wearing hats, food, drinks, signs, sitting on rails, cell phones and distracting noises. "Bags are subject to search, but there is no firearm ban."

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

CALIFORNIA

It read like one of the sweetest wildlife stories ever -- the tale of an orphaned bobcat that was too darned nice. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the affectionate bobcat kitten -- known as Chips -- was found in the burning Plumas National Forest, a surprising survivor at only a few weeks old. Soon Chips had adapted to humans so completely that biologists doubted that she could survive in the wild. So volunteers at the Sierra Wildlife Rescue in Placerville have begun squirting her with water whenever she cuddles up to a human; the couch is now verboten for naps; and Chips must chase down her own mice and rabbits or go hungry. The hope is that all this tough love toughens up Chips, though the fact that she's alive at all bodes well for the bobcat. "How it survived with the fire passing through is miraculous," said Forest Service spokesman John Heil.

ARIZONA

Talk about an ick factor! Northern Arizona's Snowbowl ski resort recently fired up its guns to spray some fake snow, and to the horror of all concerned, "the snow that blasted onto the mountain was yellow," reports The New York Times. But the snow was not yellow because it is the first in the world to be made completely from sewage effluent. No, the problem was caused by "rusty residue" in the snowmaking equipment that carries wastewater from Flagstaff, at least according to the resort. Skiers tried out the artificial snow, and although at least one found the yellow surface "disgusting," he said he was also confident that it would discourage him from making any face-plants. For years, tribes that regard the area as sacred and other critics have fought the resort's continuing development and sued to prevent the use of treated sewage for snowmaking. Now, they said, the Forest Service and state needed to do some investigating and find out exactly what had turned the snow yellow.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

Utah "Remember," says photographer Greg Woodall, "when enviros and liberals were the ones who were 'anti-this and anti-that'?" Courtesy Greg Woodall.

UTAH

What's in a name? If the name is Dixie State College, based in St. George, Utah, it's nothing to sneeze at. Recently, as the college began moving closer to becoming a university, locals saw this as the perfect opportunity to sever any connection to the South's history of slavery and racism. Defenders countered that the name most likely derived from pioneer attempts to grow cotton in southwest Utah. Besides, they say, hundreds of local businesses pride themselves on the so-called "Dixie Spirit" of friendliness. Perhaps the name has good intentions, but as the daily Spectrum pointed out, the history of the college also includes hosting mock slave auctions, flying Confederate flags and erecting a statue honoring Confederate soldiers. Spectrum columnist Sally Musemeche talked to lots of people about the issue, and many were baffled and saddened that anyone would be offended by such things, or by a sports team named "The Dixie Rebels." "Only the over-sensitive" could possibly read racism into this, they said; Dixie really means "the spirit of independence." If that's true, Musemeche suggested, then the college ought to start celebrating the state's own civil war -- an armed confrontation between the Mormon settlers in the Utah territory and the armed forces of the U.S. government, which lasted from May 1857 until July 1858: "Go, Dixie!"

THE WEST

Speaking of names, how about the high school in Tonopah, Nev., that calls its basketball team the "Fighting Muckers"? Or Orofino, Idaho, with its team dubbed the "Maniacs"? As reader Wes Perrin discovered, unusual names for high school teams are a Western staple, with Phantoms, Blue Devils and Sun Devils standing out from all those Huskies and Eagles. But we believe the most unusual name can be found in Yuma, Ariz., where basketball players don warm-up suits in black-and-white stripes because their team is called the "Criminals." Students buy merchandise from a store called the Cell Block, reports the San Francisco Examiner, and the team mascot wears a burlap prison uniform and a plaster-of-Paris head with a scary, scrunched-up face that resembles somebody's notion of a perpetrator. The odd name was born 103 years ago, when Yuma's high school burned down, and the only available site for classes was a former territorial prison. Students used the old cells for several years, but the Criminals name was officially adopted in 1913, after a rival team from Phoenix claimed that Yuma cheated and "stole a victory." The team decided to treat the slur as a badge of honor, and in 1917, the school board officially approved the distinctive moniker. Perrin notes that for several years, the Criminals -- cheered on with a hearty, "Go, Crims!" -- faced a rival in the felon department: Bagdad, Ariz., fielded the "Thieves" until 1958, when the team's name was changed to the less interesting "Sultans."

