Holidays in the Grand Canyon
A Journey of Powering Off into a Simple Life
My down coat and flip-flops are packed. I placed my toothbrush in a plastic bag and an 11-book, 2-map library into a waterproof container. I've sorted and organized food and my daily life for a departure and descent into the Grand Canyon for a 23-day river trip over Christmas and New Years.
My fear and excitement both stem from the same place: turning the power button to "Off" for 23 days. For someone who reads the newspaper religiously every morning, it's a challenge to tune-out for such an extended period of time. But also thrilling to tune-in to nature's pace, which I especially appreciate after working as an Outward Bound instructor spending three-seasons a year in the wilderness.
I just need to remind myself that my steaming morning coffee will be spent reading the geologic history eroded into the canyon walls — and the world will still be turning when I return.
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NEWWESTERNERS: INTERVIEW with BOB 'ACTION' JACKSON, PART III
In Animal Kingdom, Are Bison Equal In ‘Value’ To Humans?
In the big picture of earthly existence, are the lives of bison and other animals equal in value to humans? Bob Jackson doesn't think of himself as an animal rights activist, nor as a philosopher nor an intellectual who is immune to personal hypocrisy. In fact, he admits in plainspoken, opinionated, homespun English that at times his command of proper grammar is sorely lacking. But he is no Neanderthal. As a consumer and capitalist, he raises bison for sale to provide meat on the dinner table for hundreds of human families who are his customers.
Nonetheless, he relates to bison as sentient creatures that possess their own range of emotions and sense of belonging to one another. Is there a contradiction here? This kind of paradox in Jackson has not only attracted responses of incredulity from members of the scientific community, who have pegged him with a "Dr. Doolittle" label, but it has left Jackson staking out contentious terrain, for it challenges our own value system. In this, the third part of NewWest.Net's continuing conversation with 'Action' Jackson, the topic moves from a discussion of Bison Culture to the relationship humans have with bison and other species.
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New West Energy Grok
Alternative Energy Tax Package Fails
Faced with a chance to stand up and do something farsighted and courageous about the future of our energy supply and our climate, the U.S. Senate yesterday demonstrated again why the "world's greatest legislative body" currently has the lowest public esteem in its history: it ducked.
Rather than reversing eight decades of political favors and government handouts to the oil and gas energy -- by enacting a $29 billion redistribution of public wealth toward renewable and non-climate-altering power sources such as wind, solar, and hydrogen -- the Senate by a margin of 3 votes failed to protect the big tax package at the heart of an energy bill now withering into inconsequence. Two proposals to direct billions in subsidies to coal-based liquid fuels also failed.
The Senators did agree to raise auto fuel-economy standards, approving a somewhat scaled back amendment that requires carmakers fleets to attain an averge of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The auto industry fought that provision hard and succeeded in removing a requirement for continued improvements after 2020, though the compromise deal on the so-called CAFE standards was seen as a defeat for Detroit. (Montana Democratic Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester, who were undecided on the CAFE issue until the end and were thus targets of heavy lobbying by Big Auto, both supported the new requirements).
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NATIONAL BIKE TO WORK WEEK MAY 14-18
Bicycling To Work Makes Sense—If You Can Do ItDid you know that May 14-18 is National Bike to Work Week? Okay, now that you're informed, what are you going to do about it. As millions of Americans say they're willing to make lifestyle changes to address global warming, save money on high gas prices at the pump, and to stay in shape, how many of us will actually follow through? Today, just two percent of Americans bicycle to the office. In the story that follows, Carol Flaherty of the Montana State University News Service takes a look at how faculty who work at Bozeman's campus of higher learning are setting an example not only for students but the entire car-commuting city. But it isn't without hassles. What is your town doing to promote public transportation and non-motorized routes? Let us know. [more]
NORTHERN GARDENING TIPS WITH CHERYL MOORE-GOUGH
No Need To Crab About Beautiful Spring CrabapplesIn the Rockies, April showers (and sometimes snow) always bring May flowers, but what do blossoms on crabapple trees bring? If one wants to avoid a proliferation of falling fruit in the yard later in the year, local home landscapers can still have fragrant, colorful blooms on the trees while nipping unwanted fruit in the bud, says ace horticulturist Cheryl Moore-Gough of Montana State University who returns here with her regular gardening tips. "Long-term, you can enjoy crabapple flowers but avoid the fruit by planting a flowering crab cultivar that does not produce fruit," she says. "For existing trees, you can prevent crabapples from forming by using plant hormones." Welcome back Cheryl. [more]
Assisted Living? Not on Your Nelly!
