CNFR - Round One - Sunday performance

Bronc Riding

Steve Hacker reride

Breakaway

Staci Stanbrough 2.3 seconds (so far the second fastest time)
Jessica Siva 4.0
Carleigh Marr NS

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

No true West in New York City

by Julie Carter

We who live on the sunset side of this country tend to forget there is a great big world out there that has absolutely no idea what the West really is.

True West magazine hit the "big time news" (their own words) when they became the topic of review by MediaPost's "Magazine Rack."

Headquartered in New York City, you have to surmise this was an adventure for the writer that began as soon as she flipped open the glossy cover of the magazine and proceeded thumbing through the pages.

Her journey commenced with the True West's reputable variety of Western features, illustrations, photos and travel opportunities.

"We get the occasional cowboy," New York writer Fern Siegel said in her review, "but he tends to be more Village People than Buffalo Bill. That's not counting the Naked Cowboy, who corrals Times Square in his underwear."

Siegel lives in downtown Manhattan and claims the Empire State Building as her "true north"-- a world foreign to the real cowboy as illustrated by Siegel's use of Buffalo Bill as a measure of authenticity. The reference to the Naked Cowboy is pure entertainment without any serious evidence of anything more.

A NYC icon, the Naked Cowboy is some dude who performs on Times Square wearing only his BVDs, boots and hat, with a guitar strategically placed to give the illusion of nudity.

Now he is licensed to perform marriages. For a mere $499, you can get hitched by Reverend Naked Cowboy in Times Square.

With acerbic wit, Siegel winds through True West magazine's history, then down a trail to that particular issue's overviews of "extreme historic getaways."

She skeptically doubts the validity of the term "eco-tour" listed on the description of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge train ride. For her, the giveaway was in the photo that showed, as she put it, "black steam belching coal dust in the pristine sky."

However, she was enlightened with the offering of an Arizona Cowboy College in Scottsdale where "hopefuls learned roping, shoeing and horsemanship."

Siegel's fascination was captured with a feature about the fight for Geronimo's remains and his great-grandson's argument to have them returned from Fort Sill, Okla. to Silver City, N.M., per Geronimo's wishes.

In her written tour through other parts of the magazine, Siegel recognizes True West Executive Editor Bob Boze Bell's desire for historical accuracy, the same that he touts on his "True West Moments" show on Encore's Westerns Channel.

Siegel points out instances in Western movies that might cause Bell's factual meter to quiver.

"I'm guessing the washboard abs and over-pumped biceps Brad Pitt sports whenever he swaggers onto a horse in Ralph Lauren chaps or Clint Eastwood's precision beard, which has clearly made friends with Hammacher Schlemmer's $400 electric razor, are two quibbles," she wrote. "There could be more."

Siegel said the magazine was the "real McCoy" for aficionados. I took that to mean, in the realm of her New York knowledge, it was the real deal ... if you like that kind of stuff.

Remember those popular Pace Picante ads where the Southwestern cowboys made fun of the greenhorn who bought salsa that came from New York City?

While my intent is not to belittle Siegel's review of the magazine, I do find a hint of disdain buried in the flow of her verbiage. So, it was with great delight that I noted the listing of her title at MediaPost. "Deputy Editor."

In the merriment of the moment, I paused to wonder if that position came with a tin star badge; the signature of lawmen of the West.

Nah, not from New York City. Get a rope!

Julie can be reached for comment jcarter@tularsoa.net.

"Ladies' Night" at bars ruled illegal

It's a bastion of bar culture: "Ladies' Night," staged to attract female customers by cutting their drink prices and cover charges. It's also illegal gender discrimination, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. The department charged this week that by having ladies' nights, five Twin Cities establishments denied men the right to "full and equal enjoyment" of their businesses. "Gender-based pricing violates the [state] Human Rights Act," Commissioner James Kirkpatrick said in a statement...more

What they will be doing is denying men "full and equal enjoyment" of the women who don't show up because of the higher prices.

