Does the Bush administration care about the environment or the sensitivities of conservation-minded voters? On western public lands issues environmental groups have successfully portrayed the Bush administration as pandering to the old Sagebrush Rebels and Wise Use constituencies. And although Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey is a former lobbyist for the timber industry, his plan to […]
Read More
During our recent snowstorm I backed into a pickup, nicking its rear fender. I waited about 15 minutes but the driver didn’t appear. Time is precious so I left my name and phone number on the windshield and reported the damage to my insurance company, Farm Bureau. I explained my fault, gave them the vehicle’s […]
Read More
By now, most of us have broken one or more of our New Year’s resolutions. Here’s one to add, keep, and respect, Handicapped Parking. Most of us obey this designation. We do so for good reason, it’s the right thing to do. Further, there are penalties for violation, a $100 fine and disdain for those […]
Read More
“Everyone works for love and money and no one has enough of either.” Throughout the developed world, the balance between love and money implied by this aphorism is no longer true. Our astounding wealth would be unimaginable to my frugal grandparents, relatively prosperous rural people born in the late 1800s. This wealth creation creates turmoil […]
Read More
Fundamentalists are people who believe they are God’s chosen people with a monopoly on Truth. Fundamentalism has attracted millions of adherents for centuries. Relying on revelations from God, it elevates, it comforts, and it offers meaning and direction to those lost when uncertainty and ambiguity reign. However, lives are lost when fundamentalists seek the coercive […]
Read More
One of life’s greatest challenges is educating our children for an unknown future. Historically, people expected the future to be much like the past. This predictability is long past. How can we cope and responsibly prepare our youth for the unknown? It’s helpful to understand economic forces and anticipate opportunities. We can learn from Montana’s […]
Read More
Finally, after decades of waving good-bye to children leaving for jobs in other states, we can replace sorry stories with happier endings. Since WWII, Montana’s most valuable export has been its educated children. Many, perhaps most, left reluctantly. Why, then, did they leave? Usually because the opportunities gained were too valuable to resist. The better […]
Read More
“How were your holidays?” Just wonderful, I reply. I learned a lot about our community and I’d like to share because stories influence behavior. Just before Christmas, Ramona and I returned from a 10-day business trip to New York City. When we got home it was minus 13 degrees and huge drifts blocked our lower […]
Read More
Planning for an unknown future, the only kind we have, is indeed difficult. For many of us westerners, it’s also vexing. The past we knew and loved is rapidly eroding and what lies ahead is ever more amorphous. The world’s economic integration profoundly effects even the most remote and traditional ranching valleys. Throughout the Rockies […]
Read More
Ed Marston, editor of High Country News, a regional paper published in Paonia, Colorado proclaims in the April 10, 2000 issue: “The war between extractive interests and the environmental movement for control of the Interior West’s public lands is drawing to a close. The timber era, the cattle era, the mainstem big-dam era, the wise […]
Read More