Back in the 1960s, when I was a Los Angeles kid, LAX airport planned a big remodel. Regional bigwigs envisioned a futuristic structure of some kind, so the architects went on a Jetsons jag and suspended a gleaming streamlined pod on two sweeping steel parabolas. It would be the theme building for the whole airport, […]
Communities
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Heard around the West
THE BORDER On a Web site called Gizmodo, which caters to computer gearheads and other gadget collectors, we found a controversial offering a few months ago from Argentinean artist Judi Werthein. She has designed running shoes for illegal immigrants that feature a built-in compass and flashlight, a pocket inside the shoe’s tongue for aspirin or […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
The Perpetual Growth Machine
Arizona sets out to disprove the notion that someday the West will run out of water
Posted inWotr
Commemorating the Vietnam War in northern New Mexico
This Memorial Day weekend, the population of northern New Mexico will swell by thousands of people. Many will come for more than the magnificent vistas of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and perfect weather. They visit because the area is home to the first-ever Vietnam Veterans Memorial, built back in 1971, when the war was […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
‘Clinging hopelessly to the past’
The cantankerous gospel of Jim Stiles and The Canyon Country Zephyr
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Bomb test stirs up fear in Nevada desert
Proposed blast raises alarm over lingering radioactivity and talk of bombing Iran
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA Governing magazine calls Vernon, Calif., “the strangest town in America.” Although 44,000 people work there, only 93 people actually live in the tiny Los Angeles suburb; when election time rolls around, 60 people show up to vote. The Los Angeles Times wrote an exposé of the unusual town, which behaves more like a private […]
Posted inWotr
Praise the Lord and pass the pancakes
Drive across the West along the Interstate and you’ll get the impression that sleeping, eating and filling up the gas tank are the activities we hold dear to our hearts. Of these three, however, the greatest seems to be eating. I’d stayed overnight at a motel no driver could see, much less imagine, just off […]
Posted inWotr
Wamsutter: This Wyoming town never seems to die
Wamsutter, Wyo., population all of 261, is the poster child for Western boomtowns, though if you Google it, the computer asks, “Are you sure you don’t mean hamster?” Wamsutter used to be a rough-and-tumble railroad town, named in 1884 for an obscure Union Pacific bridge engineer. The promise of the railroad first brought surveyors, tunnelers, […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
It ain’t easy getting old
Cormac McCarthy discards his bitter nostalgia to tell a story set along the border in the 1980s.
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
The Immigrant’s Trail
Note: this essay introduces several feature articles in a special issue about the West’s immigration landscape. Last month, as immigrants and their supporters geared up for the May 1 “Day Without Immigrants,” and the Senate considered another comprehensive immigration bill, an 18-year-old Mexican woman gave birth amid the cactus and mesquite trees of the Arizona […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Hope
After 16 years in the shadows, two sisters win legal residency
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Repo Manic
“An ordinary person spends his life avoiding tense situations. A repo man spends his life getting into tense situations.” — Repo Man, 1984 At 5 foot 9 inches tall, Gary Autry doesn’t cut a towering figure, but his broad shoulders and bulk give the 42-year-old former high school linebacker a commanding presence. He wears a […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Heard around the West
THE WEST What makes Mormon crickets run? More than just the lust for protein and salt. The insects hustle because they’re afraid they’ll be gobbled up by the cannibalistic cousins trotting behind them, reports the Reno Gazette-Journal. Researchers from the United States, England and Australia who studied cricket migration in southern Idaho found that the […]
Posted inWotr
War protesters never die, they just keep on protesting
The third anniversary of America’s invasion of Iraq was March 19, so I joined a small group of people who met in Riverside Park in Salida, Colo., to state our disagreement with the war. It was a cold and cloudy day, appropriate for the occasion. There were the usual homemade signs. I wore my Army […]
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
Magic Valley Uprising
How an Idaho citizens’ coalition gunned down a dirty power plant — and what it means for the West
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
Ingredients: History, preservatives
Preserving Western History is “the first college reader to address public history in the American West.” “Public history,” explains the introduction, means history presented outside classrooms. All of us consume public history, by visiting parks, watching TV shows and reading magazines. Behind the scenes, even the most basic presentation of history can involve slicing, dicing, […]
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
Meet Idaho’s Revolutionaries
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Magic Valley Uprising.” Father Hugh Feiss Father Hugh Feiss is one of the 15 Benedictine monks who have vowed to spend their lives at the Monastery of the Ascension, about five miles from the butte where Sempra wanted to build its coal plant. He […]
Posted inMay 1, 2006: Magic Valley Uprising
Heard around the West
MONTANA Every year, as many as 700 deer collide with cars in Montana’s Ravalli County — so many that the roadsides reek to high heaven. It’s a big problem, made worse by the fact that growing populations of both deer and people have reduced the number of places where deer carcasses can be “discreetly dumped,” […]