Planet Jackson Hole February 1, 2018 by Planet Jackson Hole

JACKSON HOLE’S ALTERNATIVE VOICE | PLANETJH.COM | JANUARY 31 - FEBRUARY 6, 2018

The Bomb That Went Off Twice part 3

The explosive compound RDX helped make America a superpower. Now, it’s poisoning the nation’s water and soil.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

2 | JANUARY 31, 2018

We Clean Everything!

307-690-3605 Residential Housekeeping • Daily • Weekly • Monthly • Small & Large Office • Commercial Facilities • Carpets & Upholstery • Windows • Power Washing • One Time Deep Cleanings • Move Outs • Real Estate Closings Closing Cleanings

DUD e , WHere’s my car?

The Town of Jackson’s overnight parking ban is in effect. SO, if you want to avoid all kinds of hassles, listen up!

PARKING RESTRICTIONS November 1 through April 15, between 3:00am & 7:00am,

it is illegal to park overnight on Jackson streets, including public parking lots, regardless of weather (rain, snow or shine). Crews begin plowing at 3am. Parked cars on town streets make the job of keeping roads clear of snow more difficult. Consequently, cars left on town streets between 3am & 7am will be ticketed and may be towed by Jackson police. To retrieve your car, contact Ron’s Towing at 733-8697, 1190 S. Hwy 89. Overnight parking for 48 hours or less is allowed in the public parking structure at W. Simpson Ave. and S. Millward St. but not on other town parking lots.

SHOVELING REQUIREMENTS Additionally, we would like to remind people: Town residents are responsible for keeping sidewalks shoveled. • The TOJ assists with snow removal in the downtown core and along Broadway. • Residents should not put their garbage cans out the night before, but rather after 7:00am on garbage days. • Please keep trash cans, cars, and other obstacles out of the streets and off of the curbs. This saves your property and makes the streets more clear of drifts and snow. • Residents are also encouraged to help keep fire hydrants clear of snow.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FRIENDLY FOLKS AT THE TOWN OF JACKSON

JACKSON HOLE'S ALTERNATIVE VOICE

VOLUME 16 | ISSUE 3 | JANUARY 31- FEBRUARY 6, 2018

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@PLANETJH |

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11 COVER STORY THE BOMB THAT WENT OFF TWICE part 3

The explosive compound RDX helped make America a superpower. Now, it’s poisoning the nation’s water and soil.

16 DON’T MISS

6 DEMO IN CRISIS

18 MUSIC BOX

8 THE BUZZ

20 STREAMING

15 CULTURE KLASH

26 50 BEST...

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THIS WEEK

NORMAL HIGH 29 NORMAL LOW 5 RECORD HIGH IN 1963 56 RECORD LOW IN 1956 -44

HIGHS

LOWS

Groundhog’s Day is this Friday, as always, it falls on February 2nd. This celebration of large rodents doesn’t really have anything to do with a woodchuck seeing his shadow or how much longer winter will be. The real significance of this date is, that it is the halfway point of the winter season. February 2nd denotes the midway point of the winter season. It is exactly halfway between the Winter Solstice, on December 21st, and the Spring Equinox, on March 21st.

The average low temperature this week is about the same as it was last week, around 5-degrees. The record low temperature this week is also the same as it was last week, minus 44-degrees. That record coldest day during this week occurred back on February 1st, 1956. That first week in February 1956 was a cold one, each morning, between January 31st and February 10th, was below zero, ranging from minus 9-degrees to minus 44-degrees.

The average high temperature this week is also about the same as last week, hanging around 29-degrees. The record high temperature this week is a degree warmer than last week’s, with a high temperature of 56-degrees. That occurred back on February 5th, 1963. There were actually three days in a row that week in 1963 that broke record highs, records that still stand today, 55 years later. They include a high of 54-degrees on February 4th, and 53-degrees on February 6th.

AVERAGE PRECIPITATION: 1.14 inches RECORD PRECIPITATION: 5.75 inches (2017) AVERAGE SNOWFALL: 14inches RECORD SNOWFALL: 33 inches (1978)

Carpet - Tile - Hardwood - Laminate Blinds - Shades - Drapery Mon - Fri 10am - 6pm Open Tuesdays until 8pm 1705 High School Rd Suite 120 Jackson, WY 307-200-4195 www.tetonfloors.com | www.tetonblinds.com

Jim has been forecasting the weather here for more than 20 years. You can find more Jackson Hole Weather information at www.mountainweather.com

THIS MONTH

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 3

BY METEOROLOGIST JIM WOODMENCEY

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

JH ALMANAC

JAN 31 - FEB 6, 2018

THE NEW WEST

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

4 | JANUARY 31, 2018

FROM OUR READERS Post-Truth and the Dreamers This statement closes one chapter of historian Timothy Snyder’s recent book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Snyder wrote the book as a primer on tyranny: an analysis of forces that helped destroy democracies in Germany and other nations in the twentieth century and that threaten democracy today. In saying that “posttruth is pre-fascism,” he was describing the profound hostility in totalitarian regimes to truthfulness and verifiable reality. Without reference to such reality, it’s difficult if not impossible to hold authoritarian regimes accountable. The hostility is apparent in the current administration, and it’s particularly egregious in the administration’s treatment of the Dreamers, the young people brought here as children and who, until recently, had been protected by the Obama-era DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) Program. To see the antipathy clearly, all you need to do is connect a few dots. Start with Trump’s announcement of his candidacy on June 16, 2015, when he told his listeners that Mexico is “not sending their best . . . they’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” In this statement alone, Trump made it clear he’d be using racist language to advance his candidacy, showing contempt for truth in the distorted, dehumanizing way that such language

characterizes groups and individuals. In the campaign and in the first year of his administration, Trump continued to show his contempt in descriptions of Muslims and other immigrant groups, including expletive-laced labels like “shithole countries” to describe Haiti, El Salvador, and apparently all African nations. In his book, historian Snyder wrote about the use of “shamanistic incantations:” endlessly repeated catch-phrases like “Crooked Hillary” or “Cryin Chuck Schumer.” In ceaseless repetition, these caricaturing phrases cast a kind of hypnotic spell, focusing our attention on the immediate moment and distracting us from reflection on larger patterns, bigger pictures. When talking about immigrants during the recent government shutdown, a shutdown precipitated in large measure by a stalemate over the fate of the Dreamers, Trump and his officials used highly charged phrases to taint all immigrants, including the Dreamers, in sinister tones. Trump himself tweeted, “The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked,” while one of his reelection campaign officials, Michael Glassner, declared that the president was keeping Americans safe from “evil, illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes against lawful U.S. citizens.” Meanwhile, the reelection campaign released that weekend a video asserting that, “Democrats who stand in our way [i.e. opposing Trump’s immigration policies] will be complicit in every murder committed

by illegal immigrants.” The racist discourse hasn’t abated at all. Amidst this barrage of inflammatory discourse, it’s understandable if one forgets that the shutdown was entirely a manufactured crisis, instigated by Trump last September when he fulfilled his campaign pledge to end the DACA program. Though Trump declared at various times that the Dreamers were “terrific people” and that some were “absolutely incredible kids,” his treachery was readily apparent in his call for a legislative fix (or, as he termed it, a “bill of love”). His strategy was clear: cast the Dreamers into the unfriendly waters of a Republican-controlled Congress while attempting to use them as bargaining chips to advance a nativist immigration agenda. It’s possible that the administration’s latest immigration proposal may mark the beginning of a productive process of legislative negotiation. The proposal offers a 10-12-year path to citizenship to 1.8 million DACA recipients and DACA-eligible individuals in exchange for new, highly restrictive immigration measures. But any optimism may be premature, to say the least. It’s not simply that the proposed restrictions, such as new constraints on family reunification, are highly onerous. It is, instead, that the political atmosphere itself is so tainted by untruth and deception, so driven by racist impulses, that a broader strategy is needed. We can’t trivialize the broader threats by focusing on the incompetence,

SNOWPACK REPORT

SPONSORED BY HEADWALL RECYCLE SPORTS

BY LISA VAN SCIVER

January 2018 will be remembered as a warm winter month. It’s cold most years in January in the Tetons, but this year the temperatures were mild. The dry weather and warm temperatures helped stabilize the poor snowpack structure but also produced more problem layers — like crusts and surface hoar. Since there was little to no snowfall for over half of January, the variability continued to increase. About two weeks ago, clear calm nights formed surface hoar. This dangerous persistent snow grain was then buried by two snow storms. The first storm occurred on January 22 and brought with it over a foot of light density snow. The second storm lasted from January 26-29, and brought about 30 inches of snowfall, with 3 inches of water to upper elevations.

A new wind slab formed by the end of the second storm. This slab released both naturally and with artificial triggers like skiers or snowmobilers. Most of these slides broke either on the old snow interface, the density breaks in the storm snow or on surface hoar, but during this avalanche cycle there were reports of avalanche activity on the December Drought Layer buried 3 feet or more. Many persistent grains exist within the snowpack, from surface hoar to large facets over a crust. These problem layers continue to react when stress is added, so give slopes time to adjust to recent loads.

ignorance, and personality flaws of Trump himself; there are too many enablers and handlers within the administration and within Congress involved. Instead, it’s necessary to see the struggle over the Dreamers’ fate, and over immigration policy itself, as fronts in a broader struggle against authoritarianism and the “post-truth” that supports it. The legislative effort on behalf of the Dreamers must still go forward, and so, too, must the legal battles being fought on their behalf. But still more is needed: the continuing effort to educate and inspire – to show that an inclusive immigration policy is both humane and democratic, and that the fate of the Dreamers, our brothers and sisters, is bound up with the fate of us all.

Andrew Moss, emeritus professor at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where he taught in Nonviolence Studies for 10 years. Submit your comments to editor@ planetjh.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject line. All letters are subject to editing for length, content and clarity.

THE NEW WEST Trailblazing Turner

PET SPACE

The role of eco-capitalism in saving best that remains

Pet Space is sponsored by Jackson Animal Hospital

Ted Turner at his ecologically-important Flying D Ranch southwest of Bozeman which he protected with one of the largest conservation easements in the West.

on the books to protect public lands — and an accompanying shift toward more enlightened thinking, corporate accountability driven by social concerns of shareholders, and incentives for advancing better stewardship on private lands — things have dramatically improved over the last century. That’s good news, but in a region like Greater Yellowstone the ecological threads holding wildness together extend across both private and public land. In some cases it doesn’t matter how big the public land base is; if key pieces of private land—like tracts encompassing river valleys, wildlife corridors and winter range or breeding habitat—aren’t safeguarded, the whole fabric could unravel. A few years ago, Robert Keith, a private capital investment manager in Bozeman and founder of Beartooth Group cited this stat at a TEDx talk: There are over 18,000 investment firms in the U.S. that manage about $16 trillion, investing about $500 billion a year in new projects. Reflecting on the power of what’s possible, with people who want to make a positive impact on saving Greater Yellowstone, America’s most iconic wild ecosystem, he asked, “What if we could take a tiny sliver of that investment capital and put it to work for a good cause, in our case restoration and protection of the American West?” PJH

Meet Dottie, AAC resident, life of the party and up for adoption. Dottie is a 4 year old, female, Staffordshire Terrier who is nothing but a bowling ball of love. She would prefer a home without any other pets but does fine on trails and walks with other dogs! She will keep your heart warm all winter and forever always. To meet Dottie and learn how to adopt her, contact Animal Adoption Center at 739-1881 or stop by 270 E Broadway

274 E Broadway, Jackson WY (307) 201-5700 jacksonanimalhospital.com

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 5

Todd Wilkinson, founder of Mountain Journal (mountainjournal.org), is author of “Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek” about famous Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear 399 featuring 150 photographs by Tom Mangelsen, available only at mangelsen.com/grizzly.

DOTTIE

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

ultimate goal is to leave land in as fine a condition, ecologically speaking, as one found it, or to do no harm, or, whenever possible, to use proceeds to heal past abuses and restore ecological function in a way that re-enhances natural values. This is the ecologic leg and achieving this can be accelerated if incentives are provided that help alleviate the costs of doing good. Thirdly, decisions should be done in a way in which humans are approached with dignity. It means treating employees well and paying them a living wage with health insurance in the event they or family members get sick. It means that working for you does not leave employees in a chronic state of economic desperation. It means treating your neighbors with respect and working constructively across fence lines to preserve the values both sides hold dear. It means trying to keep as much of your economic activity local, enabling investment dollars to trickle down and cycle widely throughout the community. Many environmental problems inherited from the Old West are the result of not adhering to those principles — of approaching the region as one would a natural resource colony. Distant boardrooms aren’t always interested in the long-term condition of the land following its exploitation, or building durable, diverse communities, or thinking beyond short-term profitability. In economic parlance, the costs that companies don’t account for, and have passed along for others to deal with, are called “externalities” and often those costs have been passed along to taxpayers in the form of expensive cleanups. No one can deny that because of modern environmental regulations put

hile I was researching my book on Greater Yellowstone media pioneer turned bison rancher Ted Turner (Last Stand: Ted Turner’s Quest to Save a Troubled Planet), my thinking about landscape-level conservation began to shift, particularly in pondering the critical intersection of public and private land. As I have shared with friends, after giving a hundred public talks on Turner’s trailblazing ethos as an eco-capitalist, I’ve accrued far more knife wounds in the back from environmentalists who are skeptical about any billionaire doing good. Some are warier of Turner than hardcore political conservatives who have convinced themselves he is somehow an evil lefty, simply because he was married to actress Jane Fonda. As an aside, it’s mind-boggling how many misperceptions of people are based upon mythology or hearsay (gossip) that isn’t ground-truthed by fact. This I know: In business circles today, there are many people talking about “the triple bottom line,”—i.e. maintaining a measurable ledger sheet that accounts for three different kinds of values factored into business decisions. The first is the factual reality that in order for the dividends of private lands conservation to persist into the future, being passed along from one generation to the next, they need to be economically sustainable. That is, conservation which functions only as a net debt proposition or liability heired to future generations cannot and will not last, no matter how solid the intentions. That’s why Western ranch country is riddled with a history of land consolidations and bust-ups. Any self-righteous person who doesn’t understand the difference between operating in the red versus being in the black has no business criticizing people who live by its cruel reality. This is the economic leg of the triple-bottom line. Secondly, as Turner has put into practice and demonstrated by example, the

TODD WILKINSON

BY TODD WILKINSON @bigartnature

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

6 | JANUARY 31, 2018

Drug Checking as SelfHelp Harm Reduction With doofus drug czar and vindictive DOJ, citizens left to address opioid overdose crisis on their own BY BAYNARD WOODS @demoincrisis

n October, Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency, claiming that more than 64,000 Americans had died from opioid overdoses the previous year. Fentanyl is responsible for a large part of that number. But aside from his attorney general’s attempts to ramp back up a toughon-crime drug war that will re-criminalize weed, the administration hasn’t done much. Trump hired a 24-year-old MAGA frat-boy doofus as drug czar. Taylor Weyeneth, the recent college grad who has never really worked anywhere except the Trump campaign, recently resigned amid questions about his resume. Meanwhile, local jurisdictions are passing “drug-induced homicide” laws in order to incarcerate more people for longer periods of time for drug offenses. So, around the country, advocates of a harm-reduction approach to the drug overdose crisis are taking matters into their own hands. That’s why Tino Fuentes is in a Baltimore warehouse apartment with a bunch of drug-testing strips. Fuentes, a former heroin user and dealer from New York, might not be the most obvious advocate for drug testing. Single-use Rapid Response drug-testing strips are supposed to be used to test people’s urine for the presence of drugs, but Fuentes puts them to a different use — one that may save lives.

