Monday, May 07, 2012

US should return stolen land to Indian tribes, says United Nations

A United Nations investigator probing discrimination against Native Americans has called on the US government to return some of the land stolen from Indian tribes as a step toward combatting continuing and systemic racial discrimination. James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said no member of the US Congress would meet him as he investigated the part played by the government in the considerable difficulties faced by Indian tribes. Anaya said that in nearly two weeks of visiting Indian reservations, indigenous communities in Alaska and Hawaii, and Native Americans now living in cities, he encountered people who suffered a history of dispossession of their lands and resources, the breakdown of their societies and "numerous instances of outright brutality, all grounded on racial discrimination". "It's a racial discrimination that they feel is both systemic and also specific instances of ongoing discrimination that is felt at the individual level," he said. Anaya said racism extended from the broad relationship between federal or state governments and tribes down to local issues such as education. Close to a million people live on the US's 310 Native American reservations. Some tribes have done well from a boom in casinos on reservations but most have not. Anaya visited an Oglala Sioux reservation where the per capita income is around $7,000 a year, less than one-sixth of the national average, and life expectancy is about 50 years. The two Sioux reservations in South Dakota – Rosebud and Pine Ridge – have some of the country's poorest living conditions, including mass unemployment and the highest suicide rate in the western hemisphere with an epidemic of teenagers killing themselves. Anaya said Rosebud is an example where returning land taken by the US government could improve a tribe's fortunes as well as contribute to a "process of reconciliation". Anaya said he would reserve detailed recommendations on a plan for land restoration until he presents his final report to the UN human rights council in September. Anaya said he had received "exemplary cooperation" from the Obama administration but he declined to speculate on why no members of Congress would meet him...more

 

Utah counties file lawsuits against BLM over RS2477 roads

By this time next week, 22 of Utah's 29 counties will have filed lawsuits against the Interior Department and the Bureau of Land Management, seeking title to thousands of miles of contested roads that cross federally managed lands. Beaver, Box Elder, Carbon, Duchesne, Emery, Piute, Rich, Sanpete, Utah and Wayne counties had all filed individual lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City as of Friday night. The state of Utah is listed as a plaintiff in each of the suits as well, and expects to join the remaining 12 county lawsuits that should be filed Monday and Tuesday, according to Utah's chief deputy attorney general John Swallow. "We're trying to protect the roads that Utahns have used for decades," Swallow said. "If we don't file these lawsuits, we can't even protect the roads, and so the federal government can actually close down the roads and obliterate our rights to use those roads." The state said in December that it would seek quiet title to 19,000 segments of so-called RS2477 roads in 22 counties. The RS2477 issue — under contention in the courts for more than a decade — epitomizes the public lands fight involving environmentalists, counties, industry, ranchers and shared-access advocates. The dispute involves rights-of-way access granted by the federal government in 1866 for the development of transportation systems. Although the congressional act establishing those rights was later withdrawn in 1976 with a new federal land planning act, the access rights of local government were supposed to stay intact. Duchesne County Commissioner Kent Peatross said he's always believed "we don't need a road down every canyon and ridge." "But we need access that allows the general population to experience the public lands in a reasonable manner," he said. "Not everyone can walk, not everyone has a horse, and so a vehicle is the easiest and most common way to do that."...more

Salazar Activates First Solar Power Project on U.S. Land

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar activated today a 50-megawatt power plant that was developed by First Solar Inc. (FSLR) (FSLR) and is the the first on U.S. public land. The Silver State North project in Nevada’s Ivanpah Valley, south of Las Vegas, is owned by Enbridge Inc. (ENB), Canada’s largest oil-pipeline company, and generates enough electricity for about 9,000 homes, according to a statement today. The U.S. Interior Department has approved 29 wind, solar and geothermal projects on public land since 2009 as part of President Barack Obama’s “all-of-the-above” energy strategy, Salazar said. With Silver State, the U.S. is on pace to install 10,000 megawatts of non-hydroelectric renewable power capacity by this year, three years earlier than mandated by Congress...more

Idaho farmers: We need immigrant workers

Jim Little of Emmett says the government is making it too difficult for Idaho farmers to follow the rules and employ legal immigrants rather than border jumpers. “It seems like they take great joy in piling on minutia and things we have to do,” said Little, who grows grain and hay and is the brother of Lt. Gov. Brad Little. There’s widespread frustration among farmers in Idaho and across the country over the H-2A visa program for seasonal agriculture workers. The foreign workers are eager to do physical labor Americans won’t, they say. A bipartisan group of six U.S. senators from Idaho, Florida, Ohio, Colorado and Wyoming wrote the Department of Labor to express concerns with the system “and its serious implication on producers and our nation’s food supply.” Frustration over the visa program helped drive Little’s daughter, Rochelle Oxarango, and her husband mostly out of the Idaho sheep-ranching business. “We needed four new workers from Peru. I started the paperwork in July and our workers didn’t arrive until February,” Oxarango said in an interview. “It’s really hard to depend on a program that takes that long to get workers here. We had to sell most of our sheep last year and this was one of the driving factors. It was just getting too hard to manage the labor situation.” Employers say that to use the program, they must deal with complicated paperwork and go through multiple federal agencies: the Department of Labor, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. The recent letter from the six senators, including Idaho’s Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, cited “numerous cases in which unnecessary administrative delays resulted in not having enough labor to perform needed work.”...more

Montana FWP proposes wolf-trapping season

State wildlife managers want to substantially liberalize the 2012-13 wolf-hunting season in another attempt to decrease pack numbers in Montana. Trapping wolves, allowing the taking of up to three wolves, using electronic calls, lengthening the hunt and eliminating quotas are among the proposals to be introduced at Thursday’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission meeting. FWP officials say they hope the changes will eventually lower the number of wolves in Montana from the minimum known population of 653 to 425. This will be the third wolf-hunting season in Montana; trapping was not allowed in the earlier hunts. In documents supporting the changes, FWP notes that it believes the proposed framework will increase opportunities for hunters and trappers while furthering the state’s understanding of how best to manage the species. The department adds that despite extending the season closure to Feb. 15 this year, it still didn’t meet the quota of 220 wolves; only 166 were killed. FWP notes that its models show that taking up to 377 wolves wouldn’t drop the population below the short-term goal of 425...more

Writer focuses on unsung cowboy heroes

Many young boys grow up idolizing cowboys, but one local rancher is still inspired by them and uses his writing to motivate others through their stories. Jim Olson is a cowboy, author, promoter and poet. Born in Buckeye, he moved to New Mexico at age 6 and lived there until he moved back to Arizona in 1993. He currently resides in Stanfield. As a youth, he learned to ride young colts, tend to cattle and drive heavy farm equipment. After many years, he opened a welding business, building horse corrals and other livestock handling equipment in New Mexico. Upon selling the welding business, he moved into real estate where he sold ranches and horse property across Arizona. Along the way he evolved into real estate development where he bought, fixed up and ran several working cattle ranches and horse properties. He also started a real estate brokerage company, which specialized in Arizona ranch properties. It was during the real estate recession that Olson discovered his hidden passion for writing. A friend of Olson’s owned a magazine and requested he do an article on real estate. Never having written anything before, Olson cautiously agreed, but had his own ideas about the article’s subject. “I didn’t want to write a real estate article. Instead, I had an idea to write a little biography on rodeo legend, Dale Smith,” Olson said. “After it was finished, I just set it on my friend’s desk, didn’t say a word and left. Three weeks later, the article was published.” To his surprise, Olson received several encouraging calls about the article, as did his friend. From that single story, an entire career and way of life was born for the author. Olson began writing a monthly cowboy column in exchange for ad space for his real estate business. Soon, he was approached by another publication to run the same articles in their magazine. Currently, his monthly column appears in more than 25 Southwestern publications and some national publications. Jim has three books published and is constantly working on new projects...more