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

COLORADO

Believe me, we're as sick as you are of reading about Boulder, Colo., on this page. But, still, it might make a good reality show location, except that most viewers would doubt the reality of even a reality show set here. In early January, for instance, according to the Daily Camera, a man entered the Dandelion medical marijuana dispensary, sprayed employees with bear spray -- sending one to the hospital -- and got away with $9,000 worth of marijuana. The bear-spray pot robber is still at large. No news yet on whether the National Pepper Spray Association will suggest that if everyone were armed with bear spray, such incidents would be avoided.

That news was crowded out of early January's Boulder crime annals by the mysterious case of the Mapleton elk. The 700-pound bull with its huge rack was a regular in the upscale-even-for-Boulder downtown neighborhood, and reports conflict over whether he behaved aggressively or not, though he did allegedly once corner a mailman on a resident's porch for some time. Then he was killed, right in town, by a gunshot, and hauled away. Boulder police initially denied any involvement, before finally confessing that an officer had shot the elk for still undisclosed reasons, perhaps involving some kind of injury. Another officer hauled the animal away for the meat. All kinds of protocol was violated in the process, and the officers were put on leave. Meanwhile, hundreds of emotional Boulderites gathered for a candlelight vigil, and one resident took out a full-page ad in the Camera asking, tragically, "Why?"  The elk got his own Twitter account, posthumously, and tweeted a haunting cry from the grave: "Find me justice. I was just an elk who enjoyed the Mapleton Hill neighborhood." In all the excitement, reports of coyotes harassing humans -- even biting a runner -- on the east side of town were barely noticed.

TIDBITS FROM ALL OVER

Drug smugglers used a pneumatic cannon to shoot cans of marijuana over the border fence near San Luis, Ariz. While sledding near Evanston, Wyo., a group of children slid across the corpse of a homeless man, who turned out to be an heir to the considerable fortune of a Montana copper baron. Navajo tacos finally made their debut in Philadelphia, along with mutton stew and sweet frybread, at a "pop-up" restaurant called Shiprock. A group of Mormon women in Utah and across the world wore pants to church.

This edition of Heard around the West was guest-edited by Jonathan Thompson.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

CALIFORNIA: It seemed like a good idea at thetime. Courtesy U.S. Customs and Border Protection

CALIFORNIA

"Out here, people don't like signs." So said Sheriff's Deputy Rob McDaniels to the Point Reyes Light in December, after apprehending "Sensitive Sean" for stealing more than 20 no-parking signs. This small community on the Northern California coast –– let's just call it "Anonymous," since the locals have asked us not to reveal its name –– boasts hobbit-esque wood homes snuggled in lush foliage within earshot of the Pacific's waves. Its residents tend to be aging hippies, who've been here since real estate was cheap, along with a handful of millionaires escaping the urban frenzy and a few youngsters trying to recapture the countercultural vibe that once made the town famous, though now it's likely to cost $1 million or more to buy into it. The town has a proud reputation for vanishing signs: Whenever a highway placard is installed, it almost immediately disappears, stolen by reclusive locals. (Which is, incidentally, why High Country News decided not to print its name; we couldn't face having that many copies of our paper stolen.) It almost seems as if stealing signs has nudged its way into the town's DNA. It's not just highway or no parking signs: A few years back, someone absconded with 90 parking barricades. They've never been found.

THE OILFIELDS

Given the fact that oil rigs are popping up like weeds across the West, particularly in North Dakota, it was probably inevitable that the roughneck lifestyle would seep into popular culture. And so it is that CrashHat Entertainment is seeking "a group of women who socialize together while their husbands are away in the oilfields" to star in a TV reality show. The prospective show seems tailor-made for drillingahead.com's Web forum: Real Housewives of the Oilfield, where spouses of roughnecks swap advice. Or maybe not. Given the forum members' response to the casting call, the folks at CrashHat should just forget this housewife stuff and try putting together a reality show featuring roughneck women in the oilfield. "Another stupid reality show," wrote one such woman. "They don't want me, since I'm an oilfield worker." Another woman who works on the rigs said she doesn't have time for a reality show, between toiling in the oilfields and raising her kids, 500 miles away, while on rotation. "Oil and gas is our life," she says, one her father and brothers shared. "I understand this life, as I was raised in it. My new boilermaker husband doesn't understand."

This edition of Heard around the West was guest-edited by Jonathan Thompson.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

NEW MEXICO

Coyotes roam freely throughout New Mexico, but finding a family of five hanging out in an Albuquerque churchyard surprised Ruth Wilson, who lives across the street and enjoys watching them. The church is in a busy part of town and so whenever police or ambulance sirens sound off -- which they do several times a week -- the coyotes howl along, much to the delight of Wilson's two young children. The coyotes seem quite at home near the church, and some Sundays they even harmonize with the choir. "They sing together, play together, and -- in their own way -- pray together."

