The next few mornings of predawn skies gift early risers with the graceful, delicate pairing of a slender crescent Moon with the dazzling planet Venus - it’s a magnificent sight to see and one this dedicated stargazer looks forward to whenever Venus does her...
School will start again soon – for our children in Telluride and the girls at the orphanage/school in Kardze, Eastern Tibet. It’s time to gather supplies, buy some new school clothes and try on a new backpack; what’s routine for our children could become reality for the 108 girls in Tibet as well -- with your help.
• A bit of background:
Kardze lies in the eastern Tibetan province of Kham, famous for its fierce –and dashing- horsemen, fantastic monasteries, vast grasslands dotted with yaks and nomads’ tents, and a strong sense of cultural/ethnical identity. A local tulku (re-incarnated lama) by the title Lamdrakh Rinpoche oversees a cheerful nunnery there as well as the Tibetan Health center, and has established the home and school for girls. He wants to make sure that these future mothers will be prepared to raise the next generation well. Presently, there are 108 girls enrolled, from age 4 to 16. Some are orphans, some were abandoned due to severe poverty or illness in the family, some were handed to the school so that they could get a Tibetan education. They live and learn in a gorgeous, traditional home in extremely crowded conditions. Divided into 5 classes they learn Tibetan, English, Chinese and math. The Perseid Meteor Shower is active from July 29th to August 26th and “shooting stars” are visible all night long during this time throughout the Northern Hemisphere. As the skies darken, look to the NNE where the constellation Perseus [below the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia]...
by Eileen Burns
I recently spoke to Aspen representatives Katherine Dart, Special Projects Coordinator for CORE which stands for Community Office for Resource Efficiency and Ashley Cantrell, environmental health specialists for the city of Aspen about their involvement in the Colorado Association of Ski Towns (CAST) Challenge.
CAST has been holding a plastic bag challenge since March 1st, with more than 30 ski towns participating including neighboring Aspen. The concept is to reduce consumption of single-use, disposable shopping bags by using your own bag. Participating stores keep a record of reusable bags being used between March 1st and September 1st and when the totals are in, the town with the highest per capita bag reuse rate will win a $10,000 grant from sponsors Alpine Bank and PCL Construction to install a solar panel system at a public school for the winning community.
Betsyanew is a start-up founded by entrepreneur and part-time Telluride local Betsy Lummis. The new business is an affirmative response to adversity and a shining example of taking a yoga practice off the mat.
Betsy Lummis was hardwired to practice Karma Yoga. Raised among politicians/philanthropists, she embraced the idea of selfless service, and for 20 years expended time and energy doing fundraising, event coordination, and networking in support of causes she believed in. The Telluride region's Ah Haa School for the Arts and the nascent Telluride Yoga Festival are just two examples of Betsy's largesse.
Betsy Lummis began taking classes at Ah Haa when she first arrived in town 15 years ago. Daughter Phoebe has been a summer art camper at the school for seven consecutive summers.
Ridgway, Colorado, is much more than a bedroom community for Telluride. The town is famous – or infamous – as the location for several movies, including "How the West Was Won," and one of actor John Wayne's late great movies, "True Grit," (1969), in which Wayne stars as Rooster Cogburn. The True Grit Cafe is filled with John Wayne memorabilia, but as far as we know, no drunken, one-eyed federal marshals.
Ridgway boasts an abundance of wildlife: mountain lions, badgers, deer, elk, bears, coyotes, and bald eagles are indigenous to the area. And a river runs through it.
The Uncompaghre is a great source for trout fishing and this weekend, the focus of Ridgway's second annual River Festival. The Mosaic Community Project, a local nonprofit dedicated to sustainable living practices, environmental awareness, and the arts, organized the FREE watershed celebration,11 a.m – 9 p.m., downtown, in and around Rollans Park.
[click"Play" button to hear Susan's interview with Ted Hoff]
In 2000, Telluride audiences saw the (now departed) Lizard Head Theatre Company's production of "Sylvia", A.R. Gurney's hit comedy. The play is about a talking dog, part Lab, part poodle and entirely femme fatale. The comedy's all too familiar barbs about marriage, unspoken needs for connection, a sense of why we are here and feelings about out pets hit never failed to hit their mark: We have met the nut cases and they are us.
"Sylvia" was perfect for a town like Telluride which long ago went to the dogs. I personally know many grown-ups, including some of my friends, who get down on the floor with their canine darlings and shower them with terms of endearment such as "sugar," "my beautiful angel,""pumpkin," and "sweetheart." They – okay, mea culpa, we – spoil our furry friends with treats and marrow bones from Clark's. (A few – and don't ask me who – even stuff them with peanut butter once the marrow is gone, and stick them in the freezer to make doggie popsicles, guilt bones for when we leave them alone in the house.)
Thursday evening, 7 p.m., Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library, enjoy a recap of the Mudd Butts' April trip to Wondo Genet, Ethiopia. Local trip participants and staffers Wendy Brooks and Luke Brown host a narrated slide show of the trip, and play excerpts from the...
Astronaut John Grunsfeld has been to Telluride Mountainfilm twice, the first time in 2000, and the second in 2006.
IN 2006, John spoke on the subject was ET, NASA's search for planets with "life signatures." His objective: to help reframe people's thinking about life in the universe. He also addressed "Man, Moon, and Beyond," how NASA was planning its next push towards manned missions. Finally, John provided an astronaut’s eye view of the mountain ranges of our blue planet, not from the Hubble – which Grunsfeld has been in charge of repairing – but from his own Hasselblad. But the Hubble has been one of the astronaut's pet project for years.
The consensus is that Telluride is a place " to die for." But the phrase is simply a figure of speech to describe the physical beauty of our surroundings.
Last week in New York, on April 30, friends invited us to attend the Sixth Annual Foreign Policy Lecture and Benefit given by the nonprofit Network 20/20.
Former U.S. Senator/Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle was the evening's guest speaker on the subject of "America's Role in Global Security." During his lecture the senator observed, "People with nothing to live for, find something to die for;" there was no mistaking the cold reality surrounding the genesis of terrorist impulses. His point: "civility and decency" towards our global neighbors are "strategic imperatives." We need to stop regarding people on the other side of the world as The Other.
