Archive for September, 2008
I recently returned from a trip to Africa. When you return from Africa people often ask, “So, how was Africa?” Most do so out of courtesy, and realizing this, my answers were typically short.
“Africa was amazing,” I’d say.
“Really?” they'd say.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, I bet.”
They would then move on to whatever else it was they were doing, confirming that they really weren’t all that interested. However, yesterday I was talking to a friend who was in fact interested in Africa and wanted to know what I had taken from the experience. His questions prompted me to really analyze what I had seen and felt while traveling through South Africa, Botswana and Zambia.
Continue Reading September 23rd, 2008
Amazing I'm not hearing things! The other morning while on vacation in Aspen I crossed the old iron bridge near the Aspen Art museum and thought I heard music. And I did. It is simply amazing to stand in the middle of the old iron bridge and hear this lovely music enchanting your every being, as the river flows and the birds chirp.
I decided to stop in and see what this is all about at the Museum. Susan Philipsz is utilizing the 2 speakers on the bridge as part of her art museum display. Music has become both an aesthetic device and an important touchstone for many artists, and uses of emotive and psychological properties of sound also coincide with a current reinvestigation of the romantic notion of melancholy—historically identified as a state of malaise, disaffection, and inactivity. Unknown Pleasures features a number of international contemporary artists working in a variety of media, who explore the connections between music and melancholy, but instead focus on its generative potential.
Along with works in the AAM Upper Gallery and outdoor installations on the museum grounds, Unknown Pleasures will also feature a listening station devoted to musical recordings and albums produced by artists exploring the interrelationship of contemporary art and music.
Artists featured in the exhibition include Sanford Biggers, Anne Collier, Jesper Just, Tim Lee, Euan Macdonald, Susan Philipsz, Ugo Rondinone, Melanie Schiff, and Wilhelm Sasnal.
Unknown Pleasures is organized by the Aspen Art Museum and funded in part by the AAM Nation http://www.aspenartmuseum.org/
Next time you think about taking a vacation, I highly recommend just staying in Aspen and enjoying what we have right here in our back yard.
September 19th, 2008
By Frosty Wooldridge
Re: “Dry, Drought, Devastated” Pankratz/ 9/17 Denver Post
When you realize humans kill 100 million sharks in the planet’s oceans annually, you scratch your head in dismay, or, at least, consternation. Unknown to most humans, thousands of species suffer extinction at the hands of humanity annually. (Source: Life, August , 1991, “Sharks: Predator becomes prey” Fussman)
When you read startling headlines in the Denver Post announcing devastating drought, you scratch your mind further as to why humans steam forward as if they cannot be touched by nature’s vengeance. What do we possess in our arrogance as to denial of our own vulnerability in the scheme of life?
At a Gamow lecture at Colorado University, Boulder, Colorado, I listened to a lecture by Oxford University professor Dr. Norman Meyers. He explained his personal research in the Amazon and other rain forests around the world that humans cause the extinction of 50 to 100 species every day of the year. I didn’t think much of it until, I too, visited the Amazon.
Humans burn 1.5 acres every second in the Amazon and worldwide to make way for crops in the shallow soils of the rain forests. What forms the foundation of the Amazon rain forests? Answer: sand dunes! Note that the Amazon rain forests took millennia to cover those dunes with minimum topsoil. Once exhausted, farmlands become wastelands.
As I explored the Amazon, I watched roads being built into its interior all the way to Manous on the Amazon River. I saw firsthand the fires and the relentless cutting of huge trees. Animals and plants lose their homes at a rate of a landmass the size of Colorado every year. No wonder Myers reported 100 species suffer extinction daily!
Back in the United States, famed Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson states, “We cannot save the planet if we don’t understand it.”
I might add that we cannot save our planet home if we fail to stabilize human population growth. But never mind, because in the end, Mother Nature WILL stabilize human population growth, rather brutally.
In an excellent report, Mark Matousek, “Rescuing Earth” said, “The man widely considered to be Charles Darwin’s heir wants to build an ark, a virtual one at that.”
“It will be the greatest scientific achievements of the 21st century,” Wilson, 79, said. “We need this information about our world in order to save it.” Wilson expects to identify earth’s creatures in his “Encyclopedia of Life.” Estimates project 30 million species inhabit this planet.
