In the October 13th edition HCN reviewed western ballot measures. This year there apparently are only a few “environmental” measures on western ballots and at least one of these – the California initiative on “green measures” – is actually anti-environmental. I don’t know about you but I find this troubling. In a national election year […]
Why is “The Environment” not on the ballot?
Posted inGoat
Mormons for Marriage
As noted in Ray Ring’s recent HCN feature, the Mormon church is throwing its impressive institutional — and financial — weight behind the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 in California. But like any religious group, the Latter-Day Saints are hardly monolithic. The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting (and further reporting) that a growing number of Mormons […]
Posted inGoat
Is the Colorado Senate race over?
The National Republican Senatorial Committee will not be buying ads to support Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer during the last week of his campaign in Colorado, presumably because they’ve given up hope for a win. This decision comes after the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee withdrew their funding from the Colorado race, presumably because they don’t […]
Posted inGoat
Energy future: geothermal
Calling it “a model for working together to make decisions about our energy future,” Department of Interior secretary Dirk Kempthorne yesterday unveiled the agency’s plan to open 190 million federally-managed acres to geothermal energy development. Managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Forest System, the land sprawls across 12 Western states and […]
Posted inGoat
The polls on Prop 8
Ray Ring’s story on Rexburg, Idaho and how the Mormon Church is throwing huge amounts of money into the campaign to pass the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 in California is fast on its way to becoming the most commented-upon article in the history of hcn.org. Meanwhile, Proposition 8 is fast on its way to becoming […]
Posted inGoat
Crypto-Jews real?
I first heard of the concept of Crypto-Jews back when I was a college student in Santa Fe during the late 1980s. New Mexico Hispanos had noticed their supposedly Catholic neighbors and relatives engaging in rituals that, it turned out, resembled Jewish religious practices. Some scholars — most notably Stanley Hordes, who was New Mexico’s […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Scrimpfest in the West
The posh St. Regis Resort at Monarch Beach in Southern California offers pregnant couples a lavish package vacation called the “Last Hurrah.” But in late September, that moniker might have been better applied to the $440,000 weeklong retreat American International Group held there for some of its top sales agents — less than a week […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Religion, politics and culture
Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his G-d … that thelegislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared their Legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free […]
Posted inWotr
I want my vote to count, but will it?
Just the other morning, I mailed off my absentee ballot. I’d carefully colored in all the ovals, signed it, smacked on a stamp and tossed that baby into the mailbox. Civic duty done? Maybe not. Last month, for example, New Mexico’s secretary of State had to admit that incorrect information had been mailed to more […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Power to the first people
Native Americans are poised to swing some Western battleground states
Posted inGoat
Dove Creek Dreams
Fields here are draped over hillsides and wrapped around sandstone canyons like brown and green quilts. Farm machinery rolls along county two-lanes, filling them from shoulder to shoulder. Houses of the hunker-down school of architecture sit here and there, each surrounded by a scruff of thirsty trees. This is Dove Creek, Colorado, the Pinto Bean […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Watery shell game
Regarding “a river runs near it,” we really shouldn’t call this water development (hcn, 9/15/08). It really is just water reallocation. No new water is being developed. Every time we reallocate water in substantial quantities, we do so crudely. This is probably just a little less crude than in the past, but we really don’t […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Future carnage
The toll that humans take on the rest of the planet has bothered me for quite some time (hcn, 10/13/08). I am 50 years old and remember an article in my weekly reader in about third grade (circa 1967) about the population explosion. It troubled me enough then and since that i decided not to […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Who’s left behind?
In regards to the writers on the range piece, “a macabre measure of the human footprint,” most everybody’s working with the idea of too many of us, except for those who believe there can never be too many of us because god’s taking care of that (hcn, 10/13/08). For the rest, it leads directly to […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Out stealing water
Oh, really? Theft of the property of others is now called “water harvesting” (hcn, 10/13/08). So … Even if you are a government agency or municipality, by all means necessary, just take what doesn’t belong to you. It has become the way of solving situations, where someone has recently arrived on the scene, knowing full […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
An eye on the agencies
Regarding your recent story “the great giveaway,” i retired as national recreation director for the bureau of land management in 2003, because i saw the bush administration consistently subvert the overall mission of the blm through the appointment of politicos willing to overrule professional judgment and substitute white house imperatives (hcn, 10/13/08). I retired earlier […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
The great barbecue, revisited
Paul Vandevelder’s article was right about the end of western welfare, in my opinion (hcn, 10/13/08). Large government deficits and the recent unraveling of our credit-based economy will likely have lasting effects on the west. While we may not be able to depend any longer on government largesse to fund bridges, dams, and other pet […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
The coming quake
Is Los Angeles ready for the Big One?
Posted inArticles
Audio: Researching Rexburg
Rexburg, Idaho, may be the most Mormon of any town in the nation. HCN Senior Editor Ray Ring spent time in Rexburg, getting to know the place, and trying to understand what happens when religion completely saturates a community. He wrote about it in his story, Prophets and Politics, in the Oct. 27 issue of […]
Posted inWotr
Take a hike!
“I thought we’d go for a hike,” I told the boy I’m mentoring. “You know, look at stuff.” “How about we go to a movie?” he parried. “Or we could play electronic poker.” He’s not an unusual kid. There has been a major swing in his generation away from all things outdoors. The National Academy […]