Month: December 2018
Take it or Leave it: The Zephyr’s Unwinnable Fight with Facebook…by Jim Stiles
*With contributions from Tonya Stiles First, let’s get something straight. Everything…everything…that facebook does is for the money. For profit. Facebook—and I will henceforth use the pronoun ‘It’ to describe the company— is concerned with profits and nothing more. It doesn’t…
Sowing Clover: Better Living With Plastics…by Tonya Morton
The main thing to remember about capitalism is that companies will always try to make you feel better about buying their product. It’s easy to be seduced by advertising—believing that buying one type of soda pop makes you a better…
IN SEARCH OF COMMON GROUND: KUED PRODUCER TALKS ABOUT HER FILM ‘BATTLE OVER BEARS EARS’…by Bill Keshlear
“Battle Over Bears Ears” is a one-hour documentary produced by KUED in Salt Lake City. According to the station’s website, it “explores the deep connections to place and the vast cultural divides that are fueling the fight over how the…
Vlachos’ Views: Neon & Betamax Ghosts…Words and Photos by Paul Vlachos
Paul Vlachos is a New Yorker who understands The West. And he is a New Yorker who understands New York. Wherever Paul goes, he finds signs of life… As soon as you click the camera shutter on a photograph, your…
AN INTERVIEW WITH KAY SHUMWAY: A Life in San Juan County & beyond…with Jim Stiles
PROLOGUE: For the past several years San Juan County, Utah and its citizens, especially the white Mormon residents of Blanding and Monticello, have been the subject of much scrutiny. From local media attacks to national coverage, many of the county’s…
Bears Ears Brinkmanship: With Friends Like These, Does Cedar Mesa Need Enemies?…by Stacy Young
In large part, my personal opposition to a large new national monument in San Juan County was always based on a straightforward risk assessment of the likely consequences under “monument” versus “no monument” scenarios. On the one hand, it seemed…
Buster Scruggs & Me: Life as an Extra on the Coen Brothers’ New Film…by Mary Donahue
“People are so easily distracted. So I’m the distractor…with a little story. People can’t get enough of them because, well, people connect the stories to themselves, I suppose. And we all love hearing about ourselves so long as the people…
Take it or Leave it: A SLOPPY JOURNALISM POSTSCRIPT (CNN/PBS) AND A GLIMMER OF HOPE (KUED)…by Jim Stiles
On November 12, KUED, the public television station in Salt Lake City, premiered a one hour documentary titled “The Battle Over Bears Ears.” In 2017, producer Nancy Green and her crew came to San Juan County and spent weeks there,…
RANGER STILES’ WILDLIFE OBSERVATION NOTES #1 (Arches NP 1975-1986)…by Jim Stiles
(photos by the author except where noted) Author’s Note: For more than three years , I have spent most of my keyboard time writing “informational/investigative” long form articles (some might suggest ‘long-winded’) about excruciatingly serious topics…Moab politics, San Juan County politics,…