Twice a year or so, says a fire chief in Medford, Ore., a blaze breaks out in somebody’s house and bullets start banging as well. “Actually, it’s not uncommon for us to deal with ammunition during fires,” says Medford Battalion Chief Ken Goodson. A recent Jacksonville fire was a doozy, though, because James Frings sold […]
Departments
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Change we could believe in
The federal deficit is already gigantic, and there’s serious talk of making it even bigger in order to stimulate the plummeting economy. But times of crisis are also times of opportunity. This is the perfect chance for the Obama administration to improve the way the federal lands are managed. At the moment, increased budgets for […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Trashing the earth, and the truth
This is the last time I will ever tell this story. For an environmental reporter, the past eight years have produced a jungle of topics to explore at will, but the lessons learned there could not have been more unpleasant. This is the story of one of those lessons. In April of 2004, Field and […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
As Interior Turns
An eight-year soap opera in which federal officials screwed the environment, the taxpayers, and each other.
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
(Un)clearing the air
Westerners will breathe the legacy of Bush’s BLM
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Fighting for forests
Arthur Carhart: Wilderness ProphetTom Wolf294 pages, hardcover: $34.95.University Press of Colorado, 2008. A fiery conservationist who came of age in the late 1910s, Arthur Carhart had a penchant for highlighting the contradictions in the environmental movement, not to mention the conflicts of interest at the U.S. Forest Service, which employed him at a young age. […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Western wish list for Obama
The hopes and worries of 11 key Westerners
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Fa-la-la-la
We’re taking a two-week publishing hiatus in late December, like we do every year. We’ll be working on new stories, saying farewell to our latest excellent crop of interns, and singing carols. Our traditional Open House won’t be held this year, though — another victim of the economic meltdown. Enjoy the holidays and look for […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
The Bush legacy: It’s not all bad
I was once a skeptic when it came to politics. Sure, I voted, but I never thought that it made much difference. Once politicians got to Washington, they were all dragged into the middle anyway and ended up virtually indistinguishable from one another. So why bother? The first months of the Bush administration had a […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
John Daniel: A good animal, too
Ourselves When the throaty calls of sandhill cranesecho across the valley, when the rimrock flaresincandescent red, and the junipersare flames of green on the shortgrass hills, in that moment of last clear lightwhen the world seems ready to speak its name,meet me in the field alongside the pond.Without careers for once, without things to do, […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Dodged bullets
How the Bush administration shot — and missed — on some Western issues
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Up in smoke
Obama administration will inherit a beleaguered Forest Service
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Down on the farm
Valley (HCN, 12/8/08). When I climb to the top of our pasture and look towards the Blue Ridge mountains, I cannot see even one new house built after we moved here 30 years ago. Remarkable reprieve! Cropland, pastures and small forested patches still dot the sloping hillsides. Julene Bair’s poignant writing reminds me of the […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Sticks and stones
As the mother of biracial children who chooses to live in the “redder” places, I have a simple solution that has worked — learn to not be offended by racial remarks and jokes (HCN, 12/8/08). If met without anger, bigotry has a way of melting under patient persistence. At least most change their outlook, and […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Banish bigotry
I read “The persistence of bigotry, Western-style” with a chill crawling up my spine, and I don’t think it was the flu virus I’m battling (HCN, 12/8/08). I’m left with the strange feeling that some regional socialization patterns stopped evolving sometime around the 1950s. I doubt the children and parents telling those “jokes” have been […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Bowling for westerners
Where did the paranoia come from among some hunters and “gun rights advocates” that their right to own guns is seriously threatened (HCN, 10/27/08)? The NRA and its sympathizers make gun ownership an issue of such centrality that they spend millions of dollars on a wild campaign to ensure that any attempt to enable a […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Hal’s red herring
Hal Herring’s “Why we all need the Democrats to abandon gun control” deserves our derision (HCN, 10/27/08). Herring may share some values with most Democratic voters, but proselytizing for gun addicts of the Palinesque variety is not one of them. I learned as a boy on a western Montana ranch that the thoughtful and competent […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Midnight cowboying
As the Bush administration prepares to step out the back door of history, it’s following a time-honored tradition — shoving through hundreds of last-minute rule changes. Outgoing President Clinton slammed out 26,000 pages of new rules, many of them meant to protect land or public health. But President Bush’s “midnight regulations” are mostly gifts to […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Not so dead on arrival
The unlikely success of the Clinton Roadless Rule