I am a farmer in southwest Minnesota, and live very near an intersection of the Northern Border natural gas pipeline and a major electricity transmission line. Three hundred megawatts’-worth of wind turbines have already been installed here, and at least 300 MW more are in the permitting and development stage (HCN, 12/21/09 & 1/4/10). I […]
Departments
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
War on people
Prohibition is a sickening horror and the ocean of human wreckage it has left in its wake is almost endless (HCN, 3/1/10). Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior that has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
Will the wolf survive?
My joy at reading of the wolf’s likely return to Colorado is tempered by the knowledge that the future does not bode well for wildlife in the Southwest: the fastest-growing region of the world’s fourth-fastest-growing nation (HCN, 2/15/10). I remember the melancholy autumn howls of some of the last wolves in Colorado when I was […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
Pulp friction
Crossers Philip Caputo 480 pages, hardcover: $27.95.Knopf, 2009. The personal and political tensions surrounding the U.S.-Mexico border seem like ideal topics for renowned war correspondent, veteran novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Philip Caputo. His seventh novel, however, is the literary equivalent of a popcorn flick. As a meditation on post-9/11 border relations, Crossers relies heavily […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Blazing guns and trails
MONTANAHubris doesn’t begin to define the Livingston, Mont., man who chain-sawed a trail more than a mile long through the Gallatin National Forest. “It became a project,” said Francis Leroy McLain, 60, who also ripped down a fence separating his property from U.S. Forest Service land. “I enjoyed it.” McLain’s illegal trail was more than […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
Inspired by nature
Biomimicry inventors tackle environmental problems
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
East to the West
A writer contemplates the beginning of the West
Posted inHeard Around the West
Three cheers
GOOD NEWS DEPARTMENT While most school districts continue to struggle (and argue) over how to cut millions of dollars out of their budgets, the residents of Grand County, Utah, were just told they could relax and take a deep breath — at least for one year. Thanks to an anonymous donor’s gift of $700,000, the […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
The smoke police
Bay Area air quality inspectors on the alert
Posted inHeard Around the West
Shooting bullets, not blanks
UTAH The San Juan Record in Monticello, Utah, celebrated William Morley Black, a “father of thousands,” as part of its series on the “giants” of San Juan County. When Black died in 1915, he’d had six wives and 41 children, and he left 214 living grandchildren and 206 living great-grandchildren. “In the intervening 95 years, […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
The incredible journey
No longer flushing, but still flashing, a ceramic toilet fitted with a transmitter signaled its way across the Northwest last fall. Tagged to send its location to nearby cell phone towers, the discarded commode was one of 782 objects donated by 40 Seattle residents in autumn 2009 for Trash Track. This Massachusetts Institute of Technology […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
It’s the population, stupid?
On my desk sits a stack of manila folders. Each one contains an essay that argues, essentially, that all of our problems — especially the environmental ones — are caused by one thing: overpopulation. We get a lot of this sort of thing. Most of it comes from a guy named Frosty Wooldridge, who has […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Chuck Bowden’s border war
Nearly a decade on, a writer’s look at the futility of the war on drugs still matters.
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
‘Rage against the machine’
Thank you for writing about the Mountain View Neighborhood in Bernalillo County, N.M. (HCN, 2/01/10). It is rare that communities suffering from the injustice of disproportionate levels of environmental degradation are given attention in the media. I cringed to read about our deficiencies as activists and community organizers. Nevertheless, you captured the challenges that face […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Letter of intent
This comment originally posted on hcn.org. Many environmentalists mischaracterize the intent of the letters that were written to the Group of 10 and other environmental groups (HCN, 2/01/10). They would say that people of color wanted to be included in the environmental movement and be part of their agenda. In fact, that was not the […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Meditation in stone
Rock art is a unique cultural legacy in our region that deserves attention as we lose sites rapidly to vandalism. Unfortunately, the article “Ancient Conversations” misses this very important point (HCN, 2/01/10). It also left me with many questions about the seemingly Eurocentric interpretations of symbols. Meaningful collaboration with Native Americans is past due, and […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Power (and financial) struggle
Despite running head-to-head with President Obama’s State of the Union speech and a talk on campus by Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko, our Jan. 27 panel discussion on energy, activism and the role of the media on the Navajo and Hopi Nations drew more than 100 Tucsonians. “Power Struggle,” co-hosted by the University of […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Reporting facts, even when it hurts
I have read your recent feature stories on environmental justice, and as much as I want to appreciate the coverage of the stories that have built this movement and continue to push the fundamental changes necessary to clean up and restore the well-being of our planet and people, I find myself outraged at your portrayal […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
The myths of Native American identity
Everything You Know About Indians Is WrongPaul Chaat Smith193 pages,hardcover: $21.95.University of Minnesota Press, 2009. We approach the millennium as a people leading often fantastic and surreal lives. The Pequot, a tribe that’s all but extinct, run the most profitable casino in the country, and tribal members become millionaires. But guess who’s still the poorest […]