The nation is watching the race for New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District
Politics
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Will Montanans reject their bagman?
The answer may determine which party controls the Senate
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
A pilgrim with a battered Nikon
Name: Jaelyn deMaría Hometown: Albuquerque, New Mexico Age: 26 Vocation: Photographer at the Albuquerque Journal Pet: Tweak, a Chihuahua Favorite food: Her grandmother’s Sunday breakfasts of eggs, beans, fried potatoes, tortillas and homemade chile. She says “When we decide to become a pilgrim on any sort of religious pilgrimage, what is important is just the […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Undoing the myth of Western exceptionalism
Despite vociferous opposition from the California Chamber of Commerce, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R, and Democrat state legislators cemented a deal Aug. 30 to pass the Global Warming Solutions Act. California is the world’s twelfth-largest producer of global-warming causing greenhouse gases, and the bill commits the state to cutting those emissions 25 percent by 2020. It’s […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 2006: Going Big
Fractures on the right
The West’s moderate Republicans battle their party’s extremists
Posted inSeptember 4, 2006: Blast from the Past
Anti-government attack has many fronts
Out-of-state activists mastermind assault on government spending and judiciary
Posted inSeptember 4, 2006: Blast from the Past
States crack down on illegal immigrants
Congress punts until after the elections; states turn ‘nativist’
Posted inSeptember 4, 2006: Blast from the Past
The rural West’s pragmatic booster
Name Larry Swanson Vocation Economist and demographer Age 55 Home Base Center for the Rocky Mountain West, Missoula, Mont. Known for Hair-raising presentations about dramatic shifts in Mountain West demography and economics. He says “We can’t successfully adapt to change without a fuller understanding of it. Good people with good information make good decisions.” Larry […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 2006: Blast from the Past
The green Republican: back from the dead?
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It looks as though the Endangered Species Act is not going to be eviscerated this year. Neither will the National Environmental Policy Act. On second thought, the government will not sell off millions of acres of the public domain for as little as a thousand dollars an acre. For the nonce, at […]
Posted inWotr
Montana Sen. Conrad Burns spotlights a bad burn policy
Conrad Burns, the third-term Republican senator from Montana, may have done Westerners a backhanded favor when he cornered firefighters in the Billings airport and berated them for the job they did on an eastern Montana wildfire. Burns reportedly confronted members of the Augusta Hotshots last month as they were waiting for their flight back home […]
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Wilderness cliffhanger
Three compromise bills pass the House, await Senate approval
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Safety first
NAME Steve Ficklin VOCATION Petroleum Engineering Technician AGE 54 HOME BASE Silt, Colorado KNOWN FOR Keeping drill rigs from blowing up HOBBIES Working brainteaser math problems, fishing, hunting, camping. HE SAYS “Each hole is different. No two wells are identical.” Steve Ficklin doesn’t talk a lot. As he drives along a dirt road outside the […]
Posted inWotr
Is the great federal land debate over?
Every decade or so, people start pushing the idea of selling off big chunks of public land or transferring that land to state ownership and management. Outside of small parcels, it has never happened, probably because most of us support leaving public lands in federal hands. With the recent pronouncements of Idaho’s own Dirk Kempthorne, […]
Posted inWotr
Just why did Gale Norton leave the interior department?
It seemed so sudden, the way Interior Secretary Gale Norton resigned back in early March. It wasn’t like the other resignations from President George Bush’s cabinet. Everyone in town knew that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was an odd-man-out before Powell announced he would leave at the end of the first term. As to former […]
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
Why did Norton really leave Interior?
It seemed so swift and sudden, the way Interior Secretary Gale Norton resigned back in early March. It wasn’t like the other resignations from President George Bush’s Cabinet. Everyone in town knew that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was the administration’s foreign policy odd-man-out before Powell announced he would leave at the end of the […]
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
Where there’s fire, there’s global warming
“I think there was a tendency to think that the overwhelming factor (driving forest fires) was short-term weather. There’s this idea that drought matters, and it does. But it’s taking time and a lot of research to show that climate plays a big role as well.” — Anthony Westerling Six years ago, climate scientist Anthony […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Taking Liberties
The salesmen say ‘yes’ is a vote to stop government from taking your land, but this stealth campaign would do far more than that
Posted inWotr
Denial grips the Republican fringe
It’s a sad thing to see the fundamentalist wing of the Republican Party skew its values to line up with those of the money-driven Wall Street wing when global warming is at issue. But it is even sadder to see even the non-religious side of the GOP adopting true-believer doublethink to sustain these monetized values. […]
Posted inWotr
Stealth campaigns threaten our democracy
This election season in the West already looks as hot as a wildfire running on a dry wind. High-profile campaigns target congressional seats and governorships. But beware: The most important campaign runs in stealth mode. It’s the campaign by libertarians who want to cripple your state and local governments. They’re doing it with ballot initiatives, […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Saving open land — a taxing problem
Open-space campaigners look for the winning formula