At least 23 people killed in Mexican border city as victims hanged, decapitated


The bodies of 23 people were found hanging from a bridge or decapitated and dumped near city hall Friday in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, where drug cartels are fighting a bloody and escalating turf war. Authorities found nine of the victims, including four women, hanging from an overpass leading to a main highway, said a Tamaulipas state official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide information on the case. Hours later, police found 14 human heads inside coolers outside city hall along with a threatening note. The 14 bodies were found in black plastic bags inside a car abandoned near an international bridge, the official said. The official didn't release the contents of the note, or give a motive for the killings. But the city across the border from Laredo, Texas has recently been torn by a renewed turf war between the Zetas cartel, a gang of former Mexican special-forces soldiers, and the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which has joined forces with the Gulf cartel, former allies of the Zetas. Local media published photos of the nine bloodied bodies, some with duct tape wrapped around their faces, hanging from the overpass along with a message threatening the Gulf cartel. Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire met with Tamaulipas Gov. Egidio Torre Cantu on Friday and agreed to send more federal forces to the state, according to a statement from Poire's office...more

 Mexico is sending federal forces to the border.  Of course the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance wants either a quarter of a million acres of Wilderness or over half a million acres of National Monuments on our southern border - one of which prohibits law enforcement while the other severely restricts it.

Go ahead and surround our community with these environmental designations.  You can see below how that is working out for Tombstone, Ariz. 

Obama Administration vs. Tombstone

by Eric Burns

The latest chapter in the Obama administration’s war against state sovereignty and the state of Arizona pits the town of Tombstone against the United States Forest Service. Tombstone is suing the U.S. Forest Service over that agency’s refusal to allow city officials to repair damaged water transport infrastructure in the nearby Huachuca mountains. The Forest Service’s refusal to allow city workers access to damaged reservoirs, pipelines, and pumping stations, has cut Tombstone off from 50 to 80 percent of its water supply; leaving town residents and tourists dependent on two wells for water, and the town acutely vulnerable to fire. In addition, the water in one well is contaminated with arsenic.
    Tombstone is a desert town of 1500 residents located in southern Arizona about 70 miles southeast of Tucson in the shadow of 9466 ft. Miller Peak, which is in the Coronado National Forest. Americans associate Tombstone with the October 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Corral; and the resulting tourist trade has supported the town fairly well. Tombstone has survived the closing of local silver mines and a number of fires, thereby becoming known as “The town too tough to die.” Now, however, that proud title is being severely tested, by our own federal government.
    Tombstone is supplied with water from 24 springs, located in the Huachuca Mountains on and around Miller Peak. However, nearly a year ago, from May through July 2011, the Monument fire destroyed at least 18,580 acres (640 acres equals one square mile) of forest and vegetation in the Huachuca Mountains, including the Miller Peak Wilderness area. Torrential rains followed soon after the fire, and the resulting mud slides pushed boulders “the size of Volkswagens” down on vital pumping stations, pipes, and other infrastructure. Some water pipes remain buried under twelve feet of mud, while others are without support, ominously hanging in the air, as the ground underneath has been washed away. In August 2011, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer declared a state of emergency in Tombstone, authorizing $50,000 in state funds to help cover engineering and repair costs for Tombstone’s water system. Since many of the pipelines are in areas designated as “wilderness,” the U.S. Forest Service won’t allow access for the mechanized equipment needed to fix the pipelines. Huge boulders, downed trees, and enormous piles of dirt and gravel must be moved, to build the structures that will protect the water lines against future natural disasters. However, these obstacles can’t be moved with the hand tools and horse teams that the Forest Service demands the city use.
As of January 2012, Forest Service officials had granted permits to repair infrastructure for only 2 of the 24 springs that supply Tombstone; and city manager George Barnes said “the city was told that the requests for the remaining permits would take a lot longer” to approve. Meanwhile, the state’s emergency funds are being wasted, as rented vehicles and equipment are sitting idle, and several pieces of heavy equipment have been vandalized, with the city required to pay for their repair. In addition, Tombstone has only a two day supply of water on hand, making the town particularly vulnerable to fire.
    The Obama administration and the U.S. Forest Service are clearly attempting to regulate the state of Arizona in violation of the Constitution and impose an arbitrary, draconian environmentalist agenda on the land use rights of Americans. In addition, gold prospectors on western federal lands are routinely harassed by over-zealous park rangers, and ranchers have been pressured to surrender access and water rights. The Forest Service cites The Wilderness Act of 1964, which defines “Wilderness” as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean…an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation…with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable.”  Under “Prohibition of Certain Uses,” this act states, “[S]ubject to existing private rights, there shall be no…permanent road within any Wilderness area designated by this Act and, except as necessary to meet minimum requirements for the Administration of the area…(including measures required in emergencies involving the health and safety of persons within the area) there shall be no temporary road, no use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment…no other form of mechanical transport, and no structure or installation within any such area.” However, the Forest Service has gone beyond the Wilderness Act and threatened Arizona’s sovereignty and Tombstone’s very existence.
    On behalf of Tombstone, the Goldwater Institute has filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that would allow city officials to go into the Huachuca Mountains and repair the damaged water transport infrastructure. Tombstone’s case is supported by the Tenth Amendment and by the fact that the city’s water rights were vested long before the Wilderness Act of 1964 and the concomitant Arizona Wilderness Act of 1984. The Tenth Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” and implicitly embodies “a policy against impairing the states’ integrity or ability to function.”
    In Tombstone’s “Memorandum in support of motion for preliminary injunction,” the Goldwater Institute clearly shows that the city satisfies the four requirements for granting a preliminary injunction. In addition, this document gives numerous examples of how the Forest Service’s refusal to allow Tombstone officials access to the Miller Peak Wilderness area, and their inexcusable stonewalling of the permit issuing process, has not only seriously compromised Arizona’s integrity and Tombstone’s ability to function, but has put the town’s very existence in jeopardy. The requirements for the court granting Tombstone a preliminary injunction include, “whether the plaintiff is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief,” and “whether an injunction is in the public interest.” [1]
    The Forest Service’s refusal to allow Tombstone officials access to the damaged water supply infrastructure constitutes unlawful “commandeering” of the city’s water supply, and this commandeering “is certain to cause irreparable harm.” This is because “irreparable injury includes the impairment or threatened loss of rights or interests in real property,” “impairment of sovereign interests without notice or opportunity to be heard,” and “harm or threats of harm to public health and safety.” The Goldwater Institute explains that water rights are “real property interests” in Arizona and that Tombstone holds “title to water rights and water structure and pipeline right of way easements,” pursuant to a Congressional Act of July 26, 1866. By this Act, the Federal government is obligated to “protect the rights of individual possessors of water; and to recognize local customs, laws, and state court decisions.” Indeed, in 1907, Gifford Pinchot (a well-known “progressive”) wrote in the U.S. Forest Service’s book, “Use of National Forests,” “The creation of a National forest has no effect whatever on the laws that govern the appropriation of water. This is a matter governed entirely by state and territorial laws.
    In addition, the Forest Service recognized Tombstone’s vested water rights in 1916, and in 1962 granted the city a special use permit to maintain and repair its water delivery infrastructure. The Goldwater Institute further explains that the city’s “health and safety interest is not offset by any bona fide environmental interest.” This is because “Any environmental footprint from the work Tombstone seeks to perform will be washed away in the next monsoon,” and that “Even if there were a lasting footprint, environmental interests are not better served by requiring Tombstone to build only temporary structures with hand tools. Those structures will be washed away in the next monsoon. Given the inevitability of seasonal monsoons and periodic flood events in the Huachuca Mountains, it makes no sense to force  repair and rebuild temporary structures ad infinitum with the continuous ground displacement that entails.” [2]
    Nevertheless, in 2011-2012, the Forest Service has chosen to ignore not only Pinchot’s (the Forest Service’s first Chief Forester) comment, but the above-mentioned July 1866 Congressional Act and a large body of federal and state case law. By their refusal to allow Tombstone officials access to the city’s water delivery infrastructure, the U.S. Forest Service has violated Arizona’s state sovereignty, directly regulating the state through a political subdivision (Tombstone), in violation of a Tenth Amendment corollary that the Constitution “confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not states.” In addition, the Forest Service has illegally commandeered not only the town’s physical water system, and the authority of Governor Jan Brewer, but Tombstone’s integrity and ability to function.[3] Americans can only hope that the Federal District court will rule against the U.S. Forest Service and order them to allow Tombstone to repair vital water delivery infrastructure as soon as possible, ensuring that the town will continue to exist.

