Utah Phillips

(Wikipedia) Bruce Duncan "Utah" Phillips (May 15, 1935 – May 23, 2008) was an American labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest."
He described the struggles of labor unions and the power of direct action, self-identifying as an anarchist. He often promoted the Industrial Workers of the World in his music, actions, and words.
... Though known primarily for his work as a concert performer and labor organizer, Phillips also worked as an archivist, dishwasher, and warehouse-man. Continued

The Balancing Act of Arches

Photo of Arches National Park by Carol Highsmith via The Library of Congress.

(John O’Connor) Decades ago, the pioneering writer Edward Abbey immortalized then-empty Arches National Park. Can it survive the modern influx of visitors? Continued

Utah Phillips

(Wikipedia) Bruce Duncan "Utah" Phillips (May 15, 1935 – May 23, 2008) was an American labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest."
He described the struggles of labor unions and the power of direct action, self-identifying as an anarchist. He often promoted the Industrial Workers of the World in his music, actions, and words.
... Though known primarily for his work as a concert performer and labor organizer, Phillips also worked as an archivist, dishwasher, and warehouse-man. Continued

Navajos mark 150th anniversary of return to homeland

Navajo riders in Canyon de Chelly (Edward S. Curtis, LoC)

(AP) A long-lost original copy of a historic treaty signed in 1868 by leaders of one of the nation’s largest American Indian tribes and the U.S. government will go on display later this year as the Navajo Nation commemorates a dark, but significant chapter of history.

Navajo Vice President Jonathan Nez and other tribal officials gathered recently in Albuquerque to detail some of the events that will mark the signing of the treaty 150 years ago.

That treaty is what cleared the way for tribal members to return to their homeland in the heart of the American Southwest after being rounded up years earlier by the U.S. cavalry and forced to make an arduous and deadly trek hundreds of miles to a camp in eastern New Mexico. Continued

Joe Hill

This mural depicting the execution of Joe Hill was on one of the walls inside the Joe Hill Hospitality House, a homeless shelter in Salt Lake City run by a social activist named Ammon Hennacy in the 1960s and '70s. Photo courtesy Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah. (Salt Lake Tribune)

(Wikipedia) Joe Hill (Gävle, Sweden, October 7, 1879 – Salt Lake City, Utah, November 19, 1915), born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund and also known as Joseph Hillström, was a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, familiarly called the "Wobblies").
A native Swedish speaker, he learned English during the early 1900s, while working various jobs from New York to San Francisco.
Hill, an immigrant worker frequently facing unemployment and underemployment, became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union. His most famous songs include "The Preacher and the Slave" (in which he coined the phrase "pie in the sky"), "The Tramp", "There is Power in a Union", "The Rebel Girl", and "Casey Jones—the Union Scab", which express the harsh and combative life of itinerant workers, and call for workers to organize their efforts to improve working conditions. Continued

Gold King Mine waste water spill

Gold King Mine 1887

(Wikipedia) The 2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill was an environmental disaster that began at the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado, when EPA personnel, along with workers for Environmental Restoration LLC (a Missouri company under EPA contract to mitigate pollutants from the closed mine), caused the release of toxic waste water into the Animas River watershed. They caused the accident while attempting to drain ponded water near the entrance of the mine on August 5.
The maintenance by the EPA was necessary because local jurisdictions had previously refused Superfund money to fully remediate the regions' derelict mines, due to a fear of lost tourism. After the spill, the Silverton Board of Trustees and the San Juan County Commission approved a joint resolution seeking Superfund money. Continued

Clyde Kluckhohn

(Wikipedia) Clyde Kluckhohn (January 11, 1905, Le Mars, Iowa – July 28, 1960, near Santa Fe, New Mexico), was an American anthropologist and social theorist, best known for his long-term ethnographic work among the Navajo and his contributions to the development of theory of culture within American anthropology.
... In 1949, Kluckhohn began to work among five adjacent communities in the Southwest: Zuni, Navajo, Mormon (LDS), Spanish-American (Mexican-American), and Texas Homesteaders. Continued

The Compromise of 1850

Map by User:Golbez

(Wikipedia) The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War (1846–48). The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, reduced sectional conflict. Controversy arose over the Fugitive Slave provision. The Compromise was greeted with relief, although each side disliked specific provisions. Continued