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Tributary: Remembering Charles Wilkinson at the Center of the American West

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 20:14:28 +0000

Tributary: Remembering Charles Wilkinson at the Center of the American West Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/06/2023 - 14:14

Picture a place where two rivers come together. See how their confluence creates a more complex current, charts a stronger course, and promises more vitality for those of us downstream. Such was the effect that Charles Wilkinson, Moses Lasky Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Professor at CU Boulder, had on the Center of the American West (CAW). And such was our sense of deeply felt loss and legacy when we received news of Wilkinson’s passing on June 6th, 2023.

Wilkinson was a major tributary in the Center of the American West’s watershed. Along with his CU Boulder colleague, Patricia Nelson Limerick, he co-founded the Center in 1986 and participated in many notable initiatives. One of which was the remarkable “Inside Interior” series. This oral history / public event saw the two of them in historic dialogue with an impressive cast of former U.S. Secretaries of the Interior, ranging from Stewart Udall to James Watt.

Charles Wilkinson with Billy Frank Jr.

Wilkinson’s legacy also saw him present multiple Wallace Stegner Awards, a prestigious award given by the CAW to those who have made “a sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the West.” Recipients include Western writers Ivan Doig and Terry Tempest Williams as well as filmmaker Ken Burns. One of the most moving Stegner awards Wilkinson gave came in 2006 when he bestowed a shared award to Billy Frank Jr. (Nisqually) and John Echohawk (Pawnee), Executive Director of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF).

After illuminating the struggle for tribal rights and sovereignty on the Colorado Plateau in his book Fire on the Plateau: Conflict and Endurance in the American Southwest (1999), Wilkinson then pivoted to embrace the depth and diversity of the western American region when he looked to the Pacific Northwest and wrote Messages from Frank’s Landing: a Story of Salmon, Treaties, and the Indian Way (2000) about Frank Jr.’s activism. Similarly, Wilkinson’s connection with John Echohawk ran deep at NARF. According to the CU Law School’s tribute, Wilkinson, Echohawk, the late Dean David Getches and Professor Richard Collins “helped to secure landmark victories in tribal treaty rights litigation.”

Charles Wilkinson reading from his book, The People Are Dancing Again

A prolific, accessible, and award-winning writer, Wilkinson was feted by the CAW in 2011 with the release of his last book, The People Are Dancing Again: The History of the Siletz Tribe of Western Oregon (2010). As noted in the press release for this event, “It is a book that not only provides a deep and beautifully written account of the history of the Siletz people, but reaches beyond region and tribe to tell a story that will inform the way all of us think about the past.”

Wilkinson last joined the CAW in December 2019 for the "Bipartisanship (and Friendship) Happen!" speaker series. In a reprise role similar to the "Inside Interior" series, Wilkinson joined Limerick on stage for a public interview between former Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez and former Democratic Congressman and Senator Mark Udall. Wilkinson solicited meaningful responses from both Beauprez and Udall, creating moments of reflection on the legacy of fathers to their opinions on the current political climate. The comments generated this evening resonate even more poignantly now, given the historic changes that were to come.

We are forever indebted and humbled by the contributions Charles Wilkinson made to the vitality of the Center of the American West. A great mentor, author, speaker, and defender of tribal and environmental rights, his downstream effect will be felt for many generations to come.

Links to References Above:

Biography: /center/west/charles-wilkinson
Inside Interior: /center/west/events/inside-interior
Stegner Award: /center/west/events/wallace-stegner-award
The People are Dancing Again book release: /center/west/2021/05/28/charles-wilkinson-book-release
Bipartisanship (and Friendship) Happen with Bob Beauprez and Mark Udall: /center/west/events/bipartisanship-and-friendship-happen#december_10_2019-1693

College names interim faculty director of Center of the American West

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 06:00:00 +0000

College names interim faculty director of Center of the American West Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/05/2022 - 00:00

The College of Arts and Sciences has named an interim director to carry the Center of the American West into the future.

CU Boulder history Professor Tom Zeiler will serve as interim faculty director of the Center of the American West, effective immediately.

Zeiler was chair of the CU Boulder History Department from 2000-2004, and he has directed CU Boulder’s International Affairs Program since 2013. Zeiler has received Fulbright fellowships for teaching and research, as well as the Teacher Recognition Award given by the Student Organization for Alumni Relations.

