Way out in West Texas, near the small town of Iraan, north of the Fourmile Draw and and south of the Texas Pecos Trail, the wind blows mightily. There, at the Desert Sky Wind Farm, 107 turbines jut 328 feet above the mesa and catch the wind as it rolls off the Barilla and Del Norte mountain ranges. The wind belongs to no one, but its power belongs to San Antonio: Desert Sky generates 160 megawatts of electricity and City Public Service buys it -- enough to power about 40,000 homes each year. San Antonio Current News Editor Lisa Sorg looks at the power of the Texas wind.
If you learn one thing from same-sex parents, it’s that gay and straight families are pretty similar, Mairi Hennessy writes in Reno News & Review. The 2000 census tallied more than 600,000 same-sex U.S. households, 55 percent with children. Conservative Nevada now ranks eighth in the nation in the number of households headed by gay or lesbian couples. Hennessy talks to some of those couples about their trials and triumphs, and the simple joys of raising children.
Point-of-view reporting. A hip, irreverent voice. In-depth coverage of local underdogs. And, of course, free circulation. New York Sports Express applies the elements of alternative journalism to create a new kind of paper: the local sports weekly. "No one else has done it -- and I like the action of creating new product," says President and Publisher Chuck Coletti. The paper's goal, says Editor Spike Vrusho, is "just to keep the way-too-serious sports fans laughing."
When police raided the Denver offices of trueteenbabes.com last spring, a media circus ensued. The Arapahoe County sheriff went on TV to announce that officers had busted "perhaps the largest pornography ring in Colorado history." Hundreds of thousands of pictures of underage girls had been confiscated, investigators said, and the case could have "national and international implications." The chief suspect, James Grady, was charged with an astounding 886 criminal charges. But the media didn't have much to say a year later, when the case against Grady -- who turned out to know the law and the realities of Web commerce a lot better than the cops who busted him -- fell spectacularly apart. Westword staff writer Eric Dexheimer reveals that some of the same reporters who trumpeted news of Grady's arrest also played a key role in getting him busted in the first place.
The first Mexican Gray wolves put paws back on Southwestern soil in 1998 under a program headed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Today, around 40 of them roam throughout a roughly 5,000-square-mile area of eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, and that number is expected to reach 100 in seven years. Public support for the program has always been high, especially for those viewing it from a distance. But for many who actually live with the wolves, their view of the animals ranges from public nuisances on up to four-legged terrorists. Leo W. Banks examines problems in the wolf reintroduction program.
Susan Crichton, former ad director for Gambit Weekly and a beloved member of this trade association, died of cancer early Thursday morning at the age of 44. "She left our world as she lived in it, calm and graceful," says her husband, Russ Martineau, who is left to care for the couple's 16-month-old son, Cooper. Crichton was a key figure behind the success of both Gambit and the Alternative Newsweekly Network, which she helped to found.
