Columns

Asked to choose “whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government,” Thomas Jefferson stated, “I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Today, Jefferson wouldn’t have that choice; due to economics, electronic media and the internet, newspapers face extinction. In their stead, according to the Pew Research Center, […]

As a reader-supported nonprofit newspaper, The Sopris Sun makes a special effort to provide a public platform for the full breadth of experience and opinion in our community. We publish the vast majority of letters to the editor and guest columns we receive, but due to space constraints or conscience, we occasionally leave some out. […]

They say, “if you’re lucky enough to be Irish, you’re lucky enough.” My mother’s family, the Moores, are Irish. And that’s exactly how I feel about my uncle Charlie; if you’re lucky enough to know him, you’re lucky enough. He has always been there for me, (and countless others) and he continues to be someone […]

Two recent occasions sparked my interest in the subject of nimbyism. First was a letter to the editor of a valley newspaper written by no less than a former Aspen mayor decrying the attitude of Crystal Valley residents who oppose the proposed bike path through the valley by calling them nimbys. Secondly, a gentleman spoke […]

Summer vacation is a sneaky little devil. Like a Catholic schoolgirl, the first few weeks of summer break seem so sweet and innocent, but, as you all know, things aren’t always as they seem. In May I spent way too much time putting together the puzzle that would be our summer days ahead. To the […]

When Barbra Streisand sang about being a secondhand rose in Funny Girl, she sounded a little blue. But I think it’s something to celebrate, and Carbondale’s clutch of secondhand stores make it easy to do. My affection for recycled goods predates my life in Carbondale. When I lived in San Francisco, fab recycled finds regularly […]

This morning we bicycled past a handsome old cabin in Carbondale festooned with an American flag. It reminded me of a “cabin” in Boulder — a dilapidated garage, really — where my friend Dick Sparks used to live. He was a music fanatic who owned expensive sound equipment in that dirt-floored hovel, a Deutsche Gramophone […]

On July 4, I stood beside Twin Lakes weeping. Mourning for our verdant Roaring Fork Valley, for friends, for the future of coming generations. The smoke signals pouring over Independence Pass were a harbinger of global warming, of the desertification of the American West. From the Whitestar campground (40 miles away as the DC-10s fly), […]

More than I care to admit I find myself thinking, “Ugh, kids these day!” And I sound like my parents when I hear myself asking a dozen times a day, “Who left all these lights on? Don’t you boys know we have to pay for electricity?” A bigger sign I might not be such a […]

The Trump administration started separating children from their parents at the border and relocating them while their parents await trial for seeking refuge. The immigration courts in this country are moving at the speed of smell, and even if they could manage to find and reunite with their young children, the damage has been done: […]