CALIFORNIA Sea lions don’t usually venture inland — particularly 65 miles from the Pacific Ocean — but that’s what a hefty 300-pounder did recently in California. It was first spotted crawling in the middle of the road in the San Joaquin Valley, reports The Associated Press. One theory is that somebody “dropped it” there. A […]
Communities
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
Who will take over the ranch?
As a real estate frenzy grips the West, conservationists scramble to save a disappearing landscape
Posted inWotr
You can’t hurry love in the rural West
An intriguing piece of mail showed up in my post office box. It was a newsletter from the alumni association of my graduate school inviting me to a Denver-area event called “speed dating.” For 30 bucks, “singles get to meet several age-matched counterparts for timed (and discreetly chaperoned) encounters” among graduates from a select group […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Defense company turns from rockets to real estate
CALIFORNIA Aerospace and defense company GenCorp has big plans for a former rocket-testing site east of Sacramento: Turn part of it into a subdivision. The company wants to build offices, stores, and 3,800 houses and apartments in the 1,400-acre Easton development. The new development will cover more than a tenth of a 13,000-acre site where […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
The charm of a dying place
I grew up in South Dakota, but spent my summers in Portland, Ore., with my mom. As an adolescent, I enjoyed how my city experience pushed me ahead of the curve when I got back home for school. I had my classmates beat by at least a year on the overalls-with-one-strap thing. It wasn’t all […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Heard Around the West
IDAHO Wilderness areas were not created equal. In order to pacify locals and win votes in Congress, most include more than a few reminders of both the old and developed West. The Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho, for example, grandfathered in outfitters’ cabins and backcountry plane access. Now, the Forest […]
Posted inWotr
I can’t figure out what gays have to do with my marriage
I gave up fish for Lent. But then, I give up fish for Lent every year, and every year my good Christian wife rolls her eyes at me. Apparently there are no points to be made by foregoing something I had absolutely no intention of doing in the first place. I never eat fish. I’m […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Resurrected memories of a prison camp
If we haven’t already forgotten our nation’s World War II-era internment camps, we speak of them only in hushed tones. Even in the eight Western communities where the camps once stood, their memory is lost, rolled up and stowed away like old chain-link fence. A new exhibit touring North Dakota, “Snow Country Prison: Interned in […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Reading for — and about — a rainy day
Here in the Northwest, you can accumulate large quantities of the following: rainwater, unemployment and local literature. The folks at Oregon Quarterly (the University of Oregon’s magazine) collect the third. Last year, they ransacked their archives and created a new literary record of the region, Best Essays NW. Most of the 27 essays read like […]
Posted inWotr
For Western myths, see newcomers on horseback
If you’ve heard about the man who kicked off his campaign for governor by swinging a medieval battle sword on horseback in the middle of downtown Billings, you probably thought, “Only in Montana.” Glenn Schaffer posed at the offices of the local paper in February on a stallion named Big Dog Thunder Horse, and said […]
Posted inWotr
The high cost of low prices
“We Sell for Less.” Every few miles of a long drive down the length of California, I passed another Wal-Mart big-rig with those words across the back. The hypnotic monotony of the interstate made the slogan a mantra for the open road, for the featureless landscape that was the only America I could see through […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Creating immigrant leaders: Labor organizer Ramon Ramirez
WOODBURN, OREGON — Disoriented, poor and unorganized, Latino immigrant farmworkers traditionally have not had a lot of political power in the United States. They often do the low-wage jobs American-born workers won’t do, working in an industry that largely precludes its workers from bargaining through unions. And because many immigrant farmworkers have entered the United […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Heard around the West
NEVADA Better not mess with Nevada: It’s big, and getting bigger. Last year, Nevada gained an average of 6,141 people every month, making it number-one for growth in the nation for the 17th year in a row, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Citing climate and affordability, 70 percent of the newcomers to the state flock […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Tongue-tied in the Southwest
There’s no denying that some Spanish speakers get frustrated with the dialect that’s spoken in New Mexico and southern Colorado. Take, for instance, the Jemez Mountains. Anyone who’s sat through a high school Spanish class would say “HEM-es.” Don’t try that in New Mexico: Those are the “hay-mez” Mountains. Luckily, Rubén Cobos, a professor for […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Heard around the West
UTAH Some people in rural subdivisions worship the wandering moose on their doorstep; others go for their guns. Jack Fenton, a worshipper in Summit County, says he was thrilled when a yearling moose moseyed up to his front door to nibble on a wreath. But his neighbor shot and killed the moose — and also […]
Posted inWotr
Looking for the curve on the Great Plains
I grew up in South Dakota, but spent my summers in Portland, Ore., with my mom. As an adolescent, I enjoyed how my city experience pushed me ahead of the curve when I got back home for school. I had my classmates beat by at least a year on the overalls-with-one-strap thing. It wasn’t all […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Does Wal-Mart really need our tax dollars?
Typical of shopping centers built decades ago, Alameda Square in Denver is a cheap, single-story strip of stores. It’s ugly and rundown. But that does not deter shoppers: Mostly Asian Americans, they come from miles around to patronize more than a dozen Asian-owned businesses, including two grocery stores, two restaurants, a hair salon, a clothing […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Heard Around the West
THE WEST Democrats can get really lonely in the West. In rural areas, some are even driven to change their party affiliation to Republican. They’re not converts — heaven forbid — they just want to vote in the primaries where the real choices get made. Now, there’s a weblog to bond Western dissidents. It’s called […]
Posted inWotr
Why a would-be jock plays mainly with his brain
It is a standard classroom, except for two things. First, it’s Saturday, and second, teenagers in the room don’t look bored or blank: they look elated or dismayed. They’re clustered in groups of four, each holding contraptions that look like bomb detonators. An adult at the front reads from a sheet of paper: “The category […]
Posted inWotr
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 Missoula, Mont., is still a working class town. Just check out the traffic on the tree-shaded lanes […]