He served as editor-in-chief of American Foreign Relations Since 1600: A Guide to the Literature, and he has served as President of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the Society’s Council, Bernath Dissertation Award, Program, Teaching, and Membership Committees. He was also a member of the State Department Historical Advisory Committee on Diplomatic Documentation.

The Center of the American West serves as a national resource illuminating the history, culture, politics and tradition of the American West through its focus on applied history. The Center of the American West will continue to play a vital role at CU Boulder, and we look forward to its continued contributions to national thought and discourse regarding the American West and our shared history.

“Professor Zeiler is a proven dynamic and vibrant voice in the academic community, with a unique perspective on the history of the American West,” said Glen Krutz, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

“We look forward to his leadership in rebuilding relationships with staff and center supporters, strengthening ties to our other academic departments at CU Boulder, and setting the stage for the center to reach its next great level of success.”

Professor Zeiler will continue to teach his scheduled courses in addition to his new duties with the center.

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Turning Opposing Forces into Cooperation and Life Skills

Anonymous — Fri, 27 May 2022 19:15:32 +0000

Turning Opposing Forces into Cooperation and Life Skills Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 05/27/2022 - 13:15

Original article can be found at The Denver Post
Originally published on May 27, 2022

Should universities provide young people with the skills they will need to find meaning in life, or should universities provide them with the skills they will need to find a job?

If ever a question presented a false dichotomy and an unnecessary choice, this one leads the pack.

With the rarest exception, people who do not have the means to support themselves will struggle to find a satisfying meaning in their lives. And, just as important, pursuing a worthwhile career requires a capacity to find the deeper meaning in everyday work.

Even though this distinction—between finding a job and finding meaning in life—had qualified for retirement decades ago, it still hangs around campuses, pulling faculty who should be each other’s allies into pointless contention. Out in the world, this misguided notion works its mischief, convincing parents that their children must choose between majors that will prove practical and profitable, and majors that will be momentarily engaging but disconnected from success in real life.

Meanwhile, people who are equipped to grapple with complex questions of human nature constantly emerge as the best people to hold consequential jobs in engineering, medicine, finance, public service, and the management of industries ranging from manufacturing to tourism.

Repeating this assertion whenever I had the chance, I have put on a multi-decade performance of preaching to the choir. But if I ever hoped to enhance my powers of persuasion, I had to try something I had never tried before.

So I signed up for a business class.

In partnership with CU’s Leadership Center, the Business Research Division at the Leeds School offers a week-long Executive Leadership Course. And when a hard-core humanities professor accepts the role of an eager student in that course, supposed opposites secure a wondrous opportunity to hang out and get acquainted.

At our very first session, Doug Bennett, a CU instructor in Organizational Leadership and Information Analytics, presented his list of “Twelve Principles of Leadership Excellence.” Positioned as capstones in his list, “Humility” and “Sense of Humor—Self-Deprecating” caught my attention.

I have attended innumerable conferences, conventions, workshops, seminars, and institutes where I have heard addresses aplenty, proclaiming the principles and values of humanities scholarship. For the first time in my life, listening to Doug Bennett’s presentation to the CU’s Executive Leadership Class, I got to see “Humility” and “Sense of Humor—Self-Deprecating” celebrated as essential features of professional practice. Crossing the divide into the world of business education, I seemed to have found my kinfolk.

Did I agree with everything I heard during the week?

Nope.

But when I doubted or dissented, I got a fair hearing, and doors opened—and have stayed open—for me and my new friends to continue to explore these areas of disagreement.

Best of all, after four days of lively discussion, we migrated from the classroom to the arena of experiential learning. Two military veterans divided the participants into teams and dispatched us on ingenuity-stretching missions, with one of us designated to lead each undertaking. And then, after our team had worked together in crossing a simulated minefield and in securing a rope to cross a simulated river, the rigid division that has fractured higher education surrendered its power. Cooperation ceased to be a distant ideal and became an action plan.

Should universities provide young people with the skills they will need to find meaning in life, or should universities provide them with the skills they will need to find a job?

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CU President Mark Kennedy to speak at Boulder bipartisanship event

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 06:00:00 +0000

CU President Mark Kennedy to speak at Boulder bipartisanship event Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/14/2021 - 00:00

Original article can be found at Times-Call
Originally published on April 14, 2021 By Katie Langford

University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for the American West will host a virtual conversation between system President Mark Kennedy and University of Massachusetts President Marty Meehan at noon Thursday, the second installment in the center’s “Bipartisanship (and Friendship) Happen!” series.

