Ron Gillett did have two interesting comments when referring to wolves: “They engage in ‘sport binge killing’ and “(wolves) are the most cruel, vicious animals in North America …” (HCN, 5/12/08). I find them interesting for two reasons. The first is that human beings (for the most part) engage in “sport binge killing” almost every […]
The most dangerous game
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
Doom! Doom!
The (May 12) issue of High Country News is just pure fodder for cultural criticism of the New West. “Boom! Boom!” posits a clash of distinct economies without even acknowledging the direct link between the two, and suggests the amenities economy is somehow better for the environment. Go back and read your Dec. 25, 2006, […]
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
The latest trend in name-calling
The Cold War was actually rather heated when I was growing up in the 1950s and ’60s. America was more or less “at war” with the Communists as a matter of foreign policy. It affected our domestic discourse because politicians so often sought to discredit their opponents as “Communist sympathizers” or “comsymps” — “soft on […]
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
Easing into development
A backdoor agreement between the Forest Service and a timber company cuts out counties
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
Life, liberty and the pursuit of … game?
Right-to-hunt amendments coming to a state near you
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
Warp, weft and Wal-Mart
Name Marie Begay Age Late 60s Vocation Traditional hand-weaving Number of sheep owned 80 Where Marie gets her wool Most of her wool comes from her own sheep, though she trades wool with family members to broaden her color choices. Yarn needed for a typical rug Marie’s rugs approach “tapestry” quality, running 50 to 60 […]
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
Two weeks in the West
One toy “screams down the trails” and “tackles mud, rocks, and anything else nature throws its way.” The other “dances over everything from muddy single track to boulder fields.” With their grippy rubber treads and bomber construction, both may sound like fun to outdoorsy gearheads of all stripes. But the difference between the two underscores […]
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
Cowboy up to the energy boom
I knew it was going to be an interesting evening when the folks in the audience began bending my ear before the event got started. On May 15, High Country News convened a panel discussion on western Colorado’s red-hot energy economy. Shirley Adams told me point-blank that she had come because she had “something to […]
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
The first Great Truth of contemporary life is that the West is changing. And the second Great Truth is that the Cowboy Myth is an anachronistic view that denies the first truth and assures that we will become a socioeconomic backwater. What we need to do, or so we are told by those who purport […]
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
Walking on a Wire
Los Angeles needs green power. Does it have to tear up the desert to get it?
Posted inArticles
The high carbon cost of la vida rural
My wife recently calculated our carbon footprint for a project at the school where she teaches. Just how much CO2 are we contributing to global warming? I was smugly confident that our footprint would be tiny compared to others. We are seriously green, after all, trying to live a simple rural life. We heat with […]
Posted inArticles
Primer 5: Wildlife
Wild animals are as much a part of the American West’s mystique and grandeur as its mountains, canyons and plains. Nowhere else in the United States can you encounter wolves, grizzlies, buffalo, elk, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, golden and bald eagles, condors, mountain goats, and moose, wandering more or less at will across a varied landscape. […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
On Cancer’s Trail
The women in Stefanie Raymond-Whish’s family have a history of breast cancer. Now the young Navajo biologist is asking why.
Posted inWotr
My love affair with dandelions
It’s spring, and after a long, cold, dreary winter in New Mexico, I’m ready for it. And even though we’ve had a couple of late snowstorms and the trees are only just now beginning to get leaves, dandelions are already growing in the cracks of the rock wall next to my sidewalk. I call them […]
Posted inWotr
Native Americans walk the talk across America
Native Americans began their 3,600-mile walk across America at Alcatraz Island Feb. 11, and soon they’ll conclude in Washington, D.C. I’ve accompanied them on the Northern Route, co-hosting a Web radio program as they crossed the freezing Sierra Nevada Range, plodded through a hailstorm in western Utah and walked over the cold Rocky Mountains of […]
Posted inWotr
Too many elk and not enough tough love
I took my first sleigh ride around the National Elk Refuge recently, and after observing the artificial-feed buffet for elk, the calf hoof-rot and all the willows nibbled to the nubs, all I could think was: “I have a feeling we’re not in Wyoming anymore.” Isn’t Wyoming supposed to be the state where the federal […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Cowgirl meets lawsuit
Jackalope Dreams, Mary Clearman Blew’s fifth book and first novel, depicts the head-on collision of the Old West and the New. There are cattle, and meth labs; ranches lost to real estate developers and young people gone to cities; the end of cowboying as a lifelong verb and the rise of cowboy tourism. Corey Henry, […]