Names Jeff Lee and Ann Martin Vocations Bookseller and graphic artist Home Base Denver, Colorado Claim to Fame Founders of the Rocky Mountain Land Library She says “This is just Jeff’s kind of project. I go day to day, he has the big vision.” “To really know the West, to be at home here,” says […]
Politics
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
Montana tells the federal government to butt out
No one knows just when the West decided it had had enough of being run from Washington, D.C. The indications that Montanans have had it with federal mandates became evident in the state Legislature this March. Although the capital routinely ignores the opinions of a state like Montana, which boasts fewer than a million people […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Saving Maidu culture, one seedling at a time
It was just a family jaunt, Lorena Gorbet says — a day trip to Soda Rock, where mineral water fizzes out of limestone clefts into a tributary of northeastern California’s Feather River. Gorbet, a Mountain Maidu Indian, gathered her children at the base of the rock, a Maidu cultural landmark. She told them about the […]
Posted inWotr
Montana tells the federal government to butt out
No one knows just when the West decided it had had enough of being run from Washington, D.C. The indications that Montanans have had it with federal mandates became evident in the state Legislature this March. Although the capital routinely ignores the opinions of a state like Montana, which boasts fewer than a million people […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
State of the World 2005: Redefining Global Security
State of the World 2005: Redefining Global Security The Worldwatch Institute, 237 pages, softcover $18.95. W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. The Worldwatch Institute’s latest annual report offers insight into issues from nuclear weapons proliferation to renewable energy. In a chapter on water, researchers provide examples in which locals and religious organizations, as well as water […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Nevada desert to be sold for debt relief
Bush wants proceeds from public-land sales sent to Washington, D.C.
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Colorado couple turns healthy profit from healthy beef
Ten miles north of Durango, Colo., the property lines of the James Ranch are obvious. Red cliffs, cottonwoods and the Animas River frame one side, while to the south, west and north, new homes and a busy state highway push on the fence lines. It’s a common sight in many Western valleys: ranchers stubbornly clinging […]
Posted inWotr
Gov. Schwarzenegger is the nation’s newest Progressive
Heeee’s back. Only this time, Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn’t come from the future as the Terminator. He’s come from the past, a time when some politicians took contentious issues straight to the people. Schwarzenegger has announced that he’s fed up with the Democratic-majority state Legislature and will appeal directly to voters to impose a cap on […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror
The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror David W. Orr, 172 pages, hardcover $20. Island Press, 2004. David Orr, professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College, explains how our centralized, industrialized, corporate way of life makes us more vulnerable to acts of terrorism. But he offers a […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
As if We Were Grownups: A Collection of ‘Suicidal’ Political Speeches That Aren’t
As if We Were Grownups: A Collection of “Suicidal” Political Speeches That Aren’t Jeff Golden, 147 pages, softcover $12. Riverwood Books, 2004. Sick of endless political spin? Oregon writer Jeff Golden is, too. He makes the case that politicians need to treat voters like adults and tell us the difficult truth, even if it’s not […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
Where were the environmentalists when Libby needed them most?
The story of an ailing town in northwestern Montana calls into question the health of the environmental movement
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
Nun calls the faithful to an ‘ecological ministry’
NAME Joan Brown VOCATION Head of the Ecological Ministry of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Order of St. Francis AGE 51 HOME BASE Albuquerque, New Mexico MOST NOTED FOR Taking on social and environmental issues with a Catholic sensibility INSPIRED BY Catholic priest and philosopher Thomas Berry, who said, “If we lose the grandeur of […]
Posted inWotr
The Great White Father comes up with a new scam
On long winter nights beside the Knife and Little Big Horn rivers, tribal elders still sit around fires and tell their grandchildren stories to help them make sense of the world. It’s a custom as old as silence. Here’s a story: A black man, a white man and an Indian arrive at the Pearly Gates, […]
Posted inWotr
A rotten environmental legacy is in the making
Though consumed by the day-to-day duties of office, deep in the mind of every American president must be questions about how his decisions will be dissected by historians in the decades and even centuries after he leaves office. Presidents, especially those in their second term, usually turn a watchful eye to their so-called legacies. The […]
Posted inWotr
Kerry blue and snow white: Ski counties vote Democratic
The recent Snowdown festival in my town of Durango, Colo., celebrated with silly costumes, a parade, risque humor and even some events centered on snow. People threw themselves down the slopes on everything from skis and snowboards to kayaks, bicycles and even unicycles. The enthusiastic diversity shows how ski areas have evolved, and it also […]
Posted inWotr
Property rights have become the new sacred cow
These are wild and radical times in parts of the “conservative” West. It’s not big news that property rights are a powerful issue, or that plenty of Westerners would like to expand them. But the current discourse leaves you wondering if there’s room left for any balancing values. That’s especially true in my state after […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Bush’s second-term shake-ups
The political appointments you don’t hear about — and how they affect the West
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
‘Redneck liberal’ defends a hard-to-love landscape
“I want to see people enjoy this country the way it was meant to be enjoyed, the way God created it,” says Tim Faber, speaking about Montana’s arid, rough-hewn Missouri River Breaks. “It’s a place like no other place in the world.” Faber grew up on a cattle ranch in the Bear’s Paw Mountains east […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Civil Disobedience: Poetics and Politics in Action
Civil Disobedience: Poetics and Politics in Action Edited by Anne Waldman and Lisa Birman 469 pages, softcover $18. Coffee House Press, 2004. This anthology contains 40 essays, lectures and interviews with notables such as Gary Snyder, Joanne Kyger and Bobbie Louise Hawkins. In need of some raucous poetry, fiery speeches and a few good reasons […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
It’s the West’s turn to call the shots
I was recently invited to a seminar at a university whose thesis might be considered insulting. The American West, said the invitation, “lacks an intellectual, cultural or social presence within either the country or the continent. Eastern publishers, Eastern intellectual centers and agencies, public and private, based in Washington, D.C., still provide the authoritative voices […]