THE WESTWhat is it about summer and people acting nutty in cars? In Salt Lake City, “a naked woman led police on a wild chase with two stolen cars — including their cruiser,” reports the Salt Lake Tribune. A week later, a Utah man ran Wyoming state police ragged by first driving erratically, then taking […]
Betsy Marston
Posted inHeard Around the West
A very fine house
COLORADOAs befits his plain-Jane name, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is a beige kind of guy, more comfortable in blue jeans than a suit. These days he’s running hard as the Democratic candidate for Colorado governor. After 12 days on the campaign trail in rural western Colorado, he happily reported to Telluride Watch that “sometimes you […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Clash of the museums
NEVADAThat city of excess, Las Vegas, is outdoing itself by hosting not just one, but two new museums dedicated to the Mafia and the “moral turpitude of organized crime,” reports the New York Times. Is there a little problem of duplication? Not at all, says Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman (the city is building […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
A little taste of … something
COLORADOPot dispensaries may be proliferating on Main Streets across the West, but a new sign that weed is going mainstream can be seen in Durango, a college town in southern Colorado that attracts lots of hikers, climbers and mountain bikers. Just turn on Durango’s public-access television channel, and you can watch pot-inspired recipes come to […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Taking matters into their own hands
OREGONWhy would you bring pepper spray to a cooking contest for local chefs in Portland? Well, let’s just say that it was not employed to spice up one of the entrees. Instead, it was used by police to halt what Willamette Week Online described as a brawl featuring “drunken head-butts, chefs being ejected from a […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Gettin’ skunked
IDAHOIn April, staffers at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game decided to correct what they perceived as nature gone awry by sprinkling a handful of hungry predators around an island swarming with birds. The agency introduced three badgers and two skunks to 6-acre Gull Island in the Blackfoot Reservoir in hopes the animals would […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Crime doesn’t pay
UTAHSome Salt Lake City crooks easily get away with audacious heists, while others are, well, inept. The first caper involved the theft of Mayor Ralph Becker’s bike, locked in front of the main library while folks inside took part in an all-day Utah Bike Summit. The thief used bolt cutters to break the bike lock […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Of guns and mordant humor
THE WESTIt became official Feb. 22: Visitors to national parks can now tote loaded firearms, openly carrying legal handguns, rifles and shotguns. But oh, the many restrictions, as noted in a handy brochure available at parks. Here’s a major one: Although it is legal to carry loaded weapons in national parks, existing laws and regulations […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
NBIMBY
COLORADO AND UTAHMesa State College on Colorado’s Western Slope displayed a bit of insensitivity to its Grand Junction neighbors recently, announcing that it was planning to create a “body farm” in one of the city’s fastest-growing residential areas. A body farm is a place where criminal justice students study the slow process of decay in […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Doggone it
THE WORLDEveryone loves dogs, right? Don’t be so sure. In its spring issue, Earth Island Journal reviewed the book Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living, by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale. The Vales found that the carbon impact of a dog is double that of an SUV, that a […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Don’t have a cow
CALIFORNIAThe folks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium named their new exhibit about climate change “Hot Pink Flamingos: Stories of Hope in a Changing Sea.” With the help of humor, a hopeful tone and charismatic animals such as penguins and jellyfish, exhibit planners hoped to get visitors talking about the contentious topic of how too much […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
True or false?
WYOMINGWhen it comes to the Cowboy State, comedian Jeff Foxworthy gets it, or so say some locals who’ve been e-mailing around some of his spot-on observations. He says that if “you’ve ever refused to buy something because it’s ‘too spendy’,” if “you’ve worn shorts and a parka at the same time,” if “your town has […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Talk about dedication
MONTANASometimes you have to look a little silly to get the job done. It’s a risk Mark Renner, an avid bowhunter, was willing to take when he designed a hat to fool pronghorn antelope. The wily animals were always quick to flee once they spotted Renner standing up to shoot, so he tried outfitting a […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
“The gas of life”
UTAHSome parents in Utah County are pressing their school district to stop spreading “false educational ideas,” reports the Salt Lake Tribune. What might a false educational idea be? The notion that the word “democracy” defines our system of government. To parents who belong to a group called “Utah’s Republic,” which advocates a strict interpretation of […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
See you in Spring
In our 22-issue-per-year publishing schedule, we’ll be skipping the next issue. Look for HCN in your mailbox again around April 12, and in the meantime check our Web site, hcn.org, for news and commentary. SMALL-TOWN DISCOVERIESIntern Nick Neely had only been working at High Country News for three weeks when he happened to stroll past […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Blazing guns and trails
MONTANAHubris doesn’t begin to define the Livingston, Mont., man who chain-sawed a trail more than a mile long through the Gallatin National Forest. “It became a project,” said Francis Leroy McLain, 60, who also ripped down a fence separating his property from U.S. Forest Service land. “I enjoyed it.” McLain’s illegal trail was more than […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Three cheers
GOOD NEWS DEPARTMENT While most school districts continue to struggle (and argue) over how to cut millions of dollars out of their budgets, the residents of Grand County, Utah, were just told they could relax and take a deep breath — at least for one year. Thanks to an anonymous donor’s gift of $700,000, the […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Shooting bullets, not blanks
UTAH The San Juan Record in Monticello, Utah, celebrated William Morley Black, a “father of thousands,” as part of its series on the “giants” of San Juan County. When Black died in 1915, he’d had six wives and 41 children, and he left 214 living grandchildren and 206 living great-grandchildren. “In the intervening 95 years, […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
How much does that canyon weigh?
ARIZONA If you don’t laugh or gasp with amazement at least once while reading the boatman’s quarterly review, the off-and-on-again magazine published by the nonprofit Grand Canyon River Guides in Flagstaff, Ariz., you’re way too serious. A recent profile of teacher and guide Steve Lonie, 61, included these tidbits: Asked about the craziest question he’d […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
Visitors, after hours
It’s been cold, snowy and oddly humid here in Paonia, Colo., but a few intrepid souls still ventured out to visit us. Longtime subscribers Dave Morgan and Bobbie Sumberg dropped by our office while on a trip from their home in Santa Fe, N.M. Unfortunately, by the time they reached HCN, we’d already closed for […]