No matter who wins in November, one thing is certain about this year’s election: the Interior West has finally arrived. For the last 40 years, campaigns generally flew right over the eight states in the interior. Their sparse populations, relative handful of electoral votes and status as Republican strongholds meant they just weren’t worth fighting […]
Politics
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
Warp, weft and Wal-Mart
Name Marie Begay Age Late 60s Vocation Traditional hand-weaving Number of sheep owned 80 Where Marie gets her wool Most of her wool comes from her own sheep, though she trades wool with family members to broaden her color choices. Yarn needed for a typical rug Marie’s rugs approach “tapestry” quality, running 50 to 60 […]
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
The latest trend in name-calling
The Cold War was actually rather heated when I was growing up in the 1950s and ’60s. America was more or less “at war” with the Communists as a matter of foreign policy. It affected our domestic discourse because politicians so often sought to discredit their opponents as “Communist sympathizers” or “comsymps” — “soft on […]
Posted inArticles
Primer 5: Wildlife
Wild animals are as much a part of the American West’s mystique and grandeur as its mountains, canyons and plains. Nowhere else in the United States can you encounter wolves, grizzlies, buffalo, elk, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, golden and bald eagles, condors, mountain goats, and moose, wandering more or less at will across a varied landscape. […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Population’s Paul Revere?
NAME Frosty Wooldridge AGE 61 KNOWN FOR His e-mails, blogs, letters and books about overpopulation, and by extension, immigration. HE SAYS “You can ignore reality, but at some point reality will not ignore you. In the U.S., we’re now on track to add 100 million people in the next 30 years. We can bring about […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Green and mean
Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund builds on anti-Pombo election strategy
Posted inWotr
Democrats could play the donkey card in Denver
It’s been said that burros, beans and brawn won the West. Now, organizers of the Democratic National Convention are weighing whether iconic images of the Old West should be used to market the event in Denver this summer. The debate is not without significance. Democrats, who have been unable to gain a foothold in Southern […]
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Keeper of the wildlife
NAME Les Bighorn AGE 47 HOMETOWN Poplar, Montana TRAINING Attended the Montana Law Enforcement Academy in Helena, Montana, and is now working toward a degree in history. HE SAYS “An elder once told me that when an animal comes to you instead of running or flying away as you approach it, they are telling you […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
A Montana rancher stands his ground against subdivision
Name Vernon Gliko Age 86 Hometown Belt, Montana Occupation Farmer/rancher He Says “They were friendly people back then. Everybody was trying to help everybody because they were in the same situation. Well, now, you know, you may not even know your neighbor.” Biggest change in his lifetime Transition from using horses to tractors Known for […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
3:10 to Baghdad
To prepare for combat halfway around the world, the military looks to Yuma’s desert laboratory
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Native Intelligence
Lili Singer turns Californians on to backyard bounty
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Wyoming’s day in the spin
Talk about surprising: The Democratic presidential candidates actually paid some attention to Wyoming. With only 522,830 residents, according to last summer’s Census Bureau estimate, Wyoming has the smallest population of all 50 states. Furthermore, no Democratic presidential candidate has carried the Equality State in 44 years, not since the Lyndon B. Johnson landslide of 1964, […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Bush brings more green into the green movement
“Bush has been good to us,” says Kevin Lind, director of the Powder River Basin Resource Council, a small Wyoming environmental group that pressures coalbed-methane drillers to behave responsibly. Lind doesn’t mean that President George W. Bush has suddenly become benevolent or relaxed his hard-line anti-green stance. Rather, he means that during Bush’s reign in […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Stay in the Hunt
Jim Posewitz believes the hunters’ nose-to-the-ground ethic can save the planet
Posted inArticles
Primer 2: Energy
For more than a century, the Interior West has been the nation’s domestic energy supplier. Factories and power plants across the country have long made use of the abundant, high-quality coal reserves in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Utah. After World War II, the fledgling nuclear power industry created a rush for the region’s uranium deposits. […]
Posted inArticles
Dems reach out to Native Americans
Women and African-Americans aren’t the only demographics receiving extra attention from Democrats this year. The party has also been reaching out to Native Americans. “In the past, Native American voters have been ignored, or thought of in the last minute,” says Laura Harris of the Comanche Tribe. “What (Democratic National Committee Chairman) Howard Dean has […]
Posted inWotr
In Wyoming, caucusing gets personal
Participating in politics doesn’t usually seem all that inviting in Wyoming, with its one congressional representative and part-time citizen Legislature. That’s especially true for Democrats in this state that is as red as it is square. Non-Republicans in Wyoming can be akin to a rare species of toad — a curiosity that is easily squashed […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t starve the Forest Service
A whole lot of Rocky Mountain Westerners are concerned about President Bush’s recent proposal to cut the U.S. Forest Service budget. Out our way, the land is not an abstraction. The numbers in the Forest Service budget aren’t abstractions, either. They mean something real to our land and to our lives, and a cut of […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2008: The People of the Sea
I was a closet environmentalist
NAME Roger Muggli Age 59 Vocation Farmer/Feed Plant Operator Elected Position Secretary of the Tongue and Yellowstone Irrigation District (third generation) Handle Water Dog (H2OK9) Home Base Family farm east of Miles City, Montana Life Passion Water He Says “Wouldn’t it be grand if our kids and grandkids could float down the Yellowstone and still […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2008: The People of the Sea
We’re in a land of Lincoln
The bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth isn’t until Feb. 12, 2009, but we could easily spend the next year considering how our 16th president defined the American West. Lincoln, who was born in Kentucky, never traveled west of his adopted state of Illinois. Yet he, and the Republican Party he helped found, took a deep […]