BAYNARD WOODS

DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS

Instead of using the Tino Fuentes, a former heroin user and dealer from New York, might not be the most obvious advocate for drug testing but his apartment is filled with a bunch of drug-testing strips. strip to monitor the activities of employees of the drugs; in some places the strips Some of what is sold as heroin is nothing or parolees, Fuentes and others use the strips to test street themselves are considered parapherna- but fentanyl. “When I went to Ohio I didn’t find drugs for fentanyl. Drug checking rather lia—but the weathered and grizzled old New York Puerto Rican with the leather anything, anything at all with heroin than drug testing. “After you suck it dry, put your shot jacket, the flat old-man golf hat and a in it. Everything I bought was fentanyl,” to the side, add water to the cooker. All pair of glasses perched on his nose like Fuentes says. And it’s not only heroin. Fuentes has you’re looking for is the residue,” he says Ben Franklin doesn’t give a fuck. That’s to a number of users or former users why, although he consults with some found fentanyl in cocaine, crystal meth who are still involved in Baltimore’s cities, he doesn’t operate as a 501(c)3 or and even Xanax. “I’ve tested 11 Xanax pills that look opiate community. “You don’t have to any other legal entity. Sometimes ethics — saving lives — is just like a bar, like it came from a pharwaste the drugs at all. Just the residue.” Insite, a safe-injection facility in more important than the law. But there macy. They were pressed illegally and Vancouver, first developed the tech- are places that recognize the need for they were positive for fentanyl. I tested MDMA, positive for fentanyl. In Atlanta, nique of using drug testing strips to these harm-reduction strategies. “I’m not going to sit back and wait for crystal meth, positive for fentanyl,” he test for fentanyl. “It was just trying to find a solution because there are other the law to change or the government to says. “Always test every batch,” Fuentes drug checking methods that are used help, because they ain’t never helped — primarily actually in communities me and the law ain’t either,” he says to says. “Don’t assume because the last batch.” He calls it the “chocolate chip” like night-life and festival communi- the group. “That’s why I do what I do.” “We take it and dip it in there for effect when the drugs aren’t cut well and ties — but the kind of tests used in that community are not sensitive enough to 15 seconds, right,” he says to a group the fentanyl is not well distributed William Miller started using heroin pick up fentanyl, which is really active of five harm-reduction advocates from in small doses,” said Stefanie Jones of the community as he dips the strip into in the 1960s and he has seen it all. But he the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). “That’s a small tin votive candle holder that hasn’t seen anything like fentanyl. He why using those test strips came about. some people use to cook their opiates. can’t even begin to count the number of It was a process of trial and error of how “Then you put it up like that, as you see people he’s known who died because of it start getting pink, that’s sucking up the drug. As a result, he’s gotten clean to get it to work most effectively.” and is now out here working in his comA recent study in Vancouver showed the water.” In a few seconds, lines start to stand munity to spread the word. that 86% of the drugs and 90% of the “Doing it like this it spreads out heroin they checked had fentanyl in it. out on the strip. If there’s one line, then Users who knew fentanyl was in their your dope has fentanyl in it. And if there among communities,” Fuentes says. dope changed their behavior — they are two lines, it probably doesn’t. The “I’ll leave some strips, do what you do were more than 10 times more likely to test only covers 12 fentanyl analogues, on your own. Figure it out, go into your including the even stronger carfentanil neighborhoods or wherever you think reduce their dose. Washington D.C’s City Council has — but new varieties are developed near- it’s deemed necessary and see how it adopted emergency legislation that ly every day. And the tests can’t check works for you.” “No matter how you feel about people would allow organizations to distribute the strength of a drug, only its presence. the strips and allow individuals to use So even if it tests positive, it may not kill that use, people are gonna get high and this fentanyl thing, man, it is killing them without fear of legal consequences. you. It’s more difficult to mix fentanyl in people,” Miller says. PJH But it is technically illegal for Fuentes to check the drugs in Baltimore — when the black tar heroin that comes up from he is testing he is legally in possession Mexico, but in many places, heroin is powder and almost all of it has fentanyl.

January 2018

St. John’s Calendar of Events Most events are free unless otherwise noted.

Health & Wellness

Support Groups Cancer Support Group for Patients Survivors, and Caregivers Led by cancer nurse Beth Shidner, RN, OCN, and social worker Lynnette Gartner, MSW, LCSW Thursday, February 1 Thursday, February 15 4-5 pm Professional Office Building Suite 206

For information, call 307.739.6195

Grief Support Group Led by St. John’s Hospice social worker Oliver Goss, LCSW Drop-ins welcome, but please call ahead Wednesday, February 14 Noon – 1 pm Wednesday, February 28 Noon – 1 pm Professional Office Building Suite 114, 555 E. Broadway, Entrance C

Call 307.739.7463

Teton Mammas For new babies and their families Wednesday, February 7 1 – 2:30 pm Moose Wapiti Classroom St. John’s Medical Center

For information, call 307.739.6175 For those suffering from persistent memory problems; family members and caregivers welcome Thursday, February 8 Noon – 1 pm

For information, call 307.739.7434

Teton Parkies (For those affected by Parkinson’s Disease)

tetonhospital.org/calendar

Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Group in Spanish In Spanish! ¡En Español! Zumba with Elvis. Family friendly. Mondays and Wednesdays 5:30 – 6:30 pm Moose-Wapiti Classroom St. John’s Medical Center

Suffering from back pain? Learn prevention and treatment options Dr. Christopher Hills, orthopedic surgeon Thursday, February 8 5:30–6:30 pm Four Pines Physical Therapy 46 Iron Horse Drive Alpine, WY

For information, call 307-654-5577

Dr. Bill Mullen, cardiologist Thursday, February 22 5:30–7 pm Pinedale Medical Clinic 625 East Hennick St Pinedale, WY

For information, call 307.367.4133

Spine Classes Information for people considering or scheduled for spine surgery Tuesday, February 6, 3-4:30 pm Monday, February 12, 1-2:30 pm Tuesday, February 20, 3-4:30 pm Monday, February 26, 1-2:30 pm Physical Therapy Room St. John’s Medical Center

Please register by calling 307.739.6199

For information, call 307.739.7678

Joint Classes

Auxiliary Monthly Luncheon “Healthcare for Families in Our Community,” by guest speaker Berit Amundson, MD, St. John’s Family Health & Urgent Care Thursday, February 1 Noon Boardroom

New Physicians and other providers from St. John’s Medical Center Wednesday, February 7 5–6:30 pm Short program at 5:45 pm Refreshments provided Wort Hotel 50 Glenwood

Information for people considering or scheduled for joint replacement surgery Thursday, February 8, 8-9:30 am Tuesday, February 13, 4-5:30 pm Thursday, February 22, 8-9:30 am Tuesday, February 27, 4-5:30 pm Physical Therapy Room St. John’s Medical Center

Please register by calling 307.739.6199

For information, call 307.739.7517

625 E. Broadway, Jackson, WY

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 7

Tuesday, February 27, 5:30 pm Featuring Dr. Mark Bromberg, St. John’s Medical Center Neurology Jackson Whole Grocer Community Room Contact Elizabeth at 307.733.4966, 614.271.7012, or epgerhard@gmail.com

For information, call 307.739.7634

For information, call 307.739.7466

Keeping your Heart Healthy

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

Gather for mutual support, discussion of disease and therapies, and more. Monday, February 5, 2-3 pm “Power Up for Parkinson’s” A movement and voice exercise class taught by Teton PT & Rehabilitation $4 seniors, $7 under 65 Senior Center of Jackson Hole

Open to everyone interested in weight loss and those considering (or who have had) bariatric surgery Thursday, February 15, 4 pm Professional Office Building Suite 206

Jazz Improvisation, Musical Creativity, and the Brain featuring researcher and surgeon Charles Limb, MD Friday, February 2 noon – 1 pm Teton County Library Free, but ticketed. Available at gtmf.org

Memory Loss Support Group

Weight Management Support Group

Lunchtime Learning in collaboration with the Grand Teton Music Festival

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

8 | JANUARY 31, 2018

Political Mining Industry with Wyoming ties pushes for Trump to make uranium production local again BY FW BROSCHART @broschartfred

uring a week that saw President Donald Trump order tariffs on solar panels, solar panel components and washing machines manufactured overseas, one industry with strong ties to Wyoming — uranium mining — is hoping the administration’s recent foray into more protectionist trade policies can be leveraged to its benefit. Earlier in the week, Colorado-based Energy Fuels and Ur-Energy asked the U.S. Department of Congress to investigate whether uranium sourced from the world’s largest producers, like Russia, are a national security threat to the United States. The two companies also asked the Trump administration to recalibrate imports of uranium from foreign producers. The investigation requested by the companies is referred to as a “Section 232 investigation.” A 232 investigation is performed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and is intended to study the effect of imports — whether they be raw materials or finished goods — on the national security of the U.S. The Trump administration opened 232 investigations on steel and aluminum in 2017 and those reports were recently delivered to the administration, which will now decide how to act. The tariffs placed on foreign washing machines, solar panels and their components were the administration’s response to the result of a similar type of investigation. According to the two companies, about 40 of the uranium used in the U.S. is sourced from government owned companies in Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The companies also say less than 5 percent of the uranium used in the U.S. is mined here. Relying so heavily on foreign nations for uranium may be bad for U.S. national security they assert, since uranium is used by the U.S. military to power naval

COURTESY OF AREVA VIA FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS

THE BUZZ

vessels, and because uraniNuclear fuel pellets are stacked vertically in long metal tubes to power commercial nuclear reactors. There are many steps involved in processing uranium before it is fabricated into nuclear fuel. um is a key material used in the production of the weapin the report. “These sources contrib- minimum of labor required. ons-grade fissile material uted to record high levels of generation Overall, Wyoming produced 2 milused in nuclear weapons. lion pounds of uranium ore in 2017, According to the two companies, ura- from both fuels.” Overall, the EIA noted a 16 percent according to the EIA. In the late 70s nium production in countries like Russia and China are expected to increase in increase in wind-derived electricity when almost all uranium used in the the future, implying that even more between March 2016 and 2017, and a 65 U.S. was domestically mined, the state of the isotope used in the U.S. will be percent increase in solar power genera- produced about 12 million pounds. In sourced from nations whose friendship tion over the same period. Almost half the late 70s when more mines were pit of the nation’s new generation capaci- or subterranean, the industry employed with the U.S. is questionable. “1989 the (Department of Commerce) ty added in 2017 came from renewable 5,300 people. In 2017, uranium mining industry accounted for 323 perinitiated a Section 232 investigation at energy sources. Renewable energy sources accounted son-years of employment in the state of the request of the U.S. Department of Energy because of concerns that ura- for about 21 percent of the total energy Wyoming, according to the EIA. Overall, nium imports exceeded 37.5% at that produced overall in the U.S., very nearly the industry said it paid $24.9 million time,” A joint news release issued by matching the amount of energy pro- in salaries and benefits in the state in Energy Fuels and Ur-Energy said. “The duced by nuclear plants, according to 2017, and average of nearly $77,000 per person-year. the EIA’s figures. problem is far worse now.” The bigger benefit to the state would Much of the increase in renewable *** According to the Nuclear Energy energy came from states in the West, the likely be in form of taxes. For the 2 milInstitute, about 20 percent of electrical EIA says. About 67 percent of hydroelec- lion pounds of uranium ore extracted in energy in the U.S. is produced by nucle- tric power was generated in the West, the state of Wyoming, the industry paid ar energy, and about 60 percent of the and about 69 percent of solar power was, about $8.1 million to the state, counnation’s mix of carbon-free electricity according to the agency. Wind energy is ties and municipalities, according to a more evenly spread across the nation, survey done by the Wyoming Mining originates at nuclear power plants. But the dominant sources of the with about 21 percent coming from Association. And though demand for uranicountry’s energy production are rapidly Western states. um worldwide is expected to grow, it’s *** changing, and nuclear energy producShould the companies’ request for unclear what will happen in the U.S. tion has essentially been flat since the 1990s, according to the U.S. Government. a 232 investigation be granted, and the where demand for fissile material has The U.S. Energy Information outcome and action by the administra- been essentially flat for nearly 30 years. In the U.S., there are currently four Administration, or EIA — a part of the tion favorable, Wyoming would certainU.S. Department of Energy — said that ly be affected. But the size of that impact reactors under construction, but the recent retirement of several reactors in the first quarter of 2017, the amount is unclear. Wyoming led the nation in uranium across the U.S. has resulted in overall of power produced by renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydro- production between 1995-2015, accord- lower demand for uranium, the EIA electric surpassed the amount of ener- ing to a study by the U.S. Geological said in a report. Most of the increased gy produced by nuclear reactors in the Survey, and in 2016 the state produced demand for uranium is driven by foreign U.S. According to the report, wind and about two-thirds of the uranium mined countries. Abroad, there are 60 reactors solar production hit all-time highs, nationwide. All uranium currently under construction and 160 planned, and record rainfalls across much of the mined in the state uses a process called according to the Wyoming Mining Western U.S. led to a boon in hydroelec- in-situ leach. Unlike traditional mining, Association. Yet the association also says in-situ leach dissolves uranium ore with uranium prices are depressed due to tric generation. “More than 60% of all utility-scale an oxygen and carbon dioxide leaching overproduction and that current marelectricity generating capacity that came solution that pumped into the ground ket prices make expanded extraction of online in 2016 was from wind and solar via high-pressure wells. The process uranium, “too low for economic productechnologies,” Mickey Francis of the EIA is considered safe and efficient, with a tion.” PJH

Snow Way Locals debate the future of Jackson’s eponymous ski hill BY FW BROSCHART @broschartfred