Center for the American West began the series because ongoing national tension and polarization “put a premium on seizing every opportunity for civil, respectful, and productive conversations,” according to the series website.

Kennedy, a Republican, and Meehan, a Democrat, previously served together in the U.S. House of Representatives and formed a friendship during that time, according to a news release from the system.

“You learn a lot about a person when you travel with them, particularly overseas. Marty and I really became friends when we traveled the Middle East together as Congressmen,” Kennedy said in a statement.

“While we don’t always agree on issues, I respect and appreciate his ability to look at all sides of an issue and think critically about a solution. He is also a man with deep integrity and a strong sense of public service,” he continued.

Faculty director Patty Limerick will moderate the discussion.

“The bad news is also the good news that this series is even more desperately needed than it was in December of 2019, and I think it was pretty darn needed then,” Limerick said. “I think the need for it is significantly greater.”

The series’ first discussion was between former U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez (R-Colo) and former U.S. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo), which Limerick said was well-received by attendees.

Limerick said she plans to continue the series beyond the events that are currently scheduled, which include a May 10 discussion between U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and a May 21 discussion between former U.S. Reps. David Skaggs (D-Colo.) and Scott McInnis (R-Colo.)

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This Black Family Ran a Thriving Beach Resort 100 Years Ago. They Want Their Land Back.

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 07:00:00 +0000

This Black Family Ran a Thriving Beach Resort 100 Years Ago. They Want Their Land Back. Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/11/2021 - 00:00

Original article can be found at The New York Times
Originally published on March 11, 2021 By Jacey Fortin

Willa and Charles Bruce were among the first Black people to settle in Manhattan Beach, Calif., but the city shut down their resort in 1924. Now, the county is considering returning the land.

Duane Yellow Feather Shepard in Manhattan Beach, Calif., where members of his family ran a thriving beachfront resort that was seized by eminent domain nearly a century ago. Credit: Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times

In 1912, Willa and Charles Bruce bought a plot of land on the Southern California coast.

It was an oceanside lot in an area dotted with sunny blossoms of evening primrose and purple clusters of lupine. The land, made accessible by red trolley cars that trundled to and from the growing metropolis of Los Angeles, was ripe for development.

The Bruces and their son, Harvey, came from New Mexico and were among the first Black people to settle in what would become the city of Manhattan Beach. They built a resort where other Black families could swim, lounge, eat and dance without being subject to racist harassment.

The harassment came anyway, and the resort thrived despite it. But city officials shuttered the enterprise by condemning the land in 1924, claiming to need it for a public park. The Bruces fought the move through litigation, but failed. The city paid them $14,500, and they left their beach and lost their business.

Nearly a century later, their descendants are still seeking restitution.

“I just want justice for my family,” said Anthony Bruce, 38, a descendant of the Bruces who lives in Florida and has childhood memories of visiting the California land his relatives once owned.

The Bruce family’s former property is now home to a training center for lifeguards. Credit: Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times

Visitors to Bruce’s Beach in 1920, featured in the book “Living the California Dream,” by Alison Rose Jefferson. Credit: Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection – UCLA

“It’s been a scar on the family, financially and emotionally,” said Duane Yellow Feather Shepard, 69, a relative of the Bruces who lives in Los Angeles and is a chief of the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation.

“What we want is restoration of our land to us,” he said, “and restitution for the loss of revenues.”

While the city is not seriously considering the possibility of monetary restitution — officials have said public funds cannot legally be used to pay such claims — property restoration is now on the table. Last week, Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles County supervisor, said she was open to returning the land to the family, ABC7 Eyewitness News reported. The land has been owned by the county since the 1990s and is now the site of a training center for lifeguards.

“This was an injustice inflicted upon not just Willa and Charles Bruce but generations of their descendants who would almost certainly be millionaires if they had been able to keep that beachfront property,” Ms. Hahn said in an emailed statement. She added, “I want the county to be part of righting this wrong.”

Both Mr. Bruce and Mr. Shepard said that restitution was about more just than their family. They pointed to the long history of racism in the United States, and to stories of Black people being robbed of their land or the fruits of their labor.