Footnotes:
[1] Goldwater Institute, “City of Tombstone’s Memorandum in Support of Motion for preliminary injunction,” p. 5-6; at www.goldwaterinstitute.org.
[2] Ibid., p. 11
[3] Printz v. United States 521 U.S. 898, 920 (1997), as cited by Goldwater Institute, Ibid., p. 15; Goldwater Institute, “Tombstone’s reply in support of motion to extend time by severing and continuing consideration of Tenth Amendment issues,” p. 8-12, at www.goldwaterinstitute.org.


Eric Burns is an educator and writer, who resides in the Baltimore-Washington area.  

This article was originally posted at Front Page Magazine.

Its time to ask:  Who's gonna be our Huckleberry?

Song Of The Day #830


It's Swingin' Monday on Ranch Radio and we'll get your foot tappin' with Fiddle Diddle Boogie by the Davis Sisters.

Roswell Hosts Country's Best Fiddle Players

/PRNewswire/ -- MainStreet Roswell, Roswell Parks and Recreation, and Roswell Lodgers Tax are presenting the MainStreet Roswell Fiddle and Griddle Festival June 8-9, 2012.  What a wonderful way to celebrate the Centennial of our Great State.  The Country's best fiddle players will compete in a two day event for $20,000 in prize money.  This festival will feature local talent as well as musicians from far and wide.  Multiple stages will be set up around the downtown area.  Main Street will be closed from 2nd to 5th Streets on Friday and Saturday.  Third, Fourth and Fifth Streets will be filled with activities as well. Artisans and crafters will be displaying their wares down the middle of Main Street.  Our MainStreet Roswell merchants will be joining the festivities on the sidewalks as well as welcoming our visitors into their stores.  Local flavor will abound with the many food selections including fork tender BBQ Brisket dinners or sandwiches on Restaurant Row.  Activities and entertainment will be provided by local 4-H groups, non-profits, bands, street entertainers, a children's area with flintstone powered toys, stick horses and more to expend some of their never ending energy.  Transportation by covered wagon will be provided from the parking areas by the Lions Club  There will be a Street Dance on Main Street on Friday night and jam sessions by the contestants.  Not only will you be able to hear some of the greatest fiddle players, there will be groups playing on the various stages during the day.
Fiddle Competition MC: Ron Sowell, Music Director for NPR's Mountain Stage.  The renowned Flying J Wranglers will be making a guest appearance at noon on Saturday.  Saturday night will feature a band and the finalists of the Fiddle Contest will also entertain. Also featured is a BBQ Contest with $8,000 in prize money.  The BBQ contest will begin early Saturday morning.  The aroma of smoked meats and BBQ Sauce will permeate the air.  The great chefs will be more than willing to share their secrets and techniques and are sure to have great hints for your summer backyard BBQing. Information and applications are available online at www.mainstreetroswell.org for Fiddle contestants, vendors and BBQrs.  

Press Release

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/07/4471377/roswell-hosts-countrys-best-fiddle.html#storylink=cpy

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy


The countdown to emancipation

 by Julie Carter

It’s a burden he has had to endure – his life chronicled for publication as he grew to manhood.

His mother is a writer so, of course, she has frequently penned his adventures in the process we call “growing up.” Now, another milestone has arrived.

My son is part of the high school graduating class of 2012. There are hundreds of thousands of them across the country, but for him in a small rural school, there are only four others that will stand next to him in a cap and gown this month. It is a fitting close to this chapter in the life of a country boy.

Once he was the little boy with holes in the knees of his jeans, scuffed-up boots and a more than well-worn cowboy hat. He is now 6’ 5” and about to step out of his cowboy comfort zone that was at the end of a dirt road. It is there he learned to ride, rope, weld, and hunt along with manners, respect and the value of hard work.

Like most his age, he has counted the months that turned into weeks and now days until they hand him a diploma and release him into life. He harbors both excitement and trepidation for the unknown. His dreams are as big as he is but the logistics of getting there are sometimes overwhelming.

It seems only yesterday he wandered by as a 5-year old, leaned over and planted his elbows on my desk, cupped his face in his hands and said, “Mom, do you think it’s time for a raise in my alangance?”

“Alangance? What is that?” I asked, knowing he meant “allowance” and amused because he wanted a raise for something he didn’t have in the first place.

Gesturing with his hand he said, “Well, you know. It’s money.” Anyone who has raised a child, and more pointedly a teenager, recognizes the emerging pattern for the years ahead.

In elementary school, he came home upset because some kids told him he was “too cowboy.” He thought he should be offended until I explained to him the honor that came with the title and even if they didn’t know it, they had paid him a great compliment.

In junior high, his life became about sports, hunting, and he transitioned from 4-H to FFA. He quickly learned that the county fair was a good place to meet girls and annually he fell in love with all the reasons to be there – his show animals and the pretty distractions.

High school brought, besides a driver’s license and summer jobs, intensity to his maturing athletic abilities. With that came a mountain of sweaty football and basketball uniforms, never-ending game schedules and the highs and lows of competition. He proudly wore the blue and gold of FFA and never realized how much that part of his life was shaping him for adulthood.  His life moved from season to season without much thought to it ever being any different.

And while I still see glimpses of that little boy in moments he doesn’t even realize, mostly what I see before me is a young man who has retained his hard-headed determination to push forward in life. That will serve him well when he is on the right road and work against him when he takes a wrong turn. Isn’t that what growing up is all about?

