Two packs of Mexican wolves are getting a second chance in the wild. Several months ago, the packs were recaptured after conflicts with people and livestock in Arizona’s Apache National Forest (HCN, 1/31/00: Yellowstone wolves are here to stay). The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided that the remote Gila Wilderness in New Mexico would […]
The Wayward West
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
A norteno champions a local environmental ethic
Many here in “New” Mexico have not forgotten that the United States violated the 150-year-old Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by asserting ownership of community ejidos – common lands under the historic land-grant system. Today, those lands make up national forests and land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. In this contested landscape, environmentalists and […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
An unruly river
In Rivers of Empire, historian Donald Worster argued that the West’s dams and irrigation systems and hydroelectric facilities were imposed on the region by an all-powerful water elite. The elite built a hydraulic empire, which thwarts democracy and subjects most of us to a peasant existence. Now comes historian Robert Kelley Schneiders with a different […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Yes, we need the rural West
Note: this article accompanies another article in this issue, “Do we really need the rural West?“ Hal Rothman is normally a very cool guy – a history professor fascinated by the culture and economy of his hometown of Las Vegas. But he recently went to a conference about the rural Northern Rockies, and after sitting […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Do we really need the rural West?
Note: this article is accompanied by another article in this issue, “Yes, we need the rural West.” Dan Dagget, the well-known authority on Western livestock grazing and a seemingly mild-mannered guy, lost his cool and fairly screamed at me: “Why don’t all of you go back to the cities back East you came from and […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
The U.S. isn’t dead yet
WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the first day of the first spring of the millennium, one of the world’s largest and most powerful global corporations did as it was told. Parke-Davis, a division of the multibillion-dollar Warner-Lambert Company, announced that it was withdrawing the diabetes drug Rezulin from the market, as directed by the Food and […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Down under: Arizona boasts the ‘show cave of the century’
“I love caves.” Just a whisper in the dim light of the cavern, and not addressed to me, but to a husband from his wife. I almost turned and said, “Me too,” then remembered we were on a cave tour – everyone on it probably loved caves. Until that tour of Kartchner Caverns State Park, […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Tug-of-war continues over trust lands
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Wildcat subdivisions fuel fight over sprawl.” In the summer of 1998, Arizona Republican Gov. Jane Hull pulled together 15 conservationists, business leaders and state legislators and formed the Growing Smarter Commission. Their task would be to ward […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Wildcat subdivisions fuel fight over sprawl
Arizona argues over how to rein in runaway development
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Locked out of the public lands
Rich folks are blocking the public domain, say hunters and ORV riders
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
One dam, two rallies
A protest draws demonstrators who want to drain Lake Powell, and those who love it
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Dust settles in Owens Valley
Los Angeles vows to return some water to a parched lakebed
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Flashpoint in the Northern Rockies
Burned huts symbolize tension between skiers and snowmobiles
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
‘It’s my dream’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Elena Bernlohr, who works in Breckenridge, Colo., is from Khimky, a suburb of Moscow, Russia: “I am three-quarters Jewish, but my mother gave me her last name so that I wasn’t discriminated against in school. My father was a very important scientist in Moscow, […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
‘There are no support networks here’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Aldona Sobiecki moved to Chicago from Warsaw, Poland, 18 years ago, then traveled farther west to Breckenridge, Colo., in 1996. Six months ago, she opened a deli that features Polish food. Aldona Sobiecki: “For me, since I open here, it’s hard to find help. […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Unions take a gamble on California tribes
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. While unions may not spring up soon in the Intermountain West, California recently approved a constitutional amendment that opens the door to union organizing in 58 Indian-owned casinos. Proposition 1A, which passed on March 7 by nearly two-thirds of California voters, legalizes Indian casinos […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
‘Ain’t no sucha thing as you can’t’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Bernice Thomas runs the maids’ training school for the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas. A mother of eight, she moved there with her husband from Tallulah, Louisiana, 25 years ago. Bernice Thomas: “We train 33 students every two weeks with a full class. […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
‘Women are the backbone of the union’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Peggy Pierce works at The Desert Inn as a banquet server: “I think Las Vegas is just like every other town. People go to work, they take care of their families, they do pretty much normal things. We don’t spend money differently. We also […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
The drive to organize
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “In solidarity we will survive.” The slogan is splashed in red paint across the white and blue cement walls of the Culinary Workers’ Union hall, an unimpressive building in the older part of town. Inside, I meet with Geoconda “Geo” Arguello-Kline, a small woman […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
At your service
Unions help some Western workers serve themselves