Columns

Shortly after the 2016 election, an evangelical Christian, fervent Trump supporter friend of mine was teaching me how to use Facebook. She had me call up a scene where a group of Clinton backers were sobbing uncontrollably. I looked back at my friend and, to my dismay, she was grinning ear to ear. “What’s the […]

Now I’ve seen it all.  Like Donald Trump’s mother. An immigrant from the slums of Scotland, Mary Anne MacLeod truly went from rags to riches, living the spectrum of wealth firsthand. Unlike her offspring, who have never known poverty.  It is typical, their family’s social-climbing game of chutes and ladders; usually it takes three generations […]

“You’d think a white girl like me woulda had a better relationship with money.”  I blurted that out during a recent “Money Matters” interview. Across Colorado, financial disparities are widening, particularly across racial and geographic lines. So the Bell Policy Center, with funding from the Colorado Health Foundation, has begun the Money Matters project. It […]

I see an orange flash amid the mowed green clover and brome, roadside. Fox. Dead. Fur, still like down fluff. Its form is lithe, not yet bloated. Heading to a favorite fishing hole late in the day, I can’t stop. Can’t do both. I’ll come back tomorrow. Early morning, now. I check my mirrors — […]

I was greatly distressed to hear Bloomington, Indiana, where I matriculated for four years in the 1960s and ‘70s at Indiana University, has become the latest battleground in what’s becoming a national race war.  Black human rights activist Vauhxx Booker was walking with friends by the Lake Monroe Reservoir near Bloomington on the Fourth of […]

Wow! 2020 has certainly been a memorable year. Challenging, to say the least. The last nine months have taken a toll on all of us and I think we could use a little TLC.  I’ve come to the conclusion that America needs a facial. Trust me, I have had several facials over the years, and […]

“Nothing gold can stay.” So wrote Robert Frost in 1923. That phrase haunted me Friday after I saw a small golden bird – a Wilson’s warbler – staggering across my lawn. I kept one eager cat away, so maybe that bird survived. There has been a rash of bird deaths recently, so many that both […]

For any new visitor inquiring about Carbondale and looking to learn about our town, I always point them towards the doors of the Thompson House Museum, which I think sets the perfect historical tone to learn about our community’s first settlers and pioneers—including Myron and Hattie Thompson, and their descendants. I can also point them […]

Never been much for superhero movies. I had some interest in Spiderman because Peter Parker is a teenager with real adolescent problems. Jack Nicholson’s creepy portrayal of the Joker made the first Batman movie worth watching. I don’t really have issues with fantasies, but the message all we need is champions with Herculean powers to […]

Yvon Chouinard’s favorite quote about entrepreneurship is “that to understand an entrepreneur, you should study a juvenile delinquent. They’re both saying “this sucks and I’m going to do it another way.” You have to break the rules and prove that your way works.” My entrepreneur spirit and naturalist’s mind have to ask, what really sucked […]