Thus we will have another government-created shortage, and in this case, a darn serious one.

When the shortage becomes severe, the Obama administration will come up with some kind of subsidy for the women who are priced out of the bar...er...market.

Subsidies always end up producing an oversupply, so...this may be a damned good policy after all!

QUESTION: I still haven't figured out what the subsidy should be called, nor which agency in the government would administer it. Any ideas out there?

So, the government can't run a cemetery either

Read the sad, but not surprising news about Arlington National Cemetery here.

Health care and energy are next.

Rafting guide saves 13 yr. old girl; Sheriff arrests him for his efforts

Clear Creek sheriff's deputies on Thursday arrested a rafting guide for swimming to a stranded young rafter who had tumbled from his boat on Clear Creek. Ryan Daniel Snodgrass, a 28-year-old guide with Arkansas Valley Adventures rafting company, was charged with "obstructing government operations," said Clear Creek Sheriff Don Krueger. "He was told not to go in the water, and he jumped in and swam over to the victim and jeopardized the rescue operation," said Krueger, noting that his office was deciding whether to file similar charges against another guide who was at the scene just downstream of Kermitts Roadhouse on U.S. 6. Duke Bradford, owner of Arkansas Valley Adventures, said Snodgrass did the right thing by contacting the 13-year-old Texas girl immediately and not waiting for the county's search and rescue team to assemble ropes, rafts and rescuers. Bradford said he would expect his guides to do the same thing again. His guides are professionals, he said, trained and certified in swiftwater rescue. "To jump into water and navigate a river in a swiftwater rescue is common. You get into the river and swim. You have to do it," Branford said. "The fact these guys don't understand that is disturbing. Making contact immediately with your victim is essential. It's not about who is in charge. It's about the safety of a 13-year-old girl. You are going to do everything in your power to insure the safety of your guest, and if that means in Idaho Springs you get arrested, well I guess we'll just get arrested."...more

Simple rule to learn: Embarrass the government - Go to jail.

ACLU Sues to See Fed E-Mail Spying Records

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the federal government on Thursday seeking documents on what it calls an unconstitutional law that gives the executive branch power to collect Americans' international e-mails and phone records without a warrant or suspicion of wrongdoing. The lawsuit, which challenges the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, was filed in Federal Court against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Justice Department, the National Security Agency and the Defense Department. The ACLU wants access to records concerning how the spying law is being used, how many Americans are affected and what safeguards are in place to prevent abuse. "News reports suggest that the government has used its FAA powers to collect U.S. citizens' and residents' international communications by the millions and has used the FAA improperly to collect purely domestic communications," the 29-page lawsuit states. Under the temporary law, which expires in 2012, the attorney general, the director of National Intelligence and the Inspectors General are required to produce periodic reports that assess the "interception, analysis and dissemination of U.S. citizens' and residents' communications under the law." But the ACLU says at least six months have elapsed since it filed FOIA requests for those reports. The government has not released any records requested by the ACLU on the matter, according to the complaint...more

Record settlement for NY man framed by 'Mafia cop'

The city on Thursday agreed to pay $9.9 million to an innocent man who spent 19 years behind bars after being framed by a notorious New York Police Department detective who doubled as killer for the mob. The settlement for Barry Gibbs set a record for a civil rights lawsuit against the city. The previous high - $8 million - went to a man left paralyzed when he was shot by a police officer in 1999. "We have agreed to settle this case and believe it is in the best interest of all parties," the city Law Department said in a statement. In a phone interview, Gibbs said he plans to spend some of the money on medical bills and on his grandchildren's college education. "I had my freedom taken away from me and now I have it back," Gibbs said. "I'm going to live each day like it's my last." The wrongful conviction of Gibbs, a 61-year-old one-time postal worker, was a disturbing footnote to the sensational case of former detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, the so-called "Mafia cops."...more

Song Of The Day #333

Ranch Radio's Gospel tune this Sunday morning is Show Me The Way by Governor Jimmie Davis.