While Wilson’s quest promotes noble intentions, first of all, humans rampage across the planet with devastating results to our ecological systems, but in the end, we cannot ‘save it’. A harsh reality faces humanity: this planet can and will erase humans without shedding a tear or issuing a burp!
The sad aspect of our destroying the environmental foundation of the planet in the past 100 years: we drive the sixth extinction session of millions of fellow creatures by our irresponsible fecundity.
“Scientists agree that the world has entered the first great extinction to be caused by humans,” Matousek said. “Global warming, deforestation, abuse of arable land, and destruction of natural habitats threaten to wipe out half the species of plants and animals on the planet by the end of the century.”
Wilson said, “Half the world’s plant and animal species could be extinct by the end of the century.”
As someone who witnessed massive kill-off of species in the Amazon, I direct your attention to a movie starring Sean Connery: “Medicine Man”.
By viewing the movie, you may see the species loss by their habitat cut and burned into oblivion. Not discussed in this sixth extinction session, you might consider what I call the “cascade effect”. For an example, in the United States, prairie dogs suffer horrific destruction of their colonies via human development. In states like Colorado, that slaps asphalt and concrete on 100,000 acres annually, those rodents vanish overnight.
When prairie dogs die, 67 other species, which depend on the rodents, also suffer decline and extinction. Voila! “Cascade effect”!
By not taking time to identify earth’s biodiversity, “It’s like a doctor trying to treat a patient knowing only 10 percent of the organs,” Wilson said.
As a scientist, Wilson suffers the slings and arrows of the Committee Against Racism and religious groups, but his scientific integrity remains unquestioned.
If humanity expects to flourish into the 21st century, it must take action with its intellect rather than its emotional and religious paradigms that prove outdated, outmoded and irrelevant. E.O.Wilson leads the struggle to bring about a viable future on planet Earth.
##
Bob Woodruff of ABC asked input from all citizens concerning the future of our planet. Go to www.earth2100.tv for a sobering reality check as to what we face and to what I have been writing about for the past 20 years. Our ‘window’ to change to a balanced population and non-polluting energy diminishes every day we listen to irresponsible media and thus ignore the blatant symptoms manifesting all over America and the planet.
To take action: www.numbersusa.com ; www.thesocialcontract.com ; www.fairus.org ; www.Capsweb.org ; www.vdare.org ; www.proenglish.org ; www.alipac.us ; www.firecoalition.com ; www.patriotunion.org
Become a member of “Frosty’s Press Agent Corps” whereby you volunteer a few hours to send out emails to top TV and radio hosts to offer top speakers on America’s overpopulation crisis driven by unending immigration. Email frostyw@juno.com and receive two informational letters showing you exactly what to do.
Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com
From: Frosty Wooldridge
This three minute interview with Adam Schrager on “Your Show” May 4, 2008, NBC Channel 9 News, addresses the ramifications of adding 120 million people to USA in 35 years and six million people to Colorado as to water shortages, air pollution, loss of farmland, energy costs and degradation of quality of life. In the interview, Frosty Wooldridge explains the ramifications of adding 120 million people to the USA in 35 years. He advances new concepts such as a “Colorado Carrying Capacity Policy”; “Colorado Environmental Impact Policy”; “Colorado Water Usage Policy”; “Colorado Sustainable Population Policy”. Nationally, the USA needs a "National Sustainable Population Policy" to determine the carrying capacity of this nation for the short and long term. Wooldridge is available for interviews on radio and TV having interviewed on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX.
Click the link to view the 3 minute interview with NBC's Adam Schrager:
http://www.9news.com/video/player.aspx?aid=52364
Frosty Wooldridge
www.frostywooldridge.com
September 18th, 2008
Aspen Community Theatre has announced the cast for its fall musical “Chicago” which opens at the Aspen District Theatre on November 6 and runs through November 16.
Set in prohibition era Chicago, the story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice, and the concept of the celebrity criminal. “Chicago”, A Musical Vaudeville, has everything that makes Broadway musicals great: a universal tale of fame, fortune and all that jazz; one show-stopping-song after another and exciting dance numbers, Bob Fosse style. “Chicago” has been honored with 6 Tony Awards, 6 Oscars, a Grammy, and thousands of standing ovations.
