People
No ATVs, Please
New Website Celebrates Montana’s Swan Range, Encourages Keeping it WildWe love them, we hike them. We bike them and camp in them. And they’ve always been there. But it’s time to stop taking our forests and natural playgrounds for granted. We need to keep them wild, sacred and motor-free. These were the ideas behind creation of the new website about Northwest Montana’s Swan Mountain Range, Swanrange.org.
I asked Ben Long, one of the website’s co-creators, whose brainchild the website was. “It was much more organic than that,” he told me. Look a little closer at the site and you’ll see what he means. The site, it turns out, was the result of a lot of collaboration between people who love the same wilderness. A page titled “People of the Swan” has pictures and testimonials from artists, business people, hikers and your basic outdoor-loving Montanans. Hell, even Miss Montana USA loves the Swan.
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Just Don't Call Me Crazy
2006: Marking the Tenth Anniversary of Lawlessness and Insanity in MontanaIt’s been ten years since the 81-day showdown in Jordan, Montana, between the FBI and a renegade militia group that called itself the Freemen. The standoff was the longest federal siege in United States history.
In Jordan, the Freemen are remembered for their two-year reign of bullying and aggression, their anti-government rhetoric and the bounty offers for people who crossed them.
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American Jackass
An Appeal for Informed Public DialogueMy favorite episode of This American Life, NPR’s radio show hosted by Ira Glass, was themed “American Jackass.”
It was all about the pitfalls of knowing “just a little bit too little,” and started off with a woman recounting a conversation she’d had with some friends. There they were, having a normal conversation about something, and somehow one of the people threw in a comment about mitochondria. If you’ve taken high school biology, you’ll remember mitochondria as ‘The Powerhouse of the Cell,’ but otherwise I’m guessing most of us are unfamiliar with the comings and goings of the typical mitochondrion (I had to look up the singular form, by the way).
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We Got Worms
Squirmy Little Reasons to Organicize Your LifeOnce, I knew a girl who had a tapeworm.
She was a blonde girl from California. We were both students on semester abroad in South Africa. I got off the plane with excitement in my stomach and Lariam and Cipro in my backpack, at the urging of my doctor, who had pretty much scared the hell out of me with stories of people encountering flesh-eating bacteria, lifelong cases of malaria and—worst of all—ten-pound, full-body-spanning tapeworms.
Ahh yes. The illustrious tapeworm. Tapeworms, as any American knows, are African organisms that find their way into our bodies via some kind of uncooked African meat, unwashed African vegetables, or by touching the dirty hand of an African person with one’s own hand and then accidentally putting said hand into innocent American mouth.
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Tragic News
Alleged Seattle Shooter Was from WhitefishAaron Kyle Huff, the man who allegedly opened fire on a Capitol Hill house party Saturday morning, killing six, graduated from Whitefish High in 1996. At one point he worked at Stageline Pizza in town. Whitefish friends described Huff as a ‘deep thinker’ who was quiet, polite and nice.
Huff had a history with firearms. In 2000 he and some friends were apparently drinking and driving around Whitefish, when Huff shot an outside moose sculpture that was part of the downtown Whitefish public art project called “Moose on the Loose.”
Reasons behind the shooting are unknown. Before walking into the house, Huff spraypainted the word “NOW” on the concrete. "There is nothing we would like to do more than find out why this tragedy took place," said Seattle Police Spokesman Sean Whitcomb. "Unfortunately, we may never know."
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WELCOME TO DRAPER
D.I.: Dirty Indigents?For most of my life, I've lived near a Deseret Industries store--or D.I., to use the local vernacular. They are what they are: secondhand stores where you can dump your old junk or, if you're in need of old junk, an oasis of needful things. Those are the practical functions. Many Utahns regard these stores as they would a blood donation center, welfare office, adult bookstore or dumpster. In my life, the D.I. has been the dump and the oasis. As a kid, it was a place for my single mom to find everything from a saucepan to replacement Wranglers to Halloween costumes or church ties or funeral clothes. That’s why I’m so infuriated at the Draper City Council's decision to block a Deseret Industries store from opening in what it regards as prime real estate. [more]
The Working Poor
If You Criticize Hispanic Immigrants, Don’t Do It With Your Mouth FullKeely Emerine Mix spent twelve years as a pastor to and advocate for Chicano/Chicana and Latino/Latina immigrants in Western Washington. A devout Christian, an experienced journalist, and a strong and effective spokeswoman for public education, Keely now serves as a member of the Moscow School Board. What follows is not just a plea for tolerance and understanding; it's a rousing defense of all immigrants to the United States, whether technically legal or technically not. Our nation and our economy are built on the backs of the people Keely describes, hard-working people who, when or if they achieve legal citizenship, know what it means because they've earned it. [more]
Public Lands for Private Life
Gale Norton Resigns as Interior SecretaryNews is breaking that Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has resigned her post after five years. The official "why?" is she felt she had accomplished what she wanted and now wants to return to private life and be "closer to the mountains we love in the West." However, the speculation is, as the Associate Press reports, it might have something to do with one Mr. Jack Abramoff.
The AP points out that Norton "cofounded the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a group that has become embroiled in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal." And "The leading Republican and Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee have said that e-mails uncovered by the committee show that Steven Griles, Norton's former deputy, had a close relationship with Abramoff."
Speculation aside, Norton's resignation got, predictably, mixed reviews. The New York Times reports groups like Industrial Energy Consumers Of America hailed her as "outstanding" while the Defenders of Wildlife put out a two-word release reading: "Good riddance."
GORGE ENTREPRENEURS
Mosier Company Creates Function, Beauty By RecyclingThere’s an interesting, inspiring article in the Hood River News about a Mosier company that recycles bicycle parts into candle holders, stools, bottle-openers and truly beautiful clocks.
The company, Resource Revival, has a unique supply challenge: "We can’t order it, like some sort of widget. Used chain exists ephemerally, and then it’s gone." But then, "This one-pound piece of garbage can become 10 products. That’s the magic of what we do."
Do I see a recycled skiing parts craftsman in the Gorge’s future? A windsurf-into-furniture-maker?
Animas-La Plata Project revisited
Indie Film Profiles the West’s Last Great Water ProjectIt’s an epic story: First proposed a hundred years ago … finally approved by Congress in the 1968 … slipped past both the Endangered Species Act and economic logic … finally wrapped in the politics of Indian treaty issues … It’s a story that is a parable of the modern West, all packed into an expansive, expensive, and downright bizarre tale. It’s a story fit for a movie. The movie that finally tells the story of the Animas-La Plata Project debuted Thursday at the Durango Independent Film Festival. “Cowboys, Indians, and Lawyers” will be screened again at the Abbey Theatre at 3 p.m. Saturday, March 4. [more]