He’s the last of the brood to leave the nest so it’s not a new journey for me, but nonetheless, it brings with it the usual reminiscing of those days that brought us to now. And in that, I recognize the inevitable seasons of life and anticipate for him those yet to come.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com.



Edwina McCauley Manning


The Completed Circle
Edwina McCauley Manning
The other Manning called home Monday, April 30, 2012
By Stephen L. Wilmeth


            I knew Wina before I knew Edwina McCauley Manning.
First surviving child of Mary Effie Wilmeth McCauley and Halpin McCauley, Wina was the elder of the first cousins of my life. Never loud, never calling attention to herself, Wina was one of my favorites. 
The fun memories were perhaps the first … the house at the mouth of the Mangus, the family gatherings, the ties to Grandma and Grandpa, and that little guttural laugh that was hers.
In retrospect, she got the laugh with its mannerism from Uncle Hap. I think she was most like him of the kids. The nearest thing I ever heard that even resembled an expletive from her was how she would start a sentence if she disagreed or had a strong opinion about something.
“Well, now I’ll tell you what …” she would say. The last times I saw her I would be smiling at her waiting for the outpouring of logic that would come next. Then she would laugh.
Dick
Wina married Dick Manning at the little white Presbyterian Church at Cliff, New Mexico. It was the same little church we all knew as kids. It was where we went to witness important events in our lives.
            We celebrated baptism and weddings and gathered for funerals. By the time the latter accelerated, though, Dick and Wina, Uncle Hap and Aunt Mary, and most of that McCauley clan had dispersed to Deming and elsewhere. The whole relationship with them would never be quite the same except when we were with Grandpa and Grandma. They kept us together.
            Dick was Dick. He became an outright cult hero to a wide swath of defenders of the American West. People either loved Dick or they didn’t.
            Dick never really worked for anybody but himself. He was so independent I think he’d change positions in an argument just to keep it provocative, keep it insightful, and to extract logic that nobody quite understood.
He gravitated to the other dynamic elder male in the clan, my uncle, Howard Wilmeth. It was he who formed a similar bookend of cult hero worship among his own peers. Together, they formed a huge block of attention, and the intrigue and the esoteric ramblings that emanated were profound.
It was during those mighty discussions they either enjoined allegiance or antagonism. It remains that way to this day.
            Dick was Dick and … Wina was always there.
            By the time we gathered to honor Dick at his funeral, the little white Presbyterian Church had moved up on the point just south and west from its original site. If attendance didn’t match the biggest of recent year services, the states of vehicle origin did. Plates from nearly every western state and even a Canuck from the wild rose country had responded to the loss of a revered one of their own.
            “Where are all these people from?” the locals asked. “And, who are they?”
            ‘They’ had come from across the sage brush battlegrounds to honor Dick. They had come with ties, and wild rags, and different styles of hats that were all removed to reveal white foreheads …Westerners!
Representing him … representing both of them was Wina. She sat there stoic and clear eyed while other … grown men …were overcome with emotion.
            Her Place
            In time, Wina may well become more mysterious than Dick to those who thought they knew them best. There are many stories yet to be concluded.
Their life had so many twists and turns that it took them both to hold it together. Dick could not have done it alone. Wina may have tried.
            Wina was the flex that disallowed that life to fly apart like a coiled spring. When they had debt fighting legal battles, she hunkered down and made it work. When times were good, she remained level headed and staunchly conservative and thrifty.
It was never about her, but it could be described as always about them.
I have memories that could suggest the grander story, but two stories stand as markers of the real Wina. The first was when we still hunted as a family.
For years, we would gather at the mouth of the Mangus. Long before sunup the house would be lit up and voices could be heard inside.  Hap would be holding court around the breakfast table and discussions would spill out of the kitchen in every direction.
Often, we would draw to assign hunters to different vehicles.  Hap would normally describe where the best ‘hunts’ could be expected. That logic would come from where he had seen a deer yesterday or where he had killed one 40 years ago.
We would then climb aboard and scatter to those great places that exist so vividly in memory. I was lucky when I was teamed with Wina.
Some time in the middle ‘60s she had come into the possession of a brand new Winchester Model 100 .308. She was so proud of that rifle. We were all infatuated with it. There she would be without any gear to speak of, but she’d be holding that neat little rifle.
On one of those hunts, Wina’s character was clearly revealed. We crossed the river at the mouth of Road Canyon and walked from there. We had a lunch, but, as usual, we never took water. We would drink if we found water. If we didn’t … we didn’t.
All morning we hunted. We saw deer, but nobody got a shot. We ate lunch on a slope in the Moonhull drainage just over the saddle from the head of Cherokee. Wina was asked how she was doing.
“Do you think you are up to rimming out and hunting on west before we turn back?”
“Sure,” was the short answer.
            As we spread out, I watched her climb out through a rocky chute as tough as anything anybody faced. Shortly, she and I both heard rocks rolling and the sound of a deer leaving. The deer, a buck, ran to a point and looked directly back at her.
I know she saw the deer, but she never raised her rifle. When the deer finally left, she watched its departure, and, then, continued her methodical climb up the steep chute. Nothing was ever said, but, she had no intention of killing that deer.
In fact, I don’t think I ever heard that rifle discharged. But, if you wanted to go hunt a deer … hunt it in the toughest of all conditions … there Wina would be holding her little .308. I wonder now if the gun was even loaded. She hunted … just to hunt.
The other memory is similar. Kathy and I had come home from California, and, for reasons I don’t remember, we diverted from Springerville and drove east on 60. We stopped in Quemado to eat. We walked into one of Quemado’s finest and there sat Dick and Wina.
“Well, lookee’ here,” was our remark. “What are you guys doing?”
“Waiting for you!” was Dick’s counter. “Where the heck have you been?”
After greetings, we sat down and had the best visit. All four of us were at good places in our lives.
“Seriously, though, why are you in Quemado?” I asked.
“We’re hauling gold,” Wina responded. “It’s right here.”
With that, she disappeared from sight under the table and came back up straining holding the biggest gold ingot you could imagine. She dumped it with a thud in the middle of the table.
“Yea, I’d say …”
Kathy and I looked around to see who might be watching this crazy scene playing out at the corner table. Wina and Dick were nonchalant.
It turned out they were making ‘a run’ to Canada to sell the gold they had recovered, refined, and poured at their mine in Mogollon.
“They like the purity of our gold,” Dick explained about the buyer. “They always give us the best price.”
“What do you want to eat,” he continued as unpretentious as if the gold had been salt and pepper shakers. “Let’s order!”
We ate. We laughed and we talked, and hugged when we parted.
Some things are planned … other things just happen.
And, now
Granddaughter, daughter, sister, wife, mother, and … on now to great grandmother, Edwina Manning has run the race … fought the good fight … and is cherished in our memory.
Dick had the spotlight … Wina had Dick … and Dirk … and Kim … and the admiration of all who knew her. This circle has concluded, and that is comforting and reassuring.
Kim, Dirk … Darlene, Darrell, all the family … God bless you.
And, to Wina from your primos …adios, prima nuestra … gracias por todos los recuerdos … nos veremas pronto …”

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Well, now I’ll tell you what … we’ll miss her.”


THE WESTERNER SEZ...I missed the funeral because of a Congressional Forum on the proposal to lock up 600,000 acres around Dona Ana Co. in National Monuments.  This environmental junk is costing me way too much.