“We’ve been stripped of any type of legacy, and we’re not the only family that this has happened to,” Mr. Shepard said. “It’s happened all over the United States.”

Charles and Willa Bruce on their wedding day. Credit: Anthony Bruce

Manhattan Beach has been reckoning with the story of the Bruces’ shuttered resort for years. A park there was renamed “Bruce’s Beach” in 2007, and the city erected a plaque to tell the family’s story.

But the plaque credits a white landowner, George Peck, with making it possible for the Bruce family to settle there. It omits reports of Mr. Peck’s attempts to obstruct Black beachgoers’ paths to the shore.

“We definitely need to change the plaque,” said Kavon Ward, 39, an organizer and resident of Manhattan Beach. “But that’s not going far enough for me. We need to figure out how to get this land back to the family it was stolen from.”

Last year, amid nationwide demonstrations prompted by the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, Ms. Ward, who is Black, arranged a picnic at Bruce’s Beach to celebrate Juneteenth.

“I started thinking about the generational wealth that was stripped from that family,” she said. “It happened everywhere around this nation. We keep getting up, but why do we have to keep getting kicked down? Why? For me, it was time for reparations.”

Kavon Ward has been working to raise awareness about the Bruce family. “We need to figure out,” she said, “how to get this land back to the family it was stolen from.” Credit: Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times

Alison Rose Jefferson, a historian based in Los Angeles, wrote about the Bruces and other families in a book, “Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites During the Jim Crow Era.”

“Many people only think about African-American civil rights through economic and political power,” Dr. Jefferson said. “They sometimes forget about the fact that recreation was a big part of the struggle.”

When Willa and Charles Bruce first opened their property to visitors in 1912, it had a small stand that sold food and fizzy drinks. By 1923, the property had a lodge and a beachside cafe, with space upstairs for dancing. Mr. Bruce was often out of town, working as a dining car chef on trains to Salt Lake City. It was Ms. Bruce who bought the property and handled much of the business at the resort.

“Wherever we have tried to buy land for a beach resort, we have been refused,” Ms. Bruce told The Los Angeles Times in 1912. “But I own this land and I am going to keep it.”

Willa Bruce, left, with her daughter-in-law and her sister in Manhattan Beach in the 1920s. Credit: California African American Museum, via Alison Rose Jefferson

Margie Johnson and John Pettigrew in Manhattan Beach in 1927. Credit: LaVera White Collection of Arthur and Elizabeth Lewis, via Alison Rose Jefferson

The Bruces made their investment in the era of Jim Crow, amid a resurgence of Ku Klux Klan activities across the United States and campaigns of white supremacist terror and lynchings that drove millions of African-Americans away from the South. There was less violence against Black people in California at the time, but discrimination was rampant.

Still, the resort at Bruce’s Beach appeared to prosper. Black-and-white photographs from the era captured beachgoers wearing bathing suits and bright smiles, couples lounging in the shade and families playing in the surf.

In time, a small community of Black landowners bloomed around the resort. According to Dr. Jefferson’s book, these included George Prioleau, a formerly enslaved retired Army major whose family developed a duplex along the shore; Mary Sanders, a caterer from Canada who was known as a skilled entrepreneur; and John and Bessie McCaskill, who hosted elaborate beachside breakfasts.

But some white neighbors and city officials were intent on dismantling the community. Black visitors to the beach endured harassment, slashed tires and arbitrary regulations. The California Eagle, a Black-owned newspaper, reported that the Ku Klux Klan was active along the California shoreline during the 1920s.

Los Angeles County is considering options including handing over the property, paying monetary restitution and leasing the land from members of the Bruce family. Credit: Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times

And in 1924, the city condemned the Bruces’ property, claiming eminent domain in order to use the land as a park. The couple, both of whom were in their 60s, eventually moved to Los Angeles.

The land they left behind would not be developed as a public park for more than three decades.

Tourists continued to visit Bruce’s Beach after the resort was shuttered. So did members of the N.A.A.C.P., who participated in a “swim-in” to assert their right to the sea in 1927, according to Dr. Jefferson’s book. Several Black beachgoers were arrested that year.

As the decades passed, Manhattan Beach grew to become an affluent city of about 35,000 people, a vast majority of whom are white. According to 2010 census data, less than 1 percent of the population is Black.

