Feature

Prophets and politics

The Mormon Church works to ban gay marriage in California, even as gay people in places like Rexburg, Idaho, come out of the LDS closet.

The coming quake

Scientists are studying the southern San Andreas Fault to help Southern California prepare for future earthquakes.

Dear Friends

Dear friends

Writer and professor David Gessner is among HCN’s recent interesting visitors; Paonia hosts chefs-in-training.

News

Power to the first people

Mobilizing the Native vote in the West represents a unique challenge because many tribe members are disengaged from the political process, but this year they could make a difference.

Liquid assets

California is enthusiastic about creating “water banks” to help the state’s cities weather future droughts.

Book Reviews

Tales from the heartwood

Working the Woods, Working the Sea gathers fiction, nonfiction and poetry on the relationship between labor and nature in the Pacific Northwest.

Living with trees

In Between Earth and Sky, Nadlini Nadkarni ponders the ways in which trees sustain human beings.

Essays

Religion, politics and culture

When religion tries to dominate culture and politics, it hurts all three, as seen in the battle over the rights of gay Americans.

Midnight in Montana

Dorothee Kocks tingles with joy after a night spent listening to a live jazz sextet in a northwestern Montana mining town.

Letters

The great barbecue, revisited

Out stealing water

An eye on the agencies

Who's left behind?

Future carnage

Watery shell game

West Watch

Why we all need the Democrats to abandon gun control

Hal Herring believes that Democrats should give up on gun control –– in order to win in the West and because it’s the right thing to do.

Two Weeks in the West

Scrimpfest in the West

As much of the West reels economically, Wyoming and a few states thrive on energy; urban bears live fast and die young.