Macho B’s death, contentious and untimely, could also be criminal. The capture, collaring and euthanization of America’s last known wild jaguar in March was illegal, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, who brought a lawsuit against Arizona Game and Fish Department yesterday. The Center asserts that AZ Game and Fish did not have the […]
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Posted inRange
HCN reader photo: Dead television
This week, we’re featuring a photo by Flickr user VexingArt. It’s not only a nice shot, with plenty of depth and character and that cool old photo look, but it also captures one of those common features of so many Western landscapes: The shot out appliance. To see more High Country News Reader photos, or […]
Posted inRange
Plastic bags plague the Bay
Have you ever wondered what happens to those pesky plastic bags that blow out of trash cans and float aimlessly along city streets and through neighborhoods? Eventually, they find their way to storm drains, creeks, bays and oceans. Once in the water they become toxic food for unsuspecting wildlife or flow to join the Great […]
Posted inGoat
Is the Pioneer doomed?
What a pleasure it was to ride Amtrak’s Pioneer route, which ran from Salt Lake City to Boise, through Oregon to Portland and north to Seattle. The route operated from 1977 to 1997, hooking up with the California Zephyr to service riders in Colorado. I remember one fabulous trip to LaGrande, Oregon, getting off at […]
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Light bulbs and big government
The precise number of people who recently rallied in Washington, D.C., for a national “tea party” is hard to come by. Left-wing reports have it at less than a hundred thousand participants, while some right-wingers put it over a million. Whatever the count, it was refreshing that so many people were concerned about […]
Posted inRange
Taxing the logic of tribal health benefits
WASHINGTON – There is near universal agreement: the Indian Health Service needs more money. At the National Indian Health Board Consumer Conference last week several members of the U.S. Senate and House were critical of the historic under-funding of IHS. These were Democrats, Republicans, some representing Indian country constituents, others from districts with no reservations […]
Posted inGoat
Relocation is a loaded term
There has been little noise made about the EPA’s relocation of seven Navajo families living near the former Church Rock uranium mine in northwestern New Mexico. Scouring the Internet, I could only find one brief article in the Gallup Independent. The news was brought to my attention last week, when Cally Carswell and I met […]
Posted inRange
Exempting Native Americans from the mandate
There is growing consensus about a key element of health care reform: a requirement that you must buy health insurance. The idea is that the insurance pools would be less expensive if every American were included – especially younger, healthier workers who for a variety of reasons decide not to buy insurance. The reform proposals […]
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Sen. Baucus’ healthcare plan
The political comedian Bill Maher this week told President Obama to act on behalf of the “70 percent of Americans who are not crazy” and go ahead with his agenda, instead of trying to please enough Republicans to make a bill bipartisan. The Democratic senator from Montana, Max Baucus, might heed this advice as well. […]
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Bright sunshiny day
Arizona has more clear, sunny days than any other state in the West. In the summer months, sheets of mirage-casting heat waves pour down across expansive miles of desert. Yet for years this sunny state has lagged in developing its solar industry, relying instead on coal and nuclear power. Recently, though, that’s started to change. […]
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Lawless future indeed
Our recent story “Lawless future” described the Road Warrior-esque state of some of California’s state parks. The state’s budget problems meant that parks lost nearly $40 million this year. Short on staffing and law enforcement, many parks saw a surge in vandalism and illegal activity; nonetheless, the state is planning to shut down several parks […]
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“We all blew it”
“I think Van Jones is a big part of the future of environmentalism,” Gus Speth, dean of Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, told New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert earlier this year. “He, more than anyone else, is bringing together a concern about the environment and […]
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The long dark tea time of the split estate
An older couple — freshly retired from jobs on Colorado’s Californicized Front Range — decides it’s time to build a dream home somewhere on the state’s less populous Western Slope. They pick a dry mesa, scrubby with sage and rabbit brush, where the views go on for miles. The neighbors graze cows. The meadowlarks sing. […]
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‘Tis the season
In the Rocky Mountains, wedged between Summer Tourist Season and Fall Big-Game Hunting Season, is a relatively brief interval of crowded highways known as Aspen Season. It has nothing to do with the Colorado resort town, and everything to do with the tree, whose leaves change color. Technically, the leaves don’t exactly change […]
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Back to the future: Public Health hospitals
Seattle-based Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, will move into its new headquarters near Lake Union next year. Then Amazon will leave an old Art Deco building, once known as the U.S. Marine Hospital. What if we took this empty building and turned it into a hospital? What if we staffed it with federal employees? […]
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Vilsack calls for “change”
In his first major speech on forest policy, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack laid out the Obama Administration’s plans for managing national forests and grasslands that total 193 million acres (an area the size of Texas!) much of it in the West. Vilsack also emphasized wildfire management in an era when the size of wildfires and […]
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Indian Country & health care reform
Will ‘poor old grandma’ redefine this debate? You hear a lot about grandma now that Congress is back to work on health care reform legislation. “Poor old grandma” is a reason opponents say they will fight health care reform. Grandma will lose services, her Medicare will be less than it is, and some bureaucrat far […]
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The Cheney International Center
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne donated about $3.5 million to the University of Wyoming, and in return UW named a 20,000-square-foot center in Cheney’s honor. The Cheney International Center will house the university’s international programs, which include the study of global economic systems, international culture and social issues, international development and […]
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Obama enviros now total 34
The Obama administration has now enlisted at least 34 people who have direct ties to environmental groups or clear leanings in that direction. That’s my running count of the enviros nominated or appointed to top jobs in federal agencies and the White House. The latest is Harris Sherman, executive director of the Colorado Department of […]