Albuquerque’s international airport, dubbed The Sunport, ranks as one of the smaller and friendlier airports around. That’s important for Westerners like me. Since traveling became an uncertain business, being met by “our” people behind the counter, in shops and at the gate, goes a long way to ease nervousness for infrequent flyers. This is particularly […]
Running the gantlet of Homeland Security
Posted inWotr
It’s time to call the gas industry’s bluff
There’s been a steep falloff in friendly chitchat around the local gas pumps, and no wonder. With diesel at $3.40 a gallon and gasoline only somewhat cheaper, it’s common to see someone drop $100 on a tankfull. A typical American family will spend more than $3,000 on liquid fuels this year, and another two grand […]
Posted inWotr
Here’s a new way to think about Black History
Every February, the contributions of black Americans are recognized during Black History Month. Since I’m black and work for the Bureau of Land Management, a mostly white federal agency, I appreciate that. But I also have a complaint: Why has its observance become so predictable? By now, I am sure that everybody knows that black […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Heard around the West
UTAH Jim Stiles, publisher of the Canyon Country Zephyr in Moab, has been called cynical, chronically ticked off, dour and – more kindly perhaps – curmudgeonly. He is greatly annoyed by the Lycra-clad bicyclists that invade his part of the world, and he’d like the rip-’em-up crowd of ATV and four-wheel-drivers to take a hike. […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Standing outside, late, in a charcoal forest
When my bladder provokes me out of the cabin, the Montana night is deep. The door closes behind me. I step down two stairs to the frozen, scoured ground. It is warm and breezy. The wind sounds like river current moving among the black stalks of tree trunks. An acrid hint of fire is in […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Die with me
“Indians must either fall in with the march of civilization and progress,” wrote Major James McLaughlin, military director of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, in 1889, “or be crushed by the passage of the multitude.” More than a century later, three writers uncomfortably assess that prediction, and find that Native Americans have indeed fallen into […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Time to call the gas industry’s bluff
There’s been a steep falloff in friendly chit-chat around the local gas pumps, and no wonder. With diesel at $3.40 a gallon and gasoline only somewhat cheaper, it’s common to see someone drop $100 on a tankful. The Pump N Pay is as glum as a morgue. A typical American family will spend more than […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
A bad idea hits the gas pumps
A quiet invasion is under way near my home in Colorado. Inconspicuous black stickers are appearing on gas pumps to announce the arrival of a new molecule looking to occupy gas tanks. It goes by the name of C2H5OH – ethanol. Typically, my consumption of ethanol is strictly oral, in the form of alcoholic beverages. […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Outen the lights
I am glad to know someone with the Park Service is concerned about preserving the night sky (HCN, 12/10/07). My husband and I have sat on the edge of Bryce Canyon as well as Mesa Verde, both rims of the Grand Canyon and Zion at night enjoying the starlit sky and seeing the Milky Way, […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Fight the good fight
Thank you, Jim Detterline, for your fight against arbitrary and capricious workplace rules, and thank you High Country News for reporting Jim’s story (HCN, 12/10/07). Two of the kids you are fighting for are my daughters, 7 and 10, both of whom were born hard of hearing. Both love being outdoors; the 7-year-old is already […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Standing up for catron county
Though we ourselves are not in the wolf recovery area, we have quite a few long-standing friends in Catron County (HCN, 12/24/07). So even though wolves haven’t eaten my dogs in my yard, or killed my horse in my corral, or stalked my children while waiting for the school bus, I have followed the issue […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Ah, diversity …
High Country News could devote an entire issue to examining the cultural diversity of the West. Or, as you did, print just three of the responses to “Last Chance for the Lobo” (HCN, 1/21/08). The two letters from Reserve, N.M., remind me of the quote, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Limit one per household, please
That Somali’s tie may be straight (and he’s lucky to get into the U.S. from such a Godforsaken country); but he has eight kids (HCN, 1/21/08)! In an overpopulated world and country, this constitutes gross environmental irresponsibility. Every time I read about somebody with such an enormous family, I get mad. Besides the “green” movement, […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Walk the talk, libs
I am a native of Colorado and consider myself an environmentalist, but the anti-oil tone of modern “environmentalists,” coupled with their lifestyle of hypocrisy, has alienated many independent and moderate Republicans (like myself) that would otherwise support pro-nature agendas. This isn’t a taunt so much as it is a reality check from outside of the […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
More, more, more
Ray Ring’s Western campaign speech was a start, but I was crossing my fingers and hoping that it wouldn’t be 98 percent MORE (meaning “let’s generate more electricity for more people, using alternative energy sources”) with only one brief mention of efficiency and conservation (HCN, 1/21/08). I also hoped it wouldn’t offer the false hope […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
The Chaparralian
California’s raging fires fuel one man’s fight for the much-maligned “elfin forest”
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Nevada stakes its salmon claim
Snake River dams run up against a powerful alliance in an unlikely place
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Two weeks in the West
Updated 2/4/2008 A groan must have risen from some Western developers at the end of last year, as a flurry of conservation easements yanked hundreds of thousands of acres out of their reach. The rush was at least partly due to a federal tax incentive that expired at the end of 2007. (Congress is considering […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Planning for uncertainty
On an unseasonably cold night in late January, more than 250 Phoenix-area residents packed the Arizona State University Kerr Cultural Center in Scottsdale. There, they found more than just physical warmth: High Country News was sponsoring a heated conversation on the uncertain future of their desert kingdom. Author and moderator Craig Childs posed the central […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Hold the salt
The largest wetland restoration project on the West Coast shifts into gear