A former professor of mine once said that building a house in a floodplain is like setting up a tent on the interstate just because no cars are coming by right at the moment. It defies common sense. Yet, across western Montana in recent years, sprawling trophy homes have spread like a cancer along the […]
At last, a Montana rivers bill that makes sense
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
Wind setbacks
Local governments grapple with where to put wind farms
Posted inHeard Around the West
Those cantankerous locals
Visitors to a museum don’t usually expect to be attacked by wild animals, but then, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum close to Tucson is a very different kind of institution — outdoors, interactive and endlessly fascinating. Unfortunately, reports the Arizona Republic, a pig-like, tusked javelina that “did not belong to the museum” took a dislike to […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
Rocky Flats lives on
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Half-life of Memory.” GRAND JURY FOREMAN WES MCKINLEY:“… I kind of like the bomb. We are the super country on the planet because we got the biggest weapon … I wasn’t a red-hot activist or had an ax to grind, or anything. … […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
The importance of memory
In Nicole Krauss’ sparse and astonishing novel, Man Walks Into A Room, local cops find a disoriented man wandering along Highway 95 in the desolate Mercury Valley of Nevada. After the officers get him out of the shimmering heat, we learn that the man, Samson, has a brain tumor that has obliterated a large chunk […]
Posted inGoat
Coyotes, elk, and octuplets
Summer nights wouldn’t feel quite right if the open windows did not allow me to hear the occasional howling of coyotes. The wild canines provide a sonic reminder that even though I live in town, it’s a small town surrounded by thousands of acres of wonderful Big Empty. But actually, the coyote howls convey no […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
A voice in the wilderness
For 20 years, Jim Stiles has published one of the most essential alternative newspapers in the West: The Canyon Country Zephyr, based in Moab, Utah (latest motto: “All the news that causes fits”). With sharp, see-all-sides reporting, the independent has taken on the excesses of extractive industry, the failings of the New West economy, and […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
Shooting a double victory
Full-Court Quest: The Girls from Fort Shaw Indian School: Basketball Champions of the WorldLinda Peavy and Ursula Smith479 pages, hardcover: $29.95.University ofOklahoma Press, 2008. Sixteen years before women in the U.S. gained the right to vote and long before women’s public sporting events were considered decent, a team of American Indian girls from Montana traveled […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
The struggle to remember the nuclear West
After toxic waste leaks, catastrophic fires and years of protests, Rocky Flats was raided by both the FBI and the EPA.
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
A battle for the land — and soul — of the West
The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and RecoveryHoward G. Wilshire, Jane E. Nielson, andRichard W. Hazlett617 pages, hardcover: $35.Oxford University Press, 2008. It’s no secret that the West’s public lands are in deep trouble. The American West at Risk presents a familiar litany of problems: damage from overgrazing, […]
Posted inGoat
A place at the table for Native Nations
On December 31st, a 66-year old Cheyenne River Sioux man died after a doctor told ambulance drivers to “take him back to his residence or dump him in a ditch” because there wasn’t money for his care, recounted President of the National Congress of Indian Americans (NCAI), Joe A. Garcia, in his State of Indian […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Behold, a pale horse…
There may be nothing new, perhaps, about a drunk guy on horseback in Wyoming, but Benjamin Daniels, 28, created a traffic hazard at 4 p.m. in Cody just by “riding a white horse during a snowstorm.” Slow-moving horse and snowflakes were blending in, reports the Associated Press, and motorists told police they feared there would […]
Posted inArticles
Abraham Lincoln and the West
Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln: Few presidents have been so connected and so often compared. Obama served in the Illinois legislature, just as Lincoln did. Obama announced his candidacy from the steps of the old state Capitol in Springfield, Ill., where Lincoln delivered his famous “house divided” speech. Like Lincoln, he rode a train to […]
Posted inGoat
Lend me a hand
The effects of global warming on plants and animals are likely to be as varied as the species themselves. Some will adapt; some will even benefit. But what does the future hold for those too slow-moving, slow-growing, or otherwise unable to make the best of things? Conservation biologists have been talking, many nervously and some […]
Posted inWotr
Fear and rage in the barn
I was in the middle of a divorce when I applied for the barn job. I walked into the local rodeo arena, introduced myself to the owner and was attacked by a rooster — claws up. My automatic response was to kick the bird across the barn, too late remembering this was a job interview […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
No backup on the Northern border
A rural county is saddled with international responsibility.
Posted inGoat
Move over Yucca Mountain…
Construction is underway on a hush-hush repository deep beneath Wyoming’s Sweetwater County. What will it hold? Well, it’s not nuclear waste or a germ warfare facility. I’ll give you a hint: It involves a somewhat notorious science fiction author and, tangentially, Tom Cruise. From the Casper Star-Tribune (via the AP): Public planners . . .say […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
Red light, green light
Despite the midwinter economic-recession blues plaguing much of the West, environmentalists have reason to feel good. After eight years of being frustrated by President George W. Bush, suddenly they’re getting traction. Signs include: On Jan. 20, just hours into his term, President Barack Obama froze all the Bush deregulation efforts that had not been finalized […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Anyone want some wolves?
Not to be outdone in the oddball department, Idaho State Sen. Gary Schroeder, R, has introduced a bill requiring his state to gather up its wolves and give them away, preferably to another state, reports the IdahoStatesman.com, though so far none has stepped up to tell Idaho that it’s wolf-short. The bill unanimously passed the […]