Here you can find other work I have published in publicly facing blogs, magazines, and newspapers.
“…since its inception after World War II snow-making has been entangled in corporate attempts to adapt to, and prosper in, precarious climates. In other words, snow-making is not becoming a climate adaptation strategy as climate change accelerates, it has always been one…”
“…The ghost towns lack agency and they lack historical actors. It is as though the entire towns were imagined in the passive voice, sitting quietly as national and global changes exerted their will on the rotted wood, rusted metal, and the ghosts of people who presumably wander their streets at night. Of course, that is the purpose of a ghost town. They serve as passive observers of the present, from a past we cannot completely know…”
…Johnson argued that “a growing population is swallowing up areas of natural beauty with its demands for living space and is placing increased demand on our overburdened areas of recreation and pleasure.” The supposed Malthusian crisis, he suggested, demanded a new conservation ethic. Not only must Americans preserve their natural heritage, they had to restore what had been destroyed. However, restoring natural beauty also meant removing people from ruined lands…
…Too often we think of Texas as Anglo, rather than as the diverse polity it was during the Mexican-American War. What is so interesting about this treaty, and what drew me to it in the first place, was precisely the ways in which it exists outside typical Anglo-Comanche relations. The presence of Americans, Mexicans, Germans, Comanche, and Delaware makes for a fascinating mixture of people, cultures, and political goals…
….There, at 12,000 feet, they encountered a dangerous storm. The papers reported that “the wind whistled and shrieked about the ragged peaks; it howled and groaned as it piled up snow… in the solitude and loneliness of these bleak and cheerless crags, the situation was enough to strike terror to the bravest of hearts.” The party, facing almost certain “destruction” if they continued turned around and skied back to Ashcroft…
…Such overtures to internet culture may seem pedestrian, but they play an essential role in communicating complicated processes simply and briefly. Kate Grover’s opening anecdote does not simply hook the reader, it reminds the reader that “cool… is a potent force,” so shouldn’t we know its history? In a similar way, the picture of Elvis diversifies her examples, saving a paragraph on another example of coolness. All of this is to say that the best blogs do not simply use hooks to hook and pictures to illustrate, they use them as evidence to efficiently and enjoyably convince the reader….
….Nevertheless, the treaty is puzzling. Only one year before, in a treaty between the Comanche and the United States, the Comanche were promised all land north of the Llano River. They understood that the U.S. government feared their involvement in the war. Meusebach needed Comanche permission to settle the land. How the Comanche understood the treaty is less clear…
…Far removed from population centers, the monument is largely forgotten. On the other hand, the story of the cabin now enshrined in its “Temple of Fame,” as Theodore Roosevelt dubbed the granite structure, gives real insight into the way Americans, both Confederate sympathizers and Union patriots, collectively built historical narratives about the Civil War in the late nineteenth century. Both Presidents Davis and Lincoln were born in Kentucky and, at the turn of the century, their rags to riches stories were not seen as inherently independent of each other, but were instead part of a single American narrative that both Southerners and Northerners could claim as their birthright….
Jesse Ritner 