Leadville

By NewMexiKen [Written in 1997]

At 10,152 feet, Leadville, Colorado, bills itself as the highest city in the U.S. I know of no challengers. It’s a mining town that had a robust 30,000 people 100 years ago, but has fallen on hard times today with the mines closed and no real transition to tourism. The outskirts are the disheartening aftermath of bygone days, but the downtown itself is attractive with a stunning view of Mount Massive and Mount Elbert. We spent a couple of hours walking up one side, then down the other of the main street, visiting shops and the Tabor Opera House.


We talked to a shop owner who said that she and her husband had discovered Leadville in 1982 and worked to get back to live, finally settling in 1995. She said that first month, January, it snowed for seven straight days non-stop, then quit, then snowed again for nine more days non-stop. She wondered what they’d done. Leadville gets about 200-300 inches of snow a year, but hasn’t had a school closure for snow since 1939.

A lady running the bookstore told me she had been there 30 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else. Her father had heart problems though, and the doctor made him move to a lower altitude. He moved down to 8,500 feet.

The highlight was the Opera House. It was built in 1892 and was a main stop between Denver and Salt Lake City. Sousa played there. Houdini. Lilly Longtree. All the stars of the turn of the century. We took the tour and enjoyed its history but the best part was the 84-year old lady who owned the place. She’d come to Leadville at age 20, eventually inheriting the opera house from her mother who bought it in 1955 to keep it from destruction. This lady was delightful—the person at the door being the same person heard on the audio tape tour. After I bought 50 cents worth of postcards she kept hustling me for other 25 cent items. When she said something about getting too old, I mentioned my grandmother living to 95 and she lit up and said she guessed she had time for lots more stuff then. What a pleasure to see anyone, of any age, so totally absorbed in loving life and what they were doing. Maybe it’s in that high, thin air. If you’re in Leadville, don’t miss the Tabor Opera House and its present star.

What does Daddy do?

According to Rick Reilly in Sports Illustrated, “[Lance] Armstrong and his three-year-old son, Luke, play a little game. Lance asks Luke, ‘What does Daddy do?’ And Luke always answers, ‘Daddy makes them suffer.'”

Teach No Evil

“The Language Police is the first step toward ending the absurdities of educational censorship. It should be required reading in the education of every parent.” From review in Mother Jones.

See also review from The New York Times, which lists “just some of the things students aren’t supposed to find in their textbooks or tests:”

*Mickey Mouse and Stuart Little (because mice, along with rats, roaches, snakes and lice, are considered to be upsetting to children).

*Stories or pictures showing a mother cooking dinner for her children, or a black family living in a city neighborhood (because such images are thought to purvey gender or racial stereotypes).

*Dinosaurs (because they suggest the controversial subject of evolution).

*Tales set in jungles, forests, mountains or by the sea (because such settings are believed to display ”a regional bias”).

*Narratives involving angry, loud-mouthed characters, quarreling parents or disobedient children (because such emotions are not ”uplifting”).

The Court and the University

Excellent article in The New York Review of Books on the Michigan affirmative action cases. The essay by Ronald Dworkin, written before the Supreme Court rulings, discusses both the social and legal aspects of affirmative action.

It is sometimes said that college and university applicants have a right to be judged only on narrow academic criteria, but that cannot be seriously maintained. Places in selective universities are not merit badges or prizes for some innate talent or for past performance or industry: they are opportunities that are properly offered to those who show the most promise of future contribution to goals the university rightfully seeks to advance. These goals can be, and historically have been, social as well as more narrowly academic.

Universities say they are training the nation’s and the world’s future leaders: if it is best for the nation that its leaders more closely match the diversity of its citizens, then no one is cheated by universities who include that goal among their aims.

Best Sports Cities

Sporting News announced its 2003 Best Sports Cities last week. Anaheim-Los Angeles was number one. Others of interest: Denver 10th, Baltimore-Washington 14th, Portland 39th, Tucson 66th, Albuquerque 105th. Albuquerque is asking for a recount — Las Cruces was 101st.

In Southern Skies, a Rare Close-Up Glimpse of Mars

John Noble Wilford in The New York Times:

Minutes before 6 a.m. Eastern time on Aug. 27, 5:51 to be exact, the separation between Mars and Earth will be precisely 34,646,418 miles. That is proximity only by cosmic standards. Mars was about five times that distance from Earth only six months ago.

Already, Mars is a sight not to be missed. The planet rises in the southeastern sky progressively earlier each night now through September, and is usually visible in the constellation Aquarius after 9 or 10 p.m. local time. It then climbs higher through the night and shifts more to the south.

Looming ever larger and redder in the last few weeks, Mars is now more luminous than Jupiter or Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. Only Venus and the Moon outshine the approaching Mars.

Swamp coolers

The City of Albuquerque Water Conservation Office is offering a $500 rebate for residents who switch from a swamp cooler to refrigerated air. (I live outside the city limits.)

Swamp coolers, which nearly all homes in Albuquerque have, even those valued at $1 million and more, run water through straw pads (better coolers use cellulose). A fan sucks outside air through the pads, using evaporation to cool the air. The air is then blown through the house. When the humidity is low (which is most of the time in Albuquerque), swamp coolers are pretty effective. They are, however, about as rinky-dink as something can be.

And in Albuquerque alone they use an estimated 4 billion gallons of water a year — 10% of the city’s water usage.

Monopoly for real money

Jay Leno likes to play Monopoly with real money.

The more I think about it, the more fun that seems. A Monopoly set comes with $15,140. That’s more than most would choose to wager on a board game, but one cent on the dollar could make Monopoly kind of fun — ten cents on the dollar could make it kind of exciting.

Whale Rider

“Whale Rider” is an extraordinary and moving film.

Set in New Zealand with an all Maori cast, “Whale Rider” dramatizes the conflict inherent when traditional culture meets modern expectations. The story centers on 11-year old Paikea, or Pai, played by the amazing Keisha Castle-Hughes. Pai’s grandfather Koro is the village chief, the latest in a patrimonial line descending from the first Paikea who, according to legend, rode a whale to the island centuries ago. Pai knows and honors tribal traditions better than any of the boys in her community. Even so, and despite being the next in line, she is unable to convince her grandfather that a girl might be chief.

What the film does remarkably well is pay respect to cultural traditions even as it questions their underlying biases and contradictions; that is, their limitations as well as their values. It does this with humor, insight and love, and on several levels.

As Kenneth Turan wrote in the Los Angeles Times:

“Whale Rider” has been something of a sensation on the international film festival circuit, winning audience awards at such diverse and influential festivals as Sundance, Toronto, Rotterdam and San Francisco. Yet far from over-hyping the project, all those honors turn out not to do justice to this significant and surprising film.

Surprising because audience awards often go to undemanding, preternaturally cheerful ventures. Although it’s a work of great warmth with an overwhelming finale, “Whale Rider”… is also a substantial film of unexpected emotional force. And when at a certain point it seems to slip the bonds of this world and take a leap of faith into an almost mythological dimension, it breathlessly takes us along for that memorable ride.