Month: September 2008

San Luis Valley and Great Sand Dunes National Park

This was first published here five years ago today.

The San Luis Valley is said to be the largest mountain valley in the world. It runs north-south for 125 miles between the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) mountain ranges in south central Colorado. Both of these ranges have numerous peaks above 14,000 feet (4300m).

Just south of Poncha Pass, the narrower northern end of the San Luis Valley is an extraordinarily picturesque landscape — even this week without snow on the mountains. Further south the distance between the ranges widens to 65 miles and the Valley becomes broad and flat — and less picturesque. The altitude of the Valley averages near 7,500 feet.

The Rio Grande del Norte rises in the San Juan Mountains and flows generally eastward into the San Luis Valley. East of Alamosa the “Great River of the North” bends south toward New Mexico. Through centuries the river deposited sand and silt from the San Juan Mountains along its meandering, changing course across the Valley. The prevailing wind blew these deposits eastward toward the Sangre de Cristos, where they were trapped at the foot of the mountains. Today the resulting sand pile is known as the Great Sand Dunes National Monument and Preserve.

The dunes tower as high as 750 feet (230m) and cover nearly 40 square miles. They are the tallest dunes in North America. Sufficient rain and snow fall to keep the dunes stable, though the surface dries quickly and the winds sculpt and restructure the surface continuously. Here the expression “leave nothing but footprints” has little meaning as footprints will soon be gone.

Hiking in the dunes is encouraged (with the usual caveats about heat, water, lightning and not getting lost). Showers and changing rooms are provided near the parking lot — just as at a beach. Walking across the broad, sandy space between the parking lot and the first dunes and then up into the dunes I was surprised by the amount of sand stowing away in my socks and shoes. The sand makes walking more strenuous than on more solid surfaces. It also makes sliding and rolling appealing.

The Sangre de Cristos loom more than a mile above the dunes, curving around them from the north to the southeast. The Valley land to the west is being acquired by the National Park Service to prevent the mining of ground water from under the dunes. Once the acquisition is complete, the Monument will be come the 57th National Park.

And it did become a national park on September 13, 2004, though the 58th not the 57th.

Geronimo

Geronimo and Naiche (son of Cochise) surrendered to Gen. Nelson Miles on this date in 1886 at Skeleton Canyon, near the Arizona-New Mexico line just north of the border with Mexico. It was the fourth time Geronimo had surrendered — and the last. With them were 16 men, 14 women and six children. The band was taken to Fort Bowie and by the 8th were on a train to Florida as prisoners of war.

Geronimo, others alongside train

Click image for larger version of this photograph (above) taken at a rest stop along the route to San Antonio. Naiche is third from left, Geronimo third from right (with the straw hat) in the front row. He was probably in his late 50s.

Geronimo and the others were moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1894. Geronimo eventually became a marketable celebrity, paid to appear at expositions and fairs. He died at Fort Sill in 1909, about age 80.

Geronimo March 1886

Also pictured are Geronimo at his third surrender in March 1886 and Geronimo on exhibit at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. (Click each for larger version.)

Geronimo 1904 St. Louis Fair

Recommended

NewMexiKen has finished with last week’s New Yorker and three items that are online merit your consideration.

Anthony Lane writes about the second week of the Olympics in Letter from Beijing. It’s a superb piece, especially as a counterweight to the TV coverage. Strongly recommended.

Ryan Lizza writes about politics in Colorado and the new Democratic party in The Code Of The West. Insightful.

And Janet Frame’s 1954 short story Gorse Is Not People is as sad a piece of short fiction as you’d ever care to read.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I’ve been meaning to write about Vicky Cristina Barcelona the latest flick from Woody Allen. It stars Oscar-winner Javier Bardem as the bohemian Lothario painter and Penélope Cruz as his loco ex, with Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson as the Americans who fall for his charms.

Anyway, it’s an enjoyable film, better than much of Allen’s work, though not among his very best. Bardem is believable, Cruz wonderful, and everybody else right for the role. Well written, of course, and well directed.

Mostly it’s a commercial for life in Barcelona and along the Spanish coast. By the time the film was over, we were yearning for a sidewalk cafe.

No car chases or explosions; some gun shots. PG-13.

A star is born

From the Anchorage Daily News, April 3, 1996, the first appearance of Sarah Palin in any news account:

Sarah Palin, a commercial fisherman from Wasilla, told her husband on Tuesday she was driving to Anchorage to shop at Costco. Instead, she headed straight for Ivana.

And there, at J.C. Penney’s cosmetic department, was Ivana, the former Mrs. Donald Trump, sitting at a table next to a photograph of herself. She wore a light-colored pantsuit and pink fingernail polish. Her blonde hair was coiffed in a bouffant French twist.

