There are approximately 80 places in the United States where artists of all kinds can go to compose, paint, write, sculpt and photograph. These artists’ communities, which are mostly on the coasts, accommodate about 4,000 visitors a year. If all goes well, there will soon be a new one just outside Zion National Park in […]
Communities
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Telluride’s MountainFilm
If the past is guide, the 22nd MountainFilm in Telluride this May will be more than the sum of its parts. The individual elements will be impressive – a day-long opening symposium on the Andes and miles of celluloid about nature, other cultures, and jocks playing on rocks, glaciers and rivers. But the power of […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
We can do it ourselves
It was 1970, and people were dropping out in droves. Wood stoves were replacing electric heat, milk cartons were transforming wax into candles. Someone noted that more pottery was created during the ’70s than during the history of mankind – perhaps an exaggeration. One of the gurus for back-to-the-landers 30 years ago was a woman […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Crater doesn’t come cheap
ARIZONA Conservationists are close to protecting a volcanic crater and wetland near Flagstaff, Ariz. All they have to do is raise $3 million. In March, the Flagstaff-based Grand Canyon Trust signed a land-swap deal with developers, in which the trust bought the 247-acre caldera known as Dry Lake. Developer Jim Mehen, who had first proposed […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Why I ride the bus
Only one other passenger waits to catch the 6:47 a.m. commuter bus from Pullman to Moscow, Idaho. She is pleasant looking, well dressed, with Walkman headphones snaking up out of her sweater. Because I ride this bus regularly, I’ve learned some details of this woman’s life. Whitney Houston is her favorite singer. The woman has […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Grass roots keeps town tiny
WASHINGTON Nestled in a narrow valley at the remote north end of Lake Chelan, Wash., there’s a tiny town that can only be reached by boat, float plane, or a hike over the North Cascade mountains. Now it will stay that way. For nearly seven years, a developer threatened to boom Stehekin’s size by almost […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Ludlow Massacre memorialized
In 1914, near Trinidad, Colo., coal miners from the southern coal fields of Colorado tried to organize a union to improve working conditions, enforce the eight-hour work day, have the right to select their own boarding places, doctors and grocery stores, and decrease the high death toll of miners. Their struggle made history on April […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
At your service
Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
The drive to organize
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “In solidarity we will survive.” The slogan is splashed in red paint across the white and blue cement walls of the Culinary Workers’ Union hall, an unimpressive building in the older part of town. Inside, I meet with Geoconda “Geo” Arguello-Kline, a small woman […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
‘Women are the backbone of the union’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Peggy Pierce works at The Desert Inn as a banquet server: “I think Las Vegas is just like every other town. People go to work, they take care of their families, they do pretty much normal things. We don’t spend money differently. We also […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
‘Ain’t no sucha thing as you can’t’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Bernice Thomas runs the maids’ training school for the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas. A mother of eight, she moved there with her husband from Tallulah, Louisiana, 25 years ago. Bernice Thomas: “We train 33 students every two weeks with a full class. […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
‘There are no support networks here’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Aldona Sobiecki moved to Chicago from Warsaw, Poland, 18 years ago, then traveled farther west to Breckenridge, Colo., in 1996. Six months ago, she opened a deli that features Polish food. Aldona Sobiecki: “For me, since I open here, it’s hard to find help. […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
‘It’s my dream’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Elena Bernlohr, who works in Breckenridge, Colo., is from Khimky, a suburb of Moscow, Russia: “I am three-quarters Jewish, but my mother gave me her last name so that I wasn’t discriminated against in school. My father was a very important scientist in Moscow, […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Wildcat subdivisions fuel fight over sprawl
Arizona argues over how to rein in runaway development
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Do we really need the rural West?
Note: this article is accompanied by another article in this issue, “Yes, we need the rural West.” Dan Dagget, the well-known authority on Western livestock grazing and a seemingly mild-mannered guy, lost his cool and fairly screamed at me: “Why don’t all of you go back to the cities back East you came from and […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Yes, we need the rural West
Note: this article accompanies another article in this issue, “Do we really need the rural West?“ Hal Rothman is normally a very cool guy – a history professor fascinated by the culture and economy of his hometown of Las Vegas. But he recently went to a conference about the rural Northern Rockies, and after sitting […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
A norteno champions a local environmental ethic
Many here in “New” Mexico have not forgotten that the United States violated the 150-year-old Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by asserting ownership of community ejidos – common lands under the historic land-grant system. Today, those lands make up national forests and land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. In this contested landscape, environmentalists and […]
Posted inApril 10, 2000: Beyond the Revolution
Indian reservations: Environmental refuge or homeland?
To non-Indians, reservations look like vast de facto wildlife areas. But that’s not what they’re for.
Posted inApril 10, 2000: Beyond the Revolution
The Old West is small potatoes in the new economy
Local and state governments are no match for the massive corporations moving in on the West’s open spaces
Posted inApril 10, 2000: Beyond the Revolution
The infinite West reaches its limits
Undaunted optimism runs up against a finite landscape