Hits and missives from Cactus Ed

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]