I feel really fortunate to live in one of four states that have outright bans on billboards (HCN, 1/23/12, “Billboards vs. Democracy”). Despite an underhanded attempt to gut the Alaska billboard ban a few years ago, the citizens rose up with a resounding no. Call me a worrier, but will the Citizens United case, which […]
The troubling tentacles of Citizens United
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
The shine of the golden saddle
The grazing buyout is sometimes referred to as a “golden saddle” (HCN, 1/23/12, “Detente in the grazing wars?”). I like that. Even though grazing permits are not rights, the buyouts recognize that grazing permits have been treated as such and are of value to the permittee. I like how it is a free market solution, […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
The error of the well-intentioned
Thank you for the billboard and “untrammeled” wilderness articles (HCN, 1/23/12, “The law, the lookout and the logging town” & “Billboard vs. Democracy”). Boycotting Utah and/or monkey-wrenching seem like the only viable options for correcting these corporate billboard crimes. Wilderness Watch, by contrast, is well intentioned, but apparently ignorant of the harm it’s doing. Wilderness […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Photojournalist Lisa Hamilton explores rural California
For her project, Real Rural, photojournalist Lisa Hamilton traveled throughout California, interviewing and photographing scores of rural people.
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Obama praises natural gas, but is there enough to satisfy U.S. demand?
Poor President Obama. On Jan. 24, he delivered a State of the Union speech promising “a future where we’re in control of our own energy,” and packed it with something for nearly everyone — more oil, safe natural gas and abundant clean energy. And still almost no one went home happy. Domestic oil production is […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Monkey-wrenchers to the rescue
I was surprised and dismayed at the apparent power wielded by billboard companies (HCN, 1/23/12, “Billboards vs. Democracy”), but even more surprised and dismayed at the apparent lack of power that governments at all levels have to prevent their various affronts to our senses. Unlike junk mail, telemarketers, and political advertisements on TV, billboards are […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Have we learned anything from the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords?
With the flood of news events streaming across our screens these days, little seems truly shocking anymore. We careen from one cataclysm, conflict or scandal to the next, never lingering long on any of them. But sometimes an event is so terrible that it causes all of us to drop whatever we’re doing and reflect. […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Growing grizzly population conflicts with USDA sheep research station
The recovery of Yellowstone’s grizzly bears has been remarkable. When the species was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1975, there were just 136 wandering in and around the national park. Now, there are more than 600. And though a federal court confirmed in November that the population should remain protected, it’s […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Craig Childs is HCN’s latest contributing editor
We’re excited to announce that author Craig Childs has just joined our list of contributing editors. Many of you are already fans of Craig’s work, which appears regularly in these pages and in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men’s Journal, Outside and Orion. His writing focuses on natural sciences, archaeology and his remarkable […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Bucking the stereotypes: A review of West of 98
West of 98: Living and Writing the New American WestEdited by Lynn Stegner and Russell Rowland380 pages, softcover: $21.95.University of Texas Press, 2011. Any anthology is a collage, a series of snapshots imperfectly melded into one composition. That’s why we read them: They allow us to look at a topic from a variety of angles, […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
A life measured in cordwood: A review of Into the Heat: My Love Affair with Trees, Fire, Saws and Men
Into the Heat: My Love Affair with Trees, Fire, Saws and MenCindy Bellinger159 pages, softcover: $14.95.High-Lonesome Books, 2011. What does it mean for one woman to take an active, eventful life and root it ever more deeply in one spot, settling down in the mountain foothills where a nearby pine forest becomes a close companion, […]
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: Inside the world of climate change deniers
Amid the excitement of the week’s federal budget proposals, an exposure of climate-change deniers’ tactics and GOP candidate reshuffling (Romney, what’s happening to you?), we at HCN headquarters were battling winter colds and coughs, reaching for DayQuil, NyQuil and Benadryl, when we weren’t keeping up on the news. Here’s what caught our watery, itchy eyes: ClimateDocuments […]
Posted inWotr
It’s time 23,000 elk got off the dole
In western Wyoming, feeding elk seems as normal as long winters, Grand Teton views and oil and gas wells. But of the 1 million elk that now roam North America, only 3 percent are fed by government employees, and three-fourths of those animals are fed in Wyoming at the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, […]
Posted inRange
Churches use punk culture to reach Montana teens
Editor’s note: These stories were produced for High Country News by students in the University of Montana’s online news class. They will be running over a period of two weeks in the Range blog. See a list of all the stories here. By Billie Loewen It’s an especially cold December night, with the kind of […]
Posted inWotr
West to East, and a world away
A few months ago, after 20 years, I moved from the West to the East, reluctantly, carting a truckload of artifacts and memories, literal stones and actual stories, each one a product of the forests, mountains or deserts of Bend, Ore., Missoula, Mont., Argenta, British Columbia, Canada, and beyond. My little 4-cylinder truck labored under […]
Posted inGoat
Anger over the lion’s share
In a classic cartoon, a hulky lion sits in a rink as a frenetic lion-tamer waves a stool in front of its face. The smug beast represents a nameless corporate lion watching patiently as the government espouses threats. As the cartoon suggests, federal regulators often talk a big game, but cracking down on misbehaving industries […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Winning the wildfire jackpot
THE WESTMany of us harbor a sneaking suspicion that Westerners aren’t quite real to D.C. Beltway officials, particularly to the Easterners in their employ. The habitat of these politically engaged men and women so close to power is usually a crowded room where they toil from morning to night, and so the poor wretches rarely […]
Posted inRange
Tribes use funds to restore westslope cutthroat trout
Editor’s note: These stories were produced for High Country News by students in the University of Montana’s online news class. They will be running over a period of two weeks in the Range blog. See a list of all the stories here. By Russell Greenfield On the west-facing foothills of the Mission Mountain Wilderness, about […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
Following the Oregon Trail, digitally and on foot
As a kid, I loved playing Oregon Trail, a popular and notoriously difficult computer game in which avatars inevitably drown, run out of water or die of dysentery en route from Missouri to the Promised Land at the Pacific’s edge. An imaginative child, I took my virtual pioneer adventures offscreen, loading up my small red […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Anecdote of the Jeep
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. 1919 was a pretty decent year, all in all. The Grand Canyon received protection as a national park, the 19th Amendment finally gave women the vote, the world witnessed the end of the war […]