Senate backs Obama on EPA's CO2 authority

President Obama won a big victory Thursday when Democratic senators upheld the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to combat global warming by regulating greenhouse gases. Supporters of the EPA's powers under the Clean Air Act garnered the votes of 53 senators while 47 senators - all 41 Republicans and six Democrats - backed the resolution by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to override the agency. Murkowski contended that the issue was "whether Congress or unelected bureaucrats of EPA should set climate policy for this country." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., accused the Obama administration of "going around the legislative branch and imposing this massive job-killing tax on Americans through an unaccountable agency." Obama praised the Senate's vote and said it kept the nation from going "backward to the same failed policies that have left our nation increasingly dependent on foreign oil." The White House earlier had threatened to veto the measure if it reached the president's desk...more

The most recent example of a disturbing trend - the legislative branch delegating it's authority to the executive. Whatever happened to the separation of powers? This is one of the dangers when one party controls both branches.

In this case the Dems don't care about such constitutional niceties; they just want to use the threat of EPA regs to force cap and trade legislation on the public.

Lawsuit Targets Harmful Public-lands Livestock Subsidy

Today the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, and Oregon Natural Desert Association sued the Departments of Interior and Agriculture to compel them to respond to a 2005 rulemaking petition that seeks to increase the fee for livestock grazing across 258 million acres of federal public land. “The federal grazing program is as fiscally irresponsible as it is ecologically harmful,” said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigns director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “In responding to our petition, the government must now choose between correcting and continuing the subsidized destruction of America’s public land.” "Given the massive budget shortfall our country is facing, we can no longer afford to subsidize a small group of ranchers to graze public lands at public expense," said Mark Salvo, director of the Sagebrush Sea Campaign for WildEarth Guardians. Although the Administrative Procedures Act requires the government to respond to rulemaking petitions, the Departments of Interior and Agriculture have not responded to plaintiff’s 2005 petition. Today’s lawsuit seeks that response...press release

A Ban On Truth

The advisory board on offshore drilling says it never endorsed a moratorium, which was added later by the interior secretary. The only thing transparent about this administration is its lies. Experts brought together by the Obama administration to review offshore drilling safety were asked to review recommendations in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. They did not give their blessing to the six-month drilling moratorium announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and have accused him of deliberately appending their report to make it seem like they did. According to the New Orleans Times Picayune, Salazar's May 27 report to the president said the seven experts "peer reviewed" his recommendations, including a six-month ban on drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet. The experts say the report they reviewed suggested stopping only new drilling in waters deeper than 1,000 feet. The reviewers for Salazar's report were provided by the National Academy of Engineering. Their joint letter says that while they agreed with the report's various safety recommendations, "we do not agree with the six-month blanket moratorium on floating drilling. A moratorium was added after the final review and was never agreed to by the contributors."..more

Army to increase troop training at Piñon Canyon

The U.S. Army intends to increase its level of training at the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS), Fort Carson Garrison Commander Col. Robert McLaughlin announced at Tuesday’s meeting of the Las Animas County commissioners. The PCMS is a 237,000-acre Army training site acre with an entrance located about 26 miles to the northeast of Trinidad. The increase in training levels at the PCMS, McLaughlin said, is part of a new training program at Fort Carson called Vision 2020. “Within that visions, we’re balancing what we need to do to train our soldiers for deployment,” he said. “The vision is to use the terrain at PCMS in its current state to get more soldiers and equipment down there to train.” Adding, “As long as I’ve been here, that’s been the focus. There has not been a focus on expansion of PCMS. The focus is completely on using the terrain as it stands to increase our training and community partnership.” Pressed by Commissioner Gary Hill, however, McLaughlin declined to declare future expansion attempts at PCMS “off the table” for the Army...more

