On a balmy spring day in Ironwood Forest National Monument, volunteers work up a sweat as they plant native bushes and sweep away the vehicle tracks that cut across the Sonoran Desert landscape. Arizona’s Ironwood Forest is one of 15 national monuments in the Bureau of Land Management’s National Landscape Conservation System. The monument already […]
Public lands “crown jewels” languish for lack of funding
Posted inWotr
I’ve got the power
It isn’t like one of those holiday scenes with a flurry of snow swirling, caught inside a vigorously shaken globe of winter wonder. It’s only a glass cylinder about the size of a three-pound coffee can, attached to my telephone post. A silver disc spins inside it. Vaguely resembling a CD player, it’s known in […]
Posted inWotr
Selling peace on the street in Flagstaff, Arizona
I sat with a friend and her son outside the post office in Flagstaff, Ariz. The building has been there half a century; we felt as though we had been there eons. There was an icy mountain wind and an occasional icy stare. We were encouraging people to send George Bush a half-cup of rice […]
Posted inWotr
The new pariahs
Walking by a tavern in the late evening, seeing smokers clumped outside the door, their shoulders hunched in the cold, puffing furtively, I’m not sure what to think. In the temper of our times, I suppose I should be pitying, maybe even scornful, looking down my nose at the wretches, slave to a demon weed, […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
The knowledge of mules
I know more about mules than I want to. I know the scent of their sweat mixed with their steaming breath at 3 in the morning. I know the sight of a fully packed mule string, nine animals long, under the light of a full moon. I know the taut sound of a manila breakaway […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
A geography of the imagination
At first glance, Home Ground resembles a straightforward encyclopedia of geography. But crack the book open, and you find yourself in unexpected territory, a geography of the imagination that blends literature, science, folklore and history. Author and editor Barry Lopez got the idea for the book after a frustrating attempt to find a definition for […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
Don’t send a check, send yourself
When I first visited “Carnage Canyon” in the 1970s, it was clear to me how it got its name. The place was a mess. It had become a racetrack for racing bikes and motorcycles that zipped up and down the sides of the canyon. A few years later, people dragged in old refrigerators, cars and […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
‘Taking Liberties’ on the High Plains
As a longtime HCN subscriber, I want to congratulate Ray Ring on winning the (George) Polk Award (I just got your e-mail notice of the award at The Chadron Record, where I am editor and publisher). “Taking Liberties,” his article on the Libertarian election initiatives, was a great example of how even a small paper […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
Our sincere apologies
Your amusement in “Heard Around the West” concerning the Idaho Statesman headline about a missing councilman is not at all amusing. This is a local gentleman that stopped to assist a driver at the side of the highway, and as a result it is assumed that he was hit by a passing vehicle or jumped […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
When analogies go bad
Too bad Matt Jenkins ruined an otherwise well-researched, well-written article, “The Efficiency Paradox,” with his out-of-line comments in the sixth paragraph from the end. “Doddering snowbirds”… come on. Do doddering snowbirds walk three miles a day or hike to the bottom and back of Bryce Canyon in 90 degree heat at over 9,000 foot altitude? […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
Labels are for pickle jars
Looking at the 2008 election in “Two Weeks in the West,” Jonathan Thompson appropriately pointed out the condescending nature of the New York Post’s headline about a New Mexican politician tossing his “sombrero” into the presidential ring. He then went on in the same paragraph to use the same inappropriate style by including the religious […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
Let’s start with a Kennecott Mine
The “Condemned” article stated that “private parties” like corporations can condemn private property, bypassing government, for “public use” in five Western states. If that is the case, then why can’t “private parties” like incorporated environmental groups condemn the private property of corporations for “public use”? Rather than fight to change the state constitutions, use existing […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
The once-over on overgrazing
Please do not take the editorial advice from Mark Salvo concerning the use of the word “overgrazing.” It is ironic that Salvo portrays himself as being on the side of “rational discourse” when he appears in fact to be one of those zealots who believes that any grazing in that nonexistent monolith he calls “the […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
A moment of silence for our meat
Laura Paskus’ article on the traveling butchering unit in Taos seemed very insensitive. “Beginning this spring, cattle, pigs, lamb, goats, even bison, will trot up the ramp leading into the back of the Mobile Matanza, where they’ll be met by …” This line is complemented by a picture of a man sharpening a large knife. […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
A wolf’s life
NAME: B7 WEIGHT AT RELEASE: 74 pounds AT DEATH: 97 pounds ESTIMATED WEIGHT IN HIS PRIME: 120 pounds RELEASED: Indian Creek, Idaho, Jan. 20, 1995 ESTIMATED AGE: 13.75-14.75 years old ORIGINAL PACK: The Oldman River, Alberta KNOWN FOR: Being the last of the 29 wolves introduced into the U.S. from Canada in 1995 EMBARRASSING FACTS: […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
Stream leases languish
Efforts to privatize instream-flow protection fall short
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
Getting the lead out
A proposed ban on lead ammo in California could save condors
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
Two weeks in the West
This is the way the world ends: Not with a bang, but a whimper
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
Welcome to the Homogocene
The snow has started to melt off the pasture behind our house, revealing an emerald-green carpet of grass. It’s a welcome sight, but how, you might wonder, could the grass already be green in mid-February? Because it is cheatgrass, an exotic Eurasian species that springs up and matures faster than any of the West’s native […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2007: Wish You Weren’t Here
Heard around the West
THE NATION Pity Gail Kimbell, the first woman appointed chief of the U.S. Forest Service. On Feb. 5 — her first day of work — President Bush proposed cutting her budget by 2 percent and eliminating more than 2,100 Forest Service jobs. A week later, Kimbell’s job got even more uncomfortable when she had to […]