Search results for

Everyone is familiar with Turkey Vultures, those huge black birds that circle high in the sky, searching for road kill. The rare Zone-tailed Hawk often flies hidden among the buzzards, hiding in plain sight. They are also dark and can soar with wings raised dihedrally in a “v.” Unlike vultures, though, their heads are feathered. With such a limited range, birdwatchers come from all over the United States to attempt to add the zone-tailed hawk to their life list.

The Chihuahuan Desert is the largest desert in North America, and, in terms of the richness of species, it may be the most biologically diverse desert in…

Our region's Native American legacy endures in communities and living cultural traditions – and in countless emblems and traces on the West Texas…

“It was [an] illimitable expanse of desert prairie... a region almost as trackless as the ocean,” wrote General Randolph Marcy in 1852, in one of the…

The ancient Southwest was a place of tremendous diversity. Among the deserts, high plateaus and wooded canyons, cultures grew and flourished, influencing…

It's a life-giving stream in a desert land, that for millennia has sustained human communities and creatures found nowhere else on Earth. The deep canyons…

They form a sophisticated society, with intricate communication. Prairie dogs are remarkable for their intelligence and sociability. And they're a…

Órale, in this episode of Caló, we’re going to retell the story of how the local folks came to adopt a new landmark; namely, the profile of Lincoln, which you can see announced on a road sign on the way to OJ. The sign indicating it was there seemed to pop up one day. People passing by noticed it right away, but it took some time for it to sink in. It was as if the mountain changed overnight, one day just another mountain indistinguishable from the others surrounding it and the next day a new remarkable look. Qué onda?

Órale, the word for this episode is cantar. In proper Spanish, it means to sing. In Caló, it means to either speak truth to power, declare a deep feeling, or denounce someone in public. Depending on the circumstances, however, it can also mean to snitch or rat somebody out, as in the English slang expression, sing like a bird. Clearly in the first nuance, to cantar is an act of power or defiance. In the second, it is an act of weakness or fear. Either way, what’s invoked is a cut from an opera, where the hero le canta to the villain and the villain le canta to the hero’s enemies.

Órale, the feature this week is the word sobres. It comes from the Spanish word, sobre, which means above or hovering. In Caló, it means to be attentive of or focused on someone or something. When you’re courting, you are sobres, attuned to the needs and desires of the person you’re pursuing. Of course, you can also overdo it and be so sobres that what you’re really doing is stalking. In either case, it can be said you’re sobres only if it shows. Somebody who’s sobres manifests their intentions. Otherwise they’re just being chiflado (presumptuous), but that’s for another episode.