CALIFORNIA What “whiskered blob of blubber” terrorizes swimmers, raids fishing nets and once in a while shoves people off boats? A sea lion is the answer, reports the Los Angeles Times, in its vivid story of a horde of “pit bulls with flippers” muscling their way into Newport Beach for the summer — again. Last […]
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Posted inJune 26, 2006: The Tamarisk Hunter
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CALIFORNIA A passenger on a flight from Los Angeles to Oakland apparently felt too important to obey repeated requests to hang up his cell phone so the plane could take off. Everyone else had acknowledged the usual announcement to turn off cell phones, except for this man, who was deep in conversation, according to the […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
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THE BORDER On a Web site called Gizmodo, which caters to computer gearheads and other gadget collectors, we found a controversial offering a few months ago from Argentinean artist Judi Werthein. She has designed running shoes for illegal immigrants that feature a built-in compass and flashlight, a pocket inside the shoe’s tongue for aspirin or […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
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CALIFORNIA Governing magazine calls Vernon, Calif., “the strangest town in America.” Although 44,000 people work there, only 93 people actually live in the tiny Los Angeles suburb; when election time rolls around, 60 people show up to vote. The Los Angeles Times wrote an exposé of the unusual town, which behaves more like a private […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
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THE WEST What makes Mormon crickets run? More than just the lust for protein and salt. The insects hustle because they’re afraid they’ll be gobbled up by the cannibalistic cousins trotting behind them, reports the Reno Gazette-Journal. Researchers from the United States, England and Australia who studied cricket migration in southern Idaho found that the […]
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
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MONTANA Every year, as many as 700 deer collide with cars in Montana’s Ravalli County — so many that the roadsides reek to high heaven. It’s a big problem, made worse by the fact that growing populations of both deer and people have reduced the number of places where deer carcasses can be “discreetly dumped,” […]
Posted inApril 17, 2006: The War on Wildfire
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CALIFORNIA What a surprise for two off-roaders in the California Desert, who ventured farther off-road than was good for them. Driving a Suzuki Samurai in a restricted area managed by the Bureau of Land Management, they blasted over a ridge and plunged 30 feet straight down an abandoned mineshaft. “I can still hear that scraping […]
Posted inMarch 20, 2006: Town Shopping
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CALIFORNIA San Francisco — which is named after St. Francis, the patron saint of animals — plans to put some of the city’s 120,000 dogs to work. The work isn’t hard, though the yuck factor is impressive: All the dogs have to do is poop, reports The Associated Press. The city’s garbage hauler, Norcal Waste, […]
Posted inMarch 6, 2006: Save Our Snow
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COLORADO The sex-change doctor who created an unusual kind of economic development for the former coal-mining town of Trinidad, Colo., died last month at the age of 82. Stanley Biber began operating on men who wanted to be women in 1969, and over a 34-year span, according to an obituary in the New York Times, […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2006: High Noon for Habitat
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COLORADO Whoever owns Bongo Billy’s Café in Salida, Colo., must just love kids. A sign by the cash register announces, “Unaccompanied children will be given an Espresso and a free puppy.” THE WEST So much for the mystique of the Old West. Mega-millionaires are putting their pricey ranches on the market, reports the Wall Street […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2006: The Killing Fields
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NEW MEXICO A mouse living in the house of 81-year-old Luciano Mares of Fort Sumner did not take kindly to being set on fire. Mares said that after he caught the intruder, he threw it outside onto a pile of burning leaves. The burning rodent, however, got its revenge by running back to the house […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
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OREGON Bobby Henderson may be 25 years old and in between jobs, but the Oregon State University physics graduate is the founder and prophet of a wildly popular new religion. Henderson has it on good authority that a “Flying Spaghetti Monster” created mankind, along with everything else from dinosaurs to wombats. Therefore, he says, his […]
Posted inDecember 26, 2005: A New Green Revolution
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UTAH Wasatch Brewery’s new Evolution Amber Ale packs humor on every label. Complete with a “Darwin Approved” seal, it shows a hunched-over ape at the dawn of mankind, then two other simian incarnations leading to the current version of Modern Naked Guy: He’s slugging down a bottle of beer with one hand and toting a […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
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COLORADO A deliciously funny film called The Lost People of Mountain Village wowed audiences at Telluride’s Mountainfilm festival and other venues around western Colorado. In deadpan style, the 15-minute pseudo-documentary explores what happened to the overlords who once lived above high-altitude Telluride. The joke for locals: The “town” of Mountain Village always feels abandoned by […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
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NEVADA You’ve gotta love Oscar Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas: He doesn’t hesitate to trumpet what he thinks, no matter how over the top. Appearing on a TV program in Carson City recently, the mayor sounded off on lawbreakers who spraypaint graffiti over freeways. “These punks come along and deface it,” he said, according […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
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UTAH Eighty may be the new 60, but ski resorts aren’t thrilled by the increasing number of ancient customers who refuse to hang up their skis. So Park City, like many other ski resorts, has abandoned its ski-free policy for those over 70. Septuagenarians must now pay $249 for season passes, reports the Park Record. […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
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THE WEST If you like nothing better than a good pun, check out the “Endangered Feces” T-shirt that’s advertised on several Web sites for environmentally oriented companies. Twenty scats from wild animals are pictured on the front of the shirt, including the substantial contribution of a grizzly bear, the dainty deposits of a New Mexican […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
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IDAHO A border collie adept at “child-herding, intense stares and home protection” has applied for a job with the city of Boise: He wants to chase Canada geese off the playing fields. In a letter purported to be from the herd dog, named Atticus in honor of the lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird, he […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
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WASHINGTON A duck named Gooey has brought Diane Erdmann, a manager for Northwest Territorial Mint, a whole lot of attention, along with a possible charge of illegally harboring wildlife. The mallard had been attacked by a crow, and Erdmann took over its care from a friend, nursing the bird back to health and consulting a […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
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MONTANA Fourteen intrepid ranch women of Big Timber, Mont., ranging in age from 45 to 77, posed semi-dressed for a 2006 calendar called “I See By Your Outfit.” The women don’t take it all off, though sometimes their chaps lack jeans underneath; they mostly tease by standing in front of strategically placed hay bales or […]