In October, Manhattan Beach convened a task force of 13 residents to come up with recommendations for the city to right historical wrongs. Next week, the City Council will meet to discuss those recommendations, which include changing the plaque, erecting an art installation and issuing an apology.

“That’s fine,” Ms. Ward said. “But there are things they could address if they were thinking creatively — if there really was a will to become a more diverse, equitable and inclusive place.” She suggested that officials consider forward-looking measures like a commitment to affordable housing.

At the county level, officials are expected to meet with Bruce family descendants next week to discuss handing over the property, which could also involve monetary restitution or an agreement to lease the land from the family.

But Mr. Shepard said the city that condemned the land should be the one to make amends.

Los Angeles County “is talking about restoring the land to us,” he said. “But the restitution and punitive damages, Manhattan Beach is going to have to pay. We’re going to keep up with them until we get it.”

Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.

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CU student veterans discuss transition to higher education

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Feb 2021 07:00:00 +0000

CU student veterans discuss transition to higher education Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 02/28/2021 - 00:00

Original article can be found at CU Independent
Originally published on February 28, 2021 By Alexander Edwards

CU student veterans Nisa Joval and Reed Robins discuss the transition to higher education. (Alexander Edwards / CU Independent)

The University of Colorado’s Center of the American West hosted a discussion Friday focused on how the distinct worlds of military service and university life can join together. The students on the panel, Nisa Jovel and Reed Robins, share a common trait: they both served in the American armed forces before transitioning to student life at CU.

Jovel spent four years in the Marine Corps, serving as an aviation operations specialist. She is a double major, studying integrated physiology and anthropology. Robins served in the Navy for six years as a nuclear electrician. He is studying economics with an emphasis on public policy.

In large part due to their outside life experience, student veterans have unique perspectives on how higher education can function better. Or if not better, then different so that it may be more accessible for different people with different life experiences.

“A lot of students don’t really have a larger goal, they’re just going to school,” Robins said. “There has to be a larger purpose.”

Jovel nodded in agreement as Robins spoke, but also added her take on the question.

“Maybe we should have a course that, instead of you learning what to think, you learn how to think,” She said.

For both Jovel and Robins, attending college was never a question. It was on the list for both of them. Their paths to the military, however, could not have been more different.

“For me, I actually knew I wanted to join when I was about 13 years old,” Jovel said.

With her choice made, Jovel began joining enlistment candidates for weekly workouts at a recruiting station. Despite the intensity of the weightlifting, runs, and military training, Jovel said she fell in love with it. Later in her career, she would graduate Marine Corps Infantry Training at Camp Lejeune.

Robins on the other hand found himself in college without a long-term goal. He felt unhappy and not motivated to complete his degree after working with a graduate in his field. This led him to dropping out of college and enlisting.

“My grandma knew someone who was in the Navy and told me, ‘The Navy always needs nukes,’” Robbins said. “I was like: well, what’s that? Let’s go find out.”

In this sense, a “nuke” does not refer to a nuclear warhead but rather a nuclear technician. Robins’ job was to maintain shipborne nuclear powerplants that power aircraft carriers and submarines.

With their time in the military complete, the marine and sailor made their way to college. Both felt it was an important step to take for their post-military careers. For the two of them, the transition back to civilian life as a student was a surprising one.

“I really had to humble myself,” Jovel said. “Not everyone really cares that I was a veteran.”

CU Boulder’s Center of the American West seeks to create a forum where ideas and perspectives can be shared. It is the hope of the center that these ideas can help find solutions to the region’s difficulties.

The event on Friday was the first of a series the Center of the American West will be hosting. The next event will be Friday, March 5 at 12:00. It will be held virtually.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Alexander Edwards at Alexander.Edwards@colorado.edu

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Live Free or Die if You Must, Say Colorado Urbanites — But Not in My Hospital

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Dec 2020 07:00:00 +0000

Live Free or Die if You Must, Say Colorado Urbanites — But Not in My Hospital Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/28/2020 - 00:00

Original article can be found at The Denver Post
Originally published on December 28, 2020 By Rae Ellen Bichell

ERIE, Colo. — Whenever Larry Kelderman looks up from the car he’s fixing and peers across the street, he’s looking across a border. His town of 28,000 straddles two counties, separated by County Line Road.

