Jeffrey Lockwood believes that the modern West could use an infusion of old-fashioned Cowboy Mythology.
Two weeks in the West
One toy “screams down the trails” and “tackles mud, rocks, and anything else nature throws its way.” The other “dances over everything from muddy single track to boulder fields.” With their grippy rubber treads and bomber construction, both may sound like fun to outdoorsy gearheads of all stripes. But the difference between the two underscores…
Warp, weft and Wal-Mart
Name Marie Begay Age Late 60s Vocation Traditional hand-weaving Number of sheep owned 80 Where Marie gets her wool Most of her wool comes from her own sheep, though she trades wool with family members to broaden her color choices. Yarn needed for a typical rug Marie’s rugs approach “tapestry” quality, running 50 to 60…
Life, liberty and the pursuit of … game?
Right-to-hunt amendments coming to a state near you
Easing into development
A backdoor agreement between the Forest Service and a timber company cuts out counties
The latest trend in name-calling
The Cold War was actually rather heated when I was growing up in the 1950s and ’60s. America was more or less “at war” with the Communists as a matter of foreign policy. It affected our domestic discourse because politicians so often sought to discredit their opponents as “Communist sympathizers” or “comsymps” — “soft on…
Uber Recycling
A day at a scrap metal yard
Doom! Doom!
The (May 12) issue of High Country News is just pure fodder for cultural criticism of the New West. “Boom! Boom!” posits a clash of distinct economies without even acknowledging the direct link between the two, and suggests the amenities economy is somehow better for the environment. Go back and read your Dec. 25, 2006,…
The most dangerous game
Ron Gillett did have two interesting comments when referring to wolves: “They engage in ‘sport binge killing’ and “(wolves) are the most cruel, vicious animals in North America …” (HCN, 5/12/08). I find them interesting for two reasons. The first is that human beings (for the most part) engage in “sport binge killing” almost every…
Sticks and stones
I just want to assure Ron Gillett that even though I’m an enviro, I wasn’t born under a rock, nor am I a “wolf-thug terrorist” or “full of ‘crap’ and ‘baloney’ ” when it comes to wolves having little impact on elk and deer populations (HCN, 5/12/08). Certainly, if wolf populations explode and there aren’t…
Every picture tells a story
I think that HCN could have exercised better judgment with the cover photo for the story “Pillaging the Past” (HCN, 4/28/08). I see a conflict between the use of that particular image and the contents of Childs’ article. Pillaging isn’t just about removing objects — it’s also about respect for them. Placing human remains on…
Conservation groups come and go. Why?
Over the past 20 years or so, I’ve been affiliated with at least a dozen environmental groups, and I’ve seen it happen several times. So has everyone who’s been involved in the movement. I’m talking about professionalization. It begins when a group of grassroots activists begins to feel overwhelmed. They can’t keep up with the…
The luckiest horse in Reno
When the men approached, the black foal might have been nursing. Or she might have been on her side, giving her wobbly legs a rest, leaning into her mother under the starry desert sky. At the sound of the vehicle, the band prepared to move and did move at once, for horses are animals of…
Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
The first Great Truth of contemporary life is that the West is changing. And the second Great Truth is that the Cowboy Myth is an anachronistic view that denies the first truth and assures that we will become a socioeconomic backwater. What we need to do, or so we are told by those who purport…
Heard Around the West
CALIFORNIA Thanks to skyrocketing prices for gas, a new breed of criminal has begun preying on restaurants, reports The Associated Press. “It’s like a war zone going on right now over grease,” says David Levenson, who owns a grease-hauling business in San Francisco. Levenson pumps used cooking oil from 400 restaurants, but recently he’s found…
Cowboy up to the energy boom
I knew it was going to be an interesting evening when the folks in the audience began bending my ear before the event got started. On May 15, High Country News convened a panel discussion on western Colorado’s red-hot energy economy. Shirley Adams told me point-blank that she had come because she had “something to…
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Walking on a Wire
Los Angeles needs green power. Does it have to tear up the desert to get it?