Continue Reading September 17th, 2008
Aspen Community Theatre is offering a free scenic design workshop taught by Tom Ward, the set designer for A.C.T.’s fall musical "Chicago." Join Tom, as he takes us on the journey from the written script to a stunning, detailed set.
Tom, a theater graduate from Denison University, has designed sets for Theatre Aspen, Aspen Stage, theaters on the front range and 22 sets for A.C.T. including Fiddler on the Roof.
Continue Reading September 17th, 2008
Public investment in highway efficiency should always be the first priority for transportation funding, so long as there are still significant gains to be made. For example, there is no question that improved traffic flow at the Entrance to Aspen, and possibly other locations along the Highway 82 corridor, would save more fuel than an increase in bus service.
In addition, and unlike those transit expenditures which only benefit bus riders, highway upgrades benefit 100 percent of the traveling public, improving our experience regardless of whether we are using private vehicles or public transportation.
It is a huge missed opportunity that RFTA does not exercise its full potential to plan for, propose, and fund highway based transportation solutions. Projects as diverse as the Entrance to Aspen, Glenwood Springs bypass, or grade separated access to Basalt could move forward regardless of state funding delays, and would set us up for future reimbursements from the state that could then be applied to transit services.
It is doubly sad that the RFTA board could not bring itself to even discuss the possibility of creating a petition process as part of their charter so that private citizens could propose plans and funding options to present to the voters.
When advocates for a new Entrance to Aspen were sent packing by the RFTA board, petition organizers pursued the second best option and proposed a Pitkin County road fund property tax that prioritized spending to deal with the worst problem first. While the RFTA sales tax proposal would have required the creation of a petition process from scratch, citizens of Pitkin County already have the right of petition, as established by the state constitution.
For whatever that’s worth.
It is not credible that the county clerk and county attorney believe that the Pitkin County Charter supersedes the state constitution, but that’s what they claimed in rejecting the proposed road tax petitions. They took a purely political stand in order to protect the county’s own property tax proposal from having to face a competing ballot question offered by citizens.
Commitment to democracy among area officials extends only far enough to allow us to pick from their list of choices. The collateral damage of their collective mindset against direct democracy has been the suppression of common sense proposals that achieve their own stated objectives more effectively than the policies and projects they currently support.
*This space was originally intended for “Discussing Mass Transit Part V – What is RFTA Proposing?”, but RFTA is still working on whatever they are about to propose. We pause from that series long enough to offer this background information.
September 17th, 2008
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)—The Burlingame affordable housing project came unglued in part because key departments within the City of Aspen were all but excluded from the communications, budgeting, and implementation processes.
Post Time News has learned these exclusions were sometimes intentional and sometimes circumstantial, but the net net was the virtual elimination of checks and balances within City government made manifest in the inaccurate Burlingame marketing brochure distributed to voters. Because of the mistakes, Aspen voters subsequently approved the project based on cost estimates for the three phases that were low by an order of magnitude: the brochure estimate for the “total” cost of Burlingame was $74 million; the most recent estimate by City Manager Steve Barwick, including infrastructure costs, was $138 million.
Continue Reading September 16th, 2008
Aspen City Council Member J.E. DeVilbiss is “very ill” according to Mayor Mick Ireland.
Due to his illness Judge DeVilbiss has missed the last two Council meetings, including the one Monday night, and it is unclear when he will return to his elected post.
“He is very ill,” Mayor Mick Ireland said after at a City Council meeting at Aspen City Hall Monday September 15th, 2008. “I am not going to comment any more or get into specifics, but he is ill.”
Continue Reading September 15th, 2008
Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, University of Colorado at Boulder, wrote another stunning paper concerning America’s love affair with self-delusion. Dr. Bartlett remains the premiere voice in America concerning the greatest predicament facing our civilization in the 21st century.
Continue Reading September 15th, 2008
addiction: the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma. (dictionary.com)
We've discovered many things in this world that can alter a person's emotional state or excitement level. Most of which fall under the category of...drug. Uppers, downers, street drugs, legal drugs, prescription, you name it. We're constantly surround by them. Even drug-free addictions like shopping, tv, eating, and exercise cause debt, eye-strain, weight-gain, and joint-pain.
For the past few weeks, however, I've re-discovered a truly healthy drug free high. An addiction who's side effects only include an increase in your vocabulary.
Continue Reading September 14th, 2008
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