Kelderman’s auto repair business is in Boulder County, whose officials are sticklers for public health and have topped the county website with instructions on how to report COVID violations. Kelderman lives in Weld County, where officials refuse to enforce public health rules.

Weld County’s test positivity rate is twice that of its neighbor, but Kelderman is pretty clear which side he backs.

“Which is worse, the person gets the virus and survives and they still have a business, or they don’t get the virus and they lose their livelihood?” he said.

Boulder boasts one of the most highly educated populations in the nation; Weld boasts about its sugar beets, cattle and thousands of oil and gas wells. Summer in Boulder County means concerts featuring former members of the Grateful Dead; in Weld County, it’s rodeo time. Boulder voted for Biden, Weld for Trump. Per capita income in Boulder is nearly 50% higher than in Weld.

Even their COVID outbreaks are different: In Boulder County, the virus swirls around the University of Colorado. In Weld County, some of the worst outbreaks have swept through meatpacking plants.

It’s not the first time County Line Road has been a fault line.

“I’ve been in politics seven years and there’s always been a conflict between the two counties,” said Jennifer Carroll, mayor of Erie, once a coal mining town and now billed as a good place to raise a family, about 30 minutes north of Denver.

Shortly before the coronavirus hit Colorado, Erie’s board of trustees extended a moratorium on new oil and gas operations in the town. Weld County was not pleased.

“They got really angry at us for doing that, because oil and gas is their thing,” Carroll said.

Most of the town’s businesses are on the Weld side. To avoid public health whiplash, Carroll and other town leaders have asked residents to comply with the more restrictive stance of the Boulder side.

The feud got ugly in a dispute over hospital beds. At one point, the state said Weld County had only three intensive care beds, while Weld County claimed it had 43.

“It made my job harder, because people were doubting what I was saying,” said Carroll. “Nobody trusted anyone because they were hearing conflicting information.”

Weld’s number, it turned out, included not just the beds in its two hospitals, but also those in 10 other hospitals across the county line, including in the city of Longmont.

Longmont sits primarily in Boulder County but spills into Weld, where its suburbs taper into fields pockmarked with prairie dog holes. Its residents say they can tell snow is coming when the winds deliver a pungent smell of livestock from next door. Longmont Mayor Brian Bagley worried that Weld’s behavior would deliver more than a stench: It might also deliver patients requiring precious resources.

“They were basically encouraging their citizens to violate the emergency health orders … with this cowboy-esque, you know, ‘Yippee-ki-yay, freedom, Constitution forever, damn the consequences,’” said Bagley. “Their statement is, ‘Our hospitals are full, but don’t worry, we’re just going to use yours.’”

So, “for 48 hours, I trolled Weld County,” he said. Bagley asked the city council to consider an ordinance that could have restricted Weld County residents’ ability to receive care at Longmont hospitals. Bagley, who retracted his proposal the next day, said he knew it was never going to come to fruition — after all, it was probably illegal — but he wanted to prove a point.

“They’re going to be irresponsible? Fine. Let me propose a question,” he said. “If there is only one ICU bed left and there are two grandparents there — one from Weld, one from Boulder — and they both need that bed, who should get it?”

Weld County commissioners volleyed back, calling Bagley a “simple mayor.” They wrote that the answer to the pandemic was “not to continually punish working-class families or the individuals who bag your groceries, wait on you in restaurants, deliver food to your home while you watch Netflix and chill.”

“I know we’re all trying to get along, but people are starting to do stupid and mean things and so I’ll be stupid and mean back,” Bagley said during a Dec. 8 council meeting.

In another Longmont City Council meeting, Bagley (who suspects the commissioners don’t know what “Netflix and chill” typically means) often referred to Weld simply as “our neighbors to the East,” declining to name his foe. The council shrugged off his statement about withholding medical treatment but demanded that Weld County step up to fight the pandemic.

“We would not deny medical care to anybody. It’s illegal and it’s immoral,” said council member Polly Christensen. “But it is wrong for people to expect us to bear the burden of what they’ve been irresponsible enough to let loose.”

“They’re the reason why I can’t be in the classroom in front of my kids,” said council member and teacher Susie Hidalgo-Fahring, whose school district straddles the counties. “I’m done with that. Everybody needs to be a good neighbor.”

