I was shocked and saddened to read Childs’ grim report (HCN, 4/28/08). I looked on eBay under “Anasazi” – sure enough, there was all kinds of stuff for sale. Shocking. There’s a way to enjoy this art without robbing graves. I bought a pot at the Acoma Pueblo. It sits in my living room. The […]
Art with a conscience
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Buy a t-shirt instead
I have been visiting the backcountry of the Southwest for many years. Craig Childs’ statement in “Pillaging the Past” that 90 percent of archaeological sites have been vandalized seems accurate from what I have witnessed (HCN, 4/28/08). When I first set foot on Cedar Mesa in southeast Utah almost 30 years ago, artifacts such as […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Not so fine a line
I applaud Craig Childs for furthering public awareness about the destruction of archaeological sites, and agree that archaeologists need to be more concerned about whether or not an artifact should be collected, and what happens to it after it is collected(HCN, 4/28/08). . But in his effort to conflate archaeological investigation with pothunting, he makes […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Heard Around the West
ARIZONA For sheer excitement, read the current issue of boatman’s quarterly review, published “more or less quarterly” by that elite group, Grand Canyon River Guides. A special 25-page section revisits the dangerous spring of 1983, when an unusually snowy winter was followed by a May snowstorm and suddenly warming temperatures. Roaring like a freight train, […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
The amphibian heart
The road was covered with toads. Crouched on the two-lane mountain blacktop, posed like speckled sphinxes on the yellow line. I saved as many as I could, leaping from my idling car to scoop up their warm dimpled bodies and deposit them in adjacent Sonoran Desert. But too many were already belly-up or smeared across […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
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
An activist
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “On Cancer’s Trail.” Scientific research on breast cancer is important, but if lives on the reservation are being saved right now, it’s largely through the efforts of people like Nellie Sandoval, Stefanie Raymond-Whish’s mother. Sandoval, a retired high school guidance counselor, works to ensure […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
A well
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “On Cancer’s Trail.” Between Haystack Rock and Mount Taylor, on an expansive sweep of desert near the eastern edge of the Navajo Reservation, Kerr McGee and Homestake mined uranium ore for decades, hauling it down the road in uncovered trucks. The Homestake Mill is […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
A patient
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “On Cancer’s Trail.” Kathleen Tsosie sits in the waiting room of the San Juan Regional Cancer Center in Farmington. A one-year breast cancer survivor, she has just received devastating news: A new growth has been spotted in her remaining, healthy breast. Dressed in a […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Rural West going to the dogs
Feral and free-roaming canines wreak havoc on wildlife and livestock
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Green and mean
Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund builds on anti-Pombo election strategy
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Fields of overkill
Conservation, farmers scorched by food safety concerns
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Climate cash-in
Western farmers and ranchers use crops – and cows – to tap into the carbon market
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Population’s Paul Revere?
NAME Frosty Wooldridge AGE 61 KNOWN FOR His e-mails, blogs, letters and books about overpopulation, and by extension, immigration. HE SAYS “You can ignore reality, but at some point reality will not ignore you. In the U.S., we’re now on track to add 100 million people in the next 30 years. We can bring about […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Two weeks in the West
With oil prices spiking past $120 a barrel, earthquakes and cyclones killing tens of thousands in Asia, and food prices spurring riots abroad and wrestling matches in the grocery line at home, the morning news is beginning to sound more than a little bit apocalyptic. In the West, you might expect the survivalists to cry […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Dear friends
FELLOW NEWSMEN COME TO CALL Kevin Haley, the “founder, publisher, editor, janitor and copyboy” of the San Juan Horseshoe, dropped by to say hi. The Ouray, Colo.-based parody newspaper bills itself as “Refried News for a Half-Baked World.” From Salida, Colo., came Mike Rosso, webmaster for four newspapers owned by Arkansas Valley Publishing. He said […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Uranium: It’s worse than you think
When people think of Durango, Colo., they usually think of the scenery, or the tourist attractions, or the disproportionate number of healthy, spandex-clad bicyclists, runners and raft guides. Rarely do they think of cancer. Perhaps they should. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Durango. It was a nice place to grow […]
Posted inWotr
When you’re rich, you can dream
The last great boom that lit up Wyoming’s economy happened 25 years ago. The predictable bust followed, and it was the mid-1980s when oil prices crashed, nationwide demand for energy plummeted, interest rates soared and, overall, many get-rich dreams that had been hatched during the heady days turned to nightmares. Now, we are in the […]
Posted inWotr
Democrats could play the donkey card in Denver
It’s been said that burros, beans and brawn won the West. Now, organizers of the Democratic National Convention are weighing whether iconic images of the Old West should be used to market the event in Denver this summer. The debate is not without significance. Democrats, who have been unable to gain a foothold in Southern […]
Posted inArticles
Putting out the welcome mats
Southwestern Wyoming’s Upper Green River Valley is home to the most extensive wetlands and riparian areas in the state, and its vast sagebrush prairies have long been a stronghold for sage grouse, antelope and mule deer. The Upper Green is also the site of the huge Jonah natural gas field. The Jonah Field stretches over […]