THE NATION

Do chickens need chandeliers and a library? Neiman Marcus thinks so, or maybe the store just wanted to bulk up its Versailles-inspired Beau Coop Heritage Hen Mini Farm -- a bargain for up to 10 birds at $100,000.

WYOMING

A "mean, grumpy, upset, excited" bull that didn't want to be put on the auction block escaped from a livestock sale in Worland, Wyo. Unfortunately, its race to freedom ended after a two-mile run, when the bull walked through the open door of a home and downstairs into the basement, reports The Associated Press. "Police and auction workers were on his tail but couldn't get him out," adds the Northern Wyoming Daily News. It took a tranquilizer dart to calm the 1,400-pound animal, which "left behind quite a bit of damage," meaning it probably wasn't the only "mean, grumpy, upset, excited" mammal on the premises.

MONTANA

The moral of this story is: Don't take a nap in a cornfield. A man did so recently in Billings, Mont., and got run over by a combine, which "sucked him into the cutter," reports the Billings Gazette. Amazingly, the 57-year-old, who was just passing through town, survived after the farmer disconnected the auger and manually turned the blades away from the man, who suffered deep lacerations. "For this situation, the man is incredibly lucky to be alive," said Yellowstone County Sheriff Lt. Kent O'Donnell. "And that's about all you can say about that."

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

ARIZONA Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clactus. Courtesy Greg Woodall

CALIFORNIA

There’s no doubt about it, says Connie Jenkins: A deer suddenly assaulted her small Honda while she was driving along a winding canyon to her home high above Malibu. Yet the suggestion in a letter from an expeditor for Farmers Insurance that she seek damages from the “third party” — which in this case would be the deer — seemed more trouble than it was worth. She paid the deductible herself, she reports, because “I’m pretty sure that doe has no dough.”

ARIZONA

We all know that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a fierce Republican, felt no qualms about angrily shaking her finger at President Obama when the two met at an airport during the presidential campaign. So it was not surprising that she recently got really assertive with reporter Dennis Welch. Brewer was waiting to speak about energy to the Western Governors’ Association when Welch popped the question: Where does she stand on the issue of global warming? Her answer, peppered with “you knows,” went this way: “Everybody has an opinion on it, you know, and I, you know, probably don’t believe that it’s manmade. I believe that, you know, that weather elements are controlled by different things.” After her convoluted answer, the governor walked away but then returned to “hit Welch with a closed fist, demanding: ‘Where in the hell’d that come from?’ ” Videos of the encounter, posted on the website of KTVK-TV, where Welch works, swiftly went viral, reports the Arizona Republic. Matthew Benson, an aide to Brewer, downplayed the incident: “The reporter himself is saying he didn’t think it was malicious and the governor did not mean any harm.”

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

UTAH

Perhaps you saw the Portlandia episode where an animal-loving couple, upset about a dog tied up outside a chi-chi restaurant, searches for its owner, tries to feed it upscale goodies like mussels, then finally releases the dog, much to the owners' dismay. That's sort of what happened in Salt Lake City, Utah, not long ago. Sort of. The Deseret News reports that Steve Wescott, from Washington, was walking cross-country with his goat, LeeRoy Brown, when he stopped at a bar in Salt Lake City to get dinner. He tied LeeRoy up outside because, presumably, goats aren't served at that establishment. When a concerned citizen called animal control officers, they hauled LeeRoy away. Wescott tried to avert the animal's arrest, but ultimately had to pay $50 to bail out his buddy. Maybe the officers had a premonition about the dangers of goats: Just a month later in Cache County, Utah, a goat, aptly named Voldemort, attacked a paperboy, head-butting him off his bike and chasing him up a tree, where he stayed for so long his parents reported him missing. According to various reports, Voldemort is a fainting goat -- a breed whose muscles freeze up for 10 seconds when it panics -- but that peculiar trait didn't prevent him from waging his one-goat campaign against invading paperboys.

COLORADO

It's hard not to say, "I told you so." When the state of Colorado deemed it legal to carry a concealed weapon on a college campus, University of Colorado officials had doubts about the idea. CU students -- usually under the influence of alcohol or other substances -- have been known to do some wild things, including: beating a raccoon to death with a machete, baseball bat and hockey stick; rioting for no apparent reason; and attacking fellow fraternity members from a motor scooter with bear spray. (That backfired; the spray blew back at them and caused them to crash.) Adding guns seems unnecessary, especially given the students' demonstrated ingenuity in finding other objects to gratify violent urges. When the courts overturned CU's gun ban, however, it had to let profs and students carry firearms, even in class. That, um, also backfired in November, when a college staffer accidentally shot a colleague while showing off her small, permitted .22 Magnum. The injury was minor, and the victim is reportedly fine. But the incident did reignite the debate over allowing concealed weapons on campus.

