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Recent Posts
- The Year Without a Winter (in the Southwest): 2025-2026
- How To Write a Book About the Wind: On Simon Winchester’s “The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind”
- Ten Years Left of Humanity, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the A.I. Bomb: On Two Visions of the Upcoming A.I. Apocalypse: Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares’ “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” and Mustafa Suleyman’s “The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future”
- On Yasunari Kawabata’s “The Lake” and the Pleasures of “Old” Books:
- Bobcats Not in Bad Decline: CivilWarLand Is Here, and Bobcats Are Invading
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Tag Archives: The West
The Year Without a Winter (in the Southwest): 2025-2026
So here’s a story that hasn’t been featured much in the news media: The Southwest has had a pitiful winter so far—parched and warm. It’s drier than a tumbleweed here in south-central Colorado. And it’s worse elsewhere south and west … Continue reading
Posted in 2025-26 Drought, Climate Change, Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, The West, The Year Without a Summer, Uncategorized, Weird Weather
Tagged 2025-26 Drought, Climate Change, Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, The West, The Year Without a Summer
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Bobcats Not in Bad Decline: CivilWarLand Is Here, and Bobcats Are Invading
So my title today is a nod to my writer-friend’s excellent book of stories, George Saunders’s CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (of which I have a rare first edition). With all the ICE chaos and MAGA mayhem it’s a relief to … Continue reading
Posted in Bobcats, Photography, The West, Uncategorized, Wildlife
Tagged Bobcats, The West, Wildlife photgraphy
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Aliens Among Us: Probing Hillbillies and Freaking Shut-ins, How Netflix’s “Encounters” and Hulu’s “No One Will Save You” Prep Us for the Coming Alien Apocalypse, Kind of
So with the Congressional hearings on the little-green-somethings formerly known as UFOs (now called UAPs) and crazyass whatnot we should all be aware the Alien Apocalypse is soon upon us—imagine old geezer croaking “The end is nigh”—and there are two … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alien Abductions, Hulu's No One Will Save You, Netflix's Encounters, The West
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Shocking Bird Population Decline as in The Bird Saviors
So for years I’ve been reading about and studying Climate Change (though I do find Global Weirding to be witty and accurate), for various reasons, some of them personal of course: I have a daughter who will live in this … Continue reading
Posted in Birding, books/film, Climate Change, The West, writing
Tagged Birding, Climate Change, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, The Bird Saviors, The West, Wildfires
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The West Is Burning: On Michael Kodas's "Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame"
So after having owned a home in Custer County, Colorado (Go Wildcats!) for fifteen years and having been a frequent visitor to the Rockies since 1978—the year of my first trip to Yellowstone—I’m both fascinated by and have a fear … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, The West, Weird Weather
Tagged Book Reviewing, Climate Change, Drought, Michael Kodas's Megafire, The West, Wildfires
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Review of Kent Haruf's "Our Souls at Night" as Tribute to the New Film Version Starring Jane Fonda and Robert Redford
So two years ago Kent Haruf published his last terrific novel, Our Souls at Night, which I reviewed for the Dallas Morning News, and as a tie-in and tribute of sorts, the DMN has republished my review today, which can … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film, The West, Uncategorized
Tagged Book Reviewing, Film, Good Fiction, Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night, The Bird Saviors, The West
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Review of Gabriel Tallent's "My Absolute Darling" in the Dallas Morning News
So my review of Gabriel Tallent’s debut novel, My Absolute Darling, appears in the Dallas Morning News today, and can be found here. The marketing of this novel seems odd: The combination of its sweet title, the brightly colored branches … Continue reading
Posted in books, The West
Tagged Book Reviewing, Gabriel Tallent's My Absolute Darling, The West
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Hurricane Harvey Hits Home Town, Like I Predicted in "Goodnight, Texas"
So my misspent years in high school were dithered away in the Texas coastal town of Rockport, which appears to have been the epicenter of Hurricane Harvey’s landfall last night. Back in 2006 Unbridled Books published my novel Goodnight, Texas … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film, Climate Change, The West
Tagged Climate Change, Fiction Writing, Goodnight, Texas, The Bird Saviors, The West
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In the Country of "No Country for Old Men" and On the Trail of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian": What I Did for My Summer Vacation
So late July found me (and my family) in (mythical) Cormac McCarthy country, at the Three River Petroglyph site near Three Rivers, New Mexico, which is a cool (and hot) place to be. We camped there for three days, watching … Continue reading
Kayaking the Flathead River, Glacier National Park, Montana: What I Did for My Summer Vacation
So I feel sorry for my lonely blog in the summer months, as I’m scrambling around the country and doing various other things than spending time on the computer, but I’m back at work (and on my laptop) once again … Continue reading