When the mighty stumble, satirists have a field day. California, the sixth-largest economy in the world, became an easy target once its halfway deregulation of electricity triggered billion-dollar deficits.A commentator on the Web site F–kedCom- pany.Com chortled, “All this whining and complaining that there’s no juice to run the Jacuzzis and there’s no way to […]
Heard Around the West
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Heard around the West
California’s rolling blackouts have marooned people in elevators and left hundreds of cows bellowing for their milking machines. Yet high prices and scarce supply won’t affect everyone in the state: not, for instance, residents of the 1970s-era “Eco-House” in Arcata, north of San Francisco. For 21 years, three students at a time from Humboldt State […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
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“One of the reasons environmental protection is so hard is that it is so embarrassing,” says Oliver Houck, a law professor at Tulane Law School in Louisiana. It’s one thing to say you got ticketed for speeding, but another to confess “that you are using the Boise River as a sewer,” which explains why the […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
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Perhaps the Washington Post Magazine’s editors chuckled in anticipation as they assigned reporter Gene Weingarten the important task of finding a town that measured down as the “armpit of America.” Of course, it would not be the District of Columbia, home base of the daily, where more people are murdered in a year than anywhere […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
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Cattle have always enjoyed right of way in the West. If the road is suddenly filled with mooing and manuring animals, it’s up to a motorist to slow down and enjoy the passing herd. If you’re unlucky enough to crest a hill and crash into a 2,000-pound cow, the animal is legally innocent; it’s the […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
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Oh, to be a stray in San Francisco, where a software billionaire’s gift has made animal homelessness a Cinderella experience. Once picked up from the streets, cats, for example, move to a loft where they can choose to watch mice run on television or loll on top of a six-foot climbing tree. Piped-in air to […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
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Think about writing an almost minute-by-minute record of your life: documenting the shoes you’re wearing, rating brands of snack food and occasionally taping to your notes samples of recently harvested toenail clippings. Would anyone bother reading or even handling this intimate minutia? Sure they would, said octogenarian Robert Shields in Dayton, Wash., who obsessively noted […]
Posted inNovember 20, 2000: Water pressure
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Tired of basting and babysitting that big bird for Thanksgiving? Why not try SPAM, the pressed pink concoction that does not signify, as rumor has it, “something posing as meat.” No, SPAM is smooshed pork shoulder and ham in a can along with sugar, salt, water and sodium nitrate, reports the Santa Fe New Mexican. […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
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Is this a tale for Ripley’s Believe It or Not? A moose in Whitefish, Mont., threw itself at a car driven by a woman who loves moose so much her license plates read moosie1 and moosie2. The suicidal moose, probably a victim of raging hormones during the rutting season, “really shook up the driver,” reports […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
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The Seattle-Post Intelligencer tries to be conscientious during election season, interviewing by its count more than 100 candidates. Perhaps surreptitiously, the staff of the daily also write down the silliest comments from would-be public servants. Among the paper’s top 10: I was born into leadership – period. Give the Indians Food Stamps to buy salmon. […]
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
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MONTANA For 30 years, says biologist Charles Jonkel, he’s tried to educate people about grizzlies and black bears. He started an International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, Mont., 28 years ago to spread the word that ethical standards were needed for making films about the animals. Nonetheless, he says, thrill-seeking has gained ever-wider prominence, with […]
Posted inOctober 9, 2000: The hunters and the hunted
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Bicycles have been around for more than a century, but they’ve been getting a new look in the last five years, thanks to battery-powered motors that spin their back wheels. With that assist, hills can turn into no-pedal pieces of cake. In Grants Pass, Ore., the owner of a company called Solar Man says, “When […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
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Las Vegas, Nev., detective John Zidzik was patrolling his city’s airport when he noticed something peculiar about a traveler, a man in his early 30s. There were “unusual bulges in his groin area not consistent with male anatomy,” said the police officer, who conducted a delicate search. The bulges, moving oddly, turned out to be […]
Posted inSeptember 11, 2000: Holy water
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Two Wyomingites are trying to set the record straight about “real” cowboy attire. Studying old photos, mail-order catalogs and interviewing relatives of early range-riders, Tom Lindmier and Steve Mount conclude that the big-hatted denim look popularized by Hollywood is all wet. Their book, I See By Your Outfit, says that 19th century cowboys were more […]
Posted inAugust 28, 2000: The mine that turned the Red River blue
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Every tourist with a camera makes the same joke at scenic turnouts where the drop is precipitous: “Back up just another step – no, just kidding!” It’s part of tourist myth – that someone actually asked a spouse to back up near a canyon, and then it was “Goodbyeeeeee.” Here’s a variation, and it’s all […]
Posted inAugust 14, 2000: Meth invasion
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If you’re dying to see 70,000 nonpoisonous snakes, then a town of 20 people in Manitoba province, Canada, is the place for you to go. Narcisse, though tiny, boasts four limestone pits that shelter the gray and black snakes from minus-40-degree winter weather. In spring, the snakes wake up, and that’s when University of Oregon […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
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Are San Francisco residents rude to tourists? Of course! But just to make it official, the San Francisco Chronicle sent a reporter out with crutches. The hobbling reporter then stood in a crowded bus or train waiting to see if someone would give him a seat. The common response? “I got mine.” One of the […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
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Yes, they look freaky, some of them, but on the whole they’re peaceable and just want to see old friends and hang out – sometimes, it is true, while sampling controlled substances. They are the Rainbow Family of Living Light, a loosely affiliated group of ’60s-style hippies who gather for a week once a year […]
Posted inJune 19, 2000: Accidental refuge: Should we save the Salton Sea?
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Could a man juggle 20 drinks sliding around a tray while walking in spike heels and looking sexy? Some cocktail waitresses in Reno, Nev., do that for eight hours at a time. They also say they’re sick and tired of it – the blisters, bunions and hammer toes caused by wearing high heels on the […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
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In the West, people sometimes find bears scrounging for food in the kitchen or cougars pacing the deck. In the East, a chubby house cat can spook the neighbors. Residents of Bensalem, Penn., became alarmed when they saw what they thought was a 50-pound wildcat or worse, a “mysterious monster,” reports The Denver Post. Seven […]