Anyone who has moved to the mountains recently has learned of the existence of a distinct subspecies of human beings known familiarly as “flatlanders.” The first thing that needs to be understood about this group is that it is almost never found at sea level. Only when the flatlander takes residence at a higher altitude […]
A field guide to the instant rural guy
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Tequila-fueled tunes
Name Roger Clyne Age 38 Vocation Front man for the Tempe, Arizona, band Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. The Peacemakers are made up of Clyne, P.H. Naffah on drums, Steve Larson on guitar, and Nick Scropos on bass. Also markets his own brand of tequila. Known For The band’s high-energy live shows and Southwestern sound. […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Heard around the West
CANADA AND IDAHO Spurred by global warming or just plain wanderlust, a female polar bear and a male grizzly got together six years ago for what Borat would call “sexy-time.” What the encounter produced might be dubbed a “pizzly” or a “grolarbear.” The male hybrid was shot earlier this year on a remote Arctic island […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
I fell into a burning ring of fire
Some people seek gentle hands to soothe knots from sore muscles. Others get a facial or a pedicure. Still others hold hands and hum around a vortex. In today’s world of indulgence-for-hire and guided leisure, you can practice yoga, Pilates, Nia. Screw that, I say. Play with fire. There’s something restorative about lighting a glowing […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
A corps of visitors, not discoverers
In Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes, the late historian and journalist Alvin Josephy assembles nine weakly linked essays by 10 Indian writers. A few essays are solid; some are tough to get through. But together they should enable the Anglo reader to pass through the looking glass, as Alice did in Lewis Carroll’s classic, […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Chickens are roosting on private property in Oregon
Oregon’s infamous Ballot Measure 37 created an old-fashioned land rush as property owners, developers and opportunists raced to file claims for compensation before the recent deadline. An estimated 3,600 claims were filed, and it’s possible that the last-minute rush added 1,000 more. The total cost of the claims may top $7 billion, though no one […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Of salvage logging and salvation
Salvage is a word that is much in the air these days, not just in the woods, but also in the lecture halls of universities and in the marble corridors of Washington, D.C. It is a word of power, a soothing word implying many virtues: prudence and profit, rescue and redemption, both exploitation and, somehow, […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
It’s getting better all the time
As a longtime subscriber, I have observed a marked uplift in the artistic level of the photography used to illustrate articles in the past year or so. The Oct. 30 issue was a new zenith, with two articles illustrated by Jared Boyd, “Just Another Giddyup” and “Peace Breaks Out in New Mexico’s Forests.” The photos, […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
The very model of a modern collaboration
On behalf of the Forest Guild, a national association of professional foresters with deep roots in community forestry, I would like to comment on Peter Friederici’s article “Peace Breaks Out in New Mexico’s Forests” (HCN, 10/30/06). The Forest Guild was one of the collaborators on the Rowe Mesa Collaborative Forest Restoration Project (CFRP) referred to […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Truth, lies and falcons
In the “Bred For Success” article, author Stephanie Paige Ogburn perpetuates a common myth when she writes, “A well-trained falcon brings the catch (prey) uneaten to its master, who rewards it with food” (HCN, 11/13/06). Sheer fallacy: Falcons serve no master and they don’t retrieve. In comparing released aplomado falcons to an “annual crop of […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Time for an attitude adjustment
As a fellow Unitarian Universalist, I am puzzled and dismayed by Chris Wallace’s shortsighted and selfish attitude toward paying fees to use nearby U.S. Forest Service lands (HCN, 11/27/06). It seems to me that the no-fee movement is akin to the property-rights movement, as in “I own this land and I can do with it […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Shear Pleasure
As the eighth red-headed slut slid down my throat, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. I was merely trying to keep up with my new friends, a group of traveling sheepshearers from New Zealand. But they kept buying round after round at the Sawmill Saloon in Darby, Mont. “Shearing’s a hobby,” […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Excremental gains?
A stink over ‘sludge’ raises larger questions
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Two weeks in the West
“People will go to any length to have these things in their possession. It’s big antlers and big egos.” — Jim Kropp, chief of wildlife law enforcement in Montana, on a wave of trophy game poaching that’s alarmed officials and angered licensed hunters in Montana, Nevada and other Western states. Mobsters or federal employees — […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Slipping into the holidays
More than a foot of snow fell in our hometown of Paonia the week after Thanksgiving. It was fluffy, “powder dry” stuff to begin with, but after a week of sub-freezing temperatures, not to mention sub-par snow removal efforts, it turned into dense sheets of ice on the town’s sidewalks and streets. Geology students from […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Dear friends
HCN TAKES A HOLIDAY Thanks to all of our readers and friends who attended our annual holiday open house on Dec. 6. As we always do this time of year, HCN staffers are taking a two-week break to sing carols, swill wassail and celebrate the holiday with family and friends. The next issue of HCN […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Faustian bargains in the gas fields of New Mexico’s San Juan Basin
Posted inWotr
The best job in the world
I had the best job in the world this December. I made 50 people laugh and then start to cry. Some looked at me as if I were crazy, while others hugged me tight. I was a “Mystery Shopper” in Montrose, population 13,000, in western Colorado, who “caught” people shopping in local stores and gave […]
Posted inWotr
No surprises, and no solutions, from raids aimed at illegal immigrants
On the morning of Dec. 12, immigration and other federal officials launched a simultaneous raid — the biggest ever of its kind — at Swift & Co. meatpacking plants across six different states. At the plant in Greeley, Colo., about an hour’s drive north of Denver, agents surrounded the windowless, monolithic facility, then entered, carrying […]
Posted inWotr
Christmas fuels the ‘bough industry’ in Washington
When my parents were first married, my father wanted to name their newly created logging company “Moonscape Logging.” Thankfully, my mother nixed that idea, although it was an apt description of the clear-cutting that happened on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula in the ’70s and ’80s. Once logs were taken out of the forest, whatever remained got […]