Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, The recent debate between Ed Marston and Thomas Power (HCN, 8/2/99) over low wages and living standards touches on one of the biggest issues facing the West today: i.e., Why has the rural West become so reactionary, and what can be done about it? My wife and I recently cancelled our plans to […]

Dear HCN, The story about the remarkable concentrations of migrating hummingbirds at Jesse Hendrix’s home outside Nogales, Ariz., has piqued a great deal of interest in attracting and feeding these living jewels (Heard around the West, HCN, 9/13/99). The Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory offers the following recommendations for making hummingbirds feel at home in your […]

Dear HCN, Now that you have turned the bulk of an issue over to defending the prairie dog, and presumably you have it out of your system (HCN, 8/16/99), as a subscriber I can only hope that you will get back to the business of journalism and work on issues of true significance to the […]

Dear HCN, Stephen Lyons’ article on the Aryan marchers in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was terribly misleading and distorted against Idaho (HCN, 8/16/99). When I moved to this area in 1977, I had no idea about the Aryans. It wasn’t long before I learned of them firsthand. We would all like Butler and his group to […]

Dear HCN, Regarding Stephen Lyon’s essay “An ugly message marches down an Idaho street” (HCN, 8/16/99): The rise to power of the Nazi Party in 1933 was both surprising and rapid. Few people then anticipated the process or magnitude of events to come. Just shortly before, Germany had been a refuge from the wave of […]

Dear HCN, Steve Lyons rips on the Aryan Nations as a pack of dimwits (HCN, 8/16/99). Fine, I’m with him there, but it seems Lyons is so blinded by his own politically correct views that he didn’t catch himself perpetrating yet more stereotypes. As an expatriate Montanan, I resented the “Ford-with-Montana-plates’ sound bite. Since when […]

Dear HCN, I find the exchanges between Tom Power and Ed Marston perplexing (HCN, 8/2/99). They are both right! My colleagues and I have surveyed over 7,000 randomly selected persons in the West over the last 10 years. In all these surveys people consistently say they either moved to or live in the West for […]

Dear HCN, Your front page story on Jon Marvel points to the fact that you seem to have no clear vision of how to save the West from inappropriate development and urban sprawl (HCN, 8/2/99). I got the same feeling when I read your feature story on Wyoming a while back. You and your bright, […]

Dear HCN, Dan Flores’ essay on ranchettes in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley interested me, since I am a fellow Bitterrooter who makes a living working for the very ranchetteers he discussed (HCN, 5/10/99). I do tree planting, ecological restoration and native landscaping for them, and so I’ve done much brainstorming on what makes a “good ranchette.” […]

Dear HCN, I used to live in the subdivision below Susan Ewing’s in Montana’s Gallatin Valley (HCN, 5/10/99). As a geologist with experience in groundwater consulting, I became involved in our neighborhood’s concerns about the impacts on our wells of yet another proposed subdivision in the area. While Montana’s intermontane valleys host abundant groundwater supplies […]

Dear HCN, Jon Marvel did not adopt his attitude toward ranchers or his extraordinary tactics overnight. As you report, his attitude was formed over the course of 30 years as a neighbor of ranchers and 20-plus years as a resident of Idaho (HCN, 8/2/99). This pattern is repeating itself time after time across the West. […]

Dear HCN, Despite Jon Marvel’s insistence that he is a lover of the land, his objective is not to improve the landscape in the West, but to play a game in which his unwillingness to entertain a holistic view of the issues endlessly entertains him. His agenda apparently dates back to the days he lived […]

Dear HCN, It does no good when environmentalists such as Jon Marvel use billboards. I quote from him: “I loved it … the open spaces, the beautiful mountain vistas …” (HCN, 8/2/99). He hates to see pristine creeks sullied by cattle. How about pristine views? Many make the argument the billboards are already there. My […]

Dear HCN, As a former resident of Boise, Idaho, and having hiked, camped and hunted extensively for many years in the arid areas that are targeted by the Idaho Watersheds Project, in particular, southeast Oregon, southwest Idaho and northern Nevada, I agree 100 percent with their agenda. Get those *#@??*&^ cows OFF the public land! […]

Dear HCN, To set the record straight, Tom Chapman is not an owner in TDX nor has he ever been. The TDX real estate brochures advertise private property for sale from one private party to other private parties. The TDX proposed homes are no different from other homes being constructed near Vail. The homes offered […]

Dear HCN, I read with interest and enjoyment your editorial about our former neighbor, Tom Chapman (HCN, 8/2/99). Of course, the problem is that when Congress created the wilderness lands in 1964, it chose to deal with inholdings sometime in the future. The value of those inholdings, like most real estate, has risen significantly since […]

Dear HCN, Jon Margolis’ piece on the taking project (HCN, 8/2/99) is factually incorrect and mischaracterizes FREE’s Environmental Economics and Policy Analysis seminars for federal judges. Margolis accepts verbatim the assertions put forth by Douglas Kendall of the Community Rights Counsel. Margolis never contacted FREE regarding his story. If he had, I would have told […]

Dear HCN, To Jon Marvel, anti-grazing campaigner: You just keep beatin” on “em, Jon, I love the sound of their squeal (HCN, 8/2/99). Fred Parkinson Oakland California This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Go, Jon.

Dear HCN, You owe Jon Marvel an apology (HCN, 8/2/99). It was irresponsible of you to have published an unattributed quotation comparing him to a war criminal. As an editor, I consider it a libelous statement. Jon Marvel is motivated by love of the West – the land and the people, including future generations – […]

Dear HCN, I know Jon Marvel, and he’s no Slobodan Milosevic. While Steve Stuebner’s profile of anti-grazing activist Jon Marvel in the Aug. 2, 1999 issue of HCN revealed a man rightly deserving of the title maverick or gadfly, he certainly is no Slobodan Milosevic. In that article, editor Betsy Marston mistakenly cited an anonymous […]