The council decided Dec. 15 to send a letter to Weld County’s commissioners encouraging them to enforce state restrictions and to make a public statement about the benefits of wearing masks and practicing physical distancing. They’ve also backed a law allowing Democratic Gov. Jared Polis to withhold relief money from counties that don’t comply with restrictions.

Weld County Commissioner Scott James said his county doesn’t have the authority to enforce public health orders any more than a citizen has the authority to give a speeding ticket.

“If you want me as an elected official to assume authority that I don’t have and arbitrarily exert it over you, I dare you to look that up in the dictionary,” said James, who is a rancher turned country radio host. “It’s called tyranny.”

James doesn’t deny that COVID-19 is ravaging his community. “We’re on fire, and we need to put that fire out,” he said. But he believes that individuals will make the right decisions to protect others, and demands the right of his constituents to use the hospital nearest them.

“To look at Weld County like it has walls around it is shortsighted and not the way our health care system is designed to work,” James said. “To use a crudity, because I am, after all, just a ranch kid turned radio guy, there’s no ‘non-peeing’ section in the pool. Everybody’s gonna get a little on ’em. And that’s what’s going on right now with COVID.”

The dispute is not just liberal and conservative politics clashing. Bagley, the Longmont mayor, grew up in Weld County and “was a Republican up until Trump,” he said. But it is an example of how the virus is tapping into long-standing Western strife.

“There’s decades of reasons for resentment at people from a distance — usually from a metropolis and from a state or federal governmental office — telling rural people what to do,” said Patty Limerick, faculty director at the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and previously state historian.

In the ’90s, she toured several states performing a mock divorce trial between the rural and urban West. She played Urbana Asphalt West, married to Sandy Greenhills West. Their child, Suburbia, was indulged and clueless and had a habit of drinking everyone else’s water. A rural health care shortage was one of many fuels of their marital strife.

Limerick and her colleagues are reviving the play now and adding COVID references. This time around, she said, it’ll be a last-ditch marriage counseling session for high school classes and communities to adopt and perform. It likely won’t have a scripted ending; she’s leaving that up to each community.

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New Lunch with Limerick discussion to explore keeping bearings in unsteady times

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 07:00:00 +0000

New Lunch with Limerick discussion to explore keeping bearings in unsteady times Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/04/2020 - 00:00

Original article can be found at Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine
Originally published on December 4, 2020 By Cay Leytham-Powell

Compromise seems less and less likely between Republicans and Democrats in these turbulent times—but is it really?

That’s the topic of conversation of the newest Lunch with Limerick series, which will feature Dick Wadhams, the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, in conversation with Patty Limerick, a self-proclaimed “Armchair Quarterback with a Muddled Political Identity.”

They will explore topics ranging from the reasons for the intensity of bitter partisanship to controversies over historical monuments. At the center of this exchange will be an attempt to identify the issues where conservatives and liberals genuinely disagree and where common ground might be found.

Lunch with Limerick is a virtual interview series held over Zoom that is hosted by the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado Boulder and moderated by Limerick, the center’s director, that delves into current issues and a variety of topics relevant to the West and beyond.

“Politics has always been a rough and tumble sport and I have enthusiastically been involved in the process for many years. But respect for opposing viewpoints and the ability to seek consensus are increasingly sorely lacking on both sides of the political spectrum,” said Wadhams.

“I have long respected my friend Patty Limerick and look forward to our discussion.”

A sentiment in which Limerick agrees:

“At a historic moment when reciprocal demonization prevails over the back-and-forth of civil disagreement, I am grateful beyond words to my friend Dick Wadhans in trying to set an example for our rattled nation. We will give new life to old-fashioned statements like these: ‘I disagree with you, but I do understand how you reached your position,’ or ‘I’m glad you’re asking hard questions; they’re helping me think harder about what I just said.’ Who knows? Maybe Dick and I are about to start a new trend!”

Wadhams is a long-time political consultant that has led successful GOP campaigns in Colorado, Montana and South Dakota. He also served as the campaign manager for Colorado Governor Bill Owens, the only Republican to hold that seat in nearly 50 years, and served as the chair of the Colorado Republican Party from 2007 to 2011. Now, he is a regular contributor to KCNC-TV/CBS4 and The Denver Post.

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Utah’s mystery desert sculpture: Art or graffito?

