It’s in my genes, like birds heeding the instinct to fly south for the winter; a mysterious force possesses me every December, luring me to, where else? The mall. But reject these instincts I must, for no Christmas gift would disgust my environmental extremist husband more than something from J.C. Penney. I love my husband […]
You can’t stuff a stocking with chainsaw fuel, or can you?
Posted inWotr
The most vulnerable farmworkers are the least protected
Jose and Luis are only 10-and 11-years old, but they are already expert cherry pickers. After three summers working in the orchards with their father, they know how to pluck cherries without harming the tree bud. They know how to avoid the tractors that speed through the slender rows of trees. They know that long […]
Posted inWotr
Colorado needs to break its cigarette habit
To stanch the state’s financial bleeding, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens wants to get a quick hit of $800 million owed by Big Tobacco instead of stretching out annual payments for a total of $2.1 billion. Meanwhile, money for anti-smoking programs remains in limbo. This is, at the least, a curious moral dilemma. Colorado is getting […]
Posted inWotr
A new rural West is being born in Idaho
Recently, an acclaimed young writer and a world-renowned opera singer charmed a packed house in Driggs, Idaho. What were they doing there instead of a place a hundred times larger? The answer tells us something about the future of rural Idaho. The writer was Ann Patchett, whose most recent novel, Bel Canto, draws its intensity […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
American Speedster
With its distinctive markings, an American pronghorn on the prairie range is about as inconspicuous as pepper in salt. But then again, when you can sprint at 60 miles per hour and sustain speeds of around 45 mph for mile after mile, stealth and camouflage aren’t that important. In Built for Speed, John Byers — […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Gas wells wash out habitat
The sheer volume of water that coalbed methane wells pour into streams could wipe out up to 30 aquatic species in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. James Gore, an environmental scientist, presented these dire projections in November at the International Petroleum Environmental Conference in Houston, Texas. Each of the basin’s 15,000 wells […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Calendar
The Algodones Dunes Photographic Tour is kicking off in early December in Twentynine Palms, Calif. The exhibit of photographs by Andrew Harvey — a benefit for the Center for Biological Diversity — will visit Los Angeles, Yuma, San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Tucson. www.biologicaldiversity.org 520-623-5252 ext. 306 The Quivira Coalition’s third annual conference is […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Getting high in class
Taking off from the tiny airport in Glenwood Springs, Colo., with four high school students buckled into his Cessna’s back seats, Bruce Gordon interprets the panorama below: A plaid pattern of golf courses and cul-de-sacs abuts roadless mountains. From the vantage of 2,000 feet, Gordon hopes the students will see the contrast between the developed […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Essay insults easterns and westerners
When I read Lisa Jones’ essay, I wasn’t sure whether I was more offended by what she wrote about the West, where I now live, or Vermont, where I used to live. The West she ridicules as callow, uncultured, easily excited to a frenzy by images of its violent past; Vermont she insults with false […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Drop the stereotypes
I had to comment on Lisa Jones’ article “My Sensitive Man meets culture shock on the range” (HCN, 10/27/03: My Sensitive Man meets culture shock on the range). My immediate reaction when I read the article was to laugh. After I thought about the article, however, I realized that Ms. Jones’ rantings were exactly the […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
What’s with the uppity New Englanders?
As a sixth-generation Montanan, and longtime subscriber to High Country News, I usually just read your great paper and keep quiet. But this time I had to pick up my writin’ stick. Lisa Jones’ attempt at regional satire (HCN, 10/27/03: My sensitive man meets culture shock on the range) left me wonderin’ where on earth […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Treadwell was no new-ager
The deaths of Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, ostensibly by grizzly mauling, were the stuff of sensational headlines, especially on the heels of the mauling of tiger-trainer Roy Horn in Las Vegas. It was predictable that the mainstream, corporate media would have a field day. We expected better of High Country News. We were disappointed. […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Roosevelt was a pragmatic conservationist
Andrew Gulliford opines that Theodore Roosevelt, if he came back today, would be flabbergasted by the Interior Department’s recent decision to jettison years of study on BLM wilderness areas (HCN, 10/13/03: Where’s Teddy when you need him?). I’m not so sure. Roosevelt certainly knew and respected John Muir, and supported his vision to preserve and […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Bring back the green republicans!
Bully! Bully! Bully! Andrew Gulliford’s essay about President Teddy Roosevelt should be read by every card-carrying Republican (HCN, 10/13/03: Where’s Teddy when you need him?). I am and always have been a Republican. I would challenge that, between Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, we Republicans have produced some of the most significant conservation and protection legislation […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Follow-up
New nukes — as well as old nuclear waste — may soon be headed West: Tucked inside the 2004 Water and Energy Appropriations Bill was $11 million for the Modern Pit Facility, a factory to build plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs (HCN, 9/1/03: Courting the Bomb). Now, it’s up to the Energy Department to decide […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Heard around the West
COLORADO With just a few words, Beverly Hoover won third place in the High Country Shopper’s annual contest, “My Favorite Hunting Story.” She and her husband had moved from Pennsylvania to western Colorado in 1992, and soon after their arrival in Montrose, they were invited to a barbecue by new friends. The conversation turned to […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Leaving Las Vegas
I lived in Las Vegas recently for about a year, doing research at a large weapons-testing facility outside of town. Among all the places I’ve lived, from tropical islands to small towns to Western strip-mall communities, Las Vegas seemed uniquely American for its boosterism of get-rich-quick schemes and the sex industry — and for the […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
A cheer for runaway bison and the Rocky Mountain Front
Anyone with a heart had to cheer the bison. One recent snowy day in Great Falls, Mont., three of the half-ton creatures were being loaded off a truck into a slaughterhouse. One of the half-wild bovines busted through a five-foot timber corral and — bingo! — led a buffalo breakout. The three beasts stampeded through […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Wilderness deals held hostage in salmon struggle
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Riding the middle path.” How tough do Idaho’s environmental negotiations get? Two months ago, when salmon advocates threatened to take control of the plumbing for southern Idaho’s gigantic farm-irrigation system, Norm Semanko held them off by taking a couple of wilderness deals hostage. Semanko […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
In Boulder-White Cloud mountains, another wilderness compromise
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Riding the middle path.” A hundred miles north of the Owyhee Canyonlands, another bold wilderness deal is brewing in Idaho, and the brewmaster is another conservative Republican congressman. “We have a rare opportunity to control our own destiny, by crafting our own legislation that […]