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JANUARY 31, 2018 | 9

concerns and ideas from other There are lots of different visions for this one little hill. stakeholders in attendance. In response to some comBarron, a former mayor of Jackson, ments at the meeting and some criticisms leveled in local media by said the plan proposed by the another group, Jackson Hole Working, Conservation Alliance would not allow the Conservation Alliance issued a the hill to be economically sustainable press release reiterating its vision for as a ski area. In its release, the Conservation the hill, and saying it was possible to arrive at a solution that allows the hill Alliance said it was difficult for the to thrive while protecting the town’s group to know what is economically feasible for the hill “without full transnatural beauty. Mark Barron of Jackson Hole parency about their (the hill’s) financial Working was quoted by the Jackson Hole situation. We should have a thorough News&Guide saying the plan put forth discussion about the public subsidies by the conservation alliance showed a they receive now and want in the future lack of understanding about the eco- and the value of the public benefits they nomic realities faced by the operators provide.” The task of coming up with suggesof the hill. According to its website, Jackson Hole Working is a group that tions for future development at Snow “Is a community-driven movement that King will be taken up by the stakeholder values the vibrant heart of downtown, a group, who will meet several times to workforce housing market driven by the consider the varied stakeholder posiprivate sector, the protection of private tions and come up with suggestions to property rights and the preservation of be made to the town council. Those recommendations are slated open spaces and wildlife corridors.” to be made March 12. PJH

Monday evening meeting at Grand View Lodge turned into a debate about the future of Snow King Mountain. More than 200 people were in attendance at the meeting to discuss differing views on the direction of developments at the mountain. The meeting was held by Coloradobased Peak Facilitation, a company that specializes in mediation and facilitation of stakeholder collaboration. Besides members of the public, the meeting also was attended by elected officials and representatives from Snow King. At the meeting, the debate between those who favor broader economic development and those who prefer growth and development take a backseat to preservation of the environment came into sharp focus. The plan for changes at Snow King originally introduced to the town council included a new gondola to replace the Summit Lift, a mountaintop restaurant and observatory as well as zip lines. That plan, and many components in it was met by resistance from some local citizens who favor a plan that would protect the natural environment. One group of stakeholders in opposition to the plan — Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance — proposed by Snow King said on its website it was opposed to any plan where the mountain, “is covered in roller coasters, topto-bottom noisy ziplines full of screaming people, and a massive restaurant complex on top of the mountain.” The group also said it was opposed to developments that expanded the boundaries or operations of the hill into important wildlife habitat, or that would prevent local residents from using public lands for non-powered recreation. On its website, the Conservation Alliance said it was focused on maintaining free, public access for residents and visitors, protecting wildlife and nature, not increasing noise or light pollution, maintaining public lands rather than selling to private developers and building housing for workers

in the town to offset other commercial development. Monday’s meeting started gently enough, but some time in it became a little more contentious — yet still polite — with supporters of expanded recreational opportunities on the hill and those who favored the recreational opportunities already afforded by the natural environment trading retorts. Some attendees spoke out in support of expanding recreational opportunities at the hill for both winter and summer pastimes, including expanding opportunities for wheeled recreation, like snowmobiling and mountain biking. But others in attendance were quick to point out that expanding those types of activity might reduce quality of life because of noise and degradation of the town’s natural beauty. Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance proposed ideas of its own it says would allow fair economic development without compromising on conservation of the environment and without drastically reducing quality of living in Jackson. It suggested nixing the mountaintop restaurant and observatory for smaller restaurant similar to the existing Panorama House. It also suggested replacing the proposed gondola with a covered quad lift. The group also suggested making new ski runs within the current footprint of the hill rather than expanding into land currently undeveloped. The task of mediating between two very different viewpoints and coming up with a solution that ensures economic sustainability of the hill and that protects the natural splendor of the area will fall to a 16-member stakeholder group appointed by the town. Group members were in attendance at Monday’s meeting but did not speak out to voice any opinions or concerns, instead holding themselves to listen to

PLANET JACKSON HOLE FILE

THE BUZZ 2

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10 | JANUARY 31, 2018

Wait, What?

YOU

NEWS OF THE

BEST

BE VOTIN’! #bojh18| bestof jh.com

see page 21 of this week’s issue for a complete listing of categories

Meet and Greet The newest additions to St. John’s team of medical providers:

Recurring Themes

In more extreme weather news from Australia, The Daily Telegraph reported on Jan. 8 that record high temperatures near Campbelltown had killed more than 200 bats, found on the ground or still hanging in trees. Cate Ryan, a volunteer with WIRES, an Australian wildlife rescue organization, came across the flying foxes and put the word out for volunteers to bring water to rehydrate the bats that were still alive. “I have never seen anything like it before,” Ryan said. “Ninety percent of the (dead) flying foxes were babies or juveniles.”

Bright Idea

Chris McCabe, 70, of Totnes, England, escaped a frigid death thanks to his own quick thinking on Dec. 15. McCabe owns a butcher shop, and he had entered the walk-in freezer behind the shop when the door slammed behind him. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a problem, as a release button inside the freezer can open the door. But the button was frozen solid. So McCabe looked around the freezer and saw the shop’s last “black pudding,” or blood sausage, which he used as a battering ram to unstick the button. “They are a big long stick that you can just about get your hand around,” McCabe told the Mirror. “I used it like the police use battering rams to break door locks in. Black pudding saved my life, without a doubt.” He believes he would have died within a half-hour in the -4-degree freezer.

Ironies

Berit Amundson, MD, Family Practice Tierney Lake, MD, Internal Medicine Bill Mullen, MD, Cardiology

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, a church’s new electronic bells are creating a living hell for neighbor Bernadette Hall-Cuaron, who has lived next to Our Lady of Guadalupe for years. “The bells ring multiple times a day during the week, and play ‘Amazing Grace’ during the week, and then they run multiple times again during the weekend,” she told KOB-TV in January. “Because of the volume and frequency of the bells, this is not calling people to the church.” Hall-Cuaron called the church to complain, but said since her request, “they have added ‘Amazing Grace’ every day ... a full verse.” The pastor responded that he has lowered the volume but will not turn off the bells completely, as some in the neighborhood love them.

Eric Wieman, MD, General Surgery

February 7 | 5–6:30 PM A short program will begin at 5:45 PM

The Wort Hotel, Jackson Room 50 North Glenwood Complimentary appetizers and beverages will be served. A cash bar will be available.

n One of Quebec City’s iconic tourist attractions is its ice hotel, the 45-room Hotel de Glace. But on Jan. 9, the hotel’s most dreaded disaster, a fire, broke out in one of the guest rooms, the CBC reported. Manager Jacques Desbois admitted that “when I received the phone call, they had to repeat twice that there was a fire in the ice hotel.” Predictably, the flames did not spread and caused little damage to the structure, although smoke spread throughout the hotel and residents were evacuated. “In a room made out of ice and snow there are few clues to look at,” Desbois said, although each room has candles, and the hotel is considering the possibility that one of them caused the fire.

Family Values tetonhospital.org

Jan. 5 because they were busy stealing a safe from Johnson’s home. Southbridge police started searching for the pair after Johnson’s boyfriend discovered the safe was missing, reported The Worcester Telegram & Gazette. When police stopped Davenport the next day, they found the safe in the trunk of the car she was driving (also registered to Johnson) and seized it. Davenport and Conyers were arrested at a Sturbridge motel, where officers found jewelry, keys, cellphones and other documents, and the two were charged with seven counts related to the theft. “Alyce has a history of larceny, identity theft and forgery,” the police report said.

WEIRD

Ikea has taken advertising in a whole new direction with its recent print ad for a crib. The ad, which appears in the Swedish magazine Amelia, invites women who think they might be pregnant to urinate on the paper to reveal a discounted price. “Peeing on this ad may change your life,” the ad reads at the top of the page. “If you are expecting, you will get a surprise right here in the ad.” Adweek reported that the agency behind the gimmick adapted pregnancy test technology to work on a magazine page.

voting runs jan 10 - feb 11

By THE EDITORS AT ANDREWS MCMEEL

Alyce H. Davenport, 30, and Diron Conyers, 27, of Southbridge, Massachusetts, couldn’t make it to the funeral of Audra Johnson, Davenport’s mother, on

Armed and Frustrated

Linda Jean Fahn, 69, of Goodyear, Arizona, finally succumbed to a frustration many wives suffer. On Dec. 30, as her husband sat on the toilet, she barged in and “shot two bullets at the wall above his head to make him listen to me,” she told Goodyear police when they were called to the scene. Fahn said her husband “would have had to be 10 feet tall to be hit by the bullets,” ABC15 in Phoenix reported, but officers estimated the bullets struck about 7 inches over the man’s head as he ducked. She was charged with aggravated assault.

Creme de la Weird

An unnamed 41-year-old Chinese woman who had been suffering from fevers and breathing problems for six years finally went for a checkup in early January at a hospital in Tongchuan, Shaanxi Province, China. Doctors X-rayed and found an inch-long chili pepper in her right lung. Metro News reported that Dr. Luo Lifeng tried to remove the pepper using a probe but was forced to operate because it was lodged too deep to reach. He speculated that she had inhaled the pepper and then forgotten about it.

Go Ahead, Take Two

An unnamed Russian man, apparently desperate for a drink, stole an armored personnel carrier from a secured facility on Jan. 10 and used it to ram a storefront in Apatity, Russia, reported United Press International. Surveillance video showed him climbing out of the tanklike carrier and into the store, where he retrieved a bottle of wine, then returning to the vehicle and ramming the storefront again as several bystanders looked on. He was arrested after leaving the scene.

Employee Relations

Pesto’s Pizza Shop in Boise, Idaho, takes its pizza prep seriously. So when an employee burns a pizza, the discipline is swift and public: The worker must don an orange bag that reads “I burned a pizza,” then “walk the plank,” or the sidewalk, in front of the shop five times. Pesto’s owner, Lloyd Parrott, told KBOI TV: “You know, we gotta have some fun around here. It’s all in good fun.”

Oops

An unnamed man tried an unconventional method to kill a wolf spider in his Redding, California, apartment on Jan. 7: He set it afire with a torch lighter. Unfortunately, the burning spider ran onto a mattress and caught it on fire. Residents were able to put out the mattress fire, but not before flames reached nearby drapes and a flag collection, then a nearby closet, reported the Redding Record Searchlight. When a garden hose failed to douse the blaze, firefighters were called and prevented it from spreading to other apartments. The blaze caused about $11,000 in damage, and all the residents were able to escape unharmed. Send tips to weirdnewstips@amuniversal.com.

part 3

The explosive compound RDX helped make America a superpower. Now, it’s poisoning the nation’s water and soil.

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica.org

away with a renewed commitment to fend off liability for RDX contamination. In a speech delivered at an explosives safety seminar in 2000, the Army’s then deputy assistant secretary for the environment, Raymond Fatz, said that at least 20 other military bombing ranges in the U.S. lay directly over sole-source drinking water aquifers, just like on Cape Cod, and warned that because RDX would be so prevalent at these sites, “this has the potential of being a huge problem.” Pentagon officials feared that if it continued to be held liable under federal environmental regulations, its cleanup costs could bankrupt the Defense Department’s environmental programs, according to the accounts of several lawyers and environmental

contractors who have worked with the Pentagon. A typical DOD cleanup cost around $15 million to $22 million. The cleanup at the Massachusetts Military Reservation alone — which continues today — will wind up costing the Pentagon nearly $1 billion. The military’s budget, though huge, was not infinite and Pentagon officials also worried that protecting the environment would get in the way of training and protecting troops. “The only other option they had was to go to Congress and try to change the statute,” said Frank. And that is what the Pentagon did. As the U.S. went to war in Iraq in 2003, top Pentagon officials saw a political climate that might yield the ultimate reprieve. Defense Secretary Donald

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 11

t involved gathering and then safely disposing of unexploded munitions material, and gradually treating contaminated groundwater to reduce the size of the plumes. Though that cleanup has since progressed with the Army’s cooperation and has slowed the spread of contaminants, RDX ultimately made its way into public groundwater beyond the base’s boundaries in 2010. In 2011 the Army announced a plan to scrub the aquifer, systematically pumping that groundwater up, treating it, and injecting it back underground until the RDX and other military-related contaminants are nearly gone. That process continues today. The Pentagon lost its battle with the EPA at the Massachusetts Military Reservation. But it came

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In early 2000, the EPA issued its most substantial demands in a third order, laying out a specific plan for cleaning up the sites.

The Bomb That Went Off Twice

The EPA has a lengthy formal process for reviewing toxins, and it’s aimed at identifying which substances are dangerous to humans and how much people can be exposed to. First, EPA scientists assemble a dossier that includes a thorough assessment of published research, a literature review that can consider hundreds of papers, and a proposed methodology for weighing the evidence. Then those documents are made public, and agency officials incorporate the feedback as they write early internal drafts. The EPA then shares a more developed draft with other federal agencies — in this case including the Department of Defense — and revises the document further based on their response. Only then is a version released to the public, and only then does an outside advisory committee of experts get to review the draft. The process is repeated, including public comment periods, with the outside scientists submitting criticism before the EPA issues its final assessment. The Department of Defense told ProPublica that it had anticipated the EPA’s review long before it was launched. By the time the EPA released its initial dossier in 2013, the Pentagon had already funded a number of new scientific studies that raised and amplified doubts about whether RDX caused cancer, or posed any health threat. One of these studies was even paid for out of the very same Pentagon environmental cleanup program responsible for addressing some of the lands contaminated with RDX. These studies made up much of the new research the EPA considered. One article argued that the models used in peer-reviewed papers to predict how much RDX persists in the organs of mice that ingest it were not reliable. Another showed that mice genes didn’t mutate after RDX exposure, suggesting cancer was a less likely threat. “Looking at the merits of the science was absolutely something that the department felt that it should do to make sure that the science was well developed and objective,” said Taylor, the former Pentagon general counsel. In 2006, Gunda Reddy, an Army Ph.D. toxicologist working at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was part of a team that re-examined Levine’s original RDX study using the original data and samples. Reddy concluded that the increase in cancer Levine observed was less pronounced than previously thought. Reddy, who has published nearly 100 scientific papers, called the evidence of a cancer risk “equivocal.” Separately, Reddy force-fed RDX to baby pigs to learn how they digested the explosive and then co-published a study that found that RDX had not accumulated in the pigs’ livers, prompting skepticism that it could cause tumors there. In 2011, a researcher from the Naval Medical Research Unit raised doubts about whether RDX was the cause of noncancerous PUBLIC DOMAIN

