Start with Kim Raff’s excellent cover shot (HCN, 9/2/19). Add Paige Blankenbuehler’s note on accountability, San Juan County, Utah’s Indigenous reversal of power, and a positive story on our polygamous neighbors, plus the opening up of Colorado’s state trust lands to public access. Mix in biocrust skin grafts, Wyoming’s self-dug coal-pit woes, and flying goats in the Cascades. Season with the tragedy of tribal land being returned only to be heavily burned, Paul Larmer’s pleas to include our home state in HCN’s West, Sarah Gilman’s ace book review, Rachel Turiel’s charming epistemology story, Ruxandra Guidi’s personalizing the immigration issue, and finally some significant mainland coverage of the ongoing struggle of Native Hawaiians on Mauna Kea. (Thank you, Rosalyn Lapier.) All good ingredients. But what made the cake was Emma Penrod’s outstanding investigative piece. Living in Colorado for the past 40 years, I’ve come to appreciate Mormon culture and its championing of family values. This unfortunate incidence of state/religion collusion that put children at risk is disturbing. And quite rightly exposed.
Art Goodtimes
Norwood, Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Recipe for a Great Issue.
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