I am a regular subscriber and practical environmentalist. I am also a practicing, if not entirely orthodox, Mormon. HCN seems to miss few opportunities to rant on my fellow Mormons, as if we were somehow a monolithic group of ultra-conservative Tea Party real estate developers. This is not the case. Were you to substitute “Jew” […]
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Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
Forget the ultralights
In your recent essay “Still Cranish After All These Years,” the caption under the photo on page 15 reads “Sandhill crane in flight over Nebraska’s South Platte River,” but by the time the South Platte reaches crane habitat in Nebraska, it has been joined by the North Platte and has become the Platte (HCN, 9/13/10). […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
No spike too small
In the article “The Second Second City,” Jeremy N. Smith states that William Ogden, Chicago’s first mayor, was president of the Union Pacific and that he hammered in the Golden Spike (HCN, 9/13/10). William Ogden was the first president of the Union Pacific, but he was not president in 1869 when the Golden Spike was […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
Even in Wyoming
I first met Tom Bell over 40 years ago. He remains one of the most courageous men I’ve ever known and something of a hero to me (HCN, 8/30/10). Here is Wyoming, a state where the leading radio station daily broadcasts hours of Rush Limbaugh’s bombast to eager listeners. Here is a state that can field a viable […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
Give-’em-hell Bell
With his courage and fierce determination to save Western lands and wildlife, HCN founder and guiding muse Tom Bell is a true prophet (HCN, 8/30/10). A conservationist in the mold of Thoreau, Muir and Leopold, Bell deserves our respect and esteem for his noble fight against avaricious mining and ranching interests hell-bent on pursuing profit at […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
A Bell-wether for the young
In 1963, I was a youngster in a grade school science class, when an instructor demonstrated that fish required oxygen through an experiment that diminished the O2 content of a fishbowl till the goldfish passed out. The instructor noted the efficacy of the experiment but said that he worried about the state of the fish […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
Computer model slices and dices mountain climates
BLUE RIVER, OREGON On the face of a wind-swept cliff … At the bottom of a frost-prone hollow … Beneath the canopy of an old-growth tree … Oregon State University climatologist Chris Daly and his team have positioned their instruments in some oddball places here in central Oregon’s H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest. “The World Meteorological […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
Dancing with Climate Change
Alpine species try to adapt to a warming world
Posted inHeard Around the West
Tough job, but someone’s gotta do it
UTAH Baptizing stand-ins for dead people doesn’t seem like a hazardous activity, but Daniel Dastrup of Las Vegas recently sued The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for medical expenses after injuring his back performing about 200 baptisms on Aug. 25, 2007. Lowering volunteers into a pool all day apparently became arduous: “The then […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Finding treasure in the “Treasure State”
MONTANA Billings Gazette reporter Diane Cochran decided to personally test her state’s voter-initiated Medical Marijuana Act recently, timing exactly how long it took to get a doctor to recommend the use of pot. Eight minutes was the answer, courtesy of an Internet consultation, but according to the executive director of the pot-advocacy group, Montana Caregivers […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2010: A Hell of an Anniversary
Doomster chorus
Note: This is a sidebar to a profile of the founder of High Country News and his increasingly pessimistic view of the future, headlined, “A Hell of an Anniversary.” — “… A simple look at the upward path of global greenhouse-gas emissions (indicates) we will continue to squeeze the trigger on the gun we have […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
The Western Lit Blues
I’m-a-gettin’ tired of living up to my fictional counterpart
Posted inHeard Around the West
Milk and cookies
ARIZONA A McDonald’s restaurant in Phoenix learned a valuable lesson recently, but only after an assistant manager ordered a breastfeeding mother — and her 6-month-old baby — to leave. The lesson: Don’t mess with moms! As TV reporters flocked to the restaurant, dozens of nursing mothers converged inside it to protest what they called discrimination, […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
The Second Second City
A native Chicagoan who now lives in Montana discovers New Chicago, Mont.
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
What was and what is
Joan Kane’s work aims to bridge the gap between past and present
Posted inHeard Around the West
Unseemly business
IDAHOFor a long time, a southern Idaho farmer didn’t know it, but there was another crop growing in his cornfields — 300 marijuana plants, valued at $628,000. Azcentral.com says the plants were grown from seed and later transplanted to the farmer’s field, apparently a not uncommon practice. OREGONDon’t even think about selling lemonade in Multnomah […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
Beyond beefalo
By the end of the 19th century, North America’s many millions of bison were reduced to just a few hundred. They’ve since recovered to around a half million, most raised as livestock and crossbred with cattle. Now conservationists manage over 60 herds, such as the one at the American Prairie Reserve in Montana, to restore […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
Daniel Orozco is out of the office
Orozco’s darkly funny short stories flirt with the macabre
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
An immigrant is not an immigrant is not an immigrant
Your story on kids who are in the country illegally points out the need for serious reform of our immigration laws (HCN, 8/16/10). I would support a change to citizenship requirements for babies born here, agreeing that the child be granted citizenship only if one of the parents already has it, if for no other […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
Environmental law, Euro-style
Eric Jantz makes some important points in his opinion piece (HCN, 8/16/10). The legal/regulatory framework surrounding our environmental laws truly is “dense and arcane,” and it is difficult for individuals to participate. The deference courts give to agency expertise is sometimes unfounded, and local experience should not be ignored. But Jantz’s suggestion to reduce scientific […]