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Rumsfeld, with a small group of Pentagon lawyers, such a step. There were more than 5,000 contamiargued that in order to preserve “readiness” for the nated military installations and 900 Superfund sites fight against terrorism, the Pentagon would need to linked to military operations nationwide — enough be freed once and for all from EPA oversight. One of that almost all members of Congress had such sites in the nation’s largest polluters should be allowed to their districts. They rejected the Pentagon’s pursuit of operate largely outside of the scope of the law, espe- exemptions from the major water and waste statutes. cially, the Pentagon’s lawyers noted, when it came to John Dingell, the longtime Democratic congresspollution from explosive chemicals, which included man from Michigan who chaired the House commitRDX. tee on energy and commerce and the committee on “There were those in the department who thought investigations, and was ranking member during the that this was a great opportunity to try to remove exemption hearings, put it simply: environmental impediments,” said Robert Taylor, a “Nowhere has a single set of legislative proposals former general counsel to the Department of Defense had so much audacity — and so little merit.” who describes himself as a reluctant architect of the In 2012, 22 years after it first issued a cancer warnstrategy. ing for RDX, the EPA launched a toxicological review The Pentagon proposed amendments to six of the to re-examine the risk the chemical posed to people. nation’s most important environmental laws that To health professionals observing the process, would largely exempt Defense Department lands the agency seemed poised to strengthen its cancer with ongoing operations from regulation: the Comprehensive Supercharger plant Env ironmental Response, Compensation and Liability workers in the Act, or Superfund; the Resource Midwest during Conservation and Recovery Act, which governs hazardous waste; WWII. the Clean Air Act; the Marine Mammal Protection Act; the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; and the Endangered Species Act. The Pentagon negotiated over five specific pollutants, including RDX and perchlorate. The final language of the bill specifically named “munitions constituents,” which include all chemicals from explosives, as substances it sought to redefine as noncontaminants outside the scope of waste handling. “It was stunning, what they were trying to do,” Frandsen said. “They were basically trying to take all enforcement away.” The Pentagon argued that after the 9/11 attacks, environmental cleanups would warning for RDX. Using Barry Levine’s original study, come at the expense of the safety of U.S. forces in Iraq the EPA had already calculated what it calls a cancer and Afghanistan. slope factor for RDX, an in-depth quantitative process “Preparing America’s military forces for battle,” that attempts to predict the specific dose of a chemiRaymond DuBois, the deputy undersecretary of cal that will cause cancer and which is normally done defense for installations and the environment, told only for a chemical already believed to pose a serious a House energy and commerce subpanel in 2004, “is cancer threat. critical.” In 1998, the agency had added RDX to a list of Others were more hyperbolic, arguing that exemp- candidate contaminants for concern — a regulatory tions were necessary for the sake of “winning the war status that reflects a risk to public drinking water and on terror,” and “protecting Americans from deliberate is often a precursor to regulation. In 2008, it listed attacks that would kill millions of our fellow citizens,” RDX among contaminants to be monitored by water as Rep. Christopher Cox, R-California, then chair of utilities across the country. And as it released formal the Select Committee on Homeland Security, said. documents to begin its review in 2013, the EPA sumBut this strategy, too, largely failed. marized its case for RDX’s cancer-causing properties Since exempting the Department of Defense from starkly: In the best studies ever conducted, RDX was hazardous waste laws effectively would have trans- linked to two different types of cancer, in two sexes ferred the cleanup burden to local businesses and among two different species of animals. That checked municipalities attempting to turn old military lands every box in the agency’s formal criteria for classifyinto economically productive places, not even reli- ing a toxin as a “likely” human carcinogen. able Pentagon allies in Congress felt able to support

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PUBLIC DOMAIN

“The case for this classification presented in the document is not strong,” wrote Stephen Roberts, another member of the RDX advisory board and a professor of public health at the University of Florida. The “likely” characterization, he wrote in 2016, “fits the data for RDX.” The EPA contends that its overall rating of RDX is more or less unchanged, and that the term “suggestive” reflects the current state of the research. “Choosing a descriptor is a matter of judgment and cannot be reduced to a formula,” an EPA spokesperson wrote to ProPublica in response to questions emailed to the agency. “EPA’s conclusions are driven by the scientific evidence and risk assessment methods available at the time of assessment development. The strength, reputation, and influence of the [EPA’s environmental risk program] is founded on its scientific integrity, highest caliber of scientific process, and rigorous peer review.” The EPA declined to allow its advisory committee members to speak with ProPublica. The EPA also has not responded to three public records requests about the board’s meetings and communications, the first of which ProPublica filed with the agency more than 13 months ago. But other public comments and records from the EPA’s RDX meetings show that from 2013 to 2016, the Pentagon and organizations and agencies friendly to it, including the American Chemical Counsel (an advocacy group that generally lobbies against chemical regulations) and the Office of Management and Budget (which approves the Pentagon’s cleanup spending) either recommended looser standards, pushed the EPA to include more studies that found no negative effects from RDX, or advocated a “weight of evidence” approach. This would mean considering all studies on the subject and giving each more or less equal weight, regardless of their quality. Since the Pentagon had funded so many studies that found RDX to have less health risk, this approach was more likely to lead the EPA to downgrade RDX’s risk profile. The EPA, in a statement to ProPublica, insists that the quality of studies is not ignored in this approach. But critics argue that the scales are better balanced when the EPA evaluates the research and allows the best studies to have the most influence — or at least protects them from being dismissed as aberrations. “If you base it on weight of evidence, and you stack it with a bunch of negative studies, you are going to win,” Melnick, the former NIH toxicologist who submitted comments to the EPA (and does not sit on its advisory committee), told ProPublica. “even if the negative studies are not very good.” In his formal comments submitted to the EPA, Melnick called the agency’s representation of the Army’s research “a misleading justification” for its decision to downgrade, warning the decision will “protect polluters rather than protecting U.S. citizens.”

prostate inflammation observed in rats. Though she, possible science can be used to reduce uncertainty too, had merely reanalyzed old data, she concluded associated with establishing safe levels of exposure that RDX could be safely ingested by people in far for decision-making.” higher doses than the EPA had suggested. J.C. King, the Army’s director of munitions and That these studies were funded by the Pentagon, the chief official responsible for Army explosives which had a specific stake in how RDX was classified, cleanups, said the Army simply wants to make sure did not make the research less trustworthy, EPA tox- taxpayer funds are not wasted on unnecessary enviicologists and others involved in the review said. The ronmental work. EPA’s Craig points out the studies helped fill a void in “That’s our obligation,” he said in an interview at overall knowledge about RDX’s effects — especially the Pentagon in July. “We’re spending your money. their noncancerous effects — and several were vali- And we spend your money as wisely as we can.” dated through peer review. The Pentagon-sponsored research bolstered the But scientists directly involved in the review pro- military’s longstanding argument that the health and cess said the Pentagon shaped the outcome of its environmental dangers of RDX are unproven. studies by the questions its researchers asked, or By the time the EPA completed the first internal chose not to ask. The persistent focus of the Pentagon draft of its RDX review in 2014, meant for deliberastudies on uncertainties in existing research, their tion between executive agencies, it indicated it was aversion to repeating the original rodent studies, and the consistent findings that RDX was less dangerous than previously thought, sparked skepticism. “You can always get a burger your way,” said Frank, the former EPA federal facilities enforcement attorney. “The scientific process itself has been under attack by the Department of Defense for many years.” Just as Levine predicted in his testimony in the Utah case, the Defense Department researchers never repeated the original graduated-dose study of RDX on mice to observe whether it caused malignant liver and lung tumors in higher numbers. Reddy, for his part, wrote in a PowerPoint presentation he and two co-authors made about the EPA review for the Army Public Health Center that if the EPA didn’t loosen its RDX standards based on his research, “training Power canal and intake and testing activities will be adversely for Springville/Mapleton, affected, adversely affecting military readiness.” Furthermore, if “artificially Utah in 1982. low” environmental standards were set for RDX, “significant resources will be spent [on] cleanup costs associated with unnecessary considering a looser and more ambiguous categoriremediation.” zation that is less likely to lead to stringent regulation. Military assessments from scientists trained in Instead of declaring RDX a likely carcinogen, it was toxicology, who are not supposed to have an interest now prepared to say RDX was merely “suggestive” of in the outcome of their research, are “frankly, highly carcinogenicity. unusual,’’ said the EPA’s Craig. Reddy did not respond Two years later, when that assessment was finally to a request for comment about his statements; it is released for review by the science advisory comunclear how he determined what effect changing mittee — made up of 26 prominent toxicologists, RDX standards would have on military readiness. epidemiologists and cancer doctors from American In an emailed response to questions, Mark universities — the less serious characterization of the Johnson, director of toxicology for the Army Public risk immediately raised concerns. Health Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, said the “Why lower cancer risk designation?” asked notion that the Pentagon had tailored its research on George Cobb, a member of the EPA’s RDX advisory RDX to sway the EPA’s review — or that it was part of board and chairman of the environmental science an agency-wide campaign to avoid responsibility for department at Baylor University. Cobb wrote in late RDX — was “simplistic’’ and incorrect. 2016 comments that the liver and lung tumors in the “There has never been a strategy to manipulate mice found by Levine nearly three decades ago alone RDX regulation by deciding not to do studies,” he warranted the more serious warning. “The hazard wrote. “Our interest has always been to provide identification should be … indicative of higher risk,” as much information as possible so that the best he wrote.

In an interview this month, Caldwell said the EPA’s decision to “downgrade,” as she put it, RDX’s cancer status was ultimately a political choice. When it came to RDX, she believed senior agency staff overrode the agency’s toxicologists “to try to avoid pressure from the DOD.” “It was obvious that it should have been one way, and all of a sudden it went another way,” said Caldwell, who worked at the EPA for 26 years. “The understanding was that from the top of the organization, probably with DOD influence, they had chickened out.”

The site of the old Cornhusker Army Ammunition Plant in Grand Island, Nebraska.

“Honestly, I haven’t asked my staff to do an assessment of that, of what it means to us,” she said.

Coda

In 1982, John Sheehan, one of the scientists responsible for developing RDX, received a kind of lifetime achievement award from the University of Cincinnati and the American Chemical Society. For decades, Sheehan had been haunted by misgivings about RDX’s lasting consequences. To him, his invention had been a “mixed blessing.” RDX had helped win wars, but it had also helped increase the human toll of those wars, among combatants and civilians alike. “We tend to assume that we can contain the destructive effects of new weaponry more than history justifies,” Sheehan said in accepting his award. The chance that RDX’s destructive effects could include damage to the American environment was just emerging when Sheehan gave his speech. Thirty-five years later, the EPA is still wrestling with just how much of an environmental and health peril RDX poses and how to regulate it. But the EPA is an agency undergoing a radical remaking. In the 11 months since President Donald Trump was inaugurated, the EPA has dramatically scaled back its role as a regulator of dangerous chemicals of all sorts. The changes suggest the agency is less likely to move aggressively to take on Defense Department pollution, including RDX, former agency officials say. Pruitt is considering a relaxation of cleanup standards at Defenserelated Superfund sites and chose Nancy Beck — a former American Chemistry Council executive who took the Pentagon’s side on RDX’s risk level — to lead the EPA office that will determine RDX regulations. For much of the Obama administration, Mathy Stanislaus oversaw the EPA division tasked with hazardous waste management and restoration of lands once used as military facilities. He grew familiar with the Pentagon’s power and effectiveness in fending off EPA efforts to fix toxic leftovers related to its explosive weapons programs, including RDX. In the current environment, Stanislaus said, a fight that once was difficult might now be impossible. “What leverage does EPA have to move forward?” asked Stanislaus. “I would say it’s very limited.” ANGELICA LEICHT

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

14 | JANUARY 31, 2018

Of particular concern to Cobb are the known cancer risks of RDX’s breakdown chemistry, the nitrosamines that were the subject of the Petersen lawsuit in Mapleton, Utah. The EPA’s review for RDX, he noted, hardly takes them into account. In the comments he submitted to the agency, Cobb described the Pentagon-funded research as “rehashes of old studies in attempts to decrease toxicity profiles of RDX.” The only reliable way to answer the cancer question, Cobb insists, is for the EPA or the National Institutes of Health to fund and conduct their own repeat of Levine’s original 1984 research. “This should be done before any diminution of toxicity characteristics,” Cobb wrote in 2016. Pentagon officials say they never repeated the study because of how much it would cost. According to Johnson, such a study “could be worthwhile” but would take five years to complete and cost $2 million to $3 million. “There has never been a strategy to not repeat” Levine’s studies, he wrote to ProPublica. But “currently there is no funding to support it,” he said, in the Pentagon’s annual budget, which has reached $585 billion. In September, the EPA’s peer review advisory committee submitted its final comments for the EPA’s consideration. The committee consented to the EPA’s “suggestive” cancer hazard description, but raised numerous other concerns about the potential for underestimating RDX’s risk. In a letter addressed to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the committee warned that the EPA was overstating its confidence in some of the data, and recommended an “uncertainty” score three times higher than the EPA’s figure, noting the risk, for example, that “repeated exposures to RDX have cumulative effects” on brain function. The committee criticized the completeness of the EPA’s data on RDX, saying that it “does not capture all of the potential adverse outcomes, or their severity.” It warned that the EPA’s suggested human exposure limits might not account for the fact that even low doses of RDX could cause behavioral and developmental problems, and didn’t consider other factors — including that the offspring of rats exposed to RDX also showed traces of RDX in their brains. The EPA is now incorporating the advisory committee’s comments into a final assessment of RDX’s toxicity, which is not expected to be made public until sometime next year. Jane Caldwell, a senior environmental health scientist in the EPA’s toxicology program until she retired last year, said she had concerns with the EPA’s handling of the RDX question dating back years. Indeed, in 2014, she wrote a memo describing the agency’s reassessment work as recklessly incomplete, saying it had glossed over or ignored important signs that RDX caused rare tumors and carried serious health risks.

One EPA scientist directly involved in the final stages of the review process offered a detailed sequence of events before what Caldwell called the EPA’s final capitulation. The scientist, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from EPA management, said that at least 10 EPA staff toxicologists and statisticians had raised concerns about the significance of rare tumors in the RDX studies, and had made a case for calling RDX a “likely” carcinogen. And upon hearing those concerns, in a high-level meeting at EPA headquarters before the public review draft was released, a dozen EPA branch chiefs and managers reached a consensus to take that step. Then, a few days later, the decision was reversed. “DOD wasn’t going to let it go without a fight, and the EPA wasn’t interested in that fight,” said the scientist. Sitting at a dark cherry wood table in a small conference room outside her office at the Pentagon one day last July, Maureen Sullivan, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for environment, safety and occupational health, would not say whether the Pentagon was happy with the EPA’s conclusions or if she had pressed for a specific outcome. Though she is the top official overseeing the agency’s tens of thousands of cleanup sites, and administering a $4 billion annual environment budget, she said that she hadn’t given the implications of RDX regulation much thought.

PJH

Abrahm Lustgarten is a senior environmental reporter, with a focus at the intersection of business, climate and energy. Nina Hedevang, Clare Victoria Church, Alessandra Freitas, Emma Cillekens and Eli Kurland, students in the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute graduate studies program, contributed reporting for this story. Other students in the program who also contributed were Lauren Gurley, Razi Syed and Alex Gonzalez. Jonathan Jones also contributed research for this story.

