“Could the anti-everything folks have the common decency,” asked a caller to my public-radio talk show in Oregon, “to wait until the body gets cold before jumping on it?” Former president Ronald Reagan was being put to rest, and it was easy to understand how his admirers felt. Those of us outside that category might […]
Getting rude at the nation’s big funeral
Posted inWotr
Reflections on small towns after a bulldozer rampage
To many of us who know Granby, Colo., or even mountain towns in general, the bizarre explosion last week — a man armoring his bulldozer, mowing down buildings and then shooting himself — was surprising. The explosion itself was not. Some people say they expect violence in cities and not in little towns. But mountain […]
Posted inWotr
Looking for Heroes? Go to Boise, Idaho
If you want an example of real heroes in the “war on terrorism,” go to Boise, Idaho. Look for 12 of your fellow citizens who recently spent long hours on uncomfortable chairs in a windowless room in the local federal courthouse. These are the jurors who recently found Sami Omar Al-Hussayen innocent of terrorism charges. […]
Posted inWotr
Revenge of the old-timers: The beavers are back
At a recent barbecue during a breezy Sunday afternoon on the South Fork of the Shoshone River, near Cody, Wyo., I saw the largest beaver I’ve ever seen. It was floating in the river’s current like a big dog. The beaver looked to be about three feet long from nose to flat tail, and must […]
Posted inWotr
Driver’s ed from a pedestrian’s point of view
A few of my friends have completely sworn off bike-riding on roads. One too many shoulder brushes with the side-view mirror of a recreational vehicle. One too many dives for the ditch. They can’t take it anymore, and who could blame them? Some are threatening to give up walking as well, since being a pedestrian […]
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The terrifying saga of the West’s last big dam
The war on terror has a new front in southwestern Colorado. Outside the fast-growing city of Durango, the government has allocated $2 million for terrorism security at the Animas-La Plata Dam construction site. How will that money specifically ward off al-Qaida operatives and increase homeland security? “If I tell you too much, I’d have to […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Journal of the Dead
The open roads and big spaces of the West have always called young men and women from the cities and suburbs of the East. So it was with David Coughlin and Raffi Kodikian, both in their 20s, who, in 1999, headed from Boston to California. Inspired by Jack Kerouac, the nascent literati took along a […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Calendar
The Worldwatch Institute, in partnership with Earthworks, has a new online consumer guide that offers suggestions on how to shop more responsibly, for the sake of both the environment and your family’s health. You can also find out about everything from buying better-quality chocolate to learning where to recycle old DVDs and CDs. www.worldwatch.org/pubs/goodstuff Contact […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Hidden Waters resurfaces
These days, Charles Bowden is known as a grizzled, pistol-packing scout of the Southwest’s dark side, a man who chronicles the lives and deaths of the border’s most infamous drug runners. A quarter century ago, however, Bowden wrote an unpretentious book, Killing the Hidden Waters, that was equal parts ethnography, mysticism, hydrology and thermodynamics. That […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Dump the stereotypes, Skinner
So, Dave! What happens when the real world doesn’t fit in to your neat, simple categories (HCN, 5/10/04: Motorized recreation belongs in the backcountry)? Say, for example, when an avid hiker (and former NRA member) also avidly defends her family’s right to have fun on their ORVs — or advocates responsible, sustainable logging, grazing and […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Common ground in the ORV debate
In response to Dave Skinner’s essay, I must confess to being what he calls a “greenie” (HCN, 5/10/04: Motorized recreation belongs in the backcountry). But I implore you, Dave, don’t give up all that quickly. You might have allies you have not counted on. First, however, allow me to establish that in western Nevada where […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Let’s get ugly!
Thank heaven for Lydia Millet (HCN, 4/12/04: Die, baby harp seal!). Her challenge to us all — especially to proponents of sentimental, cutesy environmental promotion — is to find “the guts to assault us with the ugly impacts of our own appetites,” rather than the romanticism of the animal and scenic porn of environmental calendars […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
There’s room for beauty, too
Lydia Millet describes landscape photographs as seen in calendars and posters as pornography because “they offer comfort to the viewer” and “serve as surrogates for real engagement with wilderness” (HCN, 4/12/04: Die, baby harp seal!). Many of the individuals I know who have experience traveling in wilderness realize that landscape photographs can be both simulations […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Mountain bikers go wild
OREGON Environmentalists hoping to create a 37,000-acre Badlands Wilderness Area about 20 miles east of Bend, Ore., got a tremendous boost in February, when the local mountain bike group endorsed the proposal. Because bicycles are banned from wilderness areas, many mountain bikers are lukewarm, at best, about proposals to create more wilderness. But the biker-run […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Follow-up
Is clean water bad for business? Last year, the New Mexico Environment Department told Phelps Dodge Mining Company to clean up contaminated groundwater beneath its Tyrone Mine (HCN, 5/12/03: Phelps tries to Dodge bond). The state recently upheld its decision despite the company’s appeal, leading a company spokesman to tell the press: “We think it […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Heard around the West
MONTANA How do you test a garbage can to find out if it’s tough enough to withstand the long claws and big brain of a ravenous grizzly bear? Just ask a seasoned hand at product-testing — a half-ton grizzly named Sam — to lend his expertise. Sam and seven other bears are “official product inspectors” […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
At home on the range with 10-year-old writers and dreamers
During a spring storm, a group of fourth-graders are considering how their lives will change in the future. I’ve asked them to think about anything that might be different for them tomorrow, or even 30 years down the road. A bunch of hands go up, and the first student I call on looks out the […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
I’ve tried, but I can’t eat the view
I’ve given up on one of the great American dreams — owning a home of my own. Why? Because it’s becoming impossible to find affordable housing in the West, even in the non-resort towns. It’s easy to tell that Missoula, Mont., is still a working-class town. Just check out the traffic on the tree-shaded lanes, […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Wal-Mart: Love it or loathe it
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Wal-Mart’s Manifest Destiny.” For two years in a row, Fortune Magazine, in a survey of 10,000 business experts, has named Wal-Mart “America’s Most Admired Company.” But if businesspeople love Wal-Mart, many working people loathe it: Wal-Mart now faces at least 30 class-action lawsuits from […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
In a bitter strike, grocery workers lost ground
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Wal-Mart’s Manifest Destiny.” At the same time that Inglewood was fighting off Wal-Mart’s assault, the United Food and Commercial Workers union staged the longest grocery store strike in U.S. history. The strike was triggered when traditional grocery chains decided to prepare for the Supercenter […]