This edition of Heard around the West was guest-edited by Jonathan Thompson.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

Idaho: No return policy on this one ... For good reason. Courtesy Ron Spiewak

COLORADO

Should you bump into Interior Secretary Ken Salazar anytime soon, you might ask him about his future plans, his family's well-being, or even his hat. (How does he decide whether to wear black or white?) But whatever you do, don't mention wild horses. Colorado Springs Gazette reporter and High Country News contributor Dave Philipps found this out when he brought up Bureau of Land Management wild horse policy at an election day rally. After the informal interview, Salazar turned to Philipps and accused him of setting him up: "You do that to me again, and I'll punch you out, OK?" A wild horse advocacy group immediately sent out an alert, and the news went viral, to many a conservative blogger's heartfelt glee. Salazar apologized to Philipps by phone and offered him a formal interview, which is all Philipps wanted in the first place. For the record, Salazar -- who is typically mild-mannered to a fault -- was wearing his white hat on the day he made the threat.

AMERICA

If you want to flush the crazies out of the woodwork, just hold an election. A woman in Gilbert, Ariz., ran over her husband with a car, leaving him in critical condition, because she believed his failure to vote caused Romney's loss. In a case of 2008 déjà vu, gun sales again went bonkers as soon as Obama was re-elected, "with weapons retailers reporting AK-47s flying off shelves 'like hotcakes,' " reports The Telegraph. A Montana state legislator demanded he be paid in gold and silver, saying he believes Obama's re-election will cause a currency collapse. And citizens of all 50 states filed petitions to secede from the Union.

Given all this, can it be a coincidence about the Ding-Dongs? The other Ding-Dongs, that is -- the ones made by Hostess, which announced it would shut down just days after the election. Such news would be tragic at any time, but it caused extra anxiety in Colorado and Washington, where voters had just chosen to legalize marijuana. Foreseeing an epidemic of the munchies, entrepreneurs hungrily stockpiled Twinkies, planning to sell them at a steep profit later, perhaps on eBay. But now it appears that another company -- Pabst Brewing, for example -- will likely buy Hostess, including the Twinkies brand,  and continue to make the creme-filled cakes.

This edition of Heard around the West was guest-edited by Jonathan Thompson.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

THE NATION

Forget denouncing wind turbines as bird Cuisinarts; lovable pussycats rank as the true killing machines. Housecats wipe out some 4 billion animals every year, including at least 500 million birds, reports Wyoming Wildlife. The magazine cites a novel new study by two groups, the National Geographic Society and the University of Georgia, that determined just how fierce cats' hunting instincts are by employing the animals themselves as reporters. The cats were outfitted with "crittercams" -- special video cameras around their necks. When the animals went outdoors to prowl, the camera recorded each gory encounter. The cats averaged about 2.1 kills per week, but they brought home less than one of every four of their victims for their owners to see and/or throw out. Cats preyed on just about anything close to the ground that moved, including lizards, voles, chipmunks, birds, frogs and small snakes.

The crittercam study did not include feral cats, which have their own support systems these days -- advocates who persuade their communities that trapping, sterilizing and then releasing the cats is a good idea. In theory, writes Kiera Butler in Mother Jones, it sounds like a terrific way to reduce the population of starving stray cats. In practice, it costs roughly $100 per kitty and "to put a dent in the total number of cats, at least 71 percent of them must be fixed, and they are notoriously hard to catch." Butler thinks a better strategy is for owners to keep their pets indoors and that soft-hearted animal-lovers need to just "quit feeding the ferals." Yet at least 10 major cities, including San Francisco, have adopted the approach, even though the effort is not only arduous but might also turn out to be never-ending -- unless owners start neutering their own cats, or somebody invents a cat food laced with a failsafe contraceptive.

And feral cat colonies are not a minor phenomenon. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports an estimated 450 colonies in southern Nevada, including about 100 in Las Vegas. To tackle the city's problem, nonprofit animal-welfare groups recently won the right to feed and care for feral cats without getting in trouble with Las Vegas animal control staff. Volunteer Keith Williams said his group's first goal is "to get every cat spayed and neutered -- get them completely out of the kitten business." Williams, a retired Nevada Test Site worker, adds confidently, "As time goes by, the numbers (will) drop. It just works."

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.