Idaho may have gained the dubious distinction of leading the West in regressive economic innovations. In the small town of Blackfoot, local police will soon show off the first of their three new police cruisers, all free to the taxpayer. Well, not exactly free. The patrol cars will cost a buck, and there is a […]
Come in, Krispy Kreme
Posted inWotr
Dreams for sale in Leadville, Colorado
The latest team of economic-development consultants to visit Leadville, Colo., recently presented its cure for this former mining town’s chronic economic ills. According to these experts, Leadville could create jobs, attract new businesses and people and rebuild its tax base by constructing an industrial park and expanding its local airport to handle 737-type jets. My […]
Posted inWotr
Reporters need to play a better numbers game
For nearly a decade, proposals to drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have been at the heart of a political debate that touches on a wide range of potent issues: the moral and military implications of America’s dependence on foreign energy supplies, the proper balance between stewardship and exploitation of natural resources, […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Dummy up and deal
(Card) dealers are reminded many times … that they are on the bottom of the food chain, where they have to feel fortunate to gather up the crumbs that fall off the table. On the other hand, where else can a person without a high school diploma earn forty to a hundred thousand a year […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Light and love in Wyoming
Before I can review Mark Spragg’s new novel, The Fruit of Stone, I need to perform an exorcism — of a New York Times book review by a guy named Jonathan Miles, whose credentials include Books Columnist for Men’s Journal (one of those magazines that show men how to spend an hour in a fitness […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Removing Dams – Rebuilding Rivers
In the early 1980s, a group of activists from a small New England town fought the restoration of the nation’s oldest hydroelectric dam, the Sewalls Falls Dam on the Merrimack River. That battle ended when an April 1984 freshet washed away one-third of the century-old structure. But the fight kicked off a new social and […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Nevada’s desert beauty
On the 400-square-mile playa at the heart of northeastern Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, the terrain is so flat that you’re sometimes better off looking at the GPS unit on your dashboard than at the road in front of you. Though you might run into locals enjoying the obscure sport of “land sailing,” or into temporarily […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Real environmentalists don’t support immigration
Dear HCN, Michelle Nijhuis sounds generous when she writes: “I can’t say I deserve the many benefits of living here more than the people in line do” (HCN, 12/23/02: Holding open the door to the good life up north). But as she helps the Mexican government encourage illegal immigration into the United States, by providing […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Republicans should take an honest look at Bush
Dear HCN, I am a third-generation Western Republican troubled by recent letters accusing HCN writers of “divisive rhetoric” and a “socialist or even communistic view” (HCN, 12/23/02). I had hoped that the incoming Bush administration would have the courage and leadership to promote economic growth and ecological sustainability. Instead, the administration launched an aggressive campaign […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Amnesty for illegal immigrants
Dear HCN, I remember Leadville during the moly days and it was not a pleasant place — if one had longer hair, drove a Volkswagen and committed the sin of being an ecologist. I remember AMAX coming to my town, Crested Butte, offering to remove a mountain there, and having to fight them for five […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Mining, skiing leave labor in the dust
Dear HCN, Although I was pleased to see an HCN column touching upon immigration issues (HCN, 12/23/02: Holding open the door to the good life up north), Michelle Nijhuis painted a very one-sided picture of U.S. immigration policy. She submits that allowing illegal immigrants to use the matricula card as a form of legal identification […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Tourism is a vast improvement over mining
Dear HCN, “In search of the Glory Days” (HCN, 12/23/02: In search of the Glory Days) follows what has become a tradition at HCN — nostalgia for the West that has passed or is passing. In this case, it is the glory days of mining that are mourned and the present days of outdoor recreation […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Oregon should put more land-use decisions in local hands
Dear HCN, As a planning director for Linn County, Ore., for 13 years (1981-94) I felt a responsibility to respond to Rebecca Clarren’s article, “Planning’s poster child grows up” (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s poster child grows up). There are a few inaccuracies; however, I found the article to be well-balanced. On the whole, the planning program […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Land-use story gave Oregon a bad rap
Dear HCN, I was greatly disappointed with Rebecca Clarren’s recent article on Oregon’s land-use legacy (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s poster child grows up). Her basic premise — using a handful of anecdotes and personal beliefs from interviewees to argue there is sweeping discontent with Oregon’s land-use system — is shoddy. Poll after poll shows that support […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
A green light for methane development
A green light for methane development The latest plans for drilling up to 65,000 new coalbed methane wells in the Powder River Basin could leave the landscape pockmarked by 4,000 ponds that would eventually dry up into salt-encrusted pits. That’s the word from local environmentalists and ranchers who are facing off with a half-dozen energy […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
The Latest Bounce
Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve may soon see a fleet of new oil rigs (HCN, 1/20/03: Refuge back in the crosshairs). The Bureau of Land Management has just released its draft environmental impact statement for drilling in the reserve. Depending on which alternative the agency chooses, anywhere from 4.1 million to 8.8 million acres will be […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Living on the sharp edge of diversity
Blake told us about the killings when we returned from vacation. As we pulled away from Denver International Airport’s glowing tent terminal, he said, “There was a shooting in Rifle. Four people got killed at the City Market. It looks like the guy was going after Mexicans.” I glanced at Anjula, my wife. She stared […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Heard Around the West
“Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he recycled the newspapers,” deadpans the San Jose Mercury News. But Tom Bates, candidate for mayor of Berkeley, Calif., was so angry when the Daily Californian endorsed his opponent that he threw 1,000 copies of the free newspaper into the trash. Almost as embarrassing as being caught […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
“But you don’t sound like a republican…”
Martha Marks, president of Republicans for Environmental Protection, has gotten used to funny looks and puzzled questions. Yes, she’s a green elephant — but she objects to being put in the same category as “jumbo shrimp” and “deafening silence.” She is not an oxymoron. What she is, she says, is “the environmental conscience of the […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
The son of immigrants has a change of heart
It is an urban legend, but I believe it. A traveling salesman wrote to a hotel, complaining that he’d been bitten by bedbugs. He got a lengthy letter of apology back, saying that bedbugs had never been seen on the premises or even within blocks of the hotel. Inside the envelope, he also found a […]