Jackson Hole Underground

Today is the NFL draft, a day of much anticipation (and usually frustration) for fans of our favorite football team, the New York Jets. Here is a montage of just a few of the many first-round busts the Jets have picked over the years.

This clip is worth watching for the vintage ’80s hairdos, if nothing else. (Mel Kiper is still sporting his.)

Will the Jets get the game-breaker they need in Run DMC, or will Gang Green be Gang Groan yet again?

“Obviously the Jets know something that the people up here don’t.”

Our beloved local brewery made like Bode Miller and took home a lode of medals at the World Beer Cup.

Snake River Brewing Co. won three golds and one silver at the competition in San Diego, which drew nearly 2,900 entries from 58 countries.

Winning gold were the much decorated Snake River Pale Ale and Zonker Stout from the Jackson brewery, as well as Rock Chuck Rye from the pub in Lander. On Belay IPA, also from Lander, took silver in the English-style India Pale Ale category.

Grand Teton Brewing Co. of Victor, Idaho, won a bronze for its Bitch Creek ESB.

Congrats to all the brewers, and let’s drink the spoils!

Just when I think it’s OK to move beyond the outrage over the Bush-Cheney administration, along comes a story like this one from yesterday’s New York Times:
“The Message Machine.”

Sure to win a Pulitzer, the story is a superbly written, thoroughly documented exposé of the propaganda campaign the Pentagon has been waging, quite successfully, through the U.S. media.

Turns out those retired generals and military officers you see on TV, ostensibly as “independent” analysts, have been carefully groomed by the Department of Defense to manipulate public opinion and promote the war. In return, these analysts — many of them lobbyists for the defense industry — receive access to the highest-ranking officials awarding contracts for Iraq.

In essence, you keep our war going, and we’ll make sure you get rich off it.

One of the retired officers who participated in the campaign called it “MindWar.” Another, Gen. James T. Conway, then of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said as Iraq began to disintegrate into civil war, “The strategic target remains our population.”

George Orwell couldn’t have envisioned it any better.

How Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al are not in prison is absolutely bewildering. These men are traitors, they are terrorists, and they belong in the gulag they created at Guantánamo.
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Also, from the op-ed page, don’t miss Alexandra Fuller’s essay on the gluttony of the energy industry in Wyoming.

How is a health- and eco-conscious hiker to hydrate, in the wake of yesterday’s announcement by Nalgene that it’s pulling its water bottles off the shelves?

Concerns over the chemical bisphenol A, which is used in a wide variety of plastic and canned food products, prompted the move. The Canadian government listed the substance as toxic, setting in motion a ban on its use up north.

Low levels of bisphenol A have been found to cause reproductive defects, cancer, hyperactivity and neurological disorders, among other problems. The substance is used in plastic baby bottles, making young children particularly vulnerable.

From what I understand, the danger of imbibing bisphenol A from a Nalgene water bottle is minimal. Pouring boiling water into the bottle is said to increase the risk.

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(All photographs © Jim Stanford. Click to enlarge.)

Spring break came, and I did not get very far away: the Gros Ventres, the mountains behind my home.

Most of my winter-loving friends — those who “can’t wait” for the snow to come each fall — had fled to the beach or desert for sun and surf and sand. I, eternally yearning for warmer climes, got invited on a hard-core ski trip.

Bemused by this irony, I gathered my gear and loaded my pack for a two-day trek into the Gros Ventre Wilderness. The weekend weather forecast looked good, and I had never been to the ski cabin by Goodwin Lake, where we would spend the night. Plus, it’s not often you get to explore pristine country with experienced mountaineers.

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