Tester to post counter-proposal to forest bill draft that chopped logging

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester has dismissed a proposed rewrite of his forest bill as "dead on arrival," and promised to publicly post his counteroffer that is expected next week. "We wanted to make sure they knew if this bill got released to the public, if it got through another channel, they need not be worried," Tester said. "This bill was not my idea. When it comes out of committee as screwed up as this bill was, why release a dead bill to anybody else?" A discussion draft of Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act started making rounds in Montana last week. The new version was written by staff of the Senate Energy Committee, and proposes significant changes to Tester's bill. Tester's staff and an Energy Committee spokesman declined to release the draft to the media. Tester defended that decision, saying he was not authorized to publicize legislation crafted by someone else, including committee staff working on a new version of his own bill. He did pledge to post all his own proposed changes to his bills on his Senate website in the future. The discussion draft isn't signed or attributed to any committee senator or staff member, and committee spokesman Bill Wicker said he works for committee chairman Jeff Bingaman, but would not say who developed the language in the May 24 draft. He did say the committee staff is a bipartisan group overseen by the Democratic and Republican chief legal counsels. "Normally this process happens every day at the staff level," Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy said. "They trade draft legislation back and forth, and none of that is technically public information in the Senate." Putting even Tester's own substitute amendments out to the public would be a significant break with Senate practice, Murphy said. Tester's next counter-proposal should be available in a few days or weeks, he said...more

Groundbreaking grizzlies make it to Missouri

Two young grizzly bears spotted Tuesday evening near Floweree between Great Falls and Fort Benton probably are the first grizzlies in several decades to make it to the Missouri River, where the bears historically lived, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. Mike Martin, a FWP game warden captain, said the bears haven't attacked any livestock or caused other problems. "But we want people out recreating or living in the area to be observant," he said. As of Wednesday evening, the bears still were in the area, according to authorities. Mike Madel, a FWP grizzly bear management specialist, said the agency is monitoring the bears' movements but will not take any action unless the bears kill livestock. "They are in a relatively remote stretch of the Missouri between Great Falls and Fort Benton," he said. "It's possible they swim the river and get into the Highwood Mountains." It also is possible the grizzlies could reach the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, which is located on the Missouri River in northcentral Montana...more

Agreement fuels Klamath discord

Don Boyd, a third-generation farm equipment dealer in Merrill, Ore., has watched the water crisis in the Klamath Basin decimate the area's economy. "People that work for me aren't going to movies," he told the Oregon Board of Agriculture at a recent meeting in Klamath Falls. "They aren't eating out as much. "This is devastating to this community," Boyd said. Sales of tractors, balers and windrowers are down 66 percent at Floyd A. Boyd Co., he said. And business in his service department is off 55 percent. In addition, he said, the "can-do" attitude and the unity that once permeated the area is harder to find. "I have two kids and I'm telling them not to come back to Klamath Falls," Boyd said. From a conflicted citizenry to conflicting biological opinions for three endangered fish -- one calling for water managers to keep water in Klamath Lake and another calling for managers to release the water -- the Klamath Basin these days is home to conflict...more

Johnson County Yak War?

Somewhere in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains, a herd of yaks are on the loose -- and are stirring up a political fight. For the past five years or so, a group of the woolly Asian bovines have frequently wandered off of John and Laura DeMatteis' Yak Daddy Ranch, irking neighboring ranchers who worry that they eat their grass and could mate with their cattle. In April, three neighboring ranchers convinced the Johnson County commissioners to pass an ordinance declaring "yaks at large" to be nuisance animals. When the DeMatteises' yaks escaped again late last month, the couple was slapped with a $750 fine. But because of a legal error, that resolution was subsequently pulled and the fine voided. The Johnson County attorney's office is now drawing up a new, corrected resolution. John DeMatteis and his wife Laura, a Republican candidate for state representative, have been raising yaks on their 300-acre ranch for about eight years, selling them for food, wool and to other yak farmers. "I needed an ag exemption on my property, and didn't want to do cattle, and bison are kind of a pain," he said. "So then somebody suggested yaks, and I looked into them, and it made perfect sense with my property."...more

Song Of The Day #332

Ranch Radio will close out it's look at 1962 with the #7 & #15 songs for the year.

