MONTANAThe owners of Montana Snowbowl near Missoula really, really don’t like criticism. So after a skier complained, they refused to sell him a season ski pass, or even daily tickets at a reduced rate during the pre-season. Jim Sylvester says that he put a comment in a handy suggestion box at the ski area, noting […]
No ski for you
Posted inWotr
Feeding the deer
I live in a California mountain town that’s perched on a ridge that ascends toward the higher Sierras. The place was initially called Dogtown, and it boasts the distinction of being the site where California’s biggest-ever gold nugget was found. The town was supposed to be called “Magnolia,” but the poor spelling and/or penmanship of […]
Posted inGoat
Obama’s energy love fest
1: number of times President Obama said the word “environment” in his 2012 State of the Union address 23: number of times he said “energy” 8: number of times he preceded it with “clean” 1: number of times he preceded it with “renewable” 1: number of times he mentioned “climate change” A word cloud of […]
Posted inRange
Tar sands battle continues in California courts
By Maria Gallucci, InsideClimate News A high-stakes legal battle is underway in California over whether the state’s clean air agency can enforce a first-ever rule to slash carbon emissions in transportation fuels. The fight is being closely watched because the rule could choke global market demand for Alberta’s carbon-intensive oil sands at a very precarious […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
The logging town of Darrington, Wash., fights to save a fire lookout
On a blustery summer night, the Red Top Tavern in Darrington, Wash., is nearly empty. A neon Hamm’s beer sign illuminates a picture of a local logger reclining in the bucket of an excavator with the caption “Redneck Hot Tub.” Above it hangs a crosscut saw, just like in every bar in every other Northwest […]
Posted inRange
Tourism creates jobs, but it’s still a mixed bag
In the past few days, Twitter has been hopping with responses to the White House’s #VisitUS campaign. Initiated by President Obama’s speech on January 19th announcing new proposals to boost tourism (and the jobs that it creates), tweeters (tweeps) were invited to solicit visitation to their hometowns, and they have, in droves. “Rapid City SD […]
Posted inGoat
(In)secure rural schools, once again
Many struggling Western counties will find themselves in even worse financial shape if an expiring federal law isn’t renewed soon. Since 2000, local governments in 41 states have received billions of dollars from the feds to compensate them for reduced revenue from timber sales. Especially in logging-dependent states like Oregon and Washington, which saw federal […]
Posted inWotr
Let the EPA finish its work in Pavillion, Wyoming
Over the last few weeks, the gas industry and their advocates have gone to great lengths to refute the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft report about the effects on groundwater of hydraulic fracturing – fracking — for gas in Pavillion, Wyo. In case you missed the story, on Dec. 8 the EPA released “confirmation of highly […]
Posted inRange
A Great Aridity
There’s an old Doors song which tells us that “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.” That pretty well sums up the message I got from the new book by William deBuys, A Great Aridity: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest. He takes us around the region — its heart, […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
What the flock?
I just finished reading HCN’s Dec. 12th issue, and discovered, on the back page, within Betsy Marston’s letter-perfect column no less, the unexpected: an aggregation of sheep referred to as a “herd.” “Holy sufferin’ sheep dip,” I blurted. “How can it be?” But then as I backtracked through the same report, I discovered that I’d […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Welcome, Eric and Kati
Eric Strebel, our soft-spoken new Web developer, joined the HCN team Dec. 1. He’s been working with computers since 1978, when he got his first personal computer. Eric eventually developed his programming hobby into a livelihood. Prior to joining us, he freelanced and operated Mountain West Communication’s website for about a decade. Eric enjoys fishing, […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Small dairies raise big questions
In the article “Milk and Water Don’t Mix” by Stephanie Paige Ogburn (HCN, 11/28/11), the dairy industry was made out to be the bad guy, which it is in its present form as a huge, polluting concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO. But a combination of trends has created a monster from what used to […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Shadow Wolves track down smugglers on the Arizona-Mexico border
The technologies border police use to protect our boundaries range from the historic (mustangs trained for mounted patrols) to the futuristic. (The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency plans to nearly triple its fleet of unmanned surveillance Predator B aircraft.) But nothing can track a smuggler quite like a human being. The Shadow Wolves, a […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
No more stopgap solutions
The dispute between the Environmental Protection Agency and Mora Mutual Domestic Water and Sewer Association brings to the fore an issue that plagues many poor rural communities (HCN, 12/12/11, “Clean Water Conundrum”). Both septic systems and treatment plants distract from the real issue of human waste removal at the point of disposal — the household. […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Move over, Ed Abbey
Craig Childs is a treasure, and his essay in the last issue is but another jewel (HCN, 12/26/11 & 1/09/12, “Stranger in these parts”). I have been enjoying his words for a decade and have now come to realize that he is my favorite Southwestern writer since Ed Abbey. I think that Ed, whom I […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Huntsman: not worthy
Obama should ditch Vice President Joe Biden for Jon Huntsman in the 2012 presidential campaign? It is hard to believe that High Country News would suggest such a move (HCN, 12/26/11 & 1/09/12, “A Westerner for the White House”). First of all, Huntsman resigned as ambassador to China to run against the president who appointed […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
How much time does Congress spend discussing the issues you care about?
Ten months before the election, news outlets are already jammed with political jabber. One way to put it in perspective is to chart the attention Congress has paid to your particular issues over time. Capitol Words, an online visualization tool created by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Sunlight Foundation, assembles the daily contents of the Congressional Record […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
From the Old World to the Old West: A review of The Little Bride
The Little BrideAnna Solomon314 pages, softcover: $15. Riverhead, 2011. Anna Solomon’s fascinating first novel The Little Bride begins in Russia in the 1880s, when Minna Losk, a 16-year-old orphan, signs up to become a mail-order bride. After the death of her father, Minna worked for a while as a maid for a once-wealthy woman. Now, […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Detente in the rancher v. environmentalist grazing wars?
If you’ve been trolling the news recently, you might think that ranchers still reign supreme over the federal estate, despite the fact that the number of cattle and sheep on public lands has declined by more than half since the 1950s. In November, for example, the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Billboard corporations and other big industries make their own rules
There were rumors of night-time guerrilla activity when I lived in Tucson, Ariz., during the 1980s. Under cover of darkness, people scurried around using chainsaws and flammable liquids to destroy billboards. Ed Abbey, the edgy desert author of the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, was reportedly among them; so were some other founders of the […]