Feature

One Nation, Under Fire

The Sonoran Desert homeland of the Tohono O’odham Nation has become a nerve-wracking police state, caught in the crossfire between drug and immigrant smugglers and the U.S. Border Patrol.

Editor's Note

Border Patrol Whack-a-Mole

The United States needs genuine immigration reform instead of the politically motivated shouting match that has taken the place of reasonable debate.

Dear Friends

Dear friends

Visitors; HCN in Title Nine catalog; clarification, corrections

Two Weeks in the West

Two weeks in the West

Forest Service faces budget cuts; Rural Schools Act dies; local governments may have to pay more firefighting costs; user fees upheld; grazing fees go down; Klamath dams may fall; livestock killed by wolves, and wolves killed; and UFOs in the West.

Uncommon Westerners

New Mexico’s water rebel

Albuquerque water developer Bill Turner, a board member of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, is often described as the bane of the district as well.

News

The end of ‘analysis paralysis’?

The Forest Service has overhauled its cumbersome forest-planning process, but many experts say the agency may have gone too far.

Sans petrol

Willits, Calif., is one of a growing number of communities trying to prepare for a post-oil world by becoming economically and agriculturally sustainable.

Powered by pond scum

Colorado inventor Jim Sears is among those researchers fascinated by the possibility that algae farms in the Southwest could provide a source of biodiesel.

Book Reviews

Ode to a public lands experiment

It may have lovely photographs, but Valles Caldera: A Vision for New Mexico’s National Reserve is much more than just another coffee-table book.

A quest for the world’s finest pinot noir

Brian Doyle’s new book, The Grail, lives up to its lively subtitle as it describes “a year ambling and shambling through an Oregon vineyard in pursuit of the best pinot noir in the whole wild world.”

Essays

The Land of the Dry

A Westerner makes the disconcerting discovery that as we age, the high, dry West we love isn't so good for our moisture-loving bodies, and the only cure is a trip to the beach.

Heard Around the West

Heard around the West

Remembering Molly Ivins; cactuses beat caucuses in Utah; picking up butts on the California coast; rats in the toilet; deer hunting on the fairway.

Letters

Even Sacajawea had to wash her socks sometimes

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