Riding Toward EverywhereWilliam T. Vollmann188 pages, hardcover: $26.95 Ecco, 2008. Embittered by the policies of the Bush administration, disillusioned by the general fear growing within our society and slowed by age and poor health, National Book Award Winner William T. Vollmann sets out on a series of freight trains through the Western United States. He […]
Riders and writers, hobos and fauxbeaux
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Making a hand
What’s rarely noted and is missing in this discussion about the cowboy myth is that taking care of animals requires commitment to their welfare and a lot of knowledge (HCN, 6/09/08). Without this, you’re unemployable as a cowpoke and an outfit can’t survive economically. If you can’t handle feed and supplement needs with changing seasons, […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Know your owl
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Hostile takeover.” There are minor differences, but the two species are similar. Both are large owls with dark eyes and round heads lacking ear tufts. The easiest way to tell them apart: The barred owl is larger and paler in color. This article appeared […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
It’s a wilderness, not a mall
Regarding wilderness designations, there is no guarantee that just because a place exists all humans have to be allowed in, nor given special access to all parts of all places (HCN, 6/23/08). I speak as a physically challenged person who cannot go down the Grand Canyon or hike the Appalachian Trail, and I do not […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Is anybody listening?
If there is a link between the fires of Northern California and the war in Iraq, it is the thread of human ignorance and our remarkable ability to keep our heads in the sand (HCN, 7/21/08). The fiasco that is Iraq was completely preventable and the result of intentional deceit, stunning hubris and callous disregard […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Got a license for those antlers?
As with all issues related to the marketing of wild animal products, horn hunting needs regulation as strict and enforceable as anything on the books for any hunting (HCN, 6/23/08). Whenever the convergence of wildlife and man create a market for wildlife products, greed inevitably takes hold, and what was a pastime turns into a […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Going to the gasroots
Oil and gas companies mobilize from the ground up in a changing West
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Drilling with Charlie
Drilling holes into the earth is an audacious act with an ancient history. Many centuries ago, the Chinese were drilling wells 1,000 feet deep. In the 1860s, as the giant marine mammals grew scarce, American whalers came ashore and began harpooning the planet, hoping to strike “rock oil.” Earth may resemble a big rock, but […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Catastrophe or nature’s process
In The Blast Zone: Catastrophe and Renewal on Mount St. Helens Edited by Charles Goodrich, Kathleen Dean Moore, and Frederick Swanson124 pages, softcover: $15.95. Oregon State University Press, 2008. Twenty-five years after Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, Oregon State University sponsored a four-day trip into the blast zone. Scientists, writers, artists and academics came […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Advice from a rancher: The risks make it fun
The other day I heard a newsman refer to “these perilous times” for businesspeople. No kidding, I thought. The gloomy picture featured rising costs, increased property taxes, deepening recession, employee demands for more insurance and benefits, market risk — the list went on. I thought of the risks we’ve faced in ranching, with more to […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
The wandering lepidopterist
It’s a sadly typical spring day in Seattle, all scudding clouds and spitting rain even though the forecast promised sun. On top of that, Dr. Robert Michael Pyle has some bad news. “Marsha won’t be joining us,” he says. I’m sorry to hear it. Marsha has been at Pyle’s side for more than 30 years, […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Drilling, wolves, guns and plutonium
“Drill here, drill now,” has become something of a political mantra in this election-year summer of high gasoline prices and frustrated consumers. Tack on “pay less,” and it’s the bumper-sticker slogan for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s national campaign to expand domestic energy production. Many Republicans now running for Congress hope their enthusiasm for drilling […]
Posted inGoat
Agricultural water pollution on the line
The Bush Administration has been trying since 2005 to change Clean Water Act rules so that agricultural interests can dump polluted water into public lakes and streams without obtaining a permit. Each step of the way, Florida environmentalists represented by Earthjustice lawyers have filed lawsuits to block the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) from implementing the […]
Posted inGoat
Denver to vote on impounding immigrants’ cars
The text of Denver Initiative 100, which goes before voters on August 12, uses the phrase “illegal alien” four times. Still, supporters insist it has nothing to do with immigration. The initiative would require Denver police to impound the car of anyone caught driving without a license, unless they believe the driver simply left his […]
Posted inGoat
Senate Dems call for resignation of EPA’s Johnson
Back in 2005, the Senate withheld its confirmation of Stephen Johnson as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency when he refused to cancel the Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study, which proposed using human subjects to examine the effects of pesticides on children from infancy to age 3. When he agreed to cancel the study, the […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Hostile takeover and a conservation quandary
Barred owls are driving threatened spotted owls out of their territory. Is it time to shoot them?
Posted inGoat
Survival or bust
The Quino checkerspot, a pretty patchwork butterfly native to the scrubland of southern California, is not doing so well. The butterfly has been listed as endangered since 1997 and only a few small populations remain. But a group of biologists have a suggestion for how the Quino—and other organisms on the brink of extinction—might be […]
Posted inWotr
The next fires will be anytime, all the time
The warm wind of July 14, 1988, signaled the beginning of a remarkable series of fires that burned into Americans’ consciousness. Before that day, the managers of Yellowstone National Park and nearby national forests were confident that their efforts to restore natural fire were a success. After that day, the concept of the natural would […]