Felice Pace

Ed Quillen’s Writers on the Range essay in the March 3rd HCN - “We’re in the land of Lincoln” - is not only erudite and well written, it is also a public service.

Americans are notoriously ahistorical in outlook. Westerners are often even worse - many of us believe outrageous myths about our past which function to hide not only past injustices but also current inequities and the likely consequences of current decisions. So anyone who provides a truly historical perspective is worthy of praise. LET’S SEE MORE ESSAYS WHICH PROVIDE WESTERN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES!

There is one problem with Quillen’s essay, however. He fails to sufficiently identify one of Lincoln’s most questionable western legacies - the railroad grants. During the 1860s Lincoln and the Republicans provided the big railroad corporations with generous land grants. The seminal law was the Pacific Railway Act signed into law by Lincoln on July 1, 1862.

(Read on …)

Felice Pace

I confess that my favorite part of HCN is often the letters. Now I may be a wee bit biased since I have been known to write a letter or two to HCN and, occasionally, see one published. Nevertheless I do believe that HCN has the good fortune of excellent letter writers.

This does not mean that I always or even usually agree with the letter writers. It is just that, even when I don’t agree (or even violently disagree) the letters are so often well written and well reasoned.

Take the March 3rd edition for example.

Alexander Evans of the Forest Guild offered a thoughtful letter about the key role “working landscapes” can play in addressing the impact of climate change on species and ecosystems.

Now I hate that term “working landscapes”. What does it really mean anyway? If we really have “working landscapes” do we then also have “idle landscapes”? Are wilderness areas and national parks “idle landscapes” and are they therefore lazy and dissolute?

(Read on …)

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

This is really funny and worth a few minutes of online listening.

First the setup:

Gazillionaire Duane Hagadone calls most of the shots in the resort town of Couer d’Alene, Idaho, and the surrounding territory. He owns the skyscraper resort hotel and marina that dominate downtown, and the daily newspaper and other nearby newspapers, mansions, luxury cars etc etc etc. Thus, he pulls a lot of political strings.

Now Hagadone is building a new mansion on the shore of Lake Couer d’Alene. And he wants it equipped with a huge dock, suitable for at least two cruise ships, and a floating helipad, so he can fly in and out easily.

In a rare display of backbone, Idaho’s state lands department, which has authority over the lake’s surface, told Hagadone that he can’t have the helipad and huge dock because they would take up too much of the public’s water. The standard news story is here.

In the Very Unstandard Department, Doug Clark, a columnist for Spokane’s Spokesman-Review, has written a couple of funny columns about it, here and here, and a song, “The Duane B. Hagadone Blues.”

As Clark writes:

There’s only one thing for a fellow to do when faced with the bitter disappointment of not getting a helipad.

Sing the blues.

That’s right. Singing the blues has long been a way for the downtrodden and oppressed super-rich to shake off their petty inconveniences.

(By the way, if you want more background, High Country News had a cover story on Hagadone back in 1996, here.)

Anyway if you do nothing else that’s amusing today, at least do this: To listen to the columnist singing the rich-guy’s blues, click here.

Marty Durlin

Online Editor

Apologies to all our blog commentators, whose opinions, corrections and additions we greatly value. A technical problem — now corrected — caused all your posts to be erased. We’d be grateful if you repost your comments, although we understand that could be tedious.

But from now on, it should work, and we hope you’ll keep on giving us your responses.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

This is a notable combination of two great writers:

Leo Banks, a freelance journalist in Tucson, has tracked down J.P.S. Brown, a 77-year-old border novelist who’s as tough as they come.

Leo, an old friend of mine, writes:

If you ask Brown who he is, he’ll say “cowboy.” He won’t say reporter, Marine, boxer, movie wrangler, stuntman or whiskey smuggler, and he’s been all those things.

If he says writer at all, it won’t be first on the list. But he’s a great writer, probably the best you’ve never heard of.

“People who know literature, and know the Southwest, mention his name right away,” says Bruce Dinges, director of publications at the Arizona Historical Society. “Joe’s the real deal. He’s done what he writes about, and his family has done it for generations. It’s personal to him. He doesn’t write to a market. He writes what’s in him.”

Summation: J.P.S. Brown has had five wives, years in the Mexican Sierra, smuggling escapades, a small plane crash, a poisoning by one wife, heart attacks, a Hollywood movie based on one of his novels — and he’s still writing what he sees.

(Read on …)