When it comes to fund raising, Mitt Romney is the West’s presidential candidate
Pony up
Posted inAugust 6, 2007: Guns R Us
Two weeks in the West
White-tailed prairie dogs are short, stout rodents that burrow in the plains of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Montana. Their numbers have declined – some estimates say by as much as 90 percent – over the years, thanks to habitat loss, oil and gas development, grazing, bubonic plague and wholesale eradication efforts that include shooting and […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2007: Guns R Us
Ready, aim, compromise
“I want to say those fighting words, to hear and to heed, and especially to you, Mr. Gore: From my cold, dead hands.” -Charlton Heston in May 2000, waving a rifle above his head at an NRA annual meeting. “The NRA is opposed to common-sense gun reform, and they have George Bush in their hip […]
Posted inArticles
Pipe dreams
By the time endangered spring chinook reach the mouth of the Methow River, a tributary of the Columbia, in late summer, they have traveled 500 miles and passed nine dams in order to spawn. Upstream, the Chief Joseph Dam, which lacks fish passage, blocks further progress up the Columbia. The Methow’s forested watershed offers one […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2007: Guns R Us
Video Interview: Ryan Horsley
Note: the videos linked below accompany the feature story of this issue, “Guns R Us.” Ryan Horsley on the history of Red’s Trading Post: The Growth of Red’s Trading Post Ryan Horsley on the growth of Red’s Trading Post, and why it doesn’t sell machine guns. Ryan Horsley on dealing with the ATF The Bureau […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2007: Guns R Us
An alphabetical speed-load of state-by-state gun facts
(Note: This article is a sidebar to the feature Guns R Us) ARIZONA Generally, by state law, you’re not allowed to carry a gun into a nuclear plant or hydroelectric dam area, or into a polling place on Election Day, or into any other “public establishment” where the host specifically bans guns, or into any […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2007: Guns R Us
Changing the world, one car at a time
NAME Greg Rock VOCATION Inventor, owner and co-founder of the Green Car Company FAVORITE BEER Red Hook HE SAYS “If we go the green route, I think the world will follow us. If we don’t, hopefully the world won’t!” WHAT HE’S READING NOW The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook When he speaks about […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2007: Guns R Us
Of politics and the river
An Arizona congressman and a military base threaten the last free-flowing river in the desert Southwest
Posted inAugust 6, 2007: Guns R Us
Dear friends
PARTY WITH HCN AND REP. MARK UDALL If you happen to be in western Colorado Thursday, Aug. 23, please join us for an HCN summer celebration. Our special guest will be Colorado Democratic Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall, who will discuss the key issues facing the region and Congress’ role in addressing them. […]
Posted inWotr
Reckless at 50
I celebrated my 50th birthday a few years back by just about killing myself on a desert hike. I lived atop a 3,000-foot plateau called Grapevine Mesa, an extraordinary place that towered over the far eastern end of Lake Mead, a huge man-made body of water that sprawled through desert canyons 80 miles distant. My […]
Posted inWotr
America needs clean water – and mining law reform
Back in the early 1870s, Gen. George Armstrong Custer was among those excited by the rumor of gold and glory in the Black Hills of South Dakota, my home state. A lot has changed since then, but the same law that presided over gold mining in Custer’s day — the Mining Law of 1872 — […]
Posted inWotr
Wyoming manners? Forget about it!
Wyoming may be the rudest state in America. I grew up in upstate New York, where it was rude not to introduce strangers to each other. If you neglected to do this, you found yourself apologizing to the accidentally slighted person. Nothing in the preceding paragraph applies to daily life in Wyoming. Even New York […]
Posted inWotr
Oh, those summer nights at the drive-in!
It’s the kind of summer night when a warm breeze rubs up against you like your date in that strapless dress on prom night so long ago. Not only that, but our kids are restless and we need something to do. It’s the perfect night, in other words, to see a movie at the drive-in. […]
Posted inWotr
Asthma and allergies take root in the new West
‘Mom, would you really have shipped me off to Denver?’ I asked my mother recently. ‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘But imagine,’ I said, ‘what it would have been like for a 5-year-old living in an institution, surrounded by doctors and a bunch of asthmatic kids?’ ‘You were very, very sick,’ she explained.’Nothing helped.’ She told how […]
Posted inArticles
Love for the clay-loving buckwheat
By 8 a.m., the July day felt like a scorcher. Waves of heat rippled along the western Colorado adobe hills, shriveling plants and baking the soil to a fractured crust that crunched with every step. Two white tents peeking from between golden hills could have been a mirage, if it weren’t for the sizzle of […]
Posted inArticles
A dustup over weed control
They race across the West covering 2,300 acres each day, devouring an area the size of twenty Wal-Mart superstores every minute. They reduce habitat for wildlife, dry up water tables and intensify the threat of wildfires on 35 million acres of public land. As the area covered by invasive plants grows, so does the amount […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2007: Hydrogen Highway Revisited
Heard Around the West
NEW MEXICO Would you stop your car at a clearly marked crosswalk if Santa Claus were strolling across the street? Would you even slow down or get off your cell phone to gawk at a walking gorilla? The University of New Mexico wanted to investigate pedestrian safety at crosswalks in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Gallup and […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2007: Hydrogen Highway Revisited
The aroma of Tacoma
My husband grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Whenever we’d go back to visit the cloudy skies of Seattle or Portland, he’d ask, “Can you picture us living here?” and I would try. But I always felt anxious. He seemed so happy, just posing the question, that I put my trepidation down to that arthritis […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2007: Hydrogen Highway Revisited
A taste of ecological medicine
In Nature’s Restoration, writer and naturalist Peter Friederici transports the reader to six ecologically damaged landscapes, from Bermuda to Arizona, that people are struggling to restore. Some of the challenges derive from the painstaking work inherent in restoration: plant by plant, species by species, two steps forward, one step back. Friederici also examines the conundrums […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2007: Hydrogen Highway Revisited
Home is where the compost is
Robert Michael Pyle has synthesized three decades of life in a small community in southwest Washington into this exquisite portrait of place. Each chapter of Sky Time in Gray’s River represents a month of the year in Gray’s River Valley; each brims with vivid moments and vignettes. Pyle, a renowned butterfly expert, has 14 books […]