I am lying in a meadow high in the Rocky Mountains. The sun is warm and comforting. I watch the clouds, puffy white in the blue sky, but soon pull a cap over my eyes…
Mother Nature, Make Me Rich
NBC recently aired a show called America’s Next Great Restaurant. Contestants, each of whom hoped to open a restaurant chain, were put through a series of tests to see whose idea had the best chance…
Elko, Nevada: Ranches, Mines, and Mountains
We first heard about Elko, Nevada from a couple we met on a trail in Zion National Park. While trading travel stories, they said that the Ruby Mountains outside Elko were spectacular. We were…
A Nation in Decline?: Part 4: Mother Earth,…
When we are on the road, Karen usually drives. I plot out the directions before we leave and write them down on the notepad most motels provide next to the telephone. Even though the…
GROWTH! GROWTH! GROWTH!
The motor force of capitalist economies is the accumulation of capital—the drive by businesses to make as much profit as possible and use as much of this profit as they can to expand their operations.…
Mining
[Note: We have been staying in hostels, and internet connections are poor. So I can’t upload pictures. You can see some on my facebook page, which is public] The earth in the western United States…
Whither the National Parks?
In light of the interest in the national parks of the United States generated by Ken Burns' new PBS documentary, I thought that readers might be interested in what I wrote about the parks in…
A Dirty Little Secret in Boulder, Colorado
This first appeared on Counterpunch for September 15, 2009, under the title "Up in Wood Smoke." Residents of Boulder, Colorado take pride in the city’s livability. The town has won “more accolades than any other…