New Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne won some friends in the environmental movement in June, when he junked a National Park Service proposal drafted under his predecessor, Gale Norton (HCN, 9/19/05: Revealed — secret changes to park rules). That proposal came under fire from greens, park employees and even some Republican lawmakers for relaxing rules regarding […]
The Latest Bounce
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA What “whiskered blob of blubber” terrorizes swimmers, raids fishing nets and once in a while shoves people off boats? A sea lion is the answer, reports the Los Angeles Times, in its vivid story of a horde of “pit bulls with flippers” muscling their way into Newport Beach for the summer — again. Last […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Prey at the waterhole
I came around a corner and there was a mountain lion. It was a big male, tail longer than my arm. I stopped in dappled ponderosa shade. I was close enough that I could have tossed a pebble and hit the lion’s tawny block of a head. He was facing the other way, lapping water […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Dems contract case of self-delusion — or not
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The D Triple C is not targeting Wyoming, but the netroots are agog over Gary Trauner. What’s that? You need a translation? OK, for those not fluent in politicalese, here goes: The D Triple C, or DCCC, is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, an official arm of the Democratic Party whose raison […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
‘I hope other states don’t do this …’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” Renee Ross and her husband, Bryan, live on 32 acres near Molalla, southeast of Portland. It’s hilly, with woods and pasture, and spring-fed Teasel Creek flows through it. She also thought Measure 37 was a good idea. Now, two of her neighbors […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
‘Great recreation value … and great economic value…’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” Newberry National Volcanic Monument, near Bend, Ore., boasts of having an active volcano, more than 50,000 acres of “lava flows and spectacular geologic features,” seven campgrounds, and “two sparkling alpine lakes full of trout and salmon.” If Jim Miller prevails in a […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Takings campaigns around the West
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” ARIZONA Private Property Rights Protection Act, by the Arizona Home Owners Protection Effort (Arizona HOPE) — Initiative 21 Sources of Major $$ Americans for Limited Government, Chicago area, whose chairman of the board is New York City-based real estate mogul Howie Rich […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
‘It’s clear out of control …’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” Bill Rose runs Rose Agriseeds on 2,100 acres in the Willamette Valley, about 20 miles south of Portland. He breeds specialty grasses for golf courses, and grasses that can be watered with sea water, shipping to customers as far away as Maryland. […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
‘I kick myself for being so naive…’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” Ted Schroeder, a doctor, lives on 52 acres in the rural Grande Ronde Valley in northeast Oregon. He voted for Oregon’s Measure 37 and regrets it. A neighboring family, operating as Terra-Magic Inc., has filed a Measure 37 claim, seeking to brush […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Raul Grijalva relishes a good fight
NAME Raúl M. Grijalva HOMETOWN Tucson, Arizona AGE 58 VOCATION Serving the U.S. House of Representatives for Arizona’s 7th District HE SAYS “The environment is connected entirely to time: The more time you lose or waste, the less protection you have.” Congressman Raúl Grijalva is a different kind of politician. Plain-spoken and refreshingly unguarded, he […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Saving open land — a taxing problem
Open-space campaigners look for the winning formula
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Failing Bay-Delta may take a living fossil with it
As farmed sturgeon thrive, wild populations are in trouble
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
As states ponder protection, roadless forests unravel
Forest Service says it’s bound by the rules to allow some logging, drilling and mining
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Dear friends
SUMMER EDITORIAL RETREAT In June, our editors and correspondents spent a day and a half at an editorial retreat (actually, it was more like a “full rout,” quipped one staffer). Former staffer Florence Williams, now a successful freelance writer, gave us a workshop on magazine writing techniques. Look for exciting changes coming to the news […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
November Surprise
If it seems like we’re yelling at you with this issue’s big cover headline, well, we are. If you read only one thing this summer, make it Ray Ring’s cover story, “Taking Liberties,” which starts on page 8. Then pass it on to a friend, and tell her to do the same. Ray’s story gets […]
Posted inWotr
Debunking the myth of the sand-burrowing minnow
It’s a popular refrain here in central New Mexico come summer: The silvery minnow can hunker down, bury itself in a dry streambed and outlast drought. Whenever the river slows and its bed begins to dry, I’m inevitably informed that the Rio Grande has always dried, and the four-inch long minnow has always survived. This […]
Posted inWotr
A lesson in survival
I thought about the woman’s bones for a long time — what position they might have been in when they were abandoned and covered up, what had happened to her heart and her lungs as they slowly deteriorated. The cavity of her ribs and her chest, the now-hollow cavity of her thigh bones, that narrow […]
Posted inWotr
Our coyote war in the West reminds me of the war in Iraq
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail,” said psychologist Abraham Maslow. As a wildlife ecologist here in the American West, I can’t help but draw analogies between the Bush administration’s foreign policy in Iraq and one of its proposed wildlife policies in the American […]
Posted inWotr
If only binoculars were cool
I’ve been a bird-watcher since I was a kid. Or to put it another way: Since I was a kid, I have not been cool. For the most part, that stopped bothering me a long time ago. Still, every now and then, I feel it. This happened recently when I got a close-up look at […]
Posted inWotr
The good news about garbage
One summer day, in my favorite wild place, I found enlightenment through garbage. Other people’s garbage, I realized, is my destiny — and maybe my redemption. Spiritual enlightenment found in a wilderness is a cliche; few special moments occur anywhere else these days, and just once, can’t someone admit to finding rapture in a mall? […]