"Why can’t we be more like Canada?" writes the Con Man. "They host the Olympics like they mean it. They smile. They play hockey and penalty-kill. They honor the indigenous people in their midst without trying to wipe them out. And they have the Canadian Mounties. But most of all what they have is a kick-ass national anthem, a tune that says everything about they are—and about what we, as Americans, are not. The 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, was bristling with unexpected pleasures for the fan, but nothing compared to the way the Canadian people and their athletes sang “Oh Canada,” the national anthem, on the trips to the podium for the gold medal. They sang it—they really sang it—the way we Americans almost never do with our 'Star-Spangled Banner.'"
TV Aspen Channel 19's Jim Laurence reports on the fate of athletes from Colorado and the Roaring Fork Valley at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
TV Aspen Channel 19 News Director Jim Laurence is reporting on the danger and seeming imminence of avalanches in Colorado.
Posts filed under 'Sports'
Why can’t we be more like Canada?
They host the Olympics like they mean it. They smile. They play hockey and penalty-kill. They honor the indigenous people in their midst without trying to wipe them out. And they have the Canadian Mounties.
But most of all what they have is a kick-ass national anthem, a tune that says everything about they are—and about what we, as Americans, are not.
The 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, was bristling with unexpected pleasures for the fan, but nothing compared to the way the Canadian people and their athletes sang “Oh Canada,” the national anthem, on the trips to the podium for the gold medal.
They sang it—they really sang it—the way we Americans almost never do with our “Star-Spangled Banner.” They sang it from the top of their lungs with no self-consciousness to speak of. They were joyful when they sang it.
Continue Reading March 1st, 2010
Yes, indeed, we have it on good authority -- an airport source -- that Tiger Woods deplaned from his private jet in Aspen Tuesday and decamped for parts unknow, most likely (we figure) to hole up in some gorgeous manse the hoi polloi (that would be us) are unable to penetrate.
What would you say to Tiger if you had the chance or had the notion?
January 5th, 2010
Welcome to my personal blog about life in Aspen from the point of view of a 30 year resident who is also the Mayor and likes his job, almost all the time.
Continue Reading December 1st, 2009
To be a true spors fan--and you know who you are--you have to sit through loads of dreck. Boise State-Tulsa, as a example, or the NFL preseason, or the backend of blowouts year-round in every sport.
But the good news is every now and again you are rewarded for your patience as never before. So it was for me Saturday night when the Yankees beat the Angels in extra innings in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series (ALCS)--and when your Colorado Buffaloes upended #15 Kansas in Boulder just when they looked like they might blow it again.
Continue Reading October 18th, 2009
Had the pleasure to spend part of the afternoon at Wagner Park in Aspen watching rugby types do their rugger thing during the Aspen Ruggerfest. You've got to love these guys: they're huge, gnarly, fat, fun-loving, and snarly, with all the carbunckles showing. I think they love them because they are so much like me, a kind of post-evolution species of the male kind.
And let's not forget the match of the day and probably the year. The famously famous Gentlemen of Aspen, 35-and-older division, took on the Kansas City Blues it a tight tilt. With time waning, a K.C. back swooped in, intercepted a pass, and ran about 60-yards untouched for a score to put the Blues ahead with almost no time left. I haven't seen much rugby, but this was a brilliant stunning play, an interception returned for a touchdown to save the day.
Continue Reading September 18th, 2009
Verdant green lodge pole pines blanket the Mount Holy Cross Wilderness region. A cobalt sky profiles rolling mountain tundra while gray rock peaks push against the universe. In the valleys, snow-fed sparkling rivers cascade over boulders, while wildlife munches, stalks or chirps its way through the dark forests "too silent to be real." In that wilderness, the "circle of life" maintains a certain perfection known only to those who dare enter that wild kingdom.
Driving along a dusty mountain road, my friend Al and I crossed over a frisky river leading into a quiet canyon. We followed that river for a half dozen miles before stopping at a trailhead.
"This is it," I said. "Turn into that spot and let's get moving before that sun sets any further"...
Continue Reading July 21st, 2009
Nothing beats the idea of “the level playing field” when it comes to boneheaded American mythology. The analogy no doubt emanates from the national past-time yet is meant to resonate in every America cranny, including any and all branches of government. The idea that the same rules—and the same opportunities—apply to everyone could be stamped on the Statue of Liberty’s crown.
Pity the fool.
The news that Sammy Sosa—late of the Chicago Cubs and lesser Major League Baseball (MLB) nines—applied performance-enhancing drugs during his career was about as shocking as the word echoing across the canyons of finance that implied Wall Streeters are greedy to the point of gluttony, with the law little more than a nuisance.
Ain’t that America? In baseball and high finance, our citizens are more than welcome to game the system as long as nobody finds out.
Continue Reading June 18th, 2009
We Americans stand at the crossroads of our own demographic Waterloo, Katrina, Mount St. Helens, Crossing the Rubicon or fall of the Roman Empire. If we continue on our current path, projections show an added 70 million immigrants added to the USA within 26 years.
Continue Reading April 13th, 2009
I know the captain of the Maersk Alabama taken hostage by pirates in a lifeboat off the coast of Somalia. I don’t know him well, unless you can say that playing basketball with them means you seen inside their soul.
We even lived in the same town—Underhill, Vermont—until I moved out here to Colorado a few years ago. I never saw Richard Phillips outside of Twin Oaks, in South Burlington, Vermont, and I never saw him in Underhill, a tiny under-the-radar town that constitutes the backside of Stowe, with all the anonymity that implies. I never socialized with him or met his wife. But I found out between games that he was a sea captain, an exotic notion in a state as landlocked as Vermont, and I knew he went away for big chunks of time, presumably on the high seas, before coming home to see his wife and to play ball with us flatlanders.
Continue Reading April 9th, 2009
Mr. Boyd, a little history lesson is in order. Or maybe you should just read David Remnick’s (The New Yorker’s current editor) King of the World, a thoroughly engrossing narrative of Ali’s early years. You’d then know that to equate Mr. Ali, to mention him into the same paragraph with Rush and Billo the Clown, a paragraph that includes the word hypocrisy is American sacrilege, and just plain (uninformed) wrong.
Ali knew what he was doing from the moment he won Olympic gold and turned pro, and he knew who had come before him, a white guy with long golden hair and he wasn’t to proud to take some direction from an admitted showman for it was then and is now, showmanship that sold tickets...
Continue Reading March 25th, 2009
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