Sixteen Going On Eighty-FiveShe's at it again. My grandmother, who recently turned 85, is thumbing her nose at Death. She recently suffered a scary bout of pernicious anemia. She was in the hospital for three days, getting blood transfusions and packed cells, but she looked the Grim Reaper in the face and flipped him the bird. My grandmother is stubborn, wily, ornery and tough, all qualities I admire. I sincerely hope she goes right on being as independent as she can, and as bloody-minded as she likes. I just wish she'd stop giving her friends and family the finger as well. [more]
MY DAD, THE LEGEND, PART II
When Ed Anacker Made Cyclists Eat His Dust
John Anacker and his brothers grew up in the shadow of an outdoor legend when their town was a different place and the West a different kind of region. As the sons of Bozeman's legendary athletic hedonist Ed Anacker, now a spry octogenarian, they remember slogs with their patriarch who defined himself by acts of extreme physical endurance — this in an age well before the word "ultra" and lucrative sponsorship deals ever entered the vocabulary of American recreation. As the longtime head of the chemistry department at Montana State University, Ed Anacker in his free time put men one third his age to shame, including when he designed the brutal course of the notorious Ed Anacker Bridger Ridge Run held every summer in Bozeman. In writer John Anacker's first essay about his father, he chronicled a climb to the pinnacle of Montana's highest summit, Granite Peak. With this sweet second piece, he tells the tale of what happened when his dad raced a beater bike against the fashion and techno mavens of modern cycling. —Todd Wilkinson
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A Truly Western Experience
In Memoriam: Molly Ivins
I'm often asked where I learned to write like I write. How did I come to trust my own voice and my own sense of right and wrong? Or, if the questioner is a critic, how did I get to be so damned ornery? Why am I so mean, so unforgiving, so sharp-tongued and, God help me, so unfeminine?
The answer is simple. My late grandfather, Charles Randolph Watkins, taught me to trust myself. He taught me that I shouldn’t be afraid to speak my mind, to be brutally honest, and to damn the consequences. “There’s nothing I hate more than a goddamned chickenshit,” he’d say. “So don’t be a goddamned chickenshit.” My grandfather also let me wear his shiny cordovan Florsheim Imperial wing-tips to high school, so I think that answers the unfeminine question as well. But where did I learn to write? Molly Ivins taught me.
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FROM BROWNIE TO DIGITAL
A Rural Westerner Reflects On Life Behind The Lens
Marion Dickinson of Greybull, Wyoming is one of New West's most prolific commentors. She grew up on the edge of the Wind River Indian Reservation more than half a century ago. A midwife and a nurse by training who spent years working for the Indian Health Service, she has a perspective on her native region reflecting that of many rural Westerners and her postings frequently take aim at the positions of environmental groups, chafing her intended targets.
One can agree with Dickinson or challenge the veracity of her claims, but what most readers don't know is that she possesses a skilled eye as a wildlife and nature photographer. A vivacious septuagenarian—Marion is 70!— her images have landed on the pages of some of the widest-circulation conservation magazines in America. We've asked Dickinson to reflect on her own encounters with the natural world and how they inform her approach to the lens. In the essay which follows, she offers a little background about her life and how she finally earned enough money to make the switch from film cameras to digital.
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