FOOD FOR THOUGHT
‘Food Inc.’ Takes Aim At Corporate AgThe latest salvo against the nation’s agricultural-industrial complex is on the big screen.
Food, Inc., a documentary by filmmaker Robert Kenner, is a forceful indictment of concentrated cattle ghettos, squalid chicken factories and cornfield deserts. At the film’s core is this thesis: the way we eat has changed more in the past 50 years than in the previous 10,000, and not for the better.
Sure, our shopping cart loads are getting cheaper, but our health, the environment, the animals and the people who handle them pay the price, Kenner argues.
“We spend less of our paycheck on our food than anytime, but it comes at a heavy cost,” Kenner told a crowd at the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Ideas Festival, after a screening of the film.
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THE LEGACY OF KENTON CARNEGIE
What Could Make the Wolf Even More Controversial?Anything wolf makes big headlines--and, it seems, is never old news.
For fourteen years since conservationists and the federal government brought the wolf back to the northern Rockies (plus several years leading up to the reintroduction), anything and everything about the Big Dog has been, to say the least, controversial.
But something hasn't happened yet that could make it much more contentious.
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FRACKING FRACAS
‘Fracking’ Bill Gets Buried - AgainRep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., made headlines last month when she introduced legislation to regulate chemicals used in a part of the gas-drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. “Fracking” pumps a brew of chemicals into the ground to help the gas flow and open up gas plays once considered too tough to drill. These chemicals were regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act until the 2005 Energy Bill exempted them. DeGette wants that exemption taken away.
The energy industry has balked, though, saying the chemicals are safe and further regulation would be both costly and unnecessary. Environmentalists say the chemicals could contaminate groundwater and may have already poisoned people who were exposed to them.
DeGette has introduced similar legislation before, but it never caught the attention of the energy industry as much as this time. An Obama White House and a Democratic Congress -- now filibuster-proof -- has boosted its chances. New gas plays in places like New York and Pennsylvania have raised the profile.
But DeGette’s legislation probably won’t see a vote this year, either. She tells New West that fracking will see more studies before it sees more regulation.
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gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day
Interior Unveils Solar Hot Spots Across WestThe Interior Department released maps on Tuesday detailing vast stretches of public land in the West that could be opened to utility-scale solar development.
The so-called Solar Energy Study Areas make up 670,000 acres in Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and California.
The proposed areas focus on lands considered to have excellent solar access and manageable slopes, with roads and transmission lines or corridors nearby, and with at least 2,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land. Sensitive areas, wilderness areas and other lands with high-conservation values were ruled out.
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New West Book Review
Multi-Cultural in the Monochromatic West: A Novel For a Contemporary DenverChildren of the Waters
by Carleen Brice
One World/Ballantine, 304 pages, $14
Denver novelist Carleen Brice's second novel is a quick-paced family drama that turns on a secret adoption, told in alternating chapters from the perspectives of two sisters who are unknown to each other, living in the same city but in very different worlds. Trish Taylor is a blond, overweight veterinary technician who came back to her hometown of Aurora, Colo. after her marriage failed, bringing her biracial teenage son Will with her. Trish was told her mother and infant sister died in a car accident when she was a preschooler, and her stern grandparents raised her. Billie Cousins is the cherished daughter of a successful Denver African-American family. Her mother is a Reynelda Muse-like local television anchor, and her father is the dean of the business school at the University of Colorado. Through a newly discovered letter and a visit to an old neighbor, Trish learns that Billie is the sister she thought died in infancy, and tracks her down, disrupting both their lives.
Carleen Brice will discuss her new book at the Tattered Cover (LoDo) on July 16 at 7:30 p.m.
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Political Commentary: Joan McCarter
Is Baucus Going to Let Chuck Grassley Kill Health Care Reform?This week, Senator Max Baucus told the New York Times that the Senate Democrats gave too much away in going into the health care reform process.
He conceded that it was a mistake to rule out a fully government-run health system, or a “single-payer plan,” not because he supports it but because doing so alienated a large, vocal constituency and left Mr. Obama’s proposal of a public health plan to compete with private insurers as the most liberal position.
