Heard Around the West

Judy Powell says she didn’t think twice about walking onto the plane at Los Angeles International Airport with a doll that she’d bought in Las Vegas for her grandson. Toenail clippers may get taken away and destroyed, she assumed, but never a child’s toy some 12 inches high. Wrong assumption. The doll was GI Joe, […]

Utah has been making financial news, though the news is dismal. According to a report from the American Bankruptcy Institute, a resident of Utah is more likely to go bankrupt than a resident of any other state. About one out of every 35 Utah households filed for bankruptcy last year, says The Associated Press, while […]

A reader swears he’s seen this bumper sticker: “Support gun control or I’ll kill you.” At the recent sheepdog trials in Meeker, Colo., top-selling signs for the rears of vehicles included: “My border collie is smarter than your honor student,” and “If it’s not a border collie, it’s just a dog.” But for the first […]

Oh, the things you see when the water drops. Right in front of the Nature Center in Pueblo, Colo., ancient cars lurked semi-submerged and jutting up from the Arkansas River, reports the Rocky Mountain News. Thanks to record low flows, a dozen volunteers were able to yank out a 1950s-era Cadillac convertible and a Depression-era […]

Ten people now have what you might consider a mini-me ranch in Wyoming, thanks to eBay, the on-line auction house. They each bid $25 on July 15 to crowd onto one square foot of land on the Gauthier Ranch near Rawlins. The toehold on what the owner calls a “micro-acre” includes hunting privileges. Thousands of […]

Yes, at first mention it seems bizarre, but it really makes perfect sense: CPR for wild salmon. Fish resuscitation is now a federal- and state-required skill for anglers who cast “tangle nets” on the Columbia River in spring. Chinook salmon can exhaust themselves to the point of death fighting the nets, and if tossed overboard […]

Aren’t bees busy enough without being harnessed by the military? Apparently not. The Pentagon is training honeybees to ignore flowers and zero in on the faint molecular trails left by explosives. A downside is the high probability that bomb-sniffing bees would not go over well in crowded airports. Bees also don’t care to buzz about […]

It is rare that reading a press release leaves us feeling a sense of amazement, if not downright wonder. The one that follows, from Yellowstone National Park, was sent to the news media by staffer Olivia McCombs under the ho-hum headline: “Bear Incident in Yellowstone National Park.” But here’s the story that followed: “Abigail Thomas, […]

The heck with drought! In some suburbs outside of Denver, it’s grass that counts, and heaven help you if you let it yellow and wither. Some residents of the covenant-controlled developments at Highlands Ranch and in the town of Westminster found that out recently when they tried to be good citizens and save water. Notices […]

Starbucks employees in Monroe, Wash., were greeted just before dawn recently by a man and woman who forced them to open a safe and hand over its contents. But instead of getting some java to go and making their get-away, the couple pitched in at a crowded takeout window. The man donned an apron, reports […]

There’s yet another use for duct tape, one more innovative than the last one you might have thought of – such as wrapping up like a bullet for Halloween. Duct tape came in handy at a Montana airport after a botched takeoff knocked “stewardesses on their butts” and busted the lens on a navigational light, […]

Alligators have arrived at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where they are enrolled in a research project. The fanged fauna from Florida must wear plastic masks over their long snouts, and once they’ve begun tooling along on a treadmill at one mile per hour, scientists start measuring their breathing. Alligators are peculiar […]

Here’s some good news: So many people turned out to work for free at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City that the Games will turn a profit. That’s a rare event, reports the Wall Street Journal, and it’s all due to the “kindness and good cheer” of 20,000 volunteers. They took on jobs as […]

Forget gambling casinos and the songs of Wayne Newton; these days the state of Nevada is selling stupid tricks on public lands. Print ads in Outside, National Geographic Adventure and other publications describe Nevada “as a primal playground with more … tear-yourself-to-shreds terrain than any other place in this great nation.” The ads go on […]

Is there no compassion in Aspen? Maybe not much for Kenneth Lay, former honcho of the bankrupt corporation Enron. The good drinkers at the Woody Creek Tavern recently placed a contribution bowl on the bar to raise money for Lay, a quasi-local and occasional neighbor. Lay owns several properties in Aspen as well as a […]

What does the well-dressed park ranger wear to work at Yellowstone National Park? A gas mask, of course, if the work station is at the park’s western gate. Especially on dead-calm winter days, a pall of pollution awaits staffers as they deal with up to 1,200 snowmobilers idling their gaseous engines. The Clinton administration tried […]

It’s good to be queen – the food is better – but then you get stale and lay fewer eggs, and pretty soon you’re out of a job. Buying new queens is what honeybee breeders face every year, reports Capital Press, and “requeening” has usually been no big deal. Queens can easily be shipped from […]