The Zephyr Backbone Needs Our Readers’ Support

Hunter Thompson once wrote, “It’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity.”

But the dumber and more ‘hag-ridden’ and complacent the media becomes, and the more it embraces “stagnant mediocrity,” the safer its bottom line remains. There’s the rub.

The Zephyr works hard to avoid these labels, regardless of the “bottom line,” and we think we’ve mostly succeeded. But our efforts come at a cost. Corporations and other “Big Money” aren’t very fond of our little cyber rag. That’s why we depend on the financial support of our readers via your modest contributions.

“No…but I can tell you where it was.”

And more than any other publication in southeast Utah, we continue to chronicle the history of the places and people who once made the Colorado Plateau such an interesting place to live. I am slowly working through thousands of new images, taken in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, by Herb Ringer, Edna Fridley, and Charles Kreischer. The collections are priceless and we hope you feel the same. Our plan is to share them with you. And after 30 years in the canyon country, my collection of images is slowly being archived as well.

And look for a new feature, “The Way it Was in Moab This Morning,” as I transport myself into Moab’s past and report on a much simpler time. In the current issue I found myself in the middle of the very hot summer of 1936. While much has changed since then, you’d be amazed how much the politics have not.