Recently added articles from High Country News:
The importance of memory
Feb 16, 2009; ... In Nicole Krauss' sparse and aston- ishing novel, Man Walks Into A Room, local cops find a disoriented man wandering along Highway 95 in the desolate Mercury Valley of Nevada. After the officers get him out of the shimmering heat, we learn that the man, Samson, has a brain tumor that has ...
Red light, green light
Feb 16, 2009; ... Despite the midwinter economic-recession blues plaguing much of the West, environmentalists have reason to feel good. After eight years of being frustrated by President George W. Bush, suddenly they're getting traction. Signs include: On Jan. 20, just hours into his term, President ...
Justice for all
Feb 16, 2009; ... Name Jensie Anderson Age Hometown Salt Lake City, Utah Favorite hangout Under a highway viaduct Alter ego Soccer Mom She says "The justice system is one that I really feel like is made for the rich. And if you're ...
Wind setbacks
Feb 16, 2009; ... Local governments grapple with where to put wind farms For a while, it seemed that a controversial wind farm proposal in Washington's Kittitas County had gotten, well, a second wind. To satisfy county concerns, the developer reduced the size of the project by half and limited it to one ...
Canary in the old growth
Feb 16, 2009; ... The search for an ecosystem's vital signs In the early 20 th century, George Burrell and other chemists with the Bureau of Mines tested canaries to see if they could reliably signal dangerous levels of carbon monoxide in coal mines. And, as was the way of science at the time, the men ...
No backup on the Northern border
Feb 16, 2009; ... What happens when a rural county is saddled with international responsibility? It's 10 degrees below zero in windblown Toole County, Mont. Thirty-four miles south of the longest non-militarized border in the world, the county seat of Shelby serves as the last stop for all international ...
Thank you, Research Fund contributors, for keeping us vital
Feb 16, 2009; ... High Country News is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization. Our mission is to inform and inspire people to act on behalf of the West's land, air, water and inhabitants We work to create what Wallace Stegner called "a society to match the scenery." Since 1971, reader contributions to ...
A voice in the wilderness
Feb 16, 2009; ... For 20 years, Jim Stiles has published one of the most essential alternative newspapers in the West: The Canyon Country Zephyr , based in Moab, Utah (latest motto: "All the news that causes fits"). With sharp, sides reporting, the independent has taken on the excesses of extractive industry, the ...
THE HALF-LIFE OF MEMORY
Feb 16, 2009; ... The struggle to remember the nuclear West We stand at a barbed-wire fence, looking past a locked gate to a paved road that leads nowhere. Beyond a "Road Closed" sign and piles of dirt and rock, prairie grasses gone brown with the approach of winter drop eastward. In the distance, sheets ...
GRAND JURY FOREMAN WES MCKINLEY
Feb 16, 2009; ... ROCKY FLATS LIVES ON GRAND JURY FOREMAN WES MCKINLEY: " ... I kind of like the bomb. We are the super country on the planet because we got the biggest weapon ... I wasn't a red-hot activist or had an ax to grind, or anything. ... "The engineers at Rocky Flats, not in ...
FORMER ROCKY FLATS WORKER JERRY SAN PIETRO
Feb 16, 2009; ... FORMER ROCKY FLATS WORKER JERRY SAN PIETRO: " ... And then on certain hot jobs, really hot jobs, we'd be in there right with them holding the meter and telling them, 'OK, you got two minutes left, one minute, you're out.' They'd come out of the gloves. They'd had their exposure for a ...
FORMER ROCKY FLATS WORKER NORMAN WARLING
Feb 16, 2009; ... FORMER ROCKY FLATS WORKER NORMAN WARLINC: "The people in 771, they knew what they were doing. You had to know what you were doing to work in that building. It wasn't safe. They came out years later saying it was one of the most dangerous buildings in the whole DOE complex. And it was. It ...
The myth of minority favoritism
Feb 16, 2009; ... OPINION A myth is circulating around the West, and it goes like this: Regardless of your level of competence, if you're black, you'll beat out everybody else when it comes to getting a job with a federal land-man age ment agency such as the Forest Service or Bureau of Land ...
A battle for the land - and soul - of the West
Feb 16, 2009; ... A battle for the land - and soul - of the West The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery Howard G. Wilshire, Jane E. Nielson, and Richard W. Hazlett 617 pages, hardcover: $35. Oxford University Press, 2008. It's no secret that the West's public ...
Shooting a double victory
Feb 16, 2009; ... Shooting a double victory Full-Court Quest: The Girls from Fort Shaw Indian School: Basketball Champions of the World Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith 479 pages, hardcover: $29.95. University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. Sixteen years before women in the U.S. gained the right to vote and long ...
The call of the tame
Feb 16, 2009; ... In 1916, Jack London invited a friend to his ranch in California's Sonoma Valley: "Come to see what I am trying to do with the soil, and with hogs, and with beef-cattle, and dairy-cows, and draft-horses." Who knew that the adventurous, womanizing, hard-drinking public celebrity spent the last ...
HEARD AROUND THE WEST
Feb 16, 2009; ... UTAH Not infrequently, state legislators who think of themselves as conservative come up with extraordinarily intrusive laws. In Utah, Senate President Michael Waddoups, R, has a proposal that would treat social drinkers as potential criminals. Distressed because he thinks restaurants ...
Is America ready for the rails?
Feb 02, 2009; ... I've always loved the idea of traveling by rail. Fm seared of flying, and trains are more efficient and greener than cars. I once enjoyed zipping through the French countryside at 200 miles per hour in a sleek train, and whenever I'm in a city, I make it a point to ride the commuter rails. Fm ...
No news is bad news
Feb 02, 2009; ... For Westerners interested in the news, one of the biggest stories lately is the crisis in the news industry itself. A few highlights: * Washington state's second-largest newspaper, the 146-year-old Seattle PostIntelligencer, was put up for sale Jan. 9. Its owner - Hearst Corp., a ...
Political guns
Feb 02, 2009; ... Wyoming calls the shots on a pass in Yellowstone Park Every day this winter, a special team of rangers in Yellowstone National Park begins work well before dawn. Some focus on gathering weather data to get an idea of what they'll face. Then two rangers suit up in long underwear, heavy ...