BY KELSEY DAYTON @kelsey_dayton

Full music schedule at worthotel.com 50 N. Glenwood St. • 307-732-3939

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 15

Maynard went Upon closer inspection, one will see that the sculptures of birds and branches are actually made of feathers. Neat, eh? on to study biology and hydrology create. Sometimes he has an idea and and work in the just needs the perfect feather. sciences while making art on the side. “I have way more ideas than I’ll be About 10 years ago, Maynard started photographing feathers and making able to do, and that keeps it interesting,” posters from the images, but he want- he said. Each time he creates a sculpture, ed to physically work with the feathers themselves. He started arranging them he learns more about feathers, he said. Feathers have incredible structure. They on backgrounds and cutting them. He learned what glue didn’t bleed are the most complex of any feature on through the feathers or warp them. He the surface an animal’s body. And feathdiscovered how to carefully cut them ers last forever, even once shed, he said. — they aren’t as delicate as they look — Feathers are not only fascinating, they are archival. and soon he was making art full time. One sculpture he’s bringing to From the start, Maynard said he wanted his work to foster appreciation Jackson is made from a single turkey and wonder for the natural world. He feather. It’s about 15 inches high and wanted to honor the feathers and the features three chickadees on a branch looking down at a pile of debris at the birds. Maynard gets feathers from aviaries, bottom. It’s called, “Wait, What?” zoos and people who find and send It’s meant to be lighthearted and them to him. His favorite feathers to work with come from the great argus make people smile. Maynard finds himpheasant and turkeys. Neither are self drawn to incorporating humor in his work. colorful. “Maybe it’s because life is harsh Maynard works mostly with neutral colors, partly because the big feath- and one way to deal with it, perhaps is ers he needs to create his work usually through beauty,” he said. “Life is horriaren’t colorful. The great argus pheas- ble, but it’s also beautiful, but there is ant feathers are large with a distinctive another way to deal with it that seems to come out of my work and that is humor.” pattern. But the thing Maynard said he really “It blows your mind, they are so incredibly fantastic — more so than hopes people get from his work and peacocks which they are related to,” he his talk is seeing feathers, and the entire natural world, in a new way. PJH said. Turkey feathers are also large, and Chris Maynard’s art exhibition can be since the birds don’t fly much, the feathviewed at WRJ Design Showroom, 30 South ers are thinner and easier to sculpt. Sometimes Maynard will get a feath- King St. The show hangs Thursday through er and hold and twirl it in his hand for Feb. 15. A reception will be held Thursday 30 minutes. He enters an almost medi- at 3 p.m. and Maynard will speak about his tative state as he works out ideas he can work at 5:15 p.m. in the showroom.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

ven from a distance the sculpture seems intricate and delicate. A line of ravens on a branch are ready to leap off, and then they are falling — not flying — until their wings suddenly open and they are moving back in the air. Upon closer inspection, one will see the birds and the branch are actually a skillfully carved feather. Chris Maynard is a feather sculptor. The Washington-based artist uses surgical tools like scalpels to carve detailed bird scenes like the one seen in “Leap, Fall Down, Get Up” — featuring the falling ravens — from feathers. Maynard was raised in Washington by an artist mother and an eye surgeon father, whose tools Maynard now uses in his art. Maynard loved the outdoors, and the natural world fascinated him as a child. It was a childhood trip to the zoo with his grandfather where Maynard first fell in love with feathers. He doesn’t remember exactly when, or what it was about them. He just remembers that the day at the zoo was the day it all began.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1 DERRIK AND THE DYNAMOS FRI & SAT, FEBRUARY 2 & 3 AARON DAVIS & THE MYSTERY MACHINE SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4 SUPER BOWL PARTY TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6 ONE TON PIG

Artist Chris Maynard uses a surgeon’s precision to create delicate, intricate sculptures

This Week at The Wort

XXXXX

Feather Sculptor

CULTURE KLASH

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

16 | JANUARY 31, 2018

DON’T MISS THIS WEEK: January 31 - February 6, 2018

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31

n Toddler Gym 10 a.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Story Time 10 a.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Baby Time - Youth Auditorium 10:05 a.m. Teton County Library, n Open Hockey - Weekday Morning 10:15 a.m. Snow King Sports & Event Center, $10.00, (307) 201-1633 n Public Skating - Weekday 12 p.m. Snow King Sports & Event Center, $5.00 - $8.00, (307) 201-1633 n Teton Literacy Center Volunteer Training 12 p.m. Teton Literacy Center, Free, (307)732-9242 n Art Association of JH Youth Auditorium 3:30 p.m. Teton County Library,

n Winter Wonderland Ice Skating on Town Square 4 p.m. n Warm Après Flow and Chill Yoga Series 4:15 p.m. Teton Yoga Shala, $14.00 - $19.00, 307-690-3054 n Open Gym - Adult Basketball 6:30 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Chris Robinson Brotherhood 7 p.m. Pink Garter Theatre, n Fifth House Ensemble Reed Trio: The Scenic Route 7 p.m. National Museum of Wildlife Art, $0.00 - $25.00, 307-733-1128 n evening music 7 p.m. Warbirds Cafe, Free, n An Evening With Chris Robinson Brotherhood 9 p.m. Pink Garter Theatre, $25.00 - $75.00, n Todd Freeman 9 p.m. Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, Free, 307-733-2207

Compiled by Cory Garcia

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1

n Books & Babies Story Time 10 a.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Storytime - Youth Auditorium 10:30 a.m. Teton County Library, n Story Time, Victor 10:30 a.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Public Skating - Weekday 12 p.m. Snow King Sports & Event Center, $5.00 - $8.00, (307) 201-1633 n Open Gym - Adult Basketball 12 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Music and Community: A Midday Lecture with Composer Dan Visconti 12 p.m. Teton County Library, Free, 3077331128 n Prenatal Yoga Series 3 p.m. Teton Yoga Shala, $14- $19 n Eli Williams, The Cougar Fund - Youth Auditorium

SEE CALENDAR PAGE 17 This is (part of) the Colorfreak Tribespeople world, brought to life by Colorfreak Jina.

Color Freak

JACKSON HOLE

Jina Kim brings the Rose to life with a world of patterns, bright pops of color all her own

2017 BDHL CHAMPIONS

BY KELSEY DAYTON @kelsey_dayton

FE B RUARY 2-3 VS

STOWE

SEC R ET E H T & E T E P Y SN EAK

WEAPONS

PS @ 7:30PM O R D K C U P • M P MUSIC AT 7 E NTE R TS & EVE NTS C R O P S G IN K W O SN KIDS - $5 ADU LTS - $10 NO BACKPACKS E.COM OR DUFFEL BAGS WWW.J H MOOS

hen you walk into the Rose starting Friday, you’ll enter another world: the Colorfreak World. It is home to the Colorfreak Tribespeople, indigenous people from around the world who are dressed, draped and adorned in bright colored patterns. This is the world Colorfreak Jina, or Jina Kim, created in her mind. She brings it to life with her paintings. Kim was always drawing as a child in Seoul, South Korea. She was shy and wherever she went she’d find a quiet corner to sit and draw. If she didn’t have paper she drew on her hand, or her clothes, or even the wall. Her parents quickly learned to make sure she

always carried paper. Kim was also always interested in indigenous people from around the world, and tribal art and patterns. As a kid, she read books about indigenous people from other continents. She also always loved color. Kim was about 19 years old when she picked up a photo of a woman from an indigenous tribe in Africa in traditional dress and drew her. She knew she wanted to do more of the same work. “As an artist, I took a long journey to figure out who I am,” she said. In 2012, she went to Laos and lived with a hill tribe. The tribe she lived with loved color. She watched the women embroider colorful patterns from clothing. “I knew this is what I want to do and these are the people I want to have in my paintings,” Kim said. “[The trip] changed the style of my art and my life and my perspective.” When Kim returned from Laos, she picked up textile and pattern books and began to study the ones she liked. She designed patterns based on the inspiration she found in the books, but also from her time in Laos.

3:30 p.m. Teton County Library, n Winter Wonderland Ice Skating on Town Square 4 p.m. n REFIT® 5:15 p.m. First Baptist Church, Free, 307-690-6539 n Papa Chan & Johnny C Note 6 p.m. Teton Pines Country Club, Free, 307 733 1005 n Beginning Pilates Reformer Workshop 6 p.m. Dancers’ Workshop, $100.00, 307-733-6398 n Taking the Awkward out of Sex Talk 6 p.m. Teton County Library, Free, 3076908043

n Open Gym - Adult Soccer 6:30 p.m. Teton Rec Center n Armchair Adventures: Exploring Southern Spain and Morocco 6:30 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, 307-739-9025 n Chamber Music with Festival Musicians: Music for Strings 7 p.m. St. John’s Episcopal Church, Free, 3077331128 n Derrik and the Dynamos 7:30 p.m. Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-732-3939 n Todd Freeman 9 p.m. Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, Free, 307-733-2207

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2

n Toddler Gym 10 a.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Open Hockey - Weekday Morning 10:15 a.m. Snow King Sports & Event Center, $10.00, (307) 201-1633 n All Ages Story Time 11 a.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Public Skating - Weekday 12 p.m. Snow King Sports & Event Center, $5.00 - $8.00, (307) 201-1633 n Jazz Improvisation, Musical Creativity, and the

SEE CALENDAR PAGE 18

THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: LIVE IN HD

Kim’s latest exhibition opens with a reception from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday at the Rose with cocktails from Jackson Hole Still Works.

GIACOMO PUCCINI

TOSCA Wednesday, February 7 at 7PM | Center for the Arts, Jackson Hole

Puccini’s melodrama about a volatile diva, a sadistic police chief, and an idealistic artist has thrilled audiences for more than a century. Sir David McVicar’s ravishing new production offers a splendid backdrop for extraordinary soprano Sonya Yoncheva in the title role and Vittorio Grigolo as her lover Cavaradossi. Željko Lučić is the depraved police chief Scarpia and Emmanuel Villaume conducts.

PRESENTED BY THE

GR A N D T E TO N M US IC FEST I VA L & C E N T E R O F WO ND ER

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 17

The show features paintings of indigenous people from around the world, including Native Americans. There is also one cowboy. The landscapes in the background are ones Kim has visited in Utah and New Mexico, as well as ones inspired by Jackson. For Kim, it’s not just an exhibition. She communicates through her paintings. “I feel like they are all a big part of me,” she said. “This is a way to tell people who I am.” When Kim is painting she falls into her own world, and it’s the place she feels most comfortable. She hopes people get that same sense of calm and contentment when they view her work. “The moment you look at my paintings or the moment you step into my art show you are in Colorfreak World,” she said. “I want people to see it’s a different world that I created as an artist and I hope they just enjoy being there.” PJH

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

Kim studied ceramics and fashion design in college, learning skills that helped her understand clothing and how to render it. Her paintings begin with a pencil drawn face. She focuses on the facial expression and the eyes. She wants the face to look realistic. She then goes over the drawing with acrylic paint to add the colorful patterned clothing and accessories. The painting part is more creative and loose, she said. The background always features a Western landscape. When her husband, at the time her boyfriend, first saw her work in South Korea, he immediately noted the color and commented how she was a bit of a “color freak.” It became Kim’s nickname, representing the way she saw the world and what she loved. Kim moved to Jackson about a year ago after she had visited it to see her father-in-law. When she arrived in Jackson she moved away from her tribespeople. She found so much other inspiration and she started painting skulls and animals. Her new show at the Rose is a return to her Colorfreak Tribespeople.

Colorfreak Jina’s show at The Rose features a world of Colorfreak Tribespeople and one lone cowboy, seen above.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

18 | JANUARY 31, 2018

Brain: Lunchtime Learning with Dr. Charles Limb 12 p.m. Teton County Library, Free, 3077331128 n Fun Friday - Youth Auditorium 3:30 p.m. Teton County Library, n Film Friday Victor 3:30 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Winter Wonderland Ice Skating on Town Square 4 p.m. n The Maw Band 4:30 p.m. Mangy Moose, n Teton Arts Gallery Presents Painter Susan Rose 6 p.m. Driggs City Center, Free,

n Open Gym - Adult Soccer 6:30 p.m. Teton Re Center, n Moose Hockey Game 7 p.m. Snow King Sports & Event Center, $5.00 - $10.00, (307) 201-1633 n Fifth House Ensemble Piano Trio: Americana 7 p.m. National Museum of Wildlife Art, $0.00 - $25.00, 30777331128 n FREE Public Stargazing 7:30 p.m. Center for the Arts, n Country Western Swing Workshop 7:30 p.m. Dancers’ Workshop, $25.00 - $90.00, 307-733-6398

n Aaron Davis and the Mystery Machine 7:30 p.m. Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-732-3939 n Todd Freeman 9 p.m. Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, Free, 307-733-2207

MUSIC BOX

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3

n Library Saturdays - Youth Auditorium 10:15 a.m. Teton County Library, n Chanman - SOLO 4 p.m. Teton Mountain Lodge, Free, 307 201 6066 n Open Gym - Adult Soccer 6:30 p.m. Teton Rec Center,

SEE CALENDAR PAGE 20

Grammy Issues Forget next year’s awards; let’s just watch Blue Ivy instead BY CORY GARCIA @coryfaust

ou would think that as a person paid to write about music on a weekly basis, I would have spent last Sunday sitting in front of my TV watching the Grammys, if for no other reason than that it would likely provide me with easy content for this week’s column. You would be wrong, because I learned a long time ago that one does not need to sit through over three hours of performances I don’t care about to have award show hot takes. That’s a little thing called being a professional. Honestly, I can’t think of the last time I actually watched the Grammys. Growing up I used to love watching award shows, but over the last decade or so my interest has declined significantly. Once you realize that the people handing out the awards are more interested in trying to create pop culture

moments that keep their brand relevant rather than the awards themselves, it’s easy to lose interest if you’re someone who thinks awards, no matter how silly, should be treated seriously. Look, I don’t expect a mainstream-centric music awards show to get it right all the time. It just won’t happen. Ignoring the whole “music is subjective” thing, the simple truth is that most artists will never have the chance to compete for a Grammy because people have to know who you are to get you on the final ballot, and the world is full of great artists who don’t have the kind of industry support to get noticed. I mean, if Carly Rae Jepsen couldn’t get nominated for anything from the Emotion era, what chance do incredibly talented artists not on major labels really have? The strangest thing to me about the Grammys is how it attempts to be everything to everyone in the most baffling ways possible. What got the most chatter this year? The unnecessary Fire and Fury skit, a Kesha performance in front of industry bigwigs who wouldn’t release her from her contract, the fact that they wouldn’t allow Album of the Year nominee Lorde a solo performance (while somehow finding time for a Sting/Shaggy performance) and Blue Ivy being the best kid possible.

