Like good Christians, most thoughtful Americans have readily admitted that our current state is always one subject to improvement. Why else would the preamble to the Constitution underscore that the document’s purpose is to establish the arc of our shared journey toward “a more perfect union”—or, for that matter, why would so many voters believe the...
Read More
For the second time since the onset of cold weather, on the same morning walk with my son to the bus stop, a dead raven lies immobile down in the next block in the strip of gravel between the street and the sidewalk—the utilitarian zone that many people call, appropriately enough, the “death strip.” The lightest possible dusting of snow encrusts the...
Read More
The dark-eyed juncos have moved in in force, hopping around on the bare dirt beneath the bird feeder. They tend to have a greater fondness to feeding on the ground than the finches and chickadees and house sparrows that perch up high. Or maybe it’s just that the latter species—full-time locals—are more brash and don’t make way for the more diffident...
Read More
I well remember standing down at Imperial Dam all those years ago, a budding journalist, and thinking: this is going to be interesting. I meant Arizona. I meant the Southwest. I meant me, in the Southwest. But deep down what I really meant was that I wanted to live in a story. It was winter, and the camping was perfect. My friend Tim and I went for a fast...
Read More
A tourist descending the Kaibab Plateau toward Marble Canyon on Sept. 22 could have been forgiven for thinking there was a rock concert taking place somewhere down in the House Rock Valley, or maybe some sort of Colorado Plateau Burning Man knock-off, for the line of cars raising dust along the Wire Pass road was of a magnitude that had rarely, if ever,...
Read More