DuBois NM Stockman Column

This time the attack heads back down south and a grazing bill is surprise, surprise actually positive.

The tale of two monument proposals

    Last time I wrote about the attack on el norte. I guess that made the enviros del sur jealous, for they have now embarked on a new crusade to tie up 600,000 acres in Doña Ana County. That would put 25 percent of the county in a national monument.
    You will recall their previous endeavor was to have just under 250,000 acres designated as wilderness and over 90,000 acres designated as a national conservation area. Senator Bingaman, with Senator Udall as a cosponsor, introduced the legislation. However, even with the support of then Governor Bill Richardson, the Las Cruces City Council and the Doña Ana County Commission, and with Bingaman being chair of the committee of jurisdiction, they have been unable to pass the legislation.
    Now comes phase two of their attack. Having been unsuccessful using the democratic process they’ve now turned to executive branch fiat. The local media says they are petitioning President Obama to exercise his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to designate 600,000 acres as the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. Funny thing is, no one has seen the petition. That means the Mayor of Las Cruces, the Las Cruces Sun-News and other local officials and entities have endorsed a proposal they’ve never seen – kind of a Nancy Pelosi “we have to pass it to find out what’s in it” scenario.
    Why is it important to see the petition? The language the President includes in his proclamation will determine such things as:
  • The actual boundaries of the proposed monument
  • Which agency will manage the monument
  • Whether livestock grazing may occur
  • Whether hunting may occur, and
  • Whether law enforcement will have access
    As another example, the Doña Ana Soil & Water Conservation District is concerned they won’t be able to maintain 50 or so dams in the area, or construct new facilities for flood control purposes, or implement watershed treatment programs. Whether or not they would have access, or if so under what restrictions, would again be determined by the language in the Presidential proclamation.
    You will recall that in the Spring of 2009 secret Department of Interior documents were leaked, one of which was a BLM memo to the Secretary of Interior titled “Treasured Landscapes.” Within that document were recommendations for the President to use his authority to designate National Monuments. Two areas were recommended in New Mexico: Otero Mesa – 1.2 million acres, and The Lesser Prairie Chicken Preseve – 58,000 acres. Combine those with the most recent proposal and you would have almost 2 million acres taken out of multiple-use. That’s an area larger than the state of Delaware or twice the size of Rhode Island.
    It should be noted this situation is not unique to Doña Ana County or even to New Mexico. Environmentalists and wilderness advocates west-wide are pushing for National Monument designations. Frustrated by their inability to pass wilderness bills through Congress they are turning to their favorite “We Can’t Wait” President for executive action.
    In response to this Rep. Steve Pearce has introduced H.R. 4334, the Organ Mountains National Monument Establishment Act, which would designate 58,512 acres in the Organs. This bill is kind to grazing. Livestock grazing is listed as one of the resources to be preserved, and it includes language allowing the use of motorized vehicles and mechanical equipment for range improvements and for “the performance of standard ranching operations.” The Pearce bill has been referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources. Pearce’s staff say they are open to suggestions or improvements and I have recommended the title be changed to the Organ Mountains-Cox Family National Monument and that the legislation direct the BLM to recognize and celebrate the over 120 years of ranching by the Cox Family.

Grazing Improvement Act

    Whenever a piece of legislation causes the Western Watershed Project and other enviro organizations to go nuts, I figure it warrants a look-see. The legislation in question is The Grazing Improvement Act as introduced by Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming as S. 1129, and in the House by Representative Raul Labrador of Idaho as H.R. 4324.
    This bill would amend FLPMA in the following important ways:
  • Grazing permits would be for 20 years instead of the current 10
  • Recognizes that the renewal, reissuance or transfer of a permit does not, per se, have a resource impact so long as there is no change in the grazing management and grants them a categorical exclusion
  • Requires that all appeals of grazing permit decisions be conducted “on the record” in accordance with the fundamental principles of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). This is a particularly critical provision as applied to the Forest Service. The Forest Service currently lacks an independent body to hear administrative appeals similar to the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) that adjudicates BLM appeals.
  • Places the burden of proof in an appeal on the agencies instead of the permittee
  • Provides that upon appeal the agency decision is suspended and that current grazing is allowed to continue until the appeal is resolved
    At a recent Senate Committee hearing on S. 1129 Senator Barrasso said, “For over a decade, agencies have relied on year-to-year appropriation rider language to reissue grazing permits. My bill codifies this important language. The BLM and Forest Service simply cannot keep up with the required NEPA analysis due to limited funding and a backlog of lawsuits by the anti-grazing, pro-litigation groups. This bill also provides the respective Secretaries with needed flexibility when reissuing grazing permits”.
Neither of New Mexico’s Senators are cosponsors of the bill.
    The Western Watershed Project says the bill would “further obstruct the proper administration of grazing” and tie down the ability of the agencies “to enforce environmental laws.” I can’t give it a higher recommendation than that.
    Until next time, be a nuisance to the devil and don’t forget to check that cinch.

Frank DuBois was the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003, is the author of a blog: The Westerner (www.thewesterner.blogspot.com) and is the founder of The DuBois Rodeo Scholarship (http://www.nmsu.edu/~duboisrodeo/).

This column was originally posted at NM Stockman.

The Biodiversity Conservation Alliance vs. my sheep

by Sharon O'Toole


We like to say that we raise cattle, sheep, horses, dogs and children. We are a multi-generational ranching family, who also raise elk, deer, bald eagles, sage grouse, cutthroat trout, and many less glamorous wildlife species. We actively manage for conservation and have placed conservation easements on our mountain ranchlands. Our vision is to keep our landscape intact and healthy. Our goal is to continue raising food and fiber, and to allow our family to remain on this land.
    Agricultural producers are being told to raise twice as much food for the growing world population. The ideal is to feed the world in a sustainable manner — a goal very much in keeping with our practices of rotational grazing on a large landscape that includes our private land, private leases, and leases on state, Forest Service and BLM pastures. Every piece of it is crucial to the health of our operation.
    Recently the Laramie, Wyoming-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance (BCA) filed in Federal Court to remove our domestic sheep from their summer grazing allotments on the Medicine Bow National Forest. Since such extreme environmental groups use bighorn sheep as a tool in their crusade against grazing, we ere not totally surprised.
    We were astonished, however, at the argument made by BCA's Duane Short. The Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune reported:
    " 'Since (a proposal in the last Forest Plan to eliminate domestic sheep grazing in the western part of the Medicine Bow was overturned), the BCA has been trying in vain to negotiate a deal with Pat O'Toole, the owner of the domestic sheep herd. With the deadline for a lawsuit imminent, Short said his group had to act.
"For years, we have tried to negotiate with the rancher" said Short, "but the clock ran out ....We had to file suit.
    "Every attempt was made by BCA to encourage a win/win situation for the rancher."
We were astonished because such negotiations never ever took place. "The phrase 'made out of whole cloth' means 'utterly without foundation in fact, completely fictitious.' "
    However outrageous this tactic is, it is minor compared to the real damage — to wild sheep, to domestic sheep operations, to natural resource management, and to rural communities — that would come about if BCA were to prevail. 
    The issue is the evidence of disease transmission from domestic sheep to bighorns. Many experts agree that separation of wild and domestic sheep is the best solution.
    BCA representatives said they proposed switching sheep and cattle allotments, but these are not BCA's to trade. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is the lessor, and even if it were feasible, the USFS would have to agree, after years of NEPA, EA's, studies and inevitable lawsuits.
    The people at BCA know this, of course. The real agenda is using the bighorn to remove domestic sheep production from the West. Their sister organization, Western Watersheds, got a court order to remove 70 per cent of domestic sheep from allotments Idaho forests where bighorns had been reintroduced. This profoundly affected several multi-generational ranching families, and their local rural communities.

