I was inspired by the report on public art in Salt Lake City (“Breaking Down Walls, With Art”), but have to ask, does not the medium — structures about to be demolished — reinforce the notion, at least subliminally, that art is worthless (HCN, 3/16 & 3/30/09)? So much of our everyday living environment is […]
Let’s paint Wal-Marts
Posted inApril 27, 2009: Got warriors?
The mythic Westerner
Your latest issue on “great ideas” from the West contained some instances of historical revisionism (HCN, 3/16 & 3/30/09). For one thing, far from having to “scratch out a living … competing against the likes of saber-toothed tigers, cave bears, dire wolves, mastodons, woolly mammoths and giant beavers,” the evidence suggests that “early Westerners” actually […]
Posted inGoat
The line is busy
Back in 1991 when the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment set up the call center to process people who need unemployment benefits, it seemed like a good way to increase efficiency and prevent long lines at the office. Back then, there were about 400 calls a day. Fast forward to 2009. “What we’re seeing […]
Posted inApril 27, 2009: Got warriors?
A shortage of leadership, not water
Jonathan Parkinson does not understand water management or economics (HCN, 4/13/09). It is more cost-effective to efficiently use the available resource than to develop more expensive new supplies. Urban water use is double what is necessary to maintain our lifestyle. Why? Wasteful practices and inefficient fixtures. Agricultural use is double what is needed to provide […]
Posted inApril 27, 2009: Got warriors?
Conservation before compromise
Jonathan Parkinson’s “Compromise is better than nothing” is long on provocation and short on facts (HCN, 4/13/09). He writes, “You can’t conserve your way out of a drought.” A good sound bite, but it’s flat wrong. In fact, Southern California did conserve its way out of a drought in the late ’80s and early ’90s. […]
Posted inGoat
Blue jeans and their critics
Doubtless you’ve heard of George Will, a prominent member of the chattering class. He wears a bow tie. And now this fop, with prominent sartorial affectations of his own, presumes to give us fashion advice. In a recent syndicated column, Will rants against blue jeans, also known as “Western wear.” Will borrows many of his […]
Posted inGoat
Watts or Wildfire
Here’s a new angle on fire in the west: one large southern California utility is trying to convince ratepayers that some regions of its service area are too fire-prone for uninterrupted electricity. Or at least, that’s the implication behind San Diego Gas and Electric’s proposal to unplug portions of its grid when there’s a high […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
The cat’s meow
In Spokane, Wash., Vickie Mendenhall thought she’d gotten a great deal by paying only $41 for a used couch. But then she and her boyfriend Chris Lund kept hearing a strange, high-pitched noise when they sat down on it to watch television, reports the Spokesman-Review. After a couple of days, Lund finally lifted up the […]
Posted inWotr
A tribute to a lifetime of frugality
My great-aunt Marie never had garbage to throw out. She spent her last 20 years cleaning out the barn, garage, basement and various assorted farm sheds, dispersing the wire, wood, nails, fishing poles, antique radios, and a lifetime of other valuables her husband had stockpiled. Well into her 90s, she bought groceries in bulk and […]
Posted inApril 27, 2009: Got warriors?
Champions go both ways
Obama’s federal appointees share a green streak
Posted inGoat
Waste, fraud and abuse
Those who have lived for any amount of time in a western ranching community will not be surprised by news that the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, overpaid landowners for “conservation” benefits. According to a report in the Capital Press, a western Ag weekly reporting on a […]
Posted inRay
Ex-congressman dies in Utah ATV crash
For years I’ve collected stories about people around the West who get killed or seriously hurt in off-road driving wrecks. I got interested in the ongoing tragedy when an admirable young man I knew crashed his machine in a popular ATV playground. He was a math teacher who inspired one of my kids. He went […]
Posted inArticles
A passion to protect
Glo Cunningham perseveres over three decades in Crested Butte
Posted inHeard Around the West
Back from the outback
Jim Stiles, the West’s curmudgeon-in-chief (“All the news that causes fits” is his motto), is back in southern Utah’s sandstone country — Australia, alas, did not work out. Stiles’ quirky Canyon Country Zephyr is back, too, though
Posted inGoat
Water, wine and marijuana
Newspapers across the West have been replete with stories about California’s water woes. But almost all those reports – including my recent GOAT post – focus on California’s Central Valley where farmers from the North (the Sacramento Valley), the South (the San Joaquin Valley) and the Center (the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta) compete with municipalities, wildlife […]
Posted inGoat
Single-celled solar
There are few sights as lovely as a diatom. Single-celled, photosynthetic algae with intricate skeletons made of pure silica, they fascinated famous 19th century German zoologist Ernst Haekel, who painted this illustration in oils. Recently they have also become fascinating to scientists developing biologically-based solar panels. Diatoms are ecological workhorses. For at least 100 million […]
Posted inApril 13, 2009: The Desert That Breaks Annie Proulx’s Heart
Why I ride the Greyhound
Bus passengers become citizens of the world.
Posted inWotr
Interior Secretary Salazar is on the right track
I’m a third-generation Colorado native, and for me, the Rockies have always been all about blue skies and fresh air. Yet I’m old enough to remember the brown cloud that used to hover over Denver. I also remember that after amendments to the Clean Air Act took effect in 1990, I could once again see […]
Posted inGoat
spam…
Spam – not SPAM – is the stuff of evil Internet marketers. It’s bred in dark, dark spaces and spread to the intangible depths of E-mails and pop-up ads of YOUR computer. And today, I found out that spam’s got quite the environmental impact! Well, I’d never actually eaten SPAM until today, but I thought […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Salmonid stanzas
Eleven years ago, a weekend tradition began in Astoria, Ore., the coastal town at the mouth of the Columbia River that once boasted scores of busy salmon canneries. It’s called the annual Fisher Poets Gathering, and this time participants in what one observer called “the blue-collar school of poetry” were given just 24 hours to […]