Feature

Brave New Hay

Monsanto’s genetically modified Roundup Ready alfalfa may take over the West, as the company re-engineers the world to conform to its business plan

Editor's Note

Cow feed from Planet 9

Genetically modified crops may not be the sci-fi monsters their foes believe, but it makes sense for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to begin to regulate them seriously

Dear Friends

Dear friends

New HCN employees Shaun Gibson, Andrea Lecos and Angie Riley; a bee-youtiful verse; corrections

Uncommon Westerners

John Nichols and his 19th miracle

Writer John Nichols is still fighting the good fight in Taos, N.M.

News

Native hum

As honeybees vanish, Western farmers turn to the region’s native pollinators

UnGuarded

The National Guard is suffering at home as equipment – and troops – go off to Iraq

Tribal victory

In Washington state, the Yakama Tribe purchases its traditional fishing grounds at Lyle Point on the Columbia River

Book Reviews

Impressions of Pueblo prehistory

Craig Childs’ new book House of Rain is less an in-depth look at Southwestern archaeology than one person’s attempt to appreciate a part of the world

Western open space: Land of intrinsic worth

In the anthology Home Land: Ranching and a West That Works, a wide variety of authors argue that ranching is much more than an outmoded “lifestyle.”

Essays

Epiphanies on the range

As teacher Phil Brick travels the West with 21 of his students, he encourages them to ask difficult questions about environmental issues

Piscatorial theology

For Irle White’s father, fly-fishing was the one true religion

Heard Around the West

Heard Around the West

“Bow Wow Vows”; commingling with trains; nothing to laugh about at the Fish and Wildlife Service; Proctor & Gamble beats the devil; Dobie Clean-Up; an “A” for chutzpah

Letters

But where would Mariah Carey ski?

The ideology of the cancer cell

Global warming fact-check

Send buses, trains and cable cars

Two Weeks in the West

Two weeks in the West

Western states get serious about global warming; Colorado stands up to energy industry; environmental “terrorists” sentenced; “Kids in the Woods”; McMansions & mobile homes; eco-chic ain’t cheap