Rock art is a unique cultural legacy in our region that deserves attention as we lose sites rapidly to vandalism. Unfortunately, the article “Ancient Conversations” misses this very important point (HCN, 2/01/10). It also left me with many questions about the seemingly Eurocentric interpretations of symbols. Meaningful collaboration with Native Americans is past due, and […]
Communities
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Power (and financial) struggle
Despite running head-to-head with President Obama’s State of the Union speech and a talk on campus by Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko, our Jan. 27 panel discussion on energy, activism and the role of the media on the Navajo and Hopi Nations drew more than 100 Tucsonians. “Power Struggle,” co-hosted by the University of […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
The myths of Native American identity
Everything You Know About Indians Is WrongPaul Chaat Smith193 pages,hardcover: $21.95.University of Minnesota Press, 2009. We approach the millennium as a people leading often fantastic and surreal lives. The Pequot, a tribe that’s all but extinct, run the most profitable casino in the country, and tribal members become millionaires. But guess who’s still the poorest […]
Posted inGoat
The Illusory Cowboy Way
It stands to reason that a state that features a cowboy riding a bronco on its license plate would be partial to “the cowboy way.” And the Wyoming legislature is trying to make it official with a code derived from the 2004 book Cowboy Ethics, by James P. Owen. The proposed code […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
How much does that canyon weigh?
ARIZONA If you don’t laugh or gasp with amazement at least once while reading the boatman’s quarterly review, the off-and-on-again magazine published by the nonprofit Grand Canyon River Guides in Flagstaff, Ariz., you’re way too serious. A recent profile of teacher and guide Steve Lonie, 61, included these tidbits: Asked about the craziest question he’d […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Down the wormhole
A Colorado cave might hold a key to extraterrestrial life forms
Posted inHeard Around the West
Think a shock collar’s cruel?
COLORADO/DOWN UNDER Don’t like your dog chasing wildlife, but think a shock collar is cruel? A trip to Australia just might teach him a lesson. A Jack Russell terrier, owned by a Colorado couple on work assignment Down Under, tangled with a giant lizard. The lizard was fine; the dog was a bloody mess. But […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Turnover at the top
“Attention, Home Depot shoppers! Aisle 12 has lumber ripped from the heart of old-growth forests!” California environmentalist Mike Brune got the idea to make shocking announcements like that during what he calls his “intercom campaign.” He and his operatives acquired the access code to Home Depot’s intercom systems — punch *80 — and pulled it […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Water fallout
Utah’s first nuclear plant won’t float without water rights
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
Skeletons in the closet
Utah State Archaeologist Kevin Jones knows his bones
Posted inWotr
Build in the wrong place and you’re on your own
Homeowners in disaster-prone zones need to be self-sufficient
Posted inBlog
The First Scrappy Years
“Americans are great people. But I think the readers of High Country News are the greatest,” wrote Tom Bell in the March 5, 1971, issue. He was responding to the letters and donations that readers and subscribers had sent following a grim assessment of the paper’s future. Click for larger version Bell had been at […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Housing hullabaloo
UTAH We’re not sure if Utah can help Arizona with its biblical interpretation skills, but it’s got a great idea for those empty mega-homes. The Beehive State is faring better than Arizona financially, but it’s still feeling enough pain to have some vacant McMansions. Rather than leaving them all to the rats, however, at least […]
Posted inMay 18, 2009: The Rise of the Minotaur
Stewardship award for HCN
Stewardship award for HCNHigh Country News is this year’s recipient of the Jane Silverstein Ries Award. The award, presented annually since 1983 by the Colorado Chapter of the Association of Landscape Architects, honors “a person, group or organization that demonstrates a pioneering sense of awareness and stewardship of land-use values in the Rocky Mountain region.” […]
Posted inRange
In Alaska, a health care model for the nation
It takes about 30 seconds of walking around the campus of the Alaska Native Medical Center to see that this is what the Indian Health system should look like across the country. “No,” a friend corrected me, “this is what the U.S. health care system should look like.” The Alaska Native Medical Center is two […]
Posted inBlog
Environmental justice, one neighborhood at a time
With the exception of vocal critics who deny the science behind climate change, most of the world is painfully aware that our industrial activities over recent decades have raised the earth’s average temperature. Our warming atmosphere is putting at risk life as we know it, prompting the people of the world to action. But long-standing […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
The limits of memory
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life NovelJeannette Walls288 pages,hardcover: $26.Scribner, 2009. In some respects, Lily Casey Smith, the heroine of Jeannette Walls’ Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel, is a classic example of an independent, hardworking Western woman: a rancher, schoolteacher, businesswoman, wife and mother. Lily, however, is in the unique position of being both the […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
Learning to live landlocked
When I lived in southern Alaska, everything revolved around the ocean. Our island was reachable only by plane or boat, and you couldn’t get anywhere dry or metropolitan without hopping an Alaska Airlines jet. The sea was the only constant in a place that seemed beset by continual change — people moving in and out […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
A dark and disjointed journey
Day out of DaysSam Shepard304 pages, hardcover: $24.95.Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. The short stories in Day out of Days, Sam Shepard’s new collection, have an unhinged, out-there appeal, reflecting their eclectic, mostly Western settings. Some individual stories are even named after their locations: “Williams, Arizona,” for one, and “Cracker Barrel Men’s Room (Highway 90 West).” […]