It appears 1962 was not a good year for the love life of Porter Wagoner or Burl Ives as they made the charts with Misery Loves Company and A Little Bitty Tear.

Cowboy Down: Rob Krentz's Family Talks About the Life and Death of the Murdered Arizona Rancher

Sue Krentz answered the phone about 6 p.m. It was March 27, a Saturday, and she was in Phoenix, tending to her aged parents as a sister attended a conference. Sue usually doesn't stray from her family's venerable cattle ranch in Cochise County for too long at a stretch. But she was planning on staying through the weekend, as another sister was coming into town for a visit. She and Rob, her husband of 32 years, hadn't been on a vacation in years, what with endless tasks on the ranch, about 35 miles northeast of Douglas, Arizona, near the borders of New Mexico and Mexico. The call was from her 27-year-old son, Frank, who also works on Krentz Ranch. "We can't find Daddy," he told his mother. Sue last had spoken to Rob early that morning. He had told her he planned to check on some water lines on the sprawling property, an everyday responsibility to preserve the ranch's lifeblood. Sue packed her bags, jumped into her car, gassed up, and headed for home, trying not to panic. "We'd been shouting for years about the Mexican drug smugglers coming through our land," she tells New Times, the first time she has spoken publicly about that day. "Things are dangerous for ranchers and other residents. But I tried to convince myself that no one would ever hurt Rob, who was the kindest person you'd ever hope to meet." Sue got home just before midnight. Home is at Krentz Ranch headquarters, five bumpy miles up a dirt road off State Route 80, the major north-south route east of Douglas. She and Rob raised their three children in their modest adobe-and-plaster home, built around the turn of the 20th Century and where Rob himself was raised. Sue stepped outside into the chilly night to gather herself. The moon was nearly full, and the sky was flush with stars. A helicopter soon came into view, maybe ten miles away on the south side of Route 80. It circled around briefly before descending. Dread overwhelmed Sue. Within minutes, family members and friends sped up the road in their all-terrain vehicles with grim news. "Rob was dead, and someone had shot our dog Blue too," Sue says. "Blue was alive, but they had to put him down. He was a real good dog. How can I say this? There was evil out there that day."...more

Rancher Krentz was shot multiple times

Rancher Robert Krentz received multiple gunshot wounds when he was killed on his property in Cochise County March 27, according to an autopsy report. The report, by deputy medical examiner Avneesh Gupta, was released in response to a public-records request by the Arizona Daily Star. However, about half of the five pages are redacted. That's because those sections contained information known only to the killer and investigators, said Rod Rothrock, chief deputy of the Cochise County Sheriff's Office. Krentz was shot while checking water lines and fencing on his property. He had radioed that he was stopping on his ATV to assist an illegal immigrant he'd come across. After the shooting, neighbors and law enforcement officials followed tracks, apparently belonging to the killer, 20 miles south into Mexico...more

Wyoming approves 'fracking' disclosure rules

Despite industry opposition, state regulators unanimously approved new rules Tuesday requiring oil and gas companies to disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." Fracking is a technique used to crack gas-bearing rock formations deep underground to stimulate natural gas production. Environmental and public health advocates hailed the passage of the new reporting rules as a victory of public safety over corporate secrecy. Advocates for more stringent public disclosure of fracking fluids pointed out that not only can the chemicals leak into current and future drinking water sources underground, but the chemicals could spill during handling on the surface. Industry organizations and individual companies argued against the new rules, claiming the industry has a proven track record. That point is often countered by others who say lax reporting requirements prevent the public from knowing whether fracking has ever contaminated drinking water sources. Industry also argued that the chemical mixtures used in fracking are proprietary. In response, the commission provided language in the new rules that would require state regulators not to share certain information with the public if a company can prove it is proprietary...more