PLANET PICKS WEDNESDAY Chris Robinson Brotherhood (Pink Garter) THURSDAY Papa Chan and Johnny C Note (Teton Pines Country Club) FRIDAY The Maw Band (Mangy Moose) SATURDAY Big Wild (Pink Garter)

MONDAY U-Foria (Million Dollar) TUESDAY One Ton Pig (Silver Dollar)

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 19

well. Listen, at some point you have to accept that your genre has moved on. Make the very best album/song you can and hope for the best. Now, despite what you might be thinking at this point, I’m no fool. I understand that the system is set up the way that it is for marketing purposes. I get enough press releases that tell me that “[x] songwriter in [genre that I don’t care about]” is a Grammy nominee and it sure would be swell if I interviewed them, nevermind the fact that they were nominated in a category that couldn’t pay to make the televised portion of the ceremony. Honestly, the only music awards show that I respect are Billboard Music Awards, because at least they’re straight-forward with how things operate. If you sell a lot of records -- or, you know, if a lot of people stream your music online, because it’s 2018 — you’re going to win. It’s everything the Grammys want to be without the awkwardness of having to explain why a perfectly decent Bruno Mars record won out over an album from the best rapper alive. Not that Kendrick needs the awards mind you, but it would have been pretty cool, I think. Not that I would have seen it happen, mind you. PJH

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

Did you know they handed out awards too? Spoiler alert: Bruno Mars won all of them. OK, not all of them, but I assume that’s only because he didn’t feel it necessary to release a Regional Music album this year. I guess it just seems silly that an awards show more interested in pissing off the red states in this country also feels the need to have multiple jazz categories, ya know? To be completely honest, that’s maybe my biggest issue with the Grammys. If you want an excuse to try and prop up an industry that benefits everyone but the majority of artists making music, you do you and have your little ceremony, but at least try and narrow the awards you’re handing out a little bit. Things don’t have to be as complicated as they are now. I’d eliminate any award that ends in “Performance.” They only exist so that more people will get awards. No category needs anything more than a best song and a best album. I’d also consolidate as much as possible. There’s no need for alternative, heavy metal and rock categories to separate at this point anyway because the Grammys don’t care about rock bands under the age of 45. I’d also merge any categories that had a regular version of the award and a contemporary/traditional version as

Forget the Grammys. A stream of Blue Ivy Carter being a little badass is all we need.

SUNDAY Songwriter’s Alley (Silver Dollar)

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

20 | JANUARY 31, 2018

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4

n First Sundays 11 a.m. National Museum of Wildlife Art, Free, n Winter Wonderland Ice Skating on the Town Square 12 p.m. n Sled Hockey Sundays 3:45 p.m. Teton Adaptive Sports, n Open Gym - Adult Volleyball 4 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n Songwriter’s Alley 7 p.m. Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307-732-3939

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5

n Open Hockey - Weekday Morning 10:15 a.m. Snow King Sports & Event Center, $10.00, (307) 201-1633 n Public Skating - Weekday 12 p.m. Snow King Sports & Event Center, $5.00 - $8.00, (307) 201-1633 n Bridging the Gap Performance Clinics 3 p.m. Jackson Hole High School, $10.00, 307734-9718 n Movie Monday - Youth Auditorium 3:30 p.m. Teton County Library, n Movie Monday 3:30 p.m. Valley of the Tetons Library, n Open Gym - Adult Basketball 6:30 p.m. Teton Recreation Center, n U-Foria 9 p.m. Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, Free, 307733-2207

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6

n Public Skating - Weekday 12 p.m. Snow King Sports & Event Center, $5.00 - $8.00, (307) 201-1633 n Open Gym - Adult Basketball 12 p.m. Teton Recreation Center,

For complete event details visit pjhcalendar.com.

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Super Streaming The NFL streaming channel exists so you can revel in old game footage BY CORY GARCIA @coryfaust

ou would think, all things considered, that the Super Bowl of advertising would happen at the start of the Christmas shopping season instead of a couple of weeks after. Isn’t it kind of bizarre that no one has been able to manufacture some sort of can’tmiss TV spectacular the Sunday before Black Friday? Outside of Hollywood, I can’t imagine most companies are that excited to spend millions on a 30 second commercial slot just because the competition might. But they will, because Sunday is the Super Bowl, and odds are good you’ll be sitting in front of your TV, either watching it though your cable box or streaming it through any number of legal/less than legal means. The Super Bowl is actually a great Roku watch because it feels so completely familiar with much of the stuff you probably already watch. I don’t hate TV commercials. I understand that I live in a capitalist society, and that part of the price of business for doing so is having to read my iPad for two to three minutes every once few minutes during a show. It’s not an ideal system by any means, and multiple apps I use actually have real issues skipping from main program to commercial, but again, I understand that’s part of the streaming game, no matter how annoying. What’s more annoying is the fact that some streaming services only allow you to use them if you already have a cable subscription. Again, I understand that this is largely due to contracts they’ve signed and to do otherwise would likely cost them millions, but it’s still weird that in a breaking news situation if I want to fire up the CNN channel on my Roku I have to prove that I could access CNN through a different device in another part of the house. It’s true: while I am a streaming evangelist, I have yet to cut the cord in my own home. While I’m 100% confident that I could entertain myself

CREATIVE COMMONS

n Moose Hockey Game 7 p.m. Snow King Sports & Event Center, $5.00 $10.00, (307) 201-1633 n GTMF Presents: Kenari Saxophone Quartet 7 p.m. Center for the Arts, $25.00, 3077331128 n Aaron Davis and the Mystery Machine 7:30 p.m. Silver Dollar Showroom, Free, 307732-3939 n Big Wild 9 p.m. Pink Garter Theatre, $20.00 - $25.00, n Todd Freeman 9 p.m. Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, Free, 307733-2207

KICKING & STREAMING

A commemorative Super Bowl II Packers vs Raiders Coca-Cola bottle produced in 1994.

with the streaming options available to me, I’m not quite sure that the current model of streaming is robust enough to keep me informed in case of emergency. Sure, I could just use Twitter for that, I suppose, but in a world where nuclear conflict doesn’t seem impossible, I figure it’s best to keep my options for information open. One of the more interesting streaming developments over the past couple of years has been the battle over NFL streaming rights. Football, for now, is still king in this country, and everyone wants a part of the NFL action to increase their own brand strength. I doubt the day will ever come that I really want to watch a football game on Twitter or stream it through Yahoo, but it’s a nice idea I guess. Something that surprised me this week was learning that The NFL not only has a streaming channel, but that with the NFL Game Pass you could stream damn near every Super Bowl if you wanted. I was sort of vaguely aware that this existed in some form or fashion, but I’m a little bit shocked that in the age of binge watching the NFL isn’t leaning more on the idea of people binge watching the most popular TV broadcasts of all time. But maybe watching the games without the commercials just isn’t the same. I suspect the day will come when you can stream any NFL game ever played

through an official NFL licensed channel. That’s got to be the direction most sports leagues are leaning. That kind of thing is probably way down the line, as the monetary and time investment to encode that much video and then get it uploaded into multiple servers is extreme in the present, but the technology may eventually catch up to make it more feasible. And if you think that people won’t want to watch seasons of their favorite team that only end in disappointment, let me remind you that there are people out there streaming Lost for the first time even though they’ve heard the rumors of how the ending is less than satisfying. At least we’re mostly past the age of networks trying to counter-program the Super Bowl. We only need two things on Super Bowl Sunday: the commercials that are frequently interrupted by football, and the Puppy Bowl, which is everything good and pure about the world. Seriously, if you’re ever in the city hosting a Super Bowl, go out of your way to find the Puppy Bowl and put a little love in your heart. But rest easy: if you can’t make it out that way, Animal Planet will be streaming the thing online, so at least you can get your puppy goodness there. After all, what is the purpose of the internet other than to serve up cute animal videos, even on the biggest TV day of the year. PJH

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GOLD, SILVER AND BRONZE WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN PLANET JACKSON HOLE ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21. Escape Room

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WWW.EXITUSJH.COM

Downtown Jackson 55 N. Glenwood | (307)-734-4472

VOTE FOR EXITUS FOR BEST NEW BUSINESS

VOTE

Jackson Parlour

for Best Hair Salon and Jenny Bragg for Best Hair Stylist

Best Hair Salon Best Shop for Dropping Obscene Amounts of Cash Best Rafting Company Best Snowmobiling Company Best Fishing Outfitter Best Gear Shop Best Bike Shop Best Veterinary Clinic Best Yoga Spot Best Specialty Fitness Studio Best Pet Supply Store Best Cleaning Company Best Place to Buy Booze Best Florist Best Produce Best Bank Best Eco-friendly Business Best Customer Service Best Place to Buy Drugs Best Shop to Buy Bling Best Resale Store Best Local Website Best Radio Station Best New Business Best Clothing Store

FOOD & DRINK Best Restaurant

Trust your taste buds. Vote best pizza! 20 W Broadway

307.201.1472

pizzeriacaldera.com

Best New Restaurant Best Chef Best Wait Staff Best Bartender Best Local Food or Drink Producer Best Chinese Restaurant Best Mexican Restaurant Best Thai Restaurant Best Italian Restaurant Best “Under the Radar” Restaurant Best Sports Bar Best Teton Valley Restaurant Best Take-out Food Best Breakfast Joint Best Lunch Spot Best Coffee Shop Best Place to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth Best Baked Goods Best Breakfast Burrito

Vote for us for Best BBQ Joint

Best Smoked Wings, Happy Hour, Lunch, Sandwiches, late night Hang out...

GOLD, SILVER AND BRONZE WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN PLANET JACKSON HOLE ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21. Best BBQ Best Sandwich Shop Best Soups Best Vegetarian Offerings Best Burger Best French Fries Best Salsa Best Sushi Best Pizza Best Wings Best Food on the Fly (fair/festival/event fare) Best Locally Roasted Beans Best Pint of Locally Brewed Beer Best Brewing Company Best Margarita Best Place to Apres Best Happy Hour Best Bar

daily roots offers local, organic probiotic-rich fermented vegetables and other goods that keep gut health in mind. CSF (Community Supported Fermentation) shares available.

CAMPAIGN YOUR VOTERS HERE EMAIL SALES@PLANETJH.COM OR CALL 307-732-0299 FIND DAILY ROOTS AT THE JH PEOPLEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MARKET THROUGHOUT THE WINTER AND SUMMER MONTHS. WWW.WYDAILYROOTS.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION

CAMPAIGN YOUR VOTERS HERE EMAIL SALES@PLANETJH.COM OR CALL 307-732-0299

SPORTS, ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

CAMPAIGN YOUR VOTERS HERE EMAIL SALES@PLANETJH.COM OR CALL 307-732-0299 1325 S HIGHWAY 89 | JACKSON HOLE, WY 83001

CAMPAIGN YOUR VOTERS HERE EMAIL SALES@PLANETJH.COM OR CALL 307-732-0299

Voted best Za in JH since 2011 Best wings, late night, food on the fly, lunch deal wings...

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

Vote for us for Best Pizza

Best Cover Band Best Annual Event Best Band Playing Original Songs Best Musician Best Classical Musician Best Teton Valley Musician Best Church Choir Best Club DJ Best Live Entertainment Venue Best Outdoor Concert Series Best Local Sports Team Best Shake-a-Day Best Art Gallery Best Local Artist Best Photographer Best Illustrator Best Actor/Actress Best Place to Get Your Groove On Best Late Night Hangout Best Theater Production Company Best Filmmaker Best Ski Run Best Liftee Best Golf Course Best Question We Left Out

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 23

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

24 | JANUARY 31, 2018

Free Coffee with Pastry Purchase Every Day from 3 to 5pm 1110 MAPLE WAY, SUITE B JACKSON, WY

The 50 Best Dishes in Teton County #49, Grilled Branzino at Glorietta Trattoria

307.264.2956 picnicjh.com

BY HELEN GOELET

I Mangy Moose Restaurant, with locally sourced, seasonally FRESH FOOD at reasonable prices, is a always a FUN PLACE to go with family or friends for a unique dining experience. The personable staff will make you feel RIGHT AT HOME and the funky western decor will keep you entertained throughout your entire visit. Reservations at (307) 733-4913 3295 Village Drive • Teton Village, WY

www.mangymoose.com

t is rare in this town to come across a full fish offered as a dish on the menu, which just so happens to be my favorite way to cook and eat a fish. So when I saw grilled branzino — or, in layman’s terms, a silver-skinned fish that is traditionally cooked whole with lemon and herbs — on the menu at Glorietta I was floored. And after eating the entire thing — yes, including the head, which is my favorite part — I can guarantee I will be going back for this dish again. And again. And over again.

HELEN GOELET

50 BEST Cooked on Glorietta’s wood fired oven and grill, the skin of the fish is crisp and has a deliciously charred flavor from cooked over a roaring fire. Branzino is often served with the fish fully intact, but the chef at Glorietta’s takes the liberty of deboning the entire branzino before it’s served, so you don’t have to worry about maneuvering around the spine. You just have to dig in with a fork and go to town. A traditional Mediterannean dish, good branzino should be flakey and briny without being overly “fishy,” and lends itself well to the smoke and bright, clean accompaniments. That’s exactly what Glorietta’s manages to pull off. The fish itself is prepared perfectly, and there is an added balance of fresh, light flavors from the bed of herb salad. It sits perfectly alongside the sweet and tangy coating of the saffron harissa cream sauce, which is precisely what makes this dish stand out. The saffron is delicate, and

BE R VOTED NUM R 1 SPORTS BAAR E EVERY Y

A traditional Mediterannean dish, good branzino should be flakey, briny and not overly “fishy.”

it lends that extra layer of tangy, earthy flavors to the rich, warm harissa. The parsley in the salad has just the right amount of pop to make it stand out against the heavy flavor of the charred skin and harissa cream sauce, and the frisse gives a wonderful bitterness as a well refreshing crunch. The dish is large — it’s a great sharing option — and if you order one of Glorietta’s appetizers and a glass (or bottle; we won’t judge) of wine, you’re going to be living your very best life. With a price tag of about $40, the grilled branzino is not a cheap date, but it’s worth every filthy penny. And that’s why it’s on this list of the best dishes in Teton County. PJH Glorietta Trattoria is located at 242 Glenwood St, Jackson.

MO S T VS DRAFT T BEERAND S THE V ALLEY IN

EAGLES VS PATR IOTS ers t r a u q d a e H s Eagle PART Y 7 9 9 1 e c sin

Beer Dis

Half off philly Cheesesteaks Balloon drop when the Eagles win

945 W BROADWAY, JACKSON, WY 83001 | (307) 734-5766

counts

THE LOCALS

FAVORITE PIZZA 2012-2016 •••••••••

Featuring dining destinations from breweries to bakeries, and continental fare to foreign flavor, this is a sampling of our dining critic’s local favorites.

Serving the world’s most exciting cuisine. Teton Thai offers a splendid array of flavors: sweet, hot, sour, salt and bitter. All balanced and blended perfectly, satisfying the most discriminating palate. Open daily. 7432 Granite Loop Road in Teton Village, (307) 733-0022 and in Driggs, (208) 787-8424, tetonthai.com.

THAI ME UP

Home of Melvin Brewing Co. Freshly remodeled offering modern Thai cuisine in a relaxed setting. New tap system with 20 craft beers. New $8 wine list and extensive bottled beer menu. Open daily for dinner at 5pm. Downtown at 75 East Pearl Street. View our tap list at thaijh.com/brews. 307-733-0005.

