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Mama - don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.  . . .or risk a life of loneliness. Or so the song says. But cell phones and other technologies are changing that tune. Larry Hendricks of the Arizona Daily Sun provides a glimpse into 21^st Century ranch work, which has changed with the use of a variety of new technologies - from all-terrain vehicles to wireless communication. Isolated camps posted in ranch corners aren't necessary when you can put your horse on a truck trailer and "trailer" out to the site, Hendricks writes.

Cell phones have replaced hand-written notes nailed to camp doors, and all-terrain vehicles are more of a scourge to cattle than coyotes.  Some things haven't changed for those who love the ranch life, though. It's still a lot of hard work and a lot of fresh air.

If we are going to share the road, push the green commute and all, some motorists seriously are going to have to reconsider their attitude toward cyclists. That's what Bill Schneider concludes in New West, and as a longtime cyclist, I have to agree. He points out that the majority of drivers are courteous and get the "share the road" idea, but that a small but dangerous minority seem to viciously hate cyclists and go out of their way to show the hate by throwing bottles, veering close to cyclists at high speeds, yelling obscenities. You get the idea. Worse, speaking from personal experience, you never know when the haters are going to emerge from behind the wheel.

Those who share this point of view, or even sympathize with it, will be pointing out here that cyclists do stupid things.  Not all of them stop at all the stop signs, for example. Sometimes they inconvenience motorists by riding side-by-side in a lane. Highly annoying. Okay. But as Schneider points out, not all drivers obey 100 percent of the road rules. Think about it.  Have you ever seen a driver talking on a cell phone? Rolling through a stop sign? Running a red light? Should we throw missiles at the driver, swerve dangerously close or "tap"  him with our fenders just to each him a lesson? Would that fix things? We call that road rage. It's against the law.

You can tell Schneider and I are on the same page. Read his column. It's a good one.

The conflicts between cyclists and drivers are legendary, but perhaps a little road engineering would help. In Vancouver, B.C., recently, cyclists recently took a confrontational attitude in a ride by members of a controversial bike advocacy group called Critical Mass, active in many cities.

The abuse of public lands by illegal marijuana growers is a story that has been making headlines throughout the West this summer. In July, the New York Times hosteda GreenWire piece on the destruction of forests by drug cartels in the Sierras, and just last week InvestigateWest reportedthat the Denver Post had revealed a massive growing operation in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. Now this week, the Wenatchee World writesthat marijuana growers in Washington are tearing up protected forests and leaving huge environmental footprints. Writes K.C. Mehaffey:

On the one site alone, the Forest Service spent $12,906.22 to clean up the area, where streams had been rerouted, slopes were terraced and fertilizers, pesticides and trash were left.

According to the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, nearly 80 percent of seized crops have been found on federal, state or public lands.

The number of raids and of seized plants have placed this year in the record books, reported Jesse McKinley of the New York Times in July. The article also finds that destruction left behind by the polluting cartels is not the only concern of the Forest Service. Some of this year's most dangerous forest fires have been connected to marijuana grower's forest activities.

Mexico City has joined the anti-plastic bag crusade. It became illegal last week for supermarkets and other businesses to hand out nonbiodegradable plastic bags to consumers, reports LA Times blogger Deborah Bonello from Mexico City. With the ban, Mexico City becomes the second bigggest city in the Western Hemisphere to enact such a ban, following San Francisco, which enacted the ban way back in 2007. Seattle voters rejected a fee-for-plastic (and paper) earlier this month after Big Chemical spent $1 million lobbying against the measure. San Jose city council members currently are considering such a measure, as reported earlier this week on InvestigateWest.

Bonello reports having her grocerices packed into plastic bags "emblazoned with a logo promising they were biodegradable."

She also notes:

The move by the Mexico City government follows a number of other recent environmentally friendly initiatives, including the introduction along some routes of new buses that emit less pollution, and a planned bike-lending scheme expected to launch in December.

Officials hope to increase bicycle use, but riding on the streets of the city right now is a health risk due to a lack of bicycle lanes and reckless drivers.

-- Rita Hibbard

The L.A. Times is among those reporting that the Obama administration may be shying away from government-run health insurance plans and opting for a new model: insurance co-ops. The Washington Post also took on the story today in an interesting piece that looks at two U.S. organizations as potential blueprints for Congress, including one in the Northwest.

Group Health Cooperative, a Seattle-based member-owned nonprofit, has been providing coverage to more than half a million residents in Washington and Idaho since 1947. It has been touted as a potential model because of its success as a fused insurer and provider, networking with local clinicians as well as employing their own doctors and medical facilities. Here's how Group Health spokeswoman Katie McCarthy touts the group:

Group Health is able to focus on prevention and care because doctors are paid with a salary and aren't focused on getting fees for services.

Co-ops have some obstacles to conquer, including lacking some of the cost-saving reinmbursement rates of government-run plans, and facing heavy opposition from private insurers. But their lure remains the same: nonprofit health-care co-ops would provide freedom from shareholder pressures and an avenue for marketplace competition.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., a former state insurance commissioner is a backer of the concept:

A cooperative could provide an alternative source of insurance and some interesting competition for premium dollars. A co-op could operate at lower costs, in part because it would not need to pay its executives so generously.

The Oregonian has an interesting story about Portland police shifting tactics to control homeless people and others who loiter downtown after a judge struck down law that banned sitting or lying on city sidewalks. Following the judge’s rejecting of the so-called "sit-lie" law last month,  police struggled to keep loiterers from blocking driveways, and have since resorted to arresting citizens for low-level offenses such as littering or spitting in public. Police say the “strict order maintenance enforcement” is necessary, but critics feel the tactics are excessive.
Also check out this worthwhile piece on the sit-lie ban by the Oregonian's James Mayer, narrating a week of observations on downtown Portland streets.

The case of the coal industry's faked letters to members of Congress from  "constituents" is providing an interesting look at the modern news media as it changes.

Sure, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other behemoths had their own stories when news broke that a lobbying firm working for a group called the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity had hired a subcontractor that sent the bogus letters.

But nearly a week later, who's really following the scandal? It's getting legs in large part because so-called "new" media such as Talking Points Memo and Grist.org are bearing down on the story.

Kate Sheppard at Grist even found a new angle merely by looking in her news organization's past files (once known as a "morgue," which never made it sound enticing to dead-tree journos.) She offers today:

Grist contributor Sue Sturgis of the Institute for Southern Studies reported in May 2008 that a representative for ACCCE, then known as Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), was caught misrepresenting the group in a phone call that aimed to drum up opposition to the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.

AP writer Nicholas Geranios looks back at the Aryan Nations, the racist colony built by Richard Butler in Hayden Lake, Idaho. The group is long gone, but memories were recently stirred when the man who shot up the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. was found to have spent a few days in the area in 2004. Today, the area is home to tourists, country clubs and a posh homes. But the locals haven't forgotten.

"The stain is so deep," said Tony Stewart, a long time resident who helped evict the Aryan Nations, told Gerionas. "We feel stereotyped in a way that is unjust."