Given that the vast majority of Americans (almost four out of five) live in urban areas, we small town residents might well feel flattered by the attention we received during this presidential campaign. Not all the attention was complimentary, though. Democratic nominee Barack Obama observed that “You go into some of these small towns in […]
Communities
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Real Mormons are diverse
As a Mormon with Eastern roots, I found this article woefully lacking (HCN, 10/27/08). Mormons are not part of the Christian right cabal. Look at Harry Reid, for crying out loud. I voted for the Green candidate in 2004, and Obama in the California primary and may well vote for him again. Ray Ring simply […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Perspective on the religion card
The Mormon Church engages in overt political activism, and as such it deserves the same muckraking scrutiny as any other advocacy organization (HCN, 10/27/08). Its claim to foster moral leadership shouldn’t exempt it from critique. Ray Ring’s revelations about the “underbelly” of Rexburg are relevant to the investigation of a politico-religious institution that clearly aims […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Kokopelli attacks
Teri Paul, the director of a state park museum in Blanding, Utah, found herself the victim of a surprise attack recently. The cause? An anatomically correct statue of Kokopelli, a fertility god of ancient Indians, which has greeted visitors to the Edge of the Cedars Park Museum since 1989. Kokopelli, a well-known denizen of the […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Guns and God
Kudos to Jonathan Thompson, who will surely get plenty of negative responses to his editor’s note in Volume 40, Number 19, from numerous fundamentalists whose understanding of the First Amendment is nearly nonexistent (HCN, 10/27/08). I’m happy to have a Constitution that, at least on paper, allows everyone to worship whatever deity or higher power […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
While you were voting …
Bush administration races ahead with environmental policy changes
Posted inWotr
Antelope hunting keeps getting better
Every year, I think hunting for antelope just can’t get any better, and every year it does. The days are warm, the nights are cool, the aspens are golden and so are the memories. Let me explain. In my grandfather’s day in southwestern Wyoming, antelope were few and far between. In his journals for the […]
Posted inGoat
Goodbye, Tony Hillerman
Tony Hillerman died at age 83 in an Albuquerque hospital this week, succumbing to pulmonary failure after surviving two heart attacks, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis – none of which stopped him from writing (his last novel was published in 2006). His mysteries portrayed the beauty and desolation of the Four Corners area and featured two […]
Posted inWotr
Homecoming
On the wall of our cow camp bunkhouse in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming hangs a little board on which somebody scratched the words: “If you’re lucky enough to be in the mountains, you’re lucky enough.” This week, I’m lucky enough to be among the West’s ranchers whose fall calendar includes gathering cattle from high […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Midnight in Montana
On a cold night that should have been warm, I pulled off the highway and headed for an historic gentleman’s club to hear the Doug Turman Sextet, a band of no particular renown. This was mining country in northwestern Montana, where unpredictable, bitter weather is a fact of life, outdoors and in. Next to me […]
Posted inGoat
Crypto-Jews real?
I first heard of the concept of Crypto-Jews back when I was a college student in Santa Fe during the late 1980s. New Mexico Hispanos had noticed their supposedly Catholic neighbors and relatives engaging in rituals that, it turned out, resembled Jewish religious practices. Some scholars — most notably Stanley Hordes, who was New Mexico’s […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Scrimpfest in the West
The posh St. Regis Resort at Monarch Beach in Southern California offers pregnant couples a lavish package vacation called the “Last Hurrah.” But in late September, that moniker might have been better applied to the $440,000 weeklong retreat American International Group held there for some of its top sales agents — less than a week […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Religion, politics and culture
Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his G-d … that thelegislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared their Legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free […]
Posted inWotr
Take a hike!
“I thought we’d go for a hike,” I told the boy I’m mentoring. “You know, look at stuff.” “How about we go to a movie?” he parried. “Or we could play electronic poker.” He’s not an unusual kid. There has been a major swing in his generation away from all things outdoors. The National Academy […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
On the Stegner trail
Wallace Stegner and the American WestPhilip L. Fradkin 323 pages, hardcover: $27.50.Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Like wanderers returning to the old hometown after a long time away, readers of Philip Fradkin’s new biography of Wallace Stegner will recognize familiar terrain as well as make fresh discoveries. Wallace Stegner and the American West arrives 15 […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
The invisible man
Name Ricardo Arriagada Age 30 Occupation Goat herder What herding means, day to day Four hours in the morning and two in the evening, filling water tanks and maintaining and moving the electric fence that keeps the goats corralled. The upside of living alone in a travel trailer on the Bay Area’s exurban fringes “Things […]
Posted inArticles
The fruits of their labor
A guard, a vineyard owner and prisoners talk about a new farm worker program
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
Taking your life in your feet
Having lived in different parts of Arizona for many years, I would say that it is not just Phoenix that is unfriendly to pedestrians. It is the whole state. Arizona drivers think they own the road and have an inalienable right to speed. In many places, both big cities and small towns, roads have narrow […]