READ THE ENTIRE COLUMN


NM Bootheel ranchers in fight with big landowner

Deep in New Mexico's Bootheel along the U.S.-Mexico border sits a historic 500-square mile ranch once owned by William Randolph Hearst. Now called the Diamond A Ranch and operated by Seth Hadley, a descendant of Anheuser-Busch founder Adolphus Busch, the large holding that straddles the New Mexico-Arizona border has been called one of the "Last Great Places" by environmentalists for its focus on saving wildlife. But among the canyons of the Peloncillo Mountains and the serenity of the pinon-juniper woods of the Animas Mountains, Hadley and neighboring area ranchers are locked in an ongoing dispute over traditional ranch land usages and access to public lands and country roads. Smaller, area ranchers accuse Diamond A Ranch of routinely putting up fences on public land and trying to close roads by erecting gates with padlocks, a move that on at least one occasion drew an injunction from a state judge. They also say Hadley's focus on environmental concerns, which sometimes result in vast chucks of land being set aside for wildlife, makes it harder for them to navigate through the sprawling ranch and keep up with usage rules. All those moves, ranchers say, are slowly changing the way of life in the Bootheel as areas long visited by hunters, ranchers and originally by homesteaders are being shut out. "I think (Diamond A Ranch) would rather ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission," said Judy Keeler, a neighboring rancher whoruns an 8,000-acre ranch. "We're friendly with them but it's been an ongoing battle."
A Diamond A Ranch spokeswoman declined to comment for this story.Currently, the two sides are locked in a fight over a fence on Diamond A property that prevents hunters from parking to hunt in the Coronado National Forest...more 

The Urban Brand is on the land. 

As the BLM, FS, USFWS, EPA, etc. continue to make these southwestern ranches unprofitable, the trust fund babies and their ilk are moving in.  It's like living next door to the Kennedys..."Oh Ranchers Of The West, We Hardly Knew Ye".  

They are locking out - their neighbors,  and they are  locking up - our history, our traditions and our liberty.

Song Of The Day #829

Ranch Radio's Gospel tune today is I'll Be Rested by the Nashville Bluegrass Band.

The song is available on their 12 track CD To Be His Child.

Saturday, May 05, 2012

The Westerner's Radio Theater #029


First up this morning is the Country Syle USA program with special guest Bill Carlisle.



That's followed by a Wild Bill Hickok program first aired on Oct. 14, 1951. The episode is titled Mission in Alamogordo. I was always suspicious of that Alamogordo bunch and now I found out they were a bunch of jewelry thieves. Thank goodness for Wild Bill Hickok.



Friday, May 04, 2012

Al-Qaida magazine urges terrorists to set wildfires in Montana

Terrorists who want to strike fear in the hearts of Americans would do well to set wildfires in Montana, al-Qaida advises in the most recent issue of its English-language magazine, Inspire. “It is difficult to choose a better place other than in the valleys of Montana where the population increases rapidly,” Inspire’s “AQ Chef” columnist writes. The magazine disappeared for a while after its founders, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, were killed last year in a U.S. missile strike. But it recently reappeared online, its grammatically challenged cover urging “It is of your freedom to ignite a firebomb.” Inside, the AQ Chef gives three pages detailing the recipe for an “ember bomb” – along with the suggestion to deploy such bombs in Montana. The Inspire article states that America has more houses in the “country sides” than cities, and tells readers that on Aug. 6, 2000, “wildfires extended on the sides of a valley, south of Darby town. Six separated fires started and then met to form a massive fire that burnt down tens of houses.” The 2000 wildfires were the Northern Rockies’ worst in 50 years. In Montana alone, nearly 1 million acres burned, more than one-third of that in the Bitterroot National Forest. The article also mentions destructive wildfires in Australia in 2002 and in 1983, and asks, “Is it possible for us to cause a similar destructive impact using a similar weapon?” That’s where the ember bomb comes in. The instructions include using a clock, washing machine timer or acid to set the bomb afire. After the list of complicated instructions, Inspire also suggests simply using a lit cigarette or a magnifying glass placed atop tinder in the sunlight. The magazine says wildfires can cause “significant losses to the factories and companies of wooden products and everything that is linked to this trade.” Its research apparently did not uncover the disastrous effects of the recession upon the wood products industry...more


Interior Department sets rules for gas drilling on public lands

The Obama administration said Friday it will require companies drilling for natural gas on public and Indian lands to publicly disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations. The proposed "fracking" rules also set standards for proper construction of wells and wastewater disposal. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the long-awaited rules will allow continued expansion of natural gas drilling while protecting public health and safety. "As we continue to offer millions of acres of America's public lands for oil and gas development, it is critical that the public have full confidence that the right safety and environmental protections are in place," Salazar said. The proposed rule will "modernize our management of well-stimulation activities, including hydraulic fracturing, to make sure that fracturing operations conducted on public and Indian lands follow common-sense industry best practices," he said. Industry groups and Republican lawmakers say federal rules are unnecessary, arguing that states already regulate hydraulic fracturing, in which water, sand and chemicals are in injected underground to break up dense rock that holds oil and gas. Critics say the chemicals have polluted water supplies, but supporters say there is no proof...more

Ranchers, Rangers to saw up cattle - Enviros want cabin burned down

Three rangers and three ranchers headed up a mountain near Aspen on Thursday to carve up cattle found frozen in a cabin before the carcasses thaw and contaminate a popular hot springs nearby. Bill Kight of the U.S. Forest Service said the group planned to cut up the remains and scatter them over a wide area in an effort to draw bears and mountain lions away. "It would be like predators having a buffet," Kight said.The cabin is located less than 100 feet from the Conundrum Hot Springs, a popular camping area and a nine-mile hike from the Aspen area in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness area. The animals came from a herd of 29 cows that went missing last fall from the nearby Gunnison National Forest where the rancher had a permit. An aerial search failed to turn up any sign of the animals. Kight declined to identify the rancher, saying the owner did all he could to round up the animals. Kight said no one knows what happened to the other cows. Michael Carroll, a spokesman for the Wilderness Society in Colorado, said environmentalists would prefer removing the cattle and burning down the building because it's located in a wilderness area, but Kight said that would require an environmental assessment that could be too expensive. "We just don't have the funds to do it right now," he said...more 

All the Wilderness Society cares about is getting rid of the last vestiges of man.

