Air pollution settles over the West’s national parks
The hazy days of summer … and winter, spring and fall
Posted inJune 26, 2006: The Tamarisk Hunter
Dear friends
SUMMER BREAK HCN staff will be taking some much-needed time off during the last two weeks of June. We’ll be enjoying our families and praying for rainstorms. Look for the next issue of HCN to reach you around July 24. WELCOME, ABBIE AND JESSICA Two new faces have recently appeared in the HCN office. Abbie […]
Posted inJune 26, 2006: The Tamarisk Hunter
HCN looks to the future
“WHAT in the HECK is that merry band of High Country News pranksters up to this time? I mean, science fiction on the cover?” Well, yes — and trust us, it’s not as much of a stretch as it seems. Each summer, we take a break from the hard news and send you an issue […]
Posted inWotr
Slow down, you go too fast
These are difficult times for people like me. I love to drive. Nothing soothes me more than a long, empty stretch of road and a full tank of gas and no known destination. I love the rumble of the road, spotting a café in a town, stopping for pie and coffee and listening to locals […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t top that tree!
One day several years ago, when the youngest was 5 and her sister 8, the youngest brought home from kindergarten a watercolor she had painted of a tree. Painted on 9-by-18-inch paper, the tree’s shallow crown stretched the 18-inch width of the paper and off both edges. My wife and I of course praised the […]
Posted inWotr
A mining town gets a second chance
Historically, the mining industry has not given its towns a second chance. When ore runs out or metal prices head south, as both always do, the industry waves good-bye and leaves mining towns to confront their fates alone. They can either join the West’s long list of ghost towns, or figure out some way to […]
Posted inWotr
Truth really is no defense
On, May 30, Justice Samuel Alito cast his first deciding vote, and in doing so struck a blow for muzzling public servants at all levels of government. The 5-4 majority in Garcetti v. Ceballos held that public servants have no First Amendment rights in their role as government employees. This decision makes it easier to […]
Posted inWotr
Health is a casualty on the fast track to gas drilling
The 20 miles of interstate highway between the small towns of Silt and Parachute in western Colorado slice through a landscape of sagebrush and mesas. There are few exits through this section of Garfield County, where the local population of deer and elk rivals the number of ranchers, retirees and others who live here. Susan […]
Posted inWotr
Down on the ground looking for culture
The topic for the Gunnison, Colo., master-plan meeting not long ago was “community culture,” and the rambles of that discussion have been lurking in my mind ever since. The talk went fast to complaints about a really junky property on the west approach to town, a collection of shacks and sheds with stuff lying around. […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Making room for wolves
What do you get when you ask 50 people — only a handful of whom have actually ever seen a wolf — to write about new ways to “think about (wolves), imagine them, and welcome them home”? There are the inevitable odes to friendly wolf-dogs, and some wild stuff about kids suckled by volcanoes. But […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Trading goods, and stories, on the reservation
In the 1920s and ’30s, many Navajo Indians traded for flour and coffee at Will Evans’ Shiprock Trading Company. Among them were survivors of the infamous Long Walk, the 300-mile forced march that sent the tribe into temporary exile in eastern New Mexico in 1864. When yet another battle-scarred Navajo limped into the post, Evans […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
The noisy democracy of the West
The problem seems unavoidable: Historian Peter Decker wants to write about what he knows and loves, his adopted home in rural Ouray County, Colo. But his passionate prose is sure to spark more visits from outsiders, perhaps helping to destroy the very isolation that he cherishes. The first edition of Old Fences, New Neighbors appeared […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
The Zephyr is still important
John Fayhee quotes Heidi McIntosh, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance’s conservation director: “At one time The Zephyr was important” (HCN, 5/29/06: Clinging Hopelessly to the Past). That really got my attention, my outrage. Seven words of dismissal, the meaning crystal clear: Public disagreement with SUWA automatically puts The Zephyr in gulag territory, no longer relevant, […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Make Mexico the 51st state
Your immigration story “Apprehension” quoted U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Officer John Schaefer as saying “All enforcement stops within 80 miles of the border” (HCN, 5/15/06). Not so! I live in a village of 800 approximately 150 miles from the Mexican border via crow flight, much longer by any system of roads. Our village law […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Thanks for the immigration reporting
Your thoughtful, perceptive articles on immigration have finally given me as much understanding of the Mexican migrants’ views as I — a WASP woman — am ever likely to get (HCN, 5/15/06). I’ve read dozens of articles, but you clarified the questions fairly, vividly and with compassion. Even in Cheyenne, an hour from Greeley, I […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Immigration brings chaos
Immigration is the most formidable weapon of mass destruction threatening America today (HCN, 5/15/06). Ironically, invaders have put our country at risk without firing a shot. The White House, the heavies in Congress and the smaller fish in state legislatures do not seem to have the collective intellectual depth or common sense to see what […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
We can do better for immigrants
Thank you for your in-depth articles regarding Mexican immigrants’ desire for a better life through better pay here in the U.S. (HCN, 5/15/06). The existing U.S. immigration policies for those entering legally and illegally are abysmal and need to be changed. Let us not forget that we, as a country, were all immigrants once. We […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Solar companies roll the dice
Gambling that the economics of energy are changing, two new companies have proposed building the largest solar power plant in the world. New Solar Ventures and Solar Torx, both based in Phoenix, Ariz., plan to construct a solar power plant and a factory to manufacture the necessary photovoltaic cells. The 300-megawatt plant near Deming, N.M., […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Mexican wolves face a rocky road to recovery
Mexican gray wolves have nearly disappeared from the Southwest — again. This spring, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inadvertently killed most of the members of a pack of 12 wolves in eastern Arizona. In April, the White Mountain Apache Tribe asked the agency to remove the Hon Dah pack from reservation lands after the […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
The Latest Bounce
Asbestos victims in Libby, Mont., can now qualify for Social Security disability benefits. In late May, the Social Security Administration, under the prodding of Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., issued a new ruling that allows victims of tremolite asbestos to receive disability benefits. More than 1,500 Libby area residents suffer from exposure to tremolite asbestos, the […]