“We want to see Ivana,” said Palin, who admittedly smells like salmon for a large part of the summer, “because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.”

Ivana Trump, the former Czechoslovakian Olympic skier who found fame and wealth as the wife of the New York tycoon, came to Anchorage Tuesday to push her line of perfume.

More than 500 people waited as long as half an hour in J.C. Penney to chat with her and receive an autographed photo.

Above via Glenn Greenwald relying on Nexis.

[Note I personally think Sarah Palin is wrong on most issues and stunningly ill-prepared. That stated, I just thought the above was interesting. It isn’t intended as piling on. It’s also the 45th mention of Costco on NewMexiKen.]

Summing up

“[I]t is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is ‘a task from God.'”

— Joe Klein, Time

It is not about her gender.

And it is not about her daughter, who no major media outlet or politician has criticized. Only the McCain campaign is pushing that issue.

It is about her record, lean as it is, and the way it has been misrepresented by the campaign. And, even more, it is about McCain’s careless approach to a major decision he had months to prepare for.

They screwed up and they’re blaming everyone but themselves.

Oh, and this:

“Three times in recent years, McCain’s catalogs of ‘objectionable’ spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time — Sarah Palin.” (Los Angeles Times)

Best line of the day, so far

“Well in 1984, Sarah Palin came in second in the Miss Alaska Beauty Pageant. Now she could be vice president of the United States. So for the first time in history, a beauty pageant contestant might actually bring about world peace.”

Jay Leno

Not sure we’re being fooled, but we are being mislead

You are being fooled by a shiny, sparkling distraction. My advice: Ignore the pundits and spinmeisters every time they tell you that the McCain campaign chose Gov. Sarah Palin in an effort to deprive Barack Obama of Hillary Clinton voters. Republican leaning pundits use this line because they want to exaggerate Palin’s appeal. Democratic-leaning pundits use this line as a way of mocking McCain for being out of touch with the real concerns of Clinton voters. Non-ideological pundits use this line because they are not reading the polls. It’s too early to tell what impact Palin could have among women voters, but it’s not hard to tell what group of women the McCain campaign hopes to lure. And they are not Hillary Clinton voters. “Hillary got about 10 million women’s votes. There are going to be about 62 million women voters in November,” explains Peter Brown, a pollster at Quinnipiac University. “The Palin stuff is not aimed at the Hillary 10, it’s at the other 52.”

From a longer piece by Michael Scherer at TIME.com: Swampland.

NewMexiKen’s advice: Ignore the pundit and spinmeisters all the time.

September 3rd

Ferdinand Porsche was born in Maffersdorfon in what is now the Czech Republic on this date in 1875. Porsche was an automotive engineer instrumental in the early development and racing of Austrian and German cars, notable at Austro-Daimler (1906-1923) and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (1923-1929). He developed the compressor for Mercedes-Benz and the torsion bar suspension with his own design company in 1931. And he was the leader in the development of the Volkswagen, which began production just before World War II.

It was, however, Ferdinand (Ferry) Porsche, the first Ferdinand Porsche’s son, who built the race and sports cars we recognize today, beginning in 1948.

It’s pronounced like the name Portia — por-sha.

Mark Hopkins was born on this date in 1813. Hopkins came to California in 1849, but to become a merchant not a miner. With Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker, Hopkins established the California Pacific to build east to Utah from Sacramento as part of the first transcontinental railroad. The Central Pacific eventually merged with the Southern Pacific, which they — The Big Four — also owned. Today it is part of the Union Pacific, one of the four remaining major rail lines.

Mort Walker is 85 today. He’s the creator of the comic strip Beetle Bailey.

Al Jardine, the only member of the original Beach Boys not related to the others, is 66 today. He sang the lead on “Help Me, Rhonda.”

The Treaty of Paris that formerly ended the American war with Great Britain was signed on this date in 1783, more than eight years after the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord.

Article 1:

His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.

Fort Union

Once the largest army post in the southwest, Fort Union is now little more than a shadow of its former self set among beautiful grasslands north of Las Vegas, New Mexico. For 40 years in the second half of the 19th century, it was the Santa Fe Trail equivalent of an interstate truck stop and regional warehouse.

Alas, NewMexiKen found his Nikon was in need of a charge. These photos were taken with my iPhone.

Fort Union

Fort Union Wall

Click each photo for a larger version.

