Like a sausage maker inured to the sights and smells of his job, anyone who dabbles in lawmaking expects un-pleasantries: Negotiations will seem endless, and compromise will be painful. But lately in the nation’s Capitol, legislators have had to grapple with a new stink: Even the most hard-fought deals are indefinitely lodged in legislative limbo. […]
Wilderness bills languish in legislative limbo
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Weekend reading
I just spent my Saturday morning reading the Feb. 6 issue cover to cover. I appreciated every aspect of it, from the Agenda 21 buzzwords, to the “uncommon Westerner” in search of Sasquatch, to the fantastic conveyance of climate change research for a broad audience, to the classic struggle between local residents and the federal […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Teton County subdivisions
Distressed subdivisions (shown in red, above) have little or no infrastructure. Many more subdivisions, though empty or nearly so, aren’t called “distressed,” because they have completed infrastructure.
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Two degrees warmer and rising: A review of A Great Aridness
A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American SouthwestWilliam deBuys384 pages, hardcover: $27.95.Oxford University Press, 2011. Cracking open yet another book about climate change requires a certain amount of resolve. Most readers already know the facts: In the past 50 years, average temperatures in the United States have risen 2 degrees […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
The paradox of the housing boom and bust
For the past several years, I have marveled at a basketball court planted in the middle of an empty field on the outskirts of Delta, Colo., a town of 9,000 people in rural western Colorado. It’s a good-looking court with a smooth cement surface and nets on the rims. But I never see anyone playing […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Science, illuminated
I am writing to thank HCN and Hillary Rosner for the article “The Color of Bunny” (HCN, 2/6/12). This piece seems to me the epitome of good science writing. It lays out the questions the science is addressing and the reasons those questions are important. Moreover, it provides insight into the process of science — […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Predators aren’t the problem
It is a human problem that we would intentionally put imported and non-native livestock in areas that are a natural home to predators and then define the predators as problematic (HCN, 2/20/12, “Bears in sheepland”). As long as these sheep and grizzlies can share the same area without the bears being destroyed, keeping the Sheep […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Natural gas: a non-solution
Natural gas only emits slightly less carbon than petro fuels (HCN, 2/20/12, “Between energy nirvana and hot air”). Its use will not retard climate change already in effect and will worsen its consequences. Releasing natural gas from the earth is energy-intensive. Shipping liquid natural gas is still one of the most perilous of human endeavors. […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Misplaced blame
As a longtime subscriber, I was disturbed by the article by Tom Zoellner, and by his efforts to demonize those he disagrees with (HCN, 2/20/12, “Extreme Arizona”). The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was not a political assassination. Rather, it was a delusional act of a schizophrenic in a psychotic episode. That Mr. Zoellner would […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Interior Landscapes: A review of The City Beneath the Snow
The City Beneath the Snow: StoriesMarjorie Kowalski Cole276 pages, hardcover: $ 22.95.University of Alaska Press, 2012. With her Bellwether Prize-winning novel Correcting the Landscape — a tale of journalism and urban development — Marjorie Kowalski Cole put Fairbanks, Alaska, on the literary map. Her posthumously published story collection The City Beneath the Snow again brings […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
HCN subscribers and writers meet in New Zealand
It’s a small, small world. While honeymooning in New Zealand last month, HCN editorial fellow Marian Lyman Kirst and her husband, Michael Kirst, ran into longtime subscribers Barb and Lee Croissant. The Kirsts met the Croissants, retired Parker, Colo., residents, and their daughter and son-in-law, Cindy and Dan Payne, during a guided wildlife walk on […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Goliath vs. Goliath
Your story “Anatomy of a conspiracy theory” suggests that opposition to zoning, planning and conservation as a U.N.-sponsored sovereignty grab is genuinely grassroots (HCN, 2/6/12). We can just as easily see this opposition to regulation as corporate pushback, motivated and underwritten by the energy industry and large agricultural interests. What’s still missing is a documented […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Going down in flames
Long ago, many West Coast and Rocky Mountain tribes cremated their dead to purify them and free their souls, which were borne to the afterlife “on chariots of smoke.” Today, going out in a blaze is again the region’s most popular funerary rite. In 2010, the mountain and Pacific states (including Alaska and Hawaii) had […]
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: Endangered species, oily disappointments
This week was a tough one for news watchers. Our favorite Monkee died, yet another member of that rare, endangered species — the moderate Republican — fell by the wayside, and good manners seem ever on the wane. Even upstart subway station ads are becoming shockingly rude. Despite our general melancholy, we still took heed of tweets […]
Posted inGoat
Into the Big Empty
Cross posted from the Last Word on Nothing. I grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York State, and went to college in western Oregon — both beautiful places, beloved by many. But I never knew what it was to love a place until I spent a college summer in southern Utah, where I worked […]
Posted inWotr
A fresh focus on frack attacks
A widely reprinted AP story recently broke the stunning news that the energy industry doesn’t like “fracking.” They like fracking itself — injecting water, chemicals and sand into wells to break hydrocarbons free of tight rock formations. What they hate is the word: Fracking sounds just plain nasty. “It’s Madison Avenue hell,” says Dave McMurdy, […]
Posted inGoat
Fear and loathing in Arizona
Though I can’t recollect exactly what I ate, Dr. Brown had a BLT. Our Texas governor had recently left for the White House. We were having lunch at IHOP on University Street in College Station and talking about black film, rapper Tupac Shakur (she disliked him) and romances gone sour. Dr. Brown taught “African Americans […]
Posted inRange
Crowd control and wilderness redux at Yosemite’s Half Dome
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Every year, from sunup ‘til sundown, from Memorial Day into October, there’s a traffic jam of sorts high above the Yosemite Valley floor. The trek to the top of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park’s iconic peak, is a destination hike for people from all over the world. The trail, which ascends […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Black bears named “Blue,” pink Chinese dust
MONTANA A 200-pound black bear with a flair for home decorating denned this winter in the crawlspace beneath a family cabin at Georgetown Lake, west of Butte, Mont. Once dug in, the bear noticed the stairs and a trap door above it, reports the Billings Gazette, and proceeded to break open the door and wander […]
Posted inWotr
A conversation I look forward to having with the NRA
“Hello, Mr. Wray. This is John from the National Rifle Association. How are you doing tonight?” “Fine, thanks.” “Mr. Wray, as a Life Member of the NRA, I know you are concerned with our right to bear arms. Are you aware of Obama’s under-the-radar effort to destroy our Second Amendment rights?” “You mean President Obama?” […]