Author: Angela Evans

The humanity in Of Monsters and Men

Music

Images of mythological creatures and fanciful creations move through a sea of clouds in the music video for “Little Talks,” the chart-topping single that catapulted the Icelandic indie-pop band Of Monsters and Men into the U.S. mainstream in 2011. But with the release of their second album earlier this summer, the band draws more from the experiences from their last several years of touring than the imaginary world.

“We wanted to have it a bit more personal,” says co-lead singer and guitarist, Ragnar “Raggi” Pórhallsson about the new album Beneath the Skin. “Having toured and played the older songs for awhile, I think you just naturally have to do something else. We kept some things that were important to us, but then we just had to do something that’s new to us and that we were excited about it.”

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Oil and grouse

Environment

The sage-grouse debate isn’t just about a bird, it’s about saving the West as we know it

Sandra Goodwin, a private landowner from Boulder, Wyoming, has personally seen the effects of oil and gas development on greater sage-grouse populations near her home. When a gravel mine began hauling an average of 350 semi-truck loads a day on the county road in front of her house, she stopped seeing the birds on her property. “It was after the mating season, and what it did was, we didn’t see a single nesting grouse that whole three months … all the birds just left. There were no hens; there were no babies,” she says. The gravel was destined for nearby oil and gas extraction sites to feed the construction of roads and well pads. And the trucks passed by other sage-grouse nesting and mating sites in addition to Goodwin’s.

While oil and gas development remains the primary threat to the greater sage-grouse and its sagebrush habitat in Colorado and Wyoming, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has until Sept. 30 to decide whether or not to list the bird under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). At the same time, federal agencies, local governments and environmental activists disagree about the level of conservation and development restrictions needed to protect the bird and restore population levels.

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Here and there

Immigration

Deportation is only the beginning of the story

Seated at his mother’s grave for the first time, Jose Luis Guerrero grieved not only for her, but also for his wife and children. Though still alive, they were thousands of miles away at home in Aurora. For almost 20 years, Guerrero, who goes by Luis, lived and worked in the U.S., mostly in Colorado, starting a family with his wife Sofia and raising their four American-born children, Andy, Jenny, Melody and Lucy — now ages 18, 15, 9 and 4 respectively. But after his deportation the previous week, Luis now found himself in a place that no longer felt like home.

Continue reading this three part series here.