Start with basic shapes: an oval for the body, a circle for the head, triangles for the bill and tail, a pole for the neck and a checkmark for the wing. Be sure to fill up most of your paper. Now, let’s round out the lines and add color. Then, draw in the duck’s habitat. […]
Communities
Posted inFebruary 26, 2001: Return of the natives
Heard around the West
When the mighty stumble, satirists have a field day. California, the sixth-largest economy in the world, became an easy target once its halfway deregulation of electricity triggered billion-dollar deficits.A commentator on the Web site F–kedCom- pany.Com chortled, “All this whining and complaining that there’s no juice to run the Jacuzzis and there’s no way to […]
Posted inFebruary 26, 2001: Return of the natives
The mythic West and the billionaire
Only after looking over my shoulder as I left the Denver Art Museum did I realize the irony of the exhibit “Painters of the American West.” As usual, the blue neon Qwest signs flooded the Denver skyline. Behind both the art exhibit and Qwest, publicity-shy but firmly in charge, is Philip Anschutz, at last count […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Easement saves artifacts
Conservation easements usually protect open space on private land (HCN, 2/28/00: Acre by acre: Can land trusts save the West’s disappearing open space?), but a new easement in southwestern Colorado also protects what’s underneath the land. In December, an agreement between landowner Don Dove and the Montezuma Land Conservancy preserved 110 acres of ancestral Puebloan […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Men without women
“How sad life is, but the saddest thing is to sleep alone even though one has a wife, Luis.”– A tree carving, translated from Spanish in Speaking Through the Aspens You’re walking through an aspen forest and suddenly you see it on a tree trunk – a carving of a woman’s body or a bird, […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Assessing Sunbelt sprawl
A recent poll found that nearly half of Phoenix’s residents would pack up and leave tomorrow, if given the chance. Two-thirds think the region is doing a “poor” or “fair” job of preserving the desert or open space. With this harsh assessment of the city’s quality of life in mind, a team of university researchers, […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Heard around the West
California’s rolling blackouts have marooned people in elevators and left hundreds of cows bellowing for their milking machines. Yet high prices and scarce supply won’t affect everyone in the state: not, for instance, residents of the 1970s-era “Eco-House” in Arcata, north of San Francisco. For 21 years, three students at a time from Humboldt State […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
X-rated on the rocks
“I am glad I have seen yournakedness;it is beautiful;it will rain from now on.” — Talashimtiwa Hopi Indian from Oraibi, 1920from The Serpent and the Sacred Fire: Fertility Images in Southwest Rock Art The record on rock left by the Southwest’s early people is mostly mystifying. What do those galaxy-like clusters really represent? What are […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Heard around the West
“One of the reasons environmental protection is so hard is that it is so embarrassing,” says Oliver Houck, a law professor at Tulane Law School in Louisiana. It’s one thing to say you got ticketed for speeding, but another to confess “that you are using the Boise River as a sewer,” which explains why the […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Heard around the West
Perhaps the Washington Post Magazine’s editors chuckled in anticipation as they assigned reporter Gene Weingarten the important task of finding a town that measured down as the “armpit of America.” Of course, it would not be the District of Columbia, home base of the daily, where more people are murdered in a year than anywhere […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Get artsy in the parks
Over the years, the work of numerous artists has focused the eye of the public on national parks. Thomas Moran’s paintings helped swing the debate for protecting Yellowstone National Park. Ansel Adams’ photographs continue to introduce new generations of Americans to the beauty of Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. And Ann Zwinger’s writings and sketches […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Hecho a mano
Hecho a Mano, by James S. Griffith. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Paperback: $17.95. 104 pages. Driving through Tucson, Ariz., a visitor might not register the ornate front-yard fences and low-rider cars along the city’s palm-lined streets. Yet in the book Hecho a Mano, by folklorist Jim Griffith, what’s everyday comes vividly alive. Griffith takes […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Heard around the West
Cattle have always enjoyed right of way in the West. If the road is suddenly filled with mooing and manuring animals, it’s up to a motorist to slow down and enjoy the passing herd. If you’re unlucky enough to crest a hill and crash into a 2,000-pound cow, the animal is legally innocent; it’s the […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Plains sense
Frank and Deborah Popper’s ‘Buffalo Commons’ is creeping toward reality
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Making buffalo pay
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Anyone looking at the buffalo ranching industry over the past decade would see signs of both promise and disappointment. In the early to mid ’90s, so many ranchers wanted in that the price of “herd stock” – or a starter herd – quadrupled. Ranchers […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
A Buffalo Commons bibliography
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Bergman, Roger, “Theocentric or Anthropocentric? Catholic Teaching on the Environment: A View from the Great Plains,” pp. 204-228 in Practical Theology: Perspectives from the Plains, Omaha: Creighton University Press, 2000, edited by Michael G. Lawler and Gail S. Risch. Callenbach, Ernest, Bring Back the […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
Mormonism 101: A primer for gentiles
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Being Green in the Land of the Saints.” The Mormon faith began in 1820, when Joseph Smith, then 14 years old, had a vision of God and Jesus Christ in a grove of trees near his home in Palmyra, N.Y. Three years later, the […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Ombudsman could be town’s ticket
MONTANA Victims of a 1996 train derailment that spilled 133,000 pounds of chemicals near Alberton, Mont., may finally get some help. Though Montana Rail Link and the Environmental Protection Agency cleaned up a 30-acre area after the spill, many residents continue to complain of lingering pollution and illness. But neither the company nor the regional […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Little town shows big heart in the face ofgrowth
CALIFORNIA Silicon Valley has pumped $50 million into California open space preservation since 1998. But this fall, on California’s central coast, residents of the small town of Cambria showed that sheer will also goes a long way in the fight against development. Hong Kong investors had plans to put over 250 homes on 417 seaside […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Bring back towns
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream makes the buzzwords “new urbanism” come alive. The authors, who are community planners, have written and designed an easily accessible and smartly illustrated book, which is not surprising, since Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck believe that what works to build […]