An Associated Press story that ran recently above the page one fold in Billings and Butte, Mont., didn’t qualify even as a brief in Baltimore, Md. No surprise, there. More people live in public housing in Baltimore than populate the states of North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, combined. But it was big news on the […]
Fire and the warming West
Posted inWotr
Leave only footprints, and turn the darn phone off
Hiking the other day on a national forest trail, we passed a lone woman. Cell phone glued to her ear, chattering away, she stomped by us without the usual trail civilities of at least a smile. Engrossed in the world at her ear, I doubt she even registered the beargrass blooming at her feet. Since […]
Posted inWotr
Dumpster diving for frugality and fun
No, not the kind you might think. I’m not talking about extreme hunter-gatherer dumpster diving, like the Rainbow People do behind Burger King in Boulder, Colo. Mine is sartorially oriented. I’m talking about raiding the “unsalable” clothes bins outside of the Bargain Box and the Senior Center Thrift Store here in Cody, Wyo. I seem […]
Posted inWotr
Subdivision and me
As we signed the papers, I knew I was a hypocrite. But every time we watched the setting sun make the red and beige sandstone glow from within, every time my dog lit out after a jackrabbit it was never going to catch, and every time I found a new potsherd in an unexpected place, […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Hits and missives from Cactus Ed
Writers today: When they’re not updating their blogs or prepping for that tell-all Oprah interview, they’re indecently exposé-ing themselves in another provocative, tragicomic memoir. But there was a time when insight into the person-behind-the-pages was hard to come by, when peering into an author’s inner narrative meant waiting until some enterprising scholar published the author’s […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Diversity, Schmiversity
I’m writing in response to your “Dear Friends” column of June 12. I found your focus on diversity at a recent Saturday morning gathering of staffers and board members to be troubling. I cannot fathom the weak, irrational deduction that goes, “because the (fill in the blank) is diverse, our staff or our movement or […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Keep power generation close to home
Regarding your Aug. 8 article, “Clearing a path for power,” as a veteran of a successful 11-year battle to stop a 345 KV power line from being built across the Valles Caldera National Preserve in northern New Mexico, I know how complicated and time-consuming stopping these power lines can be. Sadly, most large new power […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Planning lives
I am an Oregon planner. Yes, I repeat: I am an Oregon planner. Despite what you hear about Measure 37, we’re still here. The sky fell and we’re still around picking up the pieces. Life’s never been better. Years ago, some of us said it was time to go out to the public, statewide, and […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
The wilderness has been ‘trammeled’
It appears that just about any place can qualify as wilderness these days if the political will is there to make it so. This certainly is the case for the Jerry Peak area in Idaho. The truly beautiful picture accompanying the Aug. 21 article, “Wilderness cliffhanger,” shows the area as emerald green. Most of the […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Rainbows are people, too
Ranchers have it tough, a huge understatement, but Sharon Salisbury O’Toole’s complaint in her Aug. 7 essay, “There was no green in this Rainbow gathering,” sounds like a selfish indulgence. I was surprised that it was published by HCN. Ranchers enjoy the use of public lands most of the year and make a profit while […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Go native
I found “life after the lawn” several years ago. I have lived in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert all my life, but I let myself be led astray. When I was younger, I let Easterners and other assorted city slickers influence me to plant a Bermuda grass lawn and even a winter rye grass lawn. Both are […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Life (after the lawn) is good
Of COURSE there’s life after the lawn. I transformed my typical suburban front lawn in Loveland to a Xeriscaped yard that won a gardening contest, and looks far better than the previous featureless expanse. True, it was no longer suitable for whiffleball, but with family grown and living elsewhere, play space was less important. The […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Golfers and greenies unite
Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore have popularized a misperception of golf as a game played by rich white guys who wear funny clothes, bet large amounts of money, drink too much, and regularly invent new terms of profanity. There certainly are golfers whose sense of ecosystem management is having sufficient Cuban cigars to play 18 holes. […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Running on empty in Sin City
The Colorado River states pin thirsty hopes on Las Vegas’ lust for Great Basin groundwater
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Unpaved with good intentions
New easements keep farmland in production despite spiraling property values
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Duke City dustup
The nation is watching the race for New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Ballot box hangover
Repairing Oregon’s model land-use system will take years
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Will Montanans reject their bagman?
The answer may determine which party controls the Senate
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Energy Colonizes the West
Since 1982, the federal government has offered more than 225 million acres of public and private land for lease to gas and oil companies. In the Western states, there are approximately 35 million acres of active leases, nearly half of which are in Wyoming. New Mexico, Colorado and Montana each contain more than 4 million […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
A little wild
Percentage of land in each Western state that is federally owned, versus what is designated as wilderness. 47.2 | 6.2 Arizona 45.1 | 14 California 36.2 | 4.8 Colorado 61.6 | 7.5 Idaho 27.9 | 3.6 Montana 83 | 4 Nevada 33.8 | 2.3 New Mexico 52.4 | 3.7 Oregon 62.2 | 1.5 Utah 28.3 […]