A visit with philosopher and writer Kathleen Dean Moore
Politics
Posted inRange
Center for Biological Diversity shows the way
Thank goodness that the Center for Biological Diversity has given us an example of what a forest partnership worthy of the name looks like. A real forest partnership is NOT about giving up rights under the law; suspending duly established government process or excluding the public from important decisions about the public lands. Real forest […]
Posted inWotr
Wolves don’t belong on the firing line
The day before the first-ever official wolf hunt started in Idaho on Sept. 1, I stood on the sidewalk outside the county courthouse in Sandpoint, watching cars stream into town. As demonstrators on the sidewalk waved placards protesting the hunt, people in those vehicles reacted, and I focused on their hands, counting waves and thumbs-up […]
Posted inRange
Taxing the logic of tribal health benefits
WASHINGTON – There is near universal agreement: the Indian Health Service needs more money. At the National Indian Health Board Consumer Conference last week several members of the U.S. Senate and House were critical of the historic under-funding of IHS. These were Democrats, Republicans, some representing Indian country constituents, others from districts with no reservations […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Bicycles, books and beer
How a man with no plan built a community around literature and social activism
Posted inWotr
Trapping is one tradition that ought to go
Every 20 years in Montana, more than a million bobcats, otters, wolverines, fishers, pine martens, otters, fox and other furry critters are exterminated from Montana’s forests and streams. Collateral damage includes the endangered Canada lynx, eagles and bears — not to mention all the dogs and cats unwittingly snared in traps. But a ballot initiative […]
Posted inGoat
Sen. Baucus’ healthcare plan
The political comedian Bill Maher this week told President Obama to act on behalf of the “70 percent of Americans who are not crazy” and go ahead with his agenda, instead of trying to please enough Republicans to make a bill bipartisan. The Democratic senator from Montana, Max Baucus, might heed this advice as well. […]
Posted inGoat
Lawless future indeed
Our recent story “Lawless future” described the Road Warrior-esque state of some of California’s state parks. The state’s budget problems meant that parks lost nearly $40 million this year. Short on staffing and law enforcement, many parks saw a surge in vandalism and illegal activity; nonetheless, the state is planning to shut down several parks […]
Posted inGoat
“We all blew it”
“I think Van Jones is a big part of the future of environmentalism,” Gus Speth, dean of Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, told New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert earlier this year. “He, more than anyone else, is bringing together a concern about the environment and […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Peril in the parks
Early August: A woman and her young son are stranded for five days in a remote corner of Death Valley National Park in 117 degree-average heat; the boy doesn’t survive. Late August: Two climbers fall in Grand Teton; one is airlifted from a ledge by helicopter. The National Park Service is involved in thousands of […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
A win for the gipper?
Though there has been widespread praise in some quarters, I find it difficult to muster much enthusiasm for Sen. Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act described in “Taking Control of the Machine” (HCN, 7/20/09). Perhaps a historical anecdote will help explain. In 1988, both houses of Congress passed a Montana wilderness bill that protected 1.4 […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Lawsuits of last resort
“Thinking Outside the Timber Box” discussed the Center for Biological Diversity’s efforts to restore northern Arizona’s once-stately ponderosa pine forests (HCN, 7/20/09). Our memo of understanding with Arizona Forest Restoration Products does not waive the Center’s right to appeal or litigate Forest Service decisions. It instead promotes high-quality ecological restoration projects to preclude the need […]
Posted inRange
Vilsack calls for “change”
In his first major speech on forest policy, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack laid out the Obama Administration’s plans for managing national forests and grasslands that total 193 million acres (an area the size of Texas!) much of it in the West. Vilsack also emphasized wildfire management in an era when the size of wildfires and […]
Posted inRay
Obama enviros now total 34
The Obama administration has now enlisted at least 34 people who have direct ties to environmental groups or clear leanings in that direction. That’s my running count of the enviros nominated or appointed to top jobs in federal agencies and the White House. The latest is Harris Sherman, executive director of the Colorado Department of […]
Posted inWotr
Is Obama’s goal of diversity trumping other goals?
Homer Lee Wilkes. Ignacia Moreno. Hilary Tompkins. Each is a member of a racial or ethnic minority, and each has been nominated by Barack Obama, our first black president, to a high position with power over environmental issues in the West. And each has faced skepticism from environmentalists. On May 5, Obama picked Wilkes to […]
Posted inGoat
Eenie meenie (money) moe
In this era of hyped-up security concerns about our southern border, why would a remote Montana border station with a daily average of three travelers get $15 million of stimulus money? Montana Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus say it’s because they asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to fund projects in their state, whose […]
Posted inRange
When a step aside was ‘a godsend’
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy jumped into American Indian issues with zeal after his brother, Bobby, was assassinated. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy had used the Indian Education Subcommittee as his platform during his extensive travels across Indian Country with the anti-poverty tour. A young Ted Kennedy wrote in Look Magazine that RFK “saw, as I have […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
Righteous steak, too
Your review of my book Righteous Porkchop had a serious flaw (HCN, 8/3/09). The reviewer suggested that I intentionally avoid criticizing cattle ranching because of my own involvement in it. This fundamentally misses the argument the book is making about modern industrialized food production, namely that today’s confinement poultry, hog, and dairy operations, which keep […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
Ring’s Reid grab
I was dismayed at the meanness and lack of balance displayed in the article entitled “The same old Sen. Reid” (HCN, 8/3/09). If it were not for the hard work of Harry Reid, we would not have the passage by Congress of the Omnibus Bill, Great Basin National Park, removal of lead from the drinking […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
Reid’s water grab
It is good to see Harry Reid’s cover being blown by Ray Ring (HCN, 8/3/09). For people in rural Nevada, Reid’s two-faced BS is common knowledge. Here in Lyon County, Nevada’s largest ag-producing county, Sen. Reid is the power behind the $200 million added to the Farm Bill to purchase the water rights of local […]