Round and round and round we go. Are we spiraling up or are we spiraling down? Like everything the answer comes in perspective. It is time to bring some perspective to the centerpiece of Carbondale, the roundabout, or rotary as our friends from across the pond call it. In our typically linear society what better way for The Covert Critic to start their first column then to circle back around to the circuitous traffic interchange that’s got us spinning counter-clockwise (also perspective dependent).
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Five Laws of Fish: A poetic response to the 2017 Five Point Film Festival
First Law of Fish
Fish in the river shall remain in the river unless
acted upon by an outside force. Force of nature.
Failure of dam. Flood. Famine. Kingfishers.
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New science for a new future of food
We are in the midst of a global food supply “predicament” due to the impacts of a rapidly changing climate. Very conservative research shows yield declines of up to 19 percent by midcentury and 63 percent by the end of the century in the Midwest. And this doesn’t take into account the collapse of yields in other areas of the world upon which we are now dependent, because in Colorado we only source a mere 1% of our food supply locally.
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The journey, not the destination
Let’s get this out of the way to begin with: they didn’t beat the record.
And while it would have been a satisfying ending for the six world-class rafters to make it through the Grand Canyon in less than 34 hours, it’s not essential to the story of “The Time Travelers.” Sponsored by Chaco and REI, the Gnarly Bay film is as much about the training process and the people waiting at the finish line as the 277 miles between Lees Ferry and Grand Wash Cliffs.
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Burning up the track (and field)
With the Roaring Fork High School track and field season rounding the backstretch and steaming toward the finish line, there are several athletes to keep an eye on – including juniors Jasper Germain and Justin Thompson. Germain was the 3A high-jump champ in 2016 and is undefeated in 2017, while Thompson finished sixth in the long jump in 2016 and has taken first place at several meets this year.
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Lost in translation (en español, también)
Public schools are public resources. They’re our schools. Every voice in our school community deserves to be heard and understood. That doesn’t mean we’re all going to agree with every decision each administrator makes, but it does mean we can’t give up on sharing our views, working to understand views different from our own, and stepping up to support our schools.
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Seeking Higher Ground: In search of a Golden Rule
When the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported on the probable impact of the first TrumpCare bill, I wrote this rant:
“What the CBO measures is dollars. What it doesn’t measure is human misery: The leading cause of bankruptcy in this country is medical debt. The most contentious marital issue is money. Divorces rise in times of financial distress, and divorce, in turn, is the greatest cause of financial distress among women, especially those with children. Suicide rates rise at times of recession and depression, measured all the way back into the 1930’s.
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Rams land Matthew Phelan as football coach
Look for some changes at Roaring Fork High School after athletic director Marty Nieslanik hired Carbondale Middle School teacher/coach Matthew Phelan as its new football head coach last week.
For one thing, Phelan told The Sopris Sun he is going to recruit soccer players to also play on the football team.
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Thousands of uses but gettin’ high ain’t one
Jackie Chenoweth is what one might call an industrial-hemp enthusiast; someone who, with a silent partner, has been working for about four years through their organization, the Colorado Hemp Education Association (www.coloradohemped.org), to bring about what she sees as a necessary change in laws governing hemp at the state and federal level. The Carbondale-area resident firmly believes the plant, a non-psychoactive member of the cannabis family of plants — meaning one cannot get “high” on hemp — can change the world for the better if only people can learn that hemp is not the same thing as “pot” and that hemp has more than 25,000 known uses that have nothing to do with altering one’s consciousness.
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Pages of the Past: Money for medicine, not for trains
April 24, 1997
In the continuing saga of proposals to return passenger rail service to the valley, Carbondale declined to contribute to a $60,000 price tag to help pay for a train demonstration project in the summer. Town trustees felt the price was too high, and the prospect of learning anything useful too low, to justify spending taxpayers’ money on the train proposal, which downvalley residents felt was really an upvalley thing anyway.