Next month I’m addressing 70 Forest Service Snow Rangers. I’m to contrast private ski areas around Big Sky with Bridger Bowl. The result illuminates fundamental transformations throughout the Intermountain West. I’ll discuss important cultural, economic, and environmental changes and identify conflicts. Yellowstone Club The Yellowstone Club is the second most exclusive community in Montana; only […]
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Most who believe the end is nigh are mere curiosities, disappointment their shared reward. In contrast, Islamic terrorists know precisely when their world will end and they murder on their way out. Empathy doesn’t help me understand these terrorists. Economics and ethnology do. The explanation has less to do with money than with culture and […]
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I’m writing this column while Leonard Bernstein directs the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s The Joy of Christmas on my iMac. This is remarkable on multiple dimensions: artistic, cultural, political, and technical. I’m happily amazed. Imagine, Lenny in Salt Lake, the only American city in which he is a gentile. This musical genius from New York, who […]
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Please don’t impose Tom Wolfe’s portrayal of licentious behavior at his fictive Dupont U on your children. His description of life at America’s top schools, I Am Charlotte Simmons, is captivating even when he describes appalling behavior. Trust me, college is not that hedonistic and undisciplined. Fortunately, neither are universities as monolithically “progressive” and politically […]
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Tom Wolfe’s latest novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, is infecting the zeitgeist. While few folks in the Gallatin Valley are likely to read the book, its theme is permeating our culture. Hence, it may ruin the holidays for parents of high school seniors and those whose freshmen are returning from college. Consider my review a […]
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America is the most successful and prosperous nation in history. Personal tragedies aside, our afflictions are trivial. But not all good things go together. With wealth well distributed among our friends, we face the problem of finding gifts for those who want for little. The parents of my generation suffered through the Great Depression and […]
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Shortly after Rick Stroup and I established the Center for Political Economy and Natural Resources at Montana State University, we received a major grant to host national conferences on resource economics. A foundation president advised me to consult with an LA media expert. I dutifully called him. He asked if we were going to hold […]
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Each Friday my colleagues and I produce a column for the following Wednesday. Mine of November 3rd, the day after our election, anticipated election results and suggested constructive reflections. The following day, November 4th, I surveyed 20-plus folks who often read my column. Alas, only two had read the latest. It was like a morning […]
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Writing before it occurs, what can I say about yesterday’s election? In this arena, modesty and circumspection come naturally. Yet, I am confident of a few important features of our emerging political economy. Here’s the history from which I write. Ramona and I spent the Wednesday after the 2000 election in the Lima, Peru airport. […]
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Here are three important issues confronting our community, region, and state: the 911 and open space bonds and the 147 referendum to repeal the ban on cyanide mining. We dial 911 when things go, or threaten to go, off the rails. It’s our link to first responders. Here are two personal examples. On a Sunday […]
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