Me and my big mouth.

There’s no mistaking the fact that the American West faces a conundrum of quandaries, complications, obstacles, problems, predicaments, pickles, trials, troubles, hurdles, hitches, challenges, difficulties, and other such stuff.

Times might be tougher than ever before in history.

On the other hand, it could be that we hear more bad news more often because of the omnipresent communications technology we’re saddled with these days.

Whatever the case, the West—and the world—would be a better place if we would stop shouting at one another and sit down and simply talk.

That, more or less, is the premise of an opinion piece I wrote for the current issue of American Cowboy magazine. Lines from the poem “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats inspired the essay. “The centre cannot hold,” he wrote. And I argue it is because of these later lines from the poem: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

The August-September American Cowboy is on newsstands now and, of course, available by subscription. ( www.americancowboy.com ) If my opinion doesn’t suit you, you’ll likely find plenty else in the magazine’s pages that will.