CONTINENTAL ALPENHOF

THE BLUE LION

A Jackson Hole favorite for 39 years. Join us in the charming atmosphere of a historic home. Serving fresh fish, elk, poultry, steaks, and vegetarian entrées. Ask a local about our rack of lamb. Live acoustic guitar music most nights. Open nightly at 5:30 p.m. Reservations recommended, walk-ins welcome.. 160 N. Millward, (307) 733-3912, bluelionrestaurant.com

PICNIC

ELEANOR’S

Local, a modern American steakhouse and bar, is located on Jackson’s historic town square. Our menu features both classic and specialty cuts of locally-ranched meats and wild game alongside fresh seafood, shellfish, house-ground burgers, and seasonallyinspired food. We offer an extensive wine list and an abundance of locally-sourced products. Offering a casual and vibrant bar atmosphere with 12 beers on tap as well as a relaxed dining room, Local is the perfect spot to grab a burger for lunch or to have drinks and dinner with friends. Lunch Mon-Sat 11:30am. Dinner Nightly 5:30pm. 55 North Cache, (307) 201-1717, localjh.com.

TV Sports Packages and 7 Screens

Under the Pink Garter Theatre (307) 734-PINK • www.pinkygs.com

LOTUS ORGANIC RESTAURANT

Serving organic, freshly-made world cuisine while catering to all eating styles. Endless organic and natural meat, vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free choices. Offering super smoothies, fresh extracted juices, espresso and tea. Full bar and house-infused botanical spirits. Serving breakfast, lunch & dinner starting at 8am daily. 140 N. Cache, (307) 7340882, theorganiclotus.com.

MANGY MOOSE

Mangy Moose Restaurant, with locally sourced, seasonally fresh food at reasonable prices, is a always a fun place to go with family or friends for a unique dining experience. The personable staff will make you feel right at home and the funky western decor will keep you entertained throughout your entire visit. Teton Village, (307) 733-4913, mangymoose.com.

MOE’S BBQ

Opened in Jackson Hole by Tom Fay and David Fogg, Moe’s Original Bar B Que features a Southern Soul Food Revival through its awardwinning Alabama-style pulled pork, ribs, wings, turkey and chicken smoked over hardwood served with two unique sauces in addition to Catfish and a Shrimp Moe-Boy sandwich. A daily rotation of traditional Southern sides and tasty desserts are served fresh daily. Moe’s BBQ stays open late and features a menu for any budget. While the setting is family-friendly, a full premium bar offers a lively scene with HDTVs for sports fans, music, shuffle board and other games upstairs. Large party takeout orders and full service catering with delivery is also available.

Local is a modern American steakhouse and bar located on Jackson’s historic town square. Serving locally raised beef and, regional game, fresh seafood and seasonally inspired food, Local offers the perfect setting for lunch, drinks or dinner.

Lunch 11:30am Monday-Saturday Dinner 5:30pm Nightly

HAPPY HOUR Daily 4-6:00pm

307.201.1717 | LOCALJH.COM ON THE TOWN SQUARE

VIRGINIAN SALOON

Come down to the historic Virginian Saloon and check out our grill menu! Everything from 1/2 pound burgers to wings at a great price! The grill is open in the Saloon from 4pm - 10pm daily. (307) 739-9891. 750 West Broadway.

LOCAL & DOMESTIC STEAKS SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK @ 5:30 TILL 10 JHCOWBOYSTEAKHOUSE.COM 307-733-4790

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 25

Enjoy all the perks of fine dining, minus the dress code at Eleanor’s, serving rich, saucy dishes in a warm and friendly setting. Its bar alone is an attraction, thanks to reasonably priced drinks and a loyal crowd. Come get a belly-full of our two-time gold medal wings. Open at 11 a.m. daily. 832 W. Broadway, (307) 733-7901.

LOCAL

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

Our mission is simple: offer good food, made fresh, all day, every day. We know everyone’s busy, so we cater to on-the-go lifestyles with quick, tasty options for breakfast and lunch, including pastries and treats from our sister restaurant Persephone. Also offering coffee and espresso drinks plus wine and cocktails. Open Mon-Fri 7am-5pm, Wknds 7am-3pm 1110 Maple Way in West Jackson 307-2642956www.picnicjh.com

Slice, salad & soda

Serving authentic Swiss cuisine, the Alpenhof features European style breakfast entrées and alpine lunch fare. Dine in the Bistro for a casual meal or join us in the Alpenrose dining room for a relaxed dinner experience. Breakfast 7:30am-10am. Coffee & pastry 10am-11:30am. Lunch 11:30am-3pm. Aprés 3pm-5:30pm. Dinner 6pm-9pm. For reservations at the Bistro or Alpenrose, call 307-733-3242.

$5 Shot & Tall Boy

LUNCH

SPECIAL

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

ASIAN & CHINESE TETON THAI

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

26 | JANUARY 31, 2018

KISA KOENIG

OVER THE HILL

Rise Again Driggs’ coffeehouse scene has a new — and delicious — addition BY JESSICA L. FLAMMANG

I FAMILY FRIENDLY ENVIRONMENT PIZZAS, PASTAS & MORE HOUSEMADE BREAD & DESSERTS FRESH, LOCALLY SOURCED OFFERINGS TAKE OUT AVAILABLE Dining room and bar open nightly at 5:00pm (307) 733-2460 • 2560 Moose Wilson Road • Wilson, WY

A Jackson Hole favorite since 1965

f you’re looking for a convivial venue to intermingle with locals and enjoy a tasty cup of brew with a flavorful breakfast, then Rise Coffee House in Driggs is for you. “It’s a place for community to gather and catch up, slow down and reconnect,” said owner Kisa Koenig. “The coffee culture is as much about human connection as it is about roasted and brewed beans mixed with frothy milk.” The traditional Austrian bakery and locals’ favorite previously housed another restaurant — Pendl’s — from 2003-2016, but recently traded hands with Koenig, one of Martha Pendl’s first employees. Koenig reopened the doors in December 2017 under a new name — Rise Coffee — and the longstanding Teton Valley coffee

shop now sports a modern look with rustic touches. Rise Coffee House has a fresh new flair with repainted tables and blue re-cushioned chairs, and a custom-built glass showcase displays delectable quiches and cakes, cookies and scones, all baked in-house. Festive Living wallpaper and fabrics accentuate a whitewashed bathroom door. Koenig, a professional photographer known for her work shooting newborns, closed the doors of her business last fall. She relayed in a farewell newsletter to the community that what truly warmed her heart during her work behind the lens was the human aspect. Entrusted to handle precious souls just one or two weeks old, it was “the conversations had, the hugs hello and goodbye, the people.” She had always secretly dreamed of running a coffee house. “I wanted to try something different, but I didn’t know it would be now until I heard Pendl’s was for sale,” she said. The time was right when her friend and former employer announced her beloved business was for sale, and Koenig seized the opportunity to bring her dream to life.

Koenig’s love of photography and coffee culture is a love of personal relationships.

“My love of photography was really the love of personal relationships. It’s the same with coffee culture, even though it’s a totally different business,” she said. “I enjoy connecting with the community.” To Koenig, the word rise embodies multi-layered significance. As she warms her hands around a steaming cup of Americano, she waves and grins at customers trickling in, all of whom she greets by name. “It implies rising up, as a community,” she saidd. “We live high up, bread rises, fish rise. It’s a very inspiring word, uplifting and meaningful.” On Rise’s new logo, trees point sharply upward to the sky. Koenig has also shifted her java supplier to Doma Coffee Roasting Company in Post Falls, Idaho. “It’s an awesome company -- responsible, conscientious, creative,” Koenig said. “We sell Doma coffee bags and Rise coffee mugs, which are made locally by Liquid Hardware in Victor.” Rise offers scrumptious breakfast

ELY U Q I N U PEAN EURO

F O H ‘ E H

R DINNEAGE I H LUNCTETON VILL I T S IN FA BREAKE ALPENHOF AT TH

AT THE

Open nightly 5:30pm

733-3912 307.733.3242

160 N. Millward • Reservations recommended Reserve online at bluelionrestaurant.com

Large Specialty Pizza ADD: Wings (8 pc)

Medium Pizza (1 topping) Stuffed Cheesy Bread

$ 13 99

for an extra $5.99/each

(307) 733-0330 520 S. Hwy. 89 • Jackson, WY

America’s most award-winning microbrewery is serving lunch and dinner. Take in the atmosphere while enjoying wood-fired pizzas, pastas, burgers, sandwiches, soups, salads and desserts. $9 lunch menu. Happy hour 4 to 6 p.m., including tasty hot wings. The freshest beer in the valley, right from the source! Free WiFi. Open 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. 265 S. Millward. (307) 739-2337, snakeriverbrewing.com.

ITALIAN CALICO

A Jackson Hole favorite since 1965, the Calico continues to be one of the most popular restaurants in the Valley. The Calico offers the right combination of really good food, (much of which is grown in our own gardens in the summer), friendly staff; a reasonably priced menu and a large selection of wine. Our bar scene is eclectic with a welcoming vibe. Open nightly at 5 p.m. 2560 Moose Wilson Rd., (307) 733-2460.

MEXICAN EL ABUELITO

Serving authentic Mexican cuisine and appetizers in a unique Mexican atmosphere. Home of the original Jumbo Margarita. Featuring a full bar with a large selection of authentic Mexican beers. Lunch served weekdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nightly dinner specials. Open seven days, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. 385 W. Broadway, (307) 733-1207.

PIZZA DOMINO’S PIZZA

Hot and delicious delivered to your door. Handtossed, deep dish, crunchy thin, Brooklyn style and artisan pizzas; bread bowl pastas, and oven baked sandwiches; chicken wings, cheesy breads and desserts. Delivery. 520 S. Hwy. 89 in Kmart Plaza, (307) 733-0330.

PINKY G’S

PIZZERIA CALDERA

Jackson Hole’s only dedicated stone-hearth oven pizzeria, serving Napolitana-style pies

Jazz Improvisation, Musical Creativity, and the Brain Friday, February 2 | noon–1 PM Teton County Library

Topics will include: › How neuroscientists study the musical regions of the brain › Experimental findings related to jazz improvisation › The societal value of “Science of the Arts” Presenter Dr. Charles Limb is a professor and division chief at UC San Francisco. His current areas of research focus on the neural basis of musical creativity as well as music perception in deaf individuals with cochlear implants. Free, but ticketed. Tickets available at gtmf.org and St. John’s Wellness Department (307.739.7399).

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 27

using the freshest ingredients in traditional and creative combinations. Five local micro-brews on tap, a great selection of red and white wines by the glass and bottle, and one of the best views of the Town Square from our upstairs deck. Daily lunch special includes slice, salad or soup, any two for $8. Happy hour: half off drinks by the glass from 4 - 6 daily. Dine in or carry out. Or order online at PizzeriaCaldera.com, or download our app for iOS or Android. Open from 11am - 9:30pm daily at 20 West Broadway. 307-201-1472.

Lunchtime Learning

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

The locals favorite! Voted Best Pizza in Jackson Hole 2012-2016. Seek out this hidden gem under the Pink Garter Theatre for NY pizza by the slice, salads, strombolis, calzones and many appetizers to choose from. Try the $7 ‘Triple S’ lunch special. Happy hours 10 p.m. - 12 a.m. Sun.- Thu. Text PINK to 71441 for discounts. Delivery and take-out. Open daily 11a.m. to 2 a.m. 50 W. Broadway, (307) 734-PINK.

1155 S HIGHWAY 89 JACKSON, WY 83OO1 | OPEN DAILY: 7AM - 1OPM | 3O7-733-O45O | JACKSONWHOLEGROCER.COM

treats in addition to the classic baked goods, including a breakfast slider with eggs, bacon, American cheese, avocado and chipotle aioli on a 460 ciabatta; homemade granola with yogurt or milk and seasonal berries; and another favorite — simple avocado toast on 460 multigrain bread, with an option to add bacon. “We are trying to cater more to the savory side of food,” Koenig said. The menu maintained the quiches Pendl’s was known for, making them heartier. They also kept Martha Pendl’s famous pumpkin chocolate bread. “I couldn’t let it go,” Koenig said. “It has always been my pregnancy go-to.” Other baked goods include a veggie egg muffin, morning glory muffin, an almond pecan scone and the German chocolate brownie. Rise has also added pourover coffee, a recent trend for java lovers who prefer their coffee ground and brewed to order. “It’s a cleaner way to brew coffee, and more manually controlled,” Koenig said. “It gives the beans the opportunity to bloom and release carbon dioxide, which allows the intricacies of the flavor to emerge.” The oversized white mugs are simple to accentuate the shop’s streamlined image. But it’s not only mochas and lattes that lure patrons into Rise. The wellloved abode serves up Prosecco, mimosas, wine and beer, including a Cotesdu-Rhone, a Rosé, a 10 Barrel Brewing light pilsner and a sour called Cucumber Crush. “We’re focusing on the lighter side of brews for daytime sipping,” Koenig said. Hannah McClellan, well-known baker from the Pendl days, has maintained a key position in the business. “Kisa offers me the liberty for creative ownership,” she said. “The community is what kept me here, one hundred percent, and a lot of people are happy that someone local took over.” Her goal is to change menu items each month and keep it rotating. Her scones — raspberry, lemon and so on — are different each day. “Change can be good in a small community. It’s a new image, but we are still serving tremendous coffee and fabulous baked goods,” McClellan said. “Evolution is positive, and Rise will be one of those spaces that is ever changing.” PJH Rise Coffee House is located at 40 Depot Street, Driggs, Idaho. www.risedriggs.com.

SNAKE RIVER BREWERY & RESTAURANT

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

28 | JANUARY 31, 2018

EARLY RISER? Planet Jackson Hole is looking for a Wednesday morning delivery driver to start immediately.

SUDOKU

Complete the grid so that each row, column, diagonal and 3x3 square contain all of the numbers 1 to 9. No math is involved. The grid has numbers, but nothing has to add up to anything else. Solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic. Solving time is typically 10 to 30 minutes, depending on your skill and experience.

