Your story “Young, All-American, Illegal” is riveting and heartbreaking (HCN, 8/16/10). It should be required reading and viewing by anyone involved in immigration issues, regardless of political stripe. And that means all of us. I confess: The brouhaha surrounding the Arizona “show me your papers” debate didn’t matter to me, other than to rouse my […]
Communities
Posted inWotr
What have we learned a century after the Big Blowup?
A devastating wildfire leaves its marks on the West.
Posted inBlog
Loving an (artificial) lake
I’m a longtime resident of Arizona. Your reception of this bit of information is likely affected by recent news coverage of my state’s new immigration legislation, isn’t it? Every now and then, the Grand Canyon State wants to reassure the rest of the country that its flaming red-state status is secure, thank you very much. […]
Posted inGoat
“Lines Across the Sand”
Edward Abbey’s 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang opened with a definition: sabotage … n. [Fr. < sabot, wooden shoe + -age: from damage done to machinery by sabots]…. From this subtle introduction, the book grew beyond its covers, even beyond the reach of its cantankerous author, and led a whole generation of upset desert […]
Posted inWotr
Slobs at Lake Powell foment a revolt
Each summer I do penance at Lake Powell for the environmental sins of its visitors. This summer was no exception as I volunteered to work on a houseboat called the Trash Tracker. Our job: picking up debris in 108-degree heat along 100 miles or so of the 1,900-mile shoreline. Our team found the usual amount […]
Posted inWotr
Medical marijuana trips up Montana
The state of Montana is frantically backpedaling six years after voters passed Medical Marijuana Initiative 148. (Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for it.) One of 10 states now with medical marijuana programs, Montana has fallen into what might be called pot-plant purgatory as it struggles with blurry laws and even blurrier implementation plans, stalling […]
Posted inRange
“Government-run” no longer defines the Indian health system
A single phrase is often used to define the Indian health system: “Government-run.” Add those two words to any discussion about health care or reform and most people reach an immediate conclusion about the merits of the agency. Now it is time for the phrase to disappear because it no longer accurately describes the Indian […]
Posted inWotr
An improbable candidate runs in Arizona
Early in May, John Dougherty, the best investigative reporter I’ve ever known, made the eyebrow-raising announcement that he would run for the U.S. Senate in Arizona. To think that a writer stood any chance of knocking off John McCain was absurd, vainglorious … and … perfect, as a matter of poetic irony. Back in 1989, […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: A thousand-mile walk to home
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Three summers ago I blew out a lumbar disc while running a jackhammer in the desert near my house—an accident that was the result of simple bad luck, with the odds perhaps skewed by […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
A flood of visitors
Monsoon season struck Paonia with a vengeance in the muggy final days of July. Beyond window-rattling thunder and heart-stopping lightning, the storms have brought deluges of rain, sending irrigation ditches flooding over their banks and washing out roads and driveways. Our flood of summer visitors through HQ has continued unabated, as well. High Country News […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
Caveman of Southeast Alaska
From deep beneath the Tongass, Steve Lewis calls for conservation
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
Tough justice, hard fate
Then Came the EveningBrian Hart272 pages, hardcover: $25.Bloomsbury USA, 2010. In Brian Hart’s debut novel, a Vietnam veteran, believing his wife died in the fire that destroyed their cabin, goes crazy with rage and remorse, and commits a crime that makes the reader gasp. Bandy, who’s also half-drunk at the time, ends up in jail, […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
Truth, lies and poetry
War DancesSherman Alexie209 pages, hardcover, $23.Grove Press, 2009. In the title story of War Dances, a World War II veteran tries — and fails — to glorify the dying moments of a fellow soldier. “I was thinking about making up something as beautiful as I could,” he tells the dead soldier’s grandson. “But I couldn’t […]
Posted inBlog
From prom queens to dam dialogue
“She kept us out of trouble,” is how former High Country News publisher Ed Marston describes the first intern to take up the post in Paonia. Mary Moran arrived in the fall of 1983, just a month after the organization moved from rural Wyoming to rural Colorado and Ed and Betsy Marston took over as […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
These boots were made for walking…
I appreciate Cherie Newman’s review of Joe Hutto’s The Light in High Places in the July 19, 2010, edition. However, Newman missed the key point. She quotes Hutto writing that “it is not the greed of multinational corporations with their vicious bulldozers, chain saws, and oil rigs” consuming the earth’s resources and polluting our environment, […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
The upside of apathy
I realize that probably over 90 percent of Americans have this affliction called nature illiteracy and I think that it is just because they do not “connect.” They are busy power walking, driving at top speed in their isolation chambers, or roaring along in the dust of an ATV or even sliding over the snow. […]
Posted inWotr
When you bike in Boise, “STOP” means maybe
Boise, Idaho, one of the most liberal cities when it comes to bicycling, issued new rules of the road this June that basically said to both drivers and bicyclists: “Don’t be jerks.” The rules said drivers should make room for bikers as they pass them and not harass them, while cyclists should never ride recklessly […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
A vault, not a souvenir shop
In the July 19, 2010, issue, HCN included a sidebar article entitled “How to Return a Pot.” There is, however, no legal process for returning artifacts taken from public lands. We often receive calls from people who have artifacts and want to return them. We can give your readers several reasons not to ever place […]
Posted inRange
The data story: How much? How many?
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Every agency that serves American Indians and Alaska Natives must answer these questions in order to fuel the decision-making process: How much will it cost? How many people are served? And, by the way, who is an Indian? None of the answers are easy. The demand for federal services is growing as […]
