Moderation in the pursuit of office is no vice, and nine other lessons to take away from the midterm elections
Politics
Posted inNovember 27, 2006: The West: A New Center of Power
Election Roundup
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The West: A New Center of Power.” ARIZONA After taking office in 2003, Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed more than 110 bills passed by the Republican Legislature. Voters seem to like her stands. She won re-election by roughly 2-to-1 over archconservative Republican Len Munsil. […]
Posted inWotr
How I did my civic duty
I am as civic-minded as the next person. I hold my nose and vote for the least objectionable candidate. On ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments in particular, I vote no if it is very long and not written in understandable English. I vote no a lot. This year, mortally tired of the attack ads, I […]
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
State of Jefferson: A place apart
Name Brian Petersen Age 40 Vocation Entrepreneur: Runs a local car wash, fabricates signs, grinds stumps, manufactures plastic trays for bed-bound laptop users, and silk-screens T-shirts for local soccer teams. He recently bought a $30,000 laser-engraver whose commercial potential, he says, is untapped; he’s still dreaming up ways to use it. Known for Promoting the […]
Posted inWotr
Western Republicans have a few things to crow about
Here’s some solace for Rocky Mountain Republicans suffering the post-election glooms: It could have been worse. You could be New England Republicans, the few, the forlorn, the forgotten, in a six-state region with more than 14 million people, soon to have exactly one Republican member of the House of Representatives. Or you could be in […]
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
Four decades of the Sierra Club
It is not enough to be outraged at industry’s abuse of our soil, water and air, writes Mike McCloskey in his autobiography, In the Thick of It: My Life in the Sierra Club. We have to harness our rage and wage savvy campaigns in the courtroom and Congress. McCloskey joined the Sierra Club in 1960 […]
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
A decade of difficult questions
Reflections on a cantankerous, contrarian Western newsmagazine
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Can the West become the new South?
Western primary could give the Rockies a louder voice in Washington
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
In search of greener pastures
Name Laina Corazon Coit Age 55 Vocation Hemp ice cream maker Home Base Near Briggsdale, Colo. Noted for Working to create Colorado’s first green burial grounds, on the eastern prairie She says “I’m for earthworms. We intend to use every possible way to make sure the land remains sacred to the grave sites and the […]
Posted inWotr
Big stakes surround South Dakota’s abortion ban
On the outskirts of rural Menno, S.D., past acres of sunflowers, there’s a wooden sign nailed to a post. It reads: “Abortion, America’s #1 Killer.” Similar signs dot roads throughout this conservative state, which is populated by 775,000 people and where just one clinic, based in Sioux Falls, performs about 800 abortions a year. Depending […]
Posted inWotr
The right way to be green
The midterm elections are approaching fast, and as usual the environment is considered a Democratic issue. I had no problem with that when I was fighting strip mines in Ohio in 1973; environmentalism was synonymous with leftist politics. In the early ’80s, when a friend told me someone named Dave Foreman was forming an environmental […]
Posted inWotr
Self-styled conservatives are the cheapest generation
I was brought up to believe that we had a moral obligation to leave our corner of the world better off than we found it. In recent years, I am haunted by the notion that the people we have elected to represent us — many of them self-styled conservatives — may be the first in […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
On the ballot: Will Californians vote to build an off-ramp from the oil highway?
Californians will find more than a dozen initiatives on their ballot this Nov. 7, including one aimed at helping them kick the oil habit. Proposition 87 would raise $4 billion over 10 years for the California Energy Alternatives Program Authority by taxing oil produced in the state. Part of an effort to reduce oil consumption […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Getting out of the office, and into hot water
NAME Jeff Mount VOCATION Geology professor AGE 52 HOME BASE Davis, California KNOWN FOR Pointing out that building houses below sea level and surrounding them with weak levees is a recipe for disaster MOST RECENT EXPLOIT On a dare from his son, giving up his raft to kayak the Grand Canyon this summer: “I saw […]
Posted inWotr
Character in politicians is vastly overrated
It seems that a Colorado candidate for Congress, Angie Paccione, really filed for personal bankruptcy in 2001,as, according to the administrative office of the U.S. Courts, did 1,452,029 other people. Why should anyone care? Because Marilyn Musgrave, the two-term Republican incumbent Paccione is running against, has informed the world about the bankruptcy in a radio […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
On the ballot: Voters could be energized, or exhausted, by ballot initiatives
In the Western states, either the legislature or petition-toting individuals can take issues directly to the voters by putting initiatives on the ballot. This year, the West is a hornet’s nest of initiatives: Voters face 82 ballot measures in 10 states. Come Nov. 7, for example, Coloradans will choose whether to legalize marijuana, and Californians […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
In politics, it’s not about who you want to drink a beer with
So Angie Paccione filed for personal bankruptcy in 2001. According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, so did another 1,452,029 people. Why should anyone care? Because Marilyn Musgrave, the two-term Republican incumbent Paccione is running against to represent northeastern Colorado in Congress, has informed the world about the bankruptcy via a radio ad. […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
A tribal renaissance
If, when you think of Indian country, you think first of its particular heartaches — alcoholism, violence, poverty, and hopelessness — then read Blood Struggle, Charles Wilkinson’s inspiring account of Indians’ political and legal victories during the last fifty years. A catalog of Indian achievements rather than problems is rare, welcome, and a little unexpected, […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
What’s wrong with the EPA?
If you’re wondering why this nation’s environmental laws aren’t implemented coherently or consistently, grab David Schoenbrod’s latest, Saving Our Environment from Washington. From a Natural Resources Defense attorney turned Yale law professor, the book is part memoir, part manifesto. And considering the potentially boring topic, Schoenbrod does an excellent job of explaining how laws such […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Roadless returns!
On Sept. 19, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte reinstated protection for some 50 million acres of roadless national forest land. (Separate rules govern the roughly 9 million roadless acres of Alaska’s Tongass.) Laporte ruled that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act when, in 2005, it repealed President […]