Newspapers up and down the Roaring Fork Valley remember long-time Aspen resident, City Councilman, and 9th Judicial District Judge J. E. DeVilbiss. Born Judson Earnest DeVilbiss on Nov. 24, 1934, in Laredo, Texas, DeVilbiss grew up in Rosenberg, Texas, where he attended Lamar High School. He became the first in his family to graduate from college. He enlisted in the ROTC during his undergraduate days at the University of Texas. After his stint in the military, DeVilbiss went on to work as a roughneck on offshore drilling rigs, where he saved enough money to put himself through law school at the University of Texas Law School. He moved his family to Carbondale in 1969. His judicial career as a part-time Garfield County Judge in 1972. Later he became the judge of Colorado's 9th Judicial District. He retired from the bench in 2002 and later won a seat on Aspen City Council.
"If it would have jumped Cedar Drive, we would have had big problems,” Basalt Deputy Fire Chief Jerry Peetz told a local paper.
A new group of citizen activists--including Bill Fabrocini, Lisa Consiglio, Leigh Vogel, and Lee Ann Vold--have come together to stop the abuse of sled dogs at Krabloonik once and for all. "For 34 years," writes Katie Ingham of Basalt, "200 to 400 Krabloonik sled dogs have been chained to their small wooden boxes out in an open field in Snowmass Village. For about 4 months a year, they are worked very hard pulling tourists in heavy sleds, then for 8 months they are stored in this field on 5-foot long heavy chains and left to bake in full sun with only a hotter box to retrieve in to. They have no socialization, no attention, no exercise, no life...." (Photo by Leigh Vogel)
Posts filed under 'The West'
In a land of plenty, the worst thing you can become is that guy—that nerdy guy who runs around turning off lights and (worse) telling everyone he knows to turn off the damn lights or the air conditioner or the sauna or whatever.
I’ve become that guy.
Pleased to meet you.
What does it mean to be that guy? One of the good things about being that guy is that we love questions like that because it gives us the chance to spout off about peak oil and electric cars and solar power. The bad thing is that everyone ends up hating you, because you have become that guy who rags on everybody who things energy is still el cheapo.
Continue Reading May 29th, 2008
The Con Man takes issue with a reader who believes his piece on Aspen Gay Ski Week--"Why Gay Ski Week Creeps Me Out--And That's A Good Thing"--a piece that decried his own prejudice as a way of getting past it.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Tuesday May 27, 2008.
May 27th, 2008
When Mick Ireland and his Merry Pranksters assumed office in Aspen after the last election, I of course assumed there would be some glaring glitches and growing pains.
Not in my wildest imagination did I believe that the current regime would all but run Aspen into the ground financially in just a few short months. No exaggeration, my friends. Under the stewardship of the Bath Party, Aspen has been brought to its knees, fiscally speaking, by a group of poobahs who pooh-pooh the value of the dollar even as they burn money faster than an open fire on the Cooper Avenue Mall.
Continue Reading May 21st, 2008
The Con Man went to a seminar with Randy Udall, sponsored by the Sopris Foundation, and came away a changed man. With peak oil either here or imminent, with demand rising, it's impossible not to look at energy in a new and disturbing way. Life as we know it is about to change.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Wednesday May 21, 2008.
May 21st, 2008
When you talk to American citizens rather than politically correct editors, publishers, TV producers and talk show hosts, you get to the heart of the matter. As illegal alien migration and mass legal immigration rage into this country like a “Human Katrina”, every American citizen pays financially. Other costs include cultural destruction, linguistic chaos, educational breakdown, incarceration and medical consequences.
Continue Reading May 20th, 2008
In the past week, a cyclone ripped through Burma with devastating results. Death estimates exceed 100,000 and may rise to a million if survivors do not find food, water and housing. What the cyclone didn’t render, diseases may bring even greater disaster.
China suffered an earthquake at 7.9, which caused thousands of deaths.
Continue Reading May 15th, 2008
The Con Man sticks a fork into the carcass of conservatism and says it's finished as a unifying national force. Also: an interview with Nick Heil, the author of "Dark Summit," the story of the deadliest season on Mount Everest--and a final shot at John McCain's disturbing ties to lobbyists with disturbing clients like the military junta in Burma.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Tuesday May 13, 2008.
May 13th, 2008
In the “Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy and Toto danced into an amazing adventure. The main message often-times remains forgotten:
In our minds…
it is the wizards, behind the curtain,
who control and manipulate "the show."
They do not! However, if you allow the ‘wizards’ to run your show, you leave yourself no choice in the outcome of your life or the life of your civilization.
Continue Reading May 13th, 2008
My mom was born in a tent (some accounts I’ve heard say it was a cabin) near Estes Park, Colorado on an August night in 1936. My grandfather was a laborer during what must have been the construction of Trail Ridge Road from the Alpine Visitor Center to Grand Lake. It is one of the cruel realities of surviving your elders that you come up with questions you can never have answered.
When I was a much younger man, in that netherworld between high school and life, I went to work in the coal mines. Yes, back in the day, there were coal mines, and some of them were in Pitkin County. But I digress.
Continue Reading May 11th, 2008
I haven’t been sleeping much lately, which means I’ve spent countless hours in the hopeless darkness thinking of the most ridiculous things imaginable. The sleep deprived mind, I’ve learned, is not a sane mind.
Last night I could not stop thinking about a story I had read online. Two Houston teens, the story reported, were arrested for digging up a grave to make a pot pipe from a skull. The writer mentioned that he would love to hear the conversation that led to such a brilliant idea, so I figured I’d oblige him.
Continue Reading May 10th, 2008
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