CONTACT PETE@PLANETJH.COM | (801) 413-0936

L.A.TIMES “RIGHT FOR THE JOB” By LEE TAYLOR

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2018

ACROSS 1 4 8

Code __ “Rubáiyát” poet Regional UN headquarters since 1946 14 Slather 19 Lead-in for carte or mode 20 “__ la France!” 21 Brought up 22 Jobs creation 23 Australian island state 25 Mysterious 26 Capricious notions 27 Aptly named therapist? 29 Misfortunes 31 Like many a tree at Christmas 32 __-friendly 33 Self-described “King of All Media” 34 Largest continent 35 Frat party wear 36 Electric car brand 38 One of the Gershwins 39 Aptly named dietitian? 42 Capital with a Viking Ship Museum 44 With no exceptions 46 Sharp 47 Pull a fast one on 51 Small test 52 Mangabeys, e.g. 54 Thought of but not shared 55 Goes back to the front, perhaps 57 URL ending 58 King’s domain 59 Ties off in surgery 61 Cats native to much of the Americas 66 Unit on the set 67 Mexican coin 68 Prominent Dumbo feature 70 Mine access 71 TV’s Buffy and Faith, e.g. 73 Moral consideration

77 78 79 80

Set of furniture Startling word Shade-tolerant garden plant Old schoolmaster’s disciplinary tool 81 Avoid trespassing on 85 Turns sharply 86 Bowed, in Basra 88 Chocolate source 89 Constitution VIPs 92 Like hands without mittens, maybe 93 Aptly named easy chair salesman? 95 Big time 97 Works with flour 101 Pub pours 102 Green state? 103 Puzzle part 105 Leak 106 Hip 107 Woodcutter Ali 108 Aptly named gardener? 111 Thorny plant 113 “MASH” director 115 Scotty on the Enterprise, e.g. 116 Slowly, in music 117 Spicy cuisine 118 Kerfuffles 119 Rowboat propeller 120 Brinks 121 Many-sided evils 122 Fail miserably 123 Cook in a wok

10 Word on Santa’s checklist 11 Former NHL forward Tikkanen 12 Hunter’s meat 13 Aptly named editor? 14 Makes the cut 15 Dashboard letters 16 Afterword 17 Supremely powerful 18 Amends, as corporate earnings 24 Aptly named sommelier? 28 __ Spring 30 USA Patriot Act, e.g. 34 Including everything 35 Check (off) 37 Take __: enjoy the pool 39 Lose one’s temper 40 Ouzo flavoring 41 Mountain chain 43 Pot top 45 Greenish blue 47 Elicits an “Ouch!” 48 “Inside the NBA” analyst 49 Japanese port 50 Kardashian matriarch 53 Monstrous Tolkien creations 56 They may be inflated 59 Aptly named barber? 60 Labor Day mo. 62 Aptly named policewoman? 63 Loathing 64 Information on a spine 65 Spirited mount DOWN 67 TA’s boss 1 Snitch on 69 Word of regret 2 Tick away 72 Kindle download 3 Short races 74 Relative of a knock 4 __ Office 75 “I copy” 5 Knee revealers, and then some 76 Gorbachev’s land: 6 Earhart’s art Abbr. 7 Grim character? 77 Lines of clothing 8 Tiny amount 80 Winter malady 9 Bring home 81 Prepare, as eggs

82 Fitted 83 Agreeing 84 Himalayan pack animals 85 Wacky 87 World’s largest snake by weight 90 Serious competition 91 To be, in Bavaria 94 “Glee” actress __ Michele 96 Move from window to aisle, say 98 Done with 99 Tone deafness 100 Boat shoe brand 103 Corn breads 104 Goad 107 Warner or Ringling follower 108 Don Juan’s love 109 In __ land 110 Game of world conquest 112 Had a bite 114 Williams in Cooperstown

HALF OFF BLAST OFF!

COSMIC CAFE WITH CAROL MANN

Who are the Sasquatch? “Researchers eventually come to realize that if there are indeed so many credible eyewitnesses across the land, then the species they so consistently and emphatically describe exists also.” ~ Bigfoot Researchers Field Organization

MORE HUMAN THAN APE-LIKE

HALFOFFJH.COM

MISSING LINK? Might these beings be a long lost relative of ours that is not an ape? The formerly accepted evolutionary family tree is experiencing serious revision. Current scientific genetic findings, as reported by Gregg Braden (Human by Design) indicate that we are not descended from apes. Others reporting this kind of information about our origins include former participants in global secret space programs turned whistleblowers. Gifted clairvoyants have also independently added corroborative input. Who we are seems both the result of eons of local earthly evolution and intentional immediate genetic interventions from advanced non-Earth beings. It’s curious to note that these current scientific findings noting distinct splicing of our genes to create the modern human about 200,000 years ago are also alluded to in accounts found in ancient sacred texts and legends describing the interbreeding of humans and the gods. What about the Sasquatch and their cousins around the world who live like animals and yet are so human? Is it possible they are a still living prehistoric experiment/prototype of what eventually became the modern human? Might it be worth learning more about and from them rather than being fearful or continuing to discount/dismiss their presence?

TBD

Carol Mann is a longtime Jackson resident, radio personality, former Grand Targhee Resort owner, author, and clairvoyant. Got a Cosmic Question? Email carol@yourcosmiccafe.com

Visit out our website website Visit

tetoncountywy.gov TetonWyo.org The public meeting agendas and minutes for the Board of County Commissioners and Planning Commission can also be found in the Public Notices section of the JH News and Guide.

JANUARY 31, 2018 | 29

All of the expansive research and evidence will continue to unfold. Regardless of whether or not we like what is discovered is not a determining factor. When it comes to Bigfoot … as with other familiar and unfamiliar creatures in nature … keep in mind that they all have intelligence and feelings and deserve our care and respect. The most constructive attitude toward the Sasquatch, and about any new discoveries that challenge old beliefs, is to remain open and curious. PJH

For all MEETING AGENDAS AND MINUTES WEEKLY CALENDAR JOB OPENINGS SOLICITATIONS FOR BIDS PUBLIC NOTICES AND OTHER VALUABLE INFORMATION

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

These beings have human features; even with all their body hair, their facial features … eyes, noses, mouths … are more human than ape-like. They walk upright, behave more like humans than animals, have individual personalities and are not antagonistic. They do not attack humans. In fact, researcher Ron Morehead, who has interacted with Bigfoot in the field for decades, reports that they are very aware of and sensitive to human vibes. They carefully scope out and are able to discern people who have kind intentions toward them before making intentional contact. Their extra caution around human beings is warranted; Bigfoot have been hunted more than respected and understood. Morehead explains that if they don’t want you there in their territory, they will let you know by throwing rocks in your direction and they will not hit you. One other very strikingly human attribute is Sasquatch have an elaborate language, which has been validated scientifically by crypto-linguists and further analyzed by American and overseas universities. Some of the sounds of the Sasquatch were analyzed and verified by the University of Wyoming in the 1970’s. Their speech is extremely rapid, conveys recognizable emotions, and as with humans, female Sasquatch have higher-pitched voices than the big males. If you are curious, researcher Ron Morehead (bigfootsounds.com) has remarkable audio samples.

They are huge beings, so how can they be so agile and illusive? How can they appear and disappear from sight in a flash? According to some respected experiencers, the apparent answer is that they are interdimensional beings. What does that mean? They have the ability to adjust their frequency to either be fully in this physical reality or to increase their frequency to the point where they are invisible to our perception. (Note: UFOs do this too). One of the many things this implies is that Sasquatch and their relatives are highly intelligent, with abilities beyond ours, especially when it comes to materializing and dematerializing between dimensions of reality at will.

JOIN LOCAL MERCHANTS IN PLANET JACKSON HOLE’S ADVERTISING TRADE PROGRAM,

ou have likely heard of them as Bigfoot, Sasquatch and Yeti, the hairy 8 to 10 foot tall agile human-like elusive creatures found in remote, deep forests around the world. Reports of sightings and interactions with these beings come from the U.S., the Himalayas, Australia, South America and also many indigenous cultures. Some Bigfoot references are from ancient cultures; some are from regular folk who happened upon them in recent years. Other data has been and continues to be recorded and studied by highly credentialed researchers over the past 50 or so years.

INTERDIMENSIONAL BEINGS

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

30 | JANUARY 31, 2018

WELLNESS COMMUNITY

Your one-stop resource for access to Jackson Hole’s premier health and wellness providers. To join Planet Jackson Hole’s Wellness Community as an advertiser, contact 307-732-0299 or sales@planetjh.com

DEEP TISSUE • SPORTS MASSAGE • THAI MASSAGE MYOFASCIAL RELEASE CUPPING

Oliver Tripp, NCTM MASSAGE THERAPIST NATIONALLY CERTIFIED

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) When I was in my early twenties, I smoked marijuana now and then. I liked it. It made me feel good and inspired my creativity and roused spiritual visions. But I reconsidered my use after encountering pagan magician Isaac Bonewits. He didn’t have a moral objection to cannabis use, but believed it withered one’s willpower and diminished one’s determination to transform one’s life for the better. For a year, I meditated on and experimented with his hypothesis. I found it to be true, at least for me. I haven’t smoked since. My purpose in bringing this up is not to advise you about your relationship to drugs, but rather to urge you to question whether there are influences in your life that wither your willpower and diminish your determination to transform your life for the better. Now is an excellent time to examine this issue. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Would you like to shed unwieldy baggage before moving on to your next big challenge? I hope so. It will purge your soul of karmic sludge. It will prime you for a fresh start. One way to accomplish this bravery is to confess your sins and ask for forgiveness in front of a mirror. Here are data to consider. Is there anyone you know who would not give you a good character reference? Have you ever committed a seriously unethical act? Have you revealed information that was told to you in confidence? While under the influence of intoxicants or bad ideas, have you done things you’re ashamed of? I’m not saying you’re more guilty of these things than the rest of us; it’s just that now is your special time to seek redemption.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Stories have the power to either dampen or mobilize your life energy. I hope that in the coming weeks, you will make heroic efforts to seek out the latter and avoid the former. Now is a crucial time to treat yourself to stories that will jolt you out of your habitual responses and inspire you to take long-postponed actions and awaken the sleeping parts of your soul. And that’s just half of your assignment, dear Taurus. Here’s the rest: Tell stories that help you remember the totality of who you are, and that inspire your listeners to remember the totality of who they are.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) Knullrufs is a Swedish word that refers to what your hair looks like after sex: tousled, rumpled, disordered. If I’m reading the astrological omens correctly, you should experience more knullrufs than usual in the coming weeks. You’re in a phase when you need and deserve extra pleasure and delight, especially the kind that rearranges your attitudes as well as your coiffure. You have license to exceed your normal quotas of ravenousness and rowdiness. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) In his “Crazy Lake Experiment” documented on Youtube, Harvard physicist Greg Kestin takes a raft out on a lake. He drops a tablespoon of olive oil into the water, and a few minutes later, the half-acre around his boat is still and smooth. All the small waves have disappeared. He proceeds to explain the science behind the calming effect produced by a tiny amount of oil. I suspect that you will have a metaphorically comparable power in the next two weeks, Scorpio. What’s your version of the olive oil? Your poise? Your graciousness? Your tolerance? Your insight into human nature? SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) In 1989, a man spent four dollars on a painting at a flea market in Adamstown, Pennsylvania. He didn’t care much for the actual image, which was a boring country scene, but he thought he could use the frame. Upon returning home, he found a document concealed behind the painting. It turned out to be a rare old copy of America’s Declaration of Independence, originally created in 1776. He eventually sold it for $2.42 million. I doubt that you will experience anything quite as spectacular in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. But I do suspect you will find something valuable where you don’t expect it, or develop a connection with something that’s better than you imagined it would be. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) In the 1740s, a teenage Capricorn girl named Eliza Lucas almost single-handedly introduced a new crop into American agriculture: indigo, a plant used as a dye for textiles. In South Carolina, where she managed her father’s farm, indigo ultimately became the second-most-important cash crop over the next 30 years. I have astrological reasons to believe that you are now in a phase when you could likewise make innovations that will have long-range economic repercussions. Be alert for good intuitions and promising opportunities to increase your wealth.

Go to RealAstrology.com for Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text-message horoscopes. Audio horoscopes also available by phone at 877-873-4888 or 900-950-7700.

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JANUARY 31, 2018 | 31

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Are you more inclined right now to favor temporary involvements and short-term promises? Or would you consider making brave commitments that lead you deeper into the Great Mystery? Given the upcoming astrological omens, I vote for the latter. Here’s another pair of questions for you, Cancerian. Are you inclined to meander from commotion to commotion without any game plan? Or might you invoke the magic necessary to get involved with high-quality collaborations? I’m hoping

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Many varieties of the nettle plant will sting you if you touch the leaves and stems. Their hairs are like hypodermic needles that inject your skin with a blend of irritant chemicals. And yet nettle is also an herb with numerous medicinal properties. It can provide relief for allergies, arthritis, joint pain, and urinary problems. That’s why Shakespeare invoked the nettle as a metaphor in his play Henry IV, Part 1: “Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety,” says the character named Hotspur. In accordance with the astrological omens, Virgo, I choose the nettle as your power metaphor for the first three weeks of February.

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Author Anaïs Nin said, “There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don’t work.” For two reasons, Anaïs’s formulation is especially apropos for you right now. First, you should not allow yourself to be seduced, tempted, or won over by sweet gestures alone. You must insist on sweet gestures that are synergized by a sense of wonder and an appreciation of your unique beauty. Second, you should adopt the same approach for those you want to seduce, tempt, or win over: sweet gestures seasoned with wonder and an appreciation of their unique beauty.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) In March 1996, a man burst into the studio of radio station Star FM in Wanganui, New Zealand. He took the manager hostage and issued a single demand: that the dj play a recording of the Muppet song “The Rainbow Connection,” as sung by the puppet Kermit the Frog. Fortunately, police intervened quickly, no one was hurt, and the kidnapper was jailed. In bringing this to your attention, Leo, I am certainly not suggesting that you imitate the kidnapper. Please don’t break the law or threaten anyone with harm. On the other hand, I do urge you to take dramatic, innovative action to fulfill one of your very specific desires.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) In all of history, humans have mined about 182,000 tons of gold. Best estimates suggest there are still 35 billion tons of gold buried in the earth, but the remaining riches will be more difficult to find and collect than what we’ve already gotten. We need better technology. If I had to say who would be the entrepreneurs and inventors best qualified to lead the quest, my choice would be members of the Aries tribe. For the foreseeable future, you people will have extra skill at excavating hidden treasure and gathering resources that are hard to access.

you’ll opt for the latter. (P.S. The near future will be prime time for you to swear a sacred oath or two.)

| PLANET JACKSON HOLE |

32 | JANUARY 31, 2018

FEATURING KENARI SAXOPHONE QUARTET Performing Gershwin’s jazzy Rhapsody in Blue and other American music

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3

Fifth House Ensemble Reed Trio: The Scenic Route National Museum of Wildlife Art 7PM | $25

A Midday Lecture with Composer Dan Visconti: Music and Community Teton County Library 12PM | Free; Ticket Required

Lunchtime Learning with Dr. Charles Limb: Jazz Improvisation, Musical Creativity, and the Brain Teton County Library 12PM | Free; Ticket Required

GTMF Presents: Kenari Saxophone Quartet Center for the Arts 7PM | $25

Chamber Music with Festival Musicians: Music for Strings St. John’s Episcopal Church 7PM | SOLD OUT

Fifth House Ensemble Piano Trio: Americana National Museum of Wildlife Art 7PM | $25

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