That's encouraging, but will he take a lesson from that experience and apply it going forward? The problem for Senator Baucus now is that that public plan--critical to the President's reform plan and the one thing that could really ensure that private insurance companies have to actually play fair and participate in real, substantial reform--is the one thing that Republicans refuse to budge on. And Baucus keeps insisting that he has to have his colleague, Republican Chuck Grassley, on board.
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IS ANOTHER LAYER OF PROTECTION WORTH THE COST?
Is National Park Wilderness a Good Idea?If you've read any of my past columns, you know I'm a strong proponent of designating more Wilderness, but when considering whether to support including our national parks under the National Wilderness Preservation System, I have to wonder if this is a good idea. Here's why. [more]
Western Book Roundup
Montana Bookstore Owners Head to Peace Corps Assignment in PeruJean Matthews and Russ Lawrence bought Chapter One Bookstore in Hamilton 23 years ago, and a few weeks ago they sold the store to longtime business partner Shawn Wathen so they could pursue their lifelong dream of serving in the Peace Corps, according to Bess Brownlee of the Ravalli Republic. She writes, "Their work in Peru will focus on small business development and promotion." Lawrence, author of Montana's Bitterroot Valley, told Brownlee that they might write a book about their experiences in Peru. The couple, married for 31 years, will serve in Peru until August of 2011.
Matthews and Lawrence are already keeping track of their experiences on a blog (via Shelf Awareness), and have some nice photos of their recent encounters with Peruvians and llamas. If you've ever wondered what the Peace Corps is like, this blog will give you a good idea. The first entries feature the couple's adventures in packing for the two-year stint ("The Edges Fray, the Duffel Cannot Hold"), their attempts to improve their Spanish, and the orientation classes they began to take once they arrived in Peru. They write:
"The most popular class yesterday was presented by our Medical Officer, Dr. Jorge, on diarrhea. The official estimate of the percentage of Peru’s [Peace Corps Volunteers] who have, umm, 'soiled their pants' is 95%, but he bets it’s closer to 100%."
As of this weekend, they've already hit a rough patch: Russ ended up in a hospital in Panama with "a torn retina of idiopathic origin," but they expect him to make a full recovery.
Back in Hamilton, Chapter One will host a reading by Rick Bass on Monday, July 13 at 7:30 p.m. Watch for my review of his new book, The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana in a few weeks.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Land Library recently established a Kids Nature Library at the Kassler Center in Littleton. (The photo is of a few youngsters enjoying the library during the first hour after it opened.)
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WESTERN BOOK ROUNDUP
‘Edgar Sawtelle’ Has Aspen HomecomingThis is what author Luis Alberto Urrea has to say about the role played by a sense of place in his books, which tend to hopscotch back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I firmly believe there is no ‘them.’ There is only ‘us.’ I also believe that place is not out there. It’s right here.”
Urrea was speaking on Monday at the Aspen Writers’ Foundation’s Aspen Summer Words literary festival. He is among a group of writers from around the planet gathered for the festival, with a theme this year of “World of Words.”
Among the others: Ishmael Beah, of Sierra Leone, author of the bestselling A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and Colum McCann, who launches his newest novel, Let the Great World Spin today at the festival. (It's Amazon's book of the month for June.)
Monday’s events also included the 18th annual Colorado Book Awards. It should come as no surprise that David Wroblewski won the award for fiction for his breakaway success, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.
“There’s a connection between Edgar’s story and the Aspen Summer Words program,” Wroblewski says. It was the last place Wroblewski workshopped the novel, back in 2005.
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Rural Americans increased their adoption of broadband Internet technology at a rapid rate over the last year, according to a report released last week by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, but rural communities still lag far behind urban regions in the spread of fast Internet connections.
The percentage of rural residents with broadband connections increased from 38 percent in 2008 to 46 percent this year, a 21 percent increase in just one year. In 2006, just 25 percent of those living in rural America had home broadband.
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