The American Spectator

“Yep. You see, the folks who grow up there don’t really know what they got. Don’t realize they are living in a National Geographic cover. It’s the outsiders who come in, look around, and realize this all could go away. They could clear cut it, strip mine it, dam it, fence it, and not think about it. It’s the newcomers who save states. Newcomers with new money.”

By now it was clear that we wouldn’t have to call in that “attention physicians” ad. Uncle Pundit was telling about the Wyoming delegate to a political convention in the '60s who defended the heavy uranium mining then in progress by insisting that when it was over the state would look just the same, “only 9 feet lower.”

He went on, about the dams that had obscured the scenes described by Lewis and Clark, the unquenchable thirst of a motorist for the next range of mountains, the next river crossed, of high plains and straight-ribbon highways. And, yes, dogs that ride in the back of pickup trucks.