Third-deadliest U.S. food outbreak was preventable, experts say

On a sunny morning early last September, Susanna Gaxiola fed her husband a healthy breakfast of fresh cantaloupe in their Albuquerque, New Mexico, home. Her husband, Rene, a Pentecostal pastor and minister, had been fighting a rare blood cancer and he was eating fresh cantaloupe and other fruit daily.
Around the same time, Paul Schwarz ate fresh cantaloupe in his home in Independence, Missouri. Though 92 years old, Schwarz was still active and healthy, and ate fresh fruit often. And Dr. Mike Hauser, a podiatrist, also ate fresh cantaloupe with his family in Monument, Colorado. Hauser, 68, had been fighting myeloma, a blood cancer, but he was recovering well, even planning a bow-hunting trip in the mountains.
Within days or weeks of eating the cantaloupe, all three men became horribly sick, and all eventually died painful deaths. Their deaths were directly caused by the cantaloupe, which was contaminated with the deadly bacteria Listeria, according to health officials. After a months-long investigation surrounding the outbreak, CNN has found serious gaps in the federal food safety net meant to protect American consumers of fresh produce, a system that results in few or no government inspections of farms and with only voluntary guidelines of how fresh produce can be kept safe...more

Song Of The Day #828

Today's song on Ranch Radio is Knocking At Your Door by Hank Locklin.

 The tune was recorded in May of 1949 in Houston.




Vilsack promises new animal ID rule


A proposal to strengthen the tracking of U.S. cattle has been sent to the White House for a fast-track review, after a case of mad cow disease was discovered in California and spurred calls for a more stringent system.“We have a lot of confidence in a rule we think will work,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters Friday in Washington. He said he hopes the Office of Management and Budget will approve the new animal-identification plan quickly.Routine testing recently uncovered the nation’s fourth case of mad cow disease in a dairy animal at a rendering facility in central California. The discovery spurred fresh calls for increased monitoring of the U.S. meat supply. A nationwide animal identification system that would let officials track sick livestock back to their farms of origin — and help identify other infected animals — has been promised by the Department of Agriculture since 2003, after the first BSE case surfaced. Cattle futures plummeted 22 percent in the week after the announcement, and beef exports didn’t top 2003 levels until 2010.A voluntary animal ID plan was abandoned in 2010 after some ranchers refused to participate, citing cost and concerns the proposed registry would give competitors proprietary information.The rule Vilsack referred to, which the USDA proposed in August, would require registration and tagging of livestock moved between states, with guidelines tailored to different species. It would be put in place gradually, applying first to older animals in the U.S. cattle herd.The case shows the U.S. surveillance system is working, according to the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization and the World Organisation for Animal Health.
The case shouldn’t affect the U.S. status of “controlled risk” for BSE, the Paris-based intergovernmental animal health group, known by its French acronym OIE, wrote in an emailed statement. “This detection demonstrates that the national surveillance system is efficient,” the OIE said. “This case should not have implications for the current U.S. risk categorization.” The finding of the disease before it entered the food chain should reassure importers of U.S. beef, FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Juan Lubroth said by phone from Rome Wednesday. “The fact that the U.S. picked it up before it entered the food chain and the fact that they were transparent should give more confidence to the trading partners, not less,” Lubroth said...more

Import Rule Seen Weakening Mad Cow Safeguards, Group Says

A proposed U.S. Department of Agriculture rule designed to boost beef exports would ease some mad cow disease import restrictions and weaken protections against the illness, a coalition of 31 mostly farm and rancher groups said. Under the rule, proposed in March, the USDA would adopt the same criteria used by the World Organization for Animal Health to identify a country’s risk status for mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. This creates a loophole in which beef or cattle could be imported from nations that don’t have effective feed bans, the main U.S. safeguard against BSE, Bill Bullard, chief executive officer of R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America, said yesterday in an e-mail. “We were astounded that USDA would propose to further weaken our already weakened BSE protections,” Bullard said, a week after the agency announced that the nation’s first case of mad cow disease had been found in six years. The groups, which include ranchers in Kansas, Colorado, Nevada and other states along with the Center for Food Safety, have written to the USDA asking that the rule’s comment period, set to expire May 15, be extended for 60 days. Some trading partners have cited inconsistencies between U.S. and international standards as a reason to maintain restrictions on American beef imposed after the first U.S. mad-cow case in 2003. Bob McCan, vice president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the largest U.S. rancher group, said the proposed rule should be made final without delay. The proposal is “science-based,” something the cattlemen have been pushing for since the first U.S. BSE case almost a decade ago, he said...more

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Popular NM ghost town struck by tragedy set to reopen next week after restoration

A popular southwestern New Mexico ghost town, struck by the tragic and mysterious shooting death of its longtime owner, is reopening to the public after being closed nearly a year. Steins Railroad Ghost Town will formally reopen May 11, said Melissa Lamoree, granddaughter of the late Larry Link. Lamoree, 29, said the family has been raising money and working to restore the old western town near the Arizona border to its original state. They want to keep it running because it reminds them of happier times, she said. “My grandfather put so much work into this ghost town,” Lamoree said. “Instead of focusing on how he died, we wanted to remember the happy moments that this place brought him and share that with everyone.” Larry Link bought Steins in 1988 with his wife, Linda, and gave private tours. He was shot and killed last June at age 68, in what state police believe may have been a robbery gone wrong. Police said a semi-trailer used for storage on the property appeared to have been broken into, with items from inside strewn on the ground. Steins, once populated with 1,300 people, was largely abandoned by the mid-1940s after the railroad stopped delivering water. It is about 80 miles north of Mexico in New Mexico’s Hidalgo County. Steins is among many ghost towns, managed publically and privately, that dot the southern New Mexico landscape. The town was once a bustling mining and railroad town, which survived on water freighted in by the Southern Pacific and had competing bordellos. Before he bought the ghost town, Larry Link ran a rattlesnake farm and had worked as a butcher and in the grocery business in Arizona, family said...more

Tularosa marks 144th 'Solemn Promise'

The St. Francis de Paula Fiesta continues a series of events today through Sunday for its 144th annual commemoration celebrating the historic founding events of the St. Francis de Paula Church in 1865.
The fiesta begins tonight with a recitation of a rosary at 6 p.m. at the base of Round Mountain, an almost perfect cone-shaped mountain landmark between Tularosa and Bent on U.S. 70 where an armed conflict between the Apache and the first settlers of Tularosa took place. According to history, the settlers in that battle vowed to memorialize their survival with a "Solemn Promise" by building a church dedicated to St. Francis de Paula. Since then, the parish communities of Bent, Mescalero and Tularosa acknowledge the close relationship between the people that has evolved over the last 144 years. Following the battle, in which only one person was killed, families have intermarried and traded; schools have shared students and teachers; and churches have held services for marriages, baptisms and deaths for members of all three communities. After a mass at 5 p.m. Saturday, a traditional processional will be enacted in ancient choreography in a form unique to Tularosa. This is a Matachine dance and is carried out by circling the church with the statue of the saint and traditional costumed Matachine danzantes accompany a young lady selected from the first communion. It is led with drums in a dance found throughout Mexico and New Mexico tracing back hundreds of years. The form that has evolved in Tularosa has been passed from one generation to the next. The number of danzantes participating has been growing in recent years and the costumes are becoming more elaborate...more

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Note to readers

I give a presentation tomorrow on wilderness and national monuments and another presentation to Congressman Pearce's Forum on Friday, so posts on The Westerner may be kinda scarce.