Best line of the campaign, so far

All across America there are quiet storms taking place. There are lives of quiet desperation. People who need just a little bit of help. Now, Americans are a self-reliant people, we’re an independent people. We don’t like asking somebody else to do what we can do ourselves but you know what we understand is that every once in a while somebody’s going to get knocked down. Every once in a while somebody’s going to go through some hard times. When we least expect it tragedy may strike. And what has always made this country great is the understanding that we rise and fall as one nation, that values and family, community and neighborhood, they have to express themselves in our government. Those are national values. Those are values that we all subscribe to. And so that the spirit that we extend today and in the days to come as we monitor what happens on the Gulf that’s the spirit that we’ve got to carry with us each and every day. That’s the spirit that we need in our own homes and it’s the spirit that we need in the White House. And that’s why I’m running for president of the United States of America.

Because if there’s a poor child out there, that’s my child. If there’s a senior that’s having trouble, that’s my grandparent. If there’s a guy who’s lost his job, that’s my brother. If there’s a woman out there without healthcare, that’s my sister. Those are the values that built this country. Those are the values we are fighting for.

Barack Obama, Milwaukee, September 1, 2008

3 cents

Canadian airline Jazz Air thinks the answer to that question must be less than 3 cents. The airline recently announced that they were removing life vests from their airplanes in order to save on fuel costs. They can get away with using seat cushions as flotation devices since their flights mostly stay within 50 miles of the shore.

How much will this move save them on fuel costs? The life vests weigh about one pound apiece. I don’t know how long their average flight is. Let’s say it’s 1,000 miles. Using a fuel cost per pound to fly 1,000 miles of 3 cents, based on this online exchange, and then removing the life vests saves the airline 3 cents per seat per flight — not exactly big money.

Steven D. Levitt

Staggeringly irresponsible

In this particular case, there are two huge problems with what McCain did.

The first is the most obvious: in choosing a Vice Presidential nominee, McCain is choosing someone who might well end up taking over as President. This would be true for anyone, but it’s especially true in McCain’s case, since he is a 72 year old cancer survivor. Anyone who “puts country first”, as McCain is fond of telling us he does, would have taken care to ensure that that person was up to the job, and had no unpleasant secrets like, oh, past membership in a fringe secessionist organization. Not bothering to do the most basic due diligence before naming her as his running mate is staggeringly irresponsible.

The second is that McCain was willing to take a huge gamble not just with our country, but with his own political interests. As I said earlier, gambling with the country is worse, but gambling with your own interests is a different kind of bad judgment, and worth noting in its own right. If you are selfish enough to put your own interests above the interests of your country, that’s awful. But it doesn’t move you into the realm of the wholly unpredictable, the people from whom you truly never know what to expect. (It’s like being one of those dictators who are nonetheless rational enough that things like deterrence can work with them: you are bad, but bad in a way that makes it possible to anticipate what you might do next.)

Being willing to take a huge and reckless gamble with your own interests is not like that. It’s not cool and collected selfishness that leaves room for some hope that if your interests and the interests of your country align, you might end up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. It’s sheer impulsive stupidity: an unwillingness to think, in even the most basic ways, before you act. That’s a terrible trait in a President.

Hilzoy, The Washington Monthly

The Second of September

Hall of fame basketball coach John Thompson is 67 today. Funny how things stick in your memory. I can remember a photo of Thompson in a basketball magazine when he was a player at Providence College. It was one of those silly posed photos — they had him with a basketball in each hand, held like a pair of softballs.

Terry Bradshaw is 60, Mark Harmon 57 and Jimmy Connors 56 today.

Harmon’s father was “Old 98,” Tom Harmon, a football great at Michigan and for the L.A. Rams. Mark himself played quarterback at UCLA, where he graduated cum laude.

Keanu Reeves is 44.
MacArthur signs
And Salma Hayek is 42. Ms. Hayek received a best actress Oscar nomination for Frida.

It was on the morning of September 2, 1945, that the Japanese officially surrendered to Gen. Douglas MacArthur aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. MacArthur signed the articles at 9:07 am Tokyo time, ending World War II. President Truman declared Sunday, September 2nd V-J Day in the U.S.

Or maybe it is about Sarah Palin

In a way Sarah Palin HAS put her own personal life in play. The religious right she strongly represents claims an abiding interest in the conception of everyone else’s children, the sanctity of marriage, abstinence education and so on.

In my opinion that opens Palin to scrutiny for moral hypocrisy, a character trait that should be found unacceptable in a national leader.

It’s not about Sarah Palin

And it’s certainly not about her family.

It’s about John McCain’s failure to either vet her properly or, if as the campaign claims, they did vet her, than it’s about their failure to do it well or to understand what they found.

McCain has, and has always had, poor judgment. That’s the whole point. He is not mentally stable enough to be president of the United States.