The observation by the mayor of Carlsbad, Calif., that stopping population growth is not enough to solve the city’s water problem was astute (HCN, 11/21/08). According to the U.S Geological Survey, California is below the national average in per capita use of freshwater of 1,280 gallons per day. This estimate includes all water use, which […]
Letter to the editor
Posted inJanuary 19, 2009: Blood Quantum
“Stop the madness”
I am tired of people like Patty Limerick, chair of the Center of the American West, University of Colorado-Boulder, making uninformed statements about environmentalists (HCN, 12/22/08). Criticizing environmentalists with a broad brush by saying “the whole-line-in-the-sand, Alamo type-of-thing again” when referring to environmental issues is just plain wrong. If anything, environmentalists should be praised for […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2009: Blood Quantum
Water wishes
I admired the foresight of many of your Western “Wishers” for Obama. However, none of them mentioned water (HCN, 12/22/08). Great Basin Water Network seeks an end to giant water pipelines, the ones that take water from the West’s magnificent landscapes, wildlife, livestock and crops and send that water to unsustainable urban sprawl. The environmental, […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2009: Blood Quantum
A mean lean — to the left
As one of your Republican subscribers, I must take issue with your Dec. 22 cover illustration and the strong general tone of the editorial content therein (HCN, 12/22/08). If broader reach and credibility are your goals, you need to curb your frothing hatred of George W. Bush, which sometimes gets in the way of straightforward, […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Down on the farm
Valley (HCN, 12/8/08). When I climb to the top of our pasture and look towards the Blue Ridge mountains, I cannot see even one new house built after we moved here 30 years ago. Remarkable reprieve! Cropland, pastures and small forested patches still dot the sloping hillsides. Julene Bair’s poignant writing reminds me of the […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Sticks and stones
As the mother of biracial children who chooses to live in the “redder” places, I have a simple solution that has worked — learn to not be offended by racial remarks and jokes (HCN, 12/8/08). If met without anger, bigotry has a way of melting under patient persistence. At least most change their outlook, and […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Banish bigotry
I read “The persistence of bigotry, Western-style” with a chill crawling up my spine, and I don’t think it was the flu virus I’m battling (HCN, 12/8/08). I’m left with the strange feeling that some regional socialization patterns stopped evolving sometime around the 1950s. I doubt the children and parents telling those “jokes” have been […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Bowling for westerners
Where did the paranoia come from among some hunters and “gun rights advocates” that their right to own guns is seriously threatened (HCN, 10/27/08)? The NRA and its sympathizers make gun ownership an issue of such centrality that they spend millions of dollars on a wild campaign to ensure that any attempt to enable a […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2008: What a mess
Hal’s red herring
Hal Herring’s “Why we all need the Democrats to abandon gun control” deserves our derision (HCN, 10/27/08). Herring may share some values with most Democratic voters, but proselytizing for gun addicts of the Palinesque variety is not one of them. I learned as a boy on a western Montana ranch that the thoughtful and competent […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
Burn it, bit by bit
In recent years, we have watched the lodgepole pines of the Fraser Valley and many other parts of Colorado succumb to the pine beetle’s voracious appetite (HCN, 11/10/08). This has resulted in a tinderbox, just waiting for the right conditions to all go up in flames. I have no faith that timber companies would do […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
The carbon-go-round
I have a hard time believing that industrial logging practices will combat global warming, as Tom Bonnicksen is so fond of advocating (HCN, 11/10/08). In order to seriously and honestly consider such a proposal, one needs to have a full and accurate accounting of the tremendous amount of carbon that is released by the entire […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
Awww …
The only reason that cattle and sheep producers can really use to justify their position –– that the only good wolf is a dead one –– is that the wolf and other large predators endanger a traditional way of life in the West (HCN, 11/10/08). The actual contribution of the Rocky Mountain area to national […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
Wolves, ranchers and public lands
The recovery of the gray wolf is clearly a political issue, not a biological issue. Given this fact, how can Daniel Glick write nearly 4,000 words on the relationship of Westerners with Canis lupus without mentioning the words “public lands” (HCN, 11/10/08)? The cattle ranchers, sheep ranchers and outfitters highlighted in this article all make […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
Kitsching the West
Regarding the “Weekend Westerner” article, the hyper-romanticized version of the American West’s history by Germans is well known (HCN, 11/24/08). Being Arthur Kruse’s age, I well remember my older brother reading Karl May novels, and playing Indians-and-Cowboys in the mid-’40s. We grew up during the war near Darmstadt, Germany, a city 85 percent destroyed during […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
“Homosexuals are not some cabal”
As a gay former Mormon who grew up in Idaho Falls, “Prophets and Politics” perfectly articulates why this issue is just as important outside of California (HCN, 10/27/08). It pains me to see my childhood friends who attend BYU-Idaho spending so much time and money on this issue with the endorsement of the LDS church. […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
Can’t see the forest for the guns
I’m frankly flabbergasted that, in an era so defined by crises of the environment, energy, and economy, that folks are still voting on useless wedge issues like guns and abortion — and voting for folks that are hopelessly deficient on the first three but who pander on the last two (HCN, 10/27/08). These issues were […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
Getting out the (gun) vote
As someone who is a “liberal Democrat” on most issues and an Abe Lincoln “conservative” on others, I believe it has been a profound mistake for the Democrats to throw away the gun owner’s vote as they have for years (HCN, 10/27/08). I grew up in Ohio plinking with my dad’s .22. I’m a gun […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
Back to bison
The ranching and sport-hunting communities in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming exhibit none of the tolerance of the wolf, much less the knowledge, shown by Native Americans (HCN, 11/10/08). It is hate, sheer hate, that drives these communities’ actions and led to the deliberate extinction of wolves in the last century. If the state wolf “management” […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
No friends of the Indians
Regarding your story “Power to the First People,” in Montana in the 2006 election, it was the seven counties with reservations which assured Democrat Jon Tester his narrow victory over incumbent GOP Sen. Conrad Burns, a charlatan good ol’ boy tainted by his associations with lobbyist Jack Abramoff (HCN, 10/27/08). The Democrats should never forget […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
Big water
Regarding your story “Liquid Assets,” this summer at Mount Shasta I learned from locals that Shasta Dam releases, in August, were running at the equivalent of the spring flood stage. Why would we do that during a drought, in a period fraught with intense pressure to build more dams, canals and other forms of water […]