Behind ‘Fakegate’

The centerpiece of Mr. Gleick’s counterfeit cornucopia was an alleged insider memo outlining plans to stop teachers from “teaching science,” and to “undermine” reports from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The memo also claimed the Charles G. Koch Foundation was funding Heartland’s climate-change efforts. None of this was true, but it didn’t stop Mr. Gleick from loading his “smoking gun.” Unfortunately for him, his ammunition turned out to be blanks. Computer forensic work showed that the memo couldn’t have come from any Heartland computers. It references only the documents that Mr. Gleick stole (a theft which he later was forced to admit). It also contains factual errors that no one at Heartland would have made. So why create this spectacularly inept forgery that has come to be known as “Fakegate”? It seems to be an obvious attempt to build a counterversion of “Climategate,” a genuine scandal that erupted when emails from the University of East Anglia were leaked in 2009 and 2011. They showed that certain scientists were manipulating data that didn’t support the left’s climate-change agenda and were blackballing scientists who refused to go along with that agenda. Climategate gave the radical environmental movement a well-deserved and very public black eye - and apparently, a thirst for revenge. Is “Fakegate” the extremists’ way of admitting that they cannot compete in the environmental debate on a level playing field? The polls aren’t going their way. Nor is the science. In the face of all this, has it just become too much work for them to engage in a fair fight over the facts? Considering that the odds of them winning a fair fight get longer every day, it appears that the answer is yes...more

Horse racing industry backs New Mexico reforms

The horse racing industry Wednesday lined up behind a proposal to adopt tougher oversight and penalties at New Mexico's tracks, which were recently identified as having the worst safety record in the nation. Horse and track owners and a jockey's union were among those who spoke in support of a New Mexico Racing Commission proposal to adopt model regulations developed by the Association of Racing Commissioners International. No one spoke against the reforms. The meeting Wednesday focused on penalties and restrictions for the illegal doping of horses, but Commission Chairman Rob Doughty said it is just " the first step in a long series of reforms" the commission would like to make "to send a message that the state of New Mexico does not allow cheaters." Although the commission said it wants to join ARCI and move toward more uniform, consistent national standards, it is initially focused on penalties for illegal doping under the ARCI rules. One key change is that horse owners could for the first time be held responsible for the actions of trainers. Also under the proposed rules, violations by trainers and owners in other states could be considered under rules that set penalties based on the number of previous offenses...more

The Next "Dancing With Stars" (video)

New Bill Would Preserve Clean Water Act

The American Farm Bureau Federation this week asked members of Congress to support H.R. 4965, a bill that would preserve existing U.S. water rights and responsibilities to the Clean Water Act. The bipartisan bill was introduced by Reps. John Mica (R-Fla.), Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio). According to AFBF, H.R. 4965 does not alter the Clean Water Act, but it merely reaffirms longstanding provisions in the law. It would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers from pursuing the agencies’ proposed Final Guidance on Identifying Waters Protected by the Clean Water Act and from using it as a basis for regulation. “In Farm Bureau’s view, the agencies’ proposal improperly changes the law of the land,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman in a letter to House members. “The Guidance effectively eliminates the term ‘navigable’ from the Clean Water Act. It dramatically expands the scope of federal jurisdiction under the act and virtually eliminates a central precept of the act, which reserves certain waters to the exclusive jurisdiction of the states.” Allowing the agencies to pursue the Final Guidance raises three critical considerations: (1) whether the law permits such a major policy shift to be pursued through guidance; (2) whether the agencies are exceeding the authority granted them by Congress; and (3) the profound impact this policy change would have on the economic health of the agricultural sector, which is vital to assuring a thriving national economy that produces jobs and raises living standards for all Americans. “The Guidance expands jurisdiction well beyond the words and intent of Congress and the limits affirmed by the Supreme Court,” continued Stallman. “While Farm Bureau would be concerned if the proposed policy were advanced through a rule-making, for EPA and the Corps to implement such a significant change to the Clean Water Act through guidance is indefensible. The issues raised by the guidance should be decided by elected officeholders on Capitol Hill. In the absence of congressional approval, the agencies should not move forward and assert federal regulatory power – especially through an informal guidance document – where Congress has not approved such a step.” Press Release

Song Of The Day #827


Ranch Radio's song today is Down At The Roadside Inn by Al Dexter.

The tune was recorded in Fort Worth on March 4, 1941 and that's Cecil Brower on the fiddle break.

Utah County puts agricultural-protection zone in path of Provo river delta

The Utah County Commission voted 2-0 Tuesday to create an agricultural protection zone in west Provo, where the federal Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission has proposed creating a new, June sucker-friendly outlet for the river. The delta, a fan of sediment with meandering channels and pools, would offer warm, shallow water and plants that would serve as a nursery for June sucker larvae. Utah Lake is its only native habitat. But critics say the project will destroy farmland by both turning land into a swamp while diverting water away from other landowners. The agricultural protection zone won’t necessarily stop the project, proponents say. It will force the federal government to conduct additional public meetings and require a commission vote to lift the zone...more

Trout's ear bone reveals its life travels

Like a tree’s concentric growth rings, a small bone within a fish’s ear reveals a history of its growth. And according to a new study of westslope cutthroat trout in the Flathead River system, the bone also contains a record of its migration pathways – a kind of geochemical diary of its life. The bone, called an otolith, acquires a new ring every day of the fish’s life. All fish have them, and for decades scientists have counted the bands of the bone to determine the age of a fish, as well as estimate population growth. But a study published last week by a slate of Montana researchers in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences brings to light new information that the ear bones also contain a unique fingerprint of the water chemistry where the fish swims on a given day, which can be used to map the entire life history of a fish within a river network. When a fish leaves its natal stream and begins its life cycle, it drifts between geographically separate spawning and rearing beds, and embarks on the occasional foray to distant waters within a river system. During these sojourns, the fish absorbs the unique combination of isotopes and chemical elements contained within the water, and the otolith records them like a passport stamp. “It worked so well. The values in the water matched those in the otoliths, which grow like rings in a tree,” said Clint Muhlfeld, an aquatic ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Glacier Park field office and lead author of the study. “As fish grow and move into new environments, the otoliths record that information and we matched that with stream statistics to reconstruct the entire life cycle of a fish.”...more

20 Years for Standing Her Ground

"I got five baby mammas, and I put my hands on every last one of them except for one," Rico Gray confessed during a November 2010 deposition. "The way I was with women…they had to walk on eggshells around me." He recalled punching women in the face, shoving them, choking them, and tossing them out the door. Yet somehow, after one of those women fired a warning shot into the ceiling of her Jacksonville, Florida, home to scare him away during yet another violent outburst, prosecutors managed to convince a jury that Gray was the victim. As a result, Marissa Alexander, a 31-year-old mother of three, faces 20 years in prison for standing her ground against an abusive husband. Gray has been arrested twice for domestic battery, including an assault that sent Alexander to the hospital. In September 2009 Alexander obtained a protective order against Gray that was still in effect on August 1, 2010, when he flew into a jealous rage after discovering, while poking through her cellphone, that she had sent pictures of their newborn daughter to her first husband. Alexander was in the master bathroom at the time, and Gray tried to force his way in. When she came out, he screamed and cursed at her while preventing her from leaving the bedroom. "I was like forcing her back with my body," reported Gray, who is seven inches taller than Alexander and outweighs her by 100 pounds.  When Alexander managed to get by, she ran through the kitchen to the garage, where she says she realized she did not have the keys to her car, could not call for help because she had left her cellphone behind, and could not escape because the garage door was not working. Instead she grabbed her handgun from her car and headed back through the kitchen, where Gray confronted her again...more