In Las Vegas, the BLM puts cheap land on the table for affordable housing
Betting on the house
Posted inNovember 26, 2007: Beetle Warfare
Dear friends
HCN HAPPENINGS The staff of High Country News cordially invites all readers and friends to a holiday open house at our Paonia, Colo., office (119 Grand Ave.) on Wednesday, Dec. 12, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. We’ll provide refreshments. Some fresh faces now grace the office, including Ryan Foster, our director of digital media. A […]
Posted inNovember 26, 2007: Beetle Warfare
Beetle Warfare
What happens when an exotic bug is brought in to fight an exotic weed?
Posted inArticles
Worker fallout
Some sick workers from Rocky Flats are
poised to receive compensation quickly, but the majority must
wait
Posted inWotr
Bears in the burbs, cougars in the chicken coops, oh my!
A recent lockdown at my daughters’ elementary school in Boulder, Colo., brought horrific images to mind. But it was no big deal: merely a bear seen near the playground. Ironically, an outdoors program was under way, complete with kayak pool, climbing wall and mountain-bike course. The Iockdown is typical of how wildlife interactions can so […]
Posted inWotr
Western water is petering out
Gerald Spangler needs no statistics or charts to tell him what he already knows: We are running out of water. Spangler is a semi-retired farmer who has lived in southwest Nebraska, 15 miles east of the Colorado border, since the Dust Bowl days. In 1 979, he drilled his first groundwater well to a depth […]
Posted inWotr
One small voice against blundering into another war
On television recently, I heard Norman Podhoretz, an advisor to Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, advocate the bombing of Iran, and it was clear that a drumbeat of opinion was pushing us toward another war in the Middle East. I mentioned this to a Portland friend who follows politics closely, and he told me to […]
Posted inWotr
Since when did hunting become target shooting?
It started over the long Labor Day weekend and went on from dawn to dusk — the constant report of gunfire echoing against the Organ Mountains here in southern New Mexico. Another dove-hunting season had descended upon us, and all lovers of wildlife could do was wait for it to end while so-called hunters blasted […]
Posted inWotr
A former Hot Shot looks at the West’s wildfires
The recent wildfires that burned 600 square miles, razed some 3,000 homes, killed 14 people and forced the evacuations of over a half-million Southern Californians shared one characteristic: All the homes burned were so close to public land that fire moved easily from hillsides covered with chaparral into subdivisions packed with natural vegetation. I’ve seen […]
Posted inWotr
A wolf tale that’s all too true
Here’s a news item you might recall, though it never got much play in the Lower 48: Alaska wildlife officials targeted more than 600 wolves for death by aerial gunning during the 2006-2007 season. In just a few months, they’d gotten close, killing 560. And as an inducement to hunters, state officials said they’d pay […]
Posted inWotr
When it’s all too much
I don’t know how it happened, but somehow we ended up with five computers at home, along with the attendant plethora of mice, keyboards, monitors and printers. They were given to us, or we got them on sale, or we bought them outright. About half the stuff we didn’t use, ever. One of the hard […]
Posted inWotr
Condors – the best air show in the West
If you’re standing on the Vermilion Cliffs at sunset, looking south towards the Grand Canyon, there’s a good chance you might see a wonder of the West, the California condor. As this largest bird in North America glides over 3,000-foot-high cliffs, its wingspan of 10 feet wide makes its presence unmistakable. In other places along […]
Posted inWotr
Even four-footed employees deserve to retire
For at least two decades, Edith Ann belonged to everyone, and to no one. Nobody could agree how old she was, just that the little bay quarter horse had lived at California’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area for as long as anyone could remember. Three generations of park visitors knew Edith Ann, and many made […]
Posted inWotr
Kansas — yes, Kansas — leads the way toward innovation
Southwest Kansas gets little national attention. I recall a Calvin Trillin story about a small town there on the parched plains, isolated and insignificant. Yet the town had become a vital part of the Vietnam War because of its factory, then in frantic production manufacturing concertina barbed wire. Before that, Truman Capote made the small […]
Posted inWotr
Nuclear power is back with a bang
Blind faith in nuclear power overseas, growing resistance to coal-fired power plants, and skyrocketing oil prices have driven uranium prices up and resurrected a half-dead market. President Bush calls it the cleanest, safest energy in the world. We were duped once before and paid dearly for our short-sightedness. The radioactive dust still hasn’t settled from […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
The power of music, the power of obsession
Flamenco, says a character in Sarah Bird’s dramatic and well-written novel, The Flamenco Academy, is an “obsessive-compulsive disorder set to a great beat.” The novel weaves the history of flamenco with the search for identity and the power of obsession. Albuquerque high-school seniors Rae and Didi make an unlikely duo. Rae, the narrator, is a […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
How a restaurant changed the world
Chez Panisse is a French restaurant in an old home in Berkeley, Calif. Its menu is set, like that of a dinner party, and changes every night. Whether or not you’ve eaten there, you’ve felt its influence, which has rippled through the West and the world over the past 37 years. The organic craze and […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
Offsets, schmoffsets
I appreciate Rick Craig’s illuminating the concerns of the scientific community, and some forward-thinking members of Congress, regarding tree planting as a means of offsetting CO2 production (HCN, 10/15/07). Planting trees does nothing to alleviate our appetite for fossil fuels and petroleum-derived consumer products. Real estate developers are now jumping onto the bandwagon of planting […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
We prefer pinot grigio and brie
I read with understanding and dismay the essay by Evelyn Spence on the RV blight (HCN, 10/15/07). I hope she will soften her point of view in due time … I’m an elderly rancher/horse dealer/painter, with two RVs at present, both of which she forgot to mention: “Chinook” and “Airstream.” Music to my ears. Named […]