2009, for people who care about the West
Communities
Posted inWotr
Snow job leads to a reporter’s exit
There’s an old saying in Colorado’s ski country regarding weather reports and predictions of snowfall: “I’ll believe it when I’m shoveling it.” That’s what I was thinking to myself several weeks ago as I sat on my couch, sifting through some ideas for a weekly opinion column in the western Colorado-based Summit Daily News, where […]
Posted inWotr
When doing the right thing gets complicated
It was dark, and about 30 of us were grouped around a campfire in a forest in the Pacific Northwest, when Tim, the owl expert, said, “I think it would be really weird to be a ‘sparred’ owl.” A sparred owl is what you get when a spotted owl mates with a barred owl. I […]
Posted inWotr
Parenting again, though not by choice
Just a year ago, I turned 65, had a modest Social Security income and half-time job with the nonprofit I’d founded 20 years earlier, and I was divorced — amicably — after a 34-year marriage. Home was a small house in the small town of Joseph in northeast Oregon, but I was making frequent trips […]
Posted inWotr
Whatever I do, it’s probably wrong
I try to do my best, I really do, but it seems harder than it should be. I’m in the grocery store, where the shiny plastic packaging stretches as far as the eye can see, and parents and kids seem larger than life – in fact, some seem the size of NFL linemen. With my […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
‘Firebrand ways’
A visit with one of the founders of the Center for Biological Diversity
Posted inArticles
Colorado River blues
Photos and audio stories of communities that live along the troubled Colorado River.
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Life along the Colorado River
See a slideshow of Broussalian’s images of the Colorado River — and its people. The desert Southwest is unlikely to run out of water. But under the pressures of climate change and drought, population and politics, the Southwest is likely to run out of cheap water. The deal of the century will become last century’s […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Food for thought
As 2009 limps to a close, Westerners have plenty of reasons to want to ring in a new — and perhaps better — year. With the economy lagging, folks are trimming budgets, shopping like Scrooge, and turning to federal food programs for a little extra help to put a holiday ham on the table. 395,000 […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
A search for meaning in the Pacific Northwest
LivabilityJon Raymond272 pages,softcover: $15.Bloomsbury USA, 2009. If you’ve ever imagined that your search for meaning might finally end at an organic farm in Oregon, or on a summer gig at an Alaskan fishery, or with the sale of your first screenplay, you’ll recognize the characters in Jon Raymond’s short-story collection Livability. Livability is a menagerie […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Creating a precedent for forgiveness
The Crying TreeNaseem Rakha368 pages, hardcover: $22.95.Broadway Books, 2009. The word “forgiveness” conjures up images of long, damp hugs, sobbing and weakness. Our movie theaters, television screens and books are filled with heroes who violently punish evildoers, not people forgiving each other. In real life, our justice system steers clear of reconciliation and dispenses vengeance […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Don’t take Manhattan
How ironic that HCN would publish an essay romanticizing a city that, like San Francisco in the 19th century and Los Angeles in the 20th, symbolizes the inexorable flow of resources and wealth out of the productive lands of the West and into the warehouses and pockets of the merchant elites (HCN, 11/23/09). Zoellner’s piece […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
“Swimming in circles”
While Emily Underwood did an admirable job writing “The Lost Art of Listening,” there are two comments that are problematic (HCN, 11/23/09). Underwood wrote “… he has been consistently frustrated by what he considers teachers’ and administrators’ failure to implement his methods for teaching Arapaho” and “Greymorning is convinced that the problem lies in teachers’ […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
See you in 2010
It’s time for another publishing break in our 22-issue-per-year schedule. Look for the next issue of HCN to hit your mailbox around Jan. 18. May your stockings be stuffed with goodies and may your reindeers’ noses shine brightly all season long.NEW WORKS, NEW JOBSHCN contributors and interns have been busy writing and getting new jobs, […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
What the FRAC?
WYOMING You might think that Sweetwater Station, population “plus or minus 5,” doesn’t have much to brag about. It sits on a two-lane road in the middle of nowhere, about halfway between Muddy Gap and Lander, in central Wyoming. But you’d be wrong, because nine years ago Sweetwater Station became the new home of a […]
Posted inWotr
A brave woman now runs a border town
I live in the flat, scruffy desert of southwestern New Mexico, a half-hour from the Mexican border town of Palomas. There’s been a war going on in Palomas for over two years. A dusty town of 5,000 people, Palomas has more murders per capita than any city in the world, some say. I talked recently […]
Posted inWotr
Setting the record straight on wilderness
It’s been a good year for wilderness. In March, the Omnibus Lands Bill designated over 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states. In September, President Obama declared a month-long celebration of the Wilderness Act, and this November, the United States, Canada and Mexico signed the world’s first international agreement on wilderness conservation. Perhaps because […]
Posted inWotr
Bring back the rattlers
One morning, my wife told me she’d seen a rattlesnake on a knoll behind our house in southern Utah. Nestled under a bush just 25 yards up the hill, it didn’t look aggressive. It lay circled in the shade as if taking a nap, its diamond pattern strangely enhancing the scene. We decided to leave […]
Posted inGoat
An official state microbe
Colorado may not hold the record for “Official State Whatevers,” but it’s got to come close with both a state rock and a state gemstone, two official state songs, a state insect and a state reptile, as well as the usual flower, bird, fish, tree, mammal and the like. But Wisconsin may […]
Posted inGoat
Feels like teen spirit
Yesterday, the High Country News interns (Ariana Brocious, Cally Carswell and I) trekked to nearby Delta to speak to a journalism class at the local high school. After getting lost in the “big city” (Delta has about 6,500 residents to Paonia’s 1,500) we were greeted by five bright and eager young journalists. Well, sort of. […]