NEWS ROUNDUP

Cutting through smoke The result, say some wildfire experts, is a worrisome example of the growing problems facing an agency struggling to deal with what Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth has called the nation's "most serious natural resource problem" : millions of acres of overgrown forests in the West that are tinderbox dry from drought and choked with flammable undergrowth piled up because for 80 years just about every fire was aggressively battled. Almost 3.5 million acres, nearly twice normal, have burned so far this fire season, primarily because of large blazes in Alaska. Summer rains have reduced the danger, but large swaths of the West still have an above-average risk (map, Page 30). Combine that with a grounded fleet of air tankers, an often understaffed team of managers overseeing an army of lightly trained, part-time firefighters, and a system of oversight that some say fails to hold those responsible fully accountable, and "you've got a perfect-storm scenario unfolding," says Stephen Pyne, a historian whose forthcoming book, Tending Fire: Coping With America's Wildland Fires, details how things got so bad. "Our whole system of wild-land firefighting is in need of reform."....
Anger afoot along 31-mile Klickitat Trail One of the Klickitat Trail Conservancy's guidelines for use of the 31-mile long Klickitat Trail near Lyle, Wash., reads like a warning found in bear country: "If you encounter harassing property owners, remain calm. Avoid arguments and proceed on your way, unless it does not feel safe to do so. Report the incident to the sheriff's office . . . " Welcome to the sometimes wild West, where Americans trying to get away from it all keep running into each other....
Eyeing Chief Joseph's land The hauntingly beautiful lake is the crown jewel of remote Wallowa County, as it was in the 1870s when 750 of McCormack's Nez Perce ancestors made their summer encampments here. McCormack, 55, a tribal fish technician, considers this the spiritual home of his people. He is fond of quoting Young Chief Joseph, a 19th century leader of the Wallowa Band of the Nez Perce: "I love that land more than all the rest of the world."....
Western Drought Is Grounding Boaters The drought that geologists say could be the worst in 500 years is grounding boaters, creating hazards for water enthusiasts across the West and costing the boating industry and states millions to revamp ramps and move marinas to entice visitors. Roosevelt Lake, about 110 miles northeast of Phoenix, is 30 percent full and only three of the lake's nine ramps are operating, said Quentin Johnson, recreation specialist for the Tonto Basin Ranger District, which manages the lake....
Activists Fight to Stop the Re-filling of Lake Powell In a little-noticed meeting this weekend, some Western environmentalists agreed on a controversial action plan. Lake Powell is now the lowest it's been since the late 60's. The activists want to stop it from ever being re-filled. John Hollenhorst joins us with details....
Ecoterrorism attacks, 1 year later When the smoke settled, 133 vehicles mostly SUVs had been firebombed or spray-painted with messages such as "Fat, lazy Americans" at four car dealerships in West Covina, Duarte and Arcadia and a neighborhood in Monrovia. Damage to the vehicles, and to a finance office at the West Covina dealership, totaled $2.5 million. Ecoterrorism had hit the Valley....
Hair sample links student to Southern California SUV vandalism A graduate student with alleged connections to a radical environmentalist group has been linked to a hair discovered at an auto dealership where authorities say he firebombed or vandalized sport utility vehicles. Forensics experts matched hair and saliva samples taken from 24-year-old Billy Cottrell to a hair found on a headband at the dealership, federal prosecutors said....
Column: Something fishy It was the "Summer of the Shark." In 2001, the media told us, massive numbers of hapless swimmers were shredded up and down U.S. shores. Turns out there were 11 fewer shark attacks than a year earlier. The hysteria ended only when something truly scary occurred in September. But shark attack stories are back — with a twist. The media have combined them with another bit of nonsense it consistently promotes with the ominous name of "The Dead Zone." Shark attacks and a dead zone? Oh my! Good thing it's just a fish story....
Farmlands Seen as Fertile for Terrorism The teeming Swift & Co. slaughterhouse on the edge of town has the feel of a military base lately. Security cars cruise the fenced compound, and periodic drills are run to prepare for any attack. At the Wayne Farms poultry plant in Decatur, Ala., armed guards patrol the grounds, searching for any threat to the tens of thousands of chickens. In Porterville, Calif., dairy farmer Tom Barcellos recently installed video cameras in his milking barns to keep watch over his 1,200 cows....
Kerry Courts Farmers by Opposing Meatpacker Control of Herds Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry won the vote of David Kruse, an Iowa cattle rancher and self-described lifelong Republican. Kerry says he will fight to stop meatpackers such as Tyson Foods Inc. and Smithfield Foods Inc. from raising their own livestock. Kruse said he's being squeezed by Tyson, the world's largest meat processor, and Smithfield, the biggest pork producer, because they cut prices through exclusive contracts with some suppliers or by owning their own herds. Bush ``represents the corporate producers,'' said the 51-year-old Kruse, who raises a herd of 500 cattle in Royal, Iowa, 180 miles northwest of Des Moines....
Murders intersect at Texas museum This is the sprawling saga of the Texas frontier, of two infamous murderers who lived decades apart and the ordinary kitchen utensil that links them. Had it not been for the 1889 murder of a West Texas rancher by his brother and the legal and political machinations that followed, the bottle opener owned by John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald may have ended up a forgotten footnote in the history of church keys, corkscrews and cap removers. The museum, in the ranch house where Bettie B. was born 85 years ago, would be intriguing by itself thanks to items such as the gasoline-powered iron, the rattlesnake coiled in a jar of formaldehyde, or Chun Gafford's baby moccasins, handcrafted by the Comanches who sometimes camped on the family's pastures....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Syllijunction: Ultimate conservation by combining words In an era of increasing pressure on the earth's natural resources and the need to save valuable time in communication, Chris and I offer a new method of syllable conjugation to conserve words and paper: Syllijunction. Instead of asking, "Does your innuendo about my behavior insinuate you think I'm guilty?" you could simply say, "Is that an insinuendo?"....