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 07:00:00 +0000

Utah’s mystery desert sculpture: Art or graffito? Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/27/2020 - 00:00

Original article can be found at The Salt Lake Tribune
Originally published on November 27, 2020 By Zak Podmore, Brian Maffly

The Obelisk, Utah • Several years ago — likely sometime in 2016 — one or more artists carrying well over 100 pounds of stainless steel hiked into a remote alcove in San Juan County, expertly cut a hole into the sandstone with a rock saw and erected a three-sided obelisk beneath a narrow pour-off.

The sculpture was carefully placed away from roads and out of sight from any distant vantage point in an obscure canyon, which, in December 2016, would become part of Bears Ears National Monument until President Donald Trump shrank its boundaries. For four years it sat. If a few wandering hikers or cowboys happened to stumble across it, they kept the discovery to themselves.

That all changed last week when biologists doing a bighorn sheep survey for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources spotted the shining structure from a helicopter and filmed the crew circling the perfectly plumb construction tucked into its redrock alcove. The photos were posted online Monday by the Utah Department of Public Safety — complete with an extraterrestrial tease — and speculation about the object soon became a global internet sensation.

The discovery has been covered in publications from the South China Morning Post to The New York Times to Al-Jazeera and has drawn comments from all corners, including Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show.” Many noted the object’s resemblance to the monolith in the famous opening scene of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“What could it mean? Is it aliens making first contact? Is it a site-specific art installation that examines the dynamic tension between man and nature?” Colbert said in a recent opening monologue. “Or is it a really poorly installed stainless steel backsplash. Utah is the ultimate open concept kitchen.”

On Tuesday, a host from the Discovery Channel’s “Diesel Brothers” show flew a helicopter to the site in Lockhart Basin, speculating on camera that he could be the first to reach the sculpture since the biologists. When he landed, however, others had already beat him to it — some 30 people throughout the day — who had arrived by ATV, e-bike, Jeep and dirt bike.

On Wednesday, a similar-sized crowd congregated at the structure. Ryan Quiggle and Elliott Evans, two students at Brigham Young University, drove for a dozen hours to reach the obelisk and make it back to their graveyard shift at the Missionary Training Center in Provo.

“It was definitely aliens,” Quiggle joked, rapping on the stainless steel with his knuckles to produce a sound that indicated there was foam inside.

The sculpture measures 9 feet, 7 inches from the custom-cut hole in the rock to its top. The three sides are just under 2 feet wide and joined with rivets. A ribbon of silicon caulk runs around its base.

“It looks like it could have been assembled by a single person,” said Brad Zercoe, a 30-year-old engineer from San Jose, Calif., who was on vacation in the area when he saw the news about the sculpture and decided to go find it. “Each of the pieces could have been carried in separately.”

Bureau of Land Management officials say the piece was illegally installed, but they have no plans to remove it in the near future.

“I can assure the public that we aren’t going to be hasty in our decision about the future of the structure,” said BLM spokeswoman Kimberly Finch. ”We also are enjoying the conversations, the inspiration, the fun that people are having with it. We completely encourage that. So we hope people will continue to have fun with it and to be safe as far as accessing the site.”

The agency is investigating how the obelisk got there. Ordinarily, any moving of earth or placing fixtures on public land requires a review under the National Environmental Policy Act. Last summer, someone illegally erected a political flag over U.S. Highway 40, which the BLM took down promptly, according to Finch. Even if the obelisk qualifies as art, the BLM doesn’t want to see similar installations elsewhere without proper approval.

“We don’t want people to be inspired to do this on their own,” Finch said. “There’s a process. It has to be safe.”

While some critics of the sculpture have called it “litter” and “glorified vandalism,” multiple visitors Wednesday worried the obelisk itself would be marked up by graffiti. Others made too many bad alien jokes about being probed.

Eye of the beholder?

Humor aside, however, historian Patricia Limerick believes the object is art that should be taken seriously. To her, it fits into Utah’s tradition of land art that began with ancient Native American rock art and culminated with Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” on the Great Salt Lake’s north shore.

“Art doesn’t always have to be in the control of museums. You can do things that are art that are way, way beyond the boundaries of a gallery,” said Limerick, who directs the University of Colorado’s Center of the American West. “That’s one of the things I have enjoyed about the rise of land art in the 1960s.”

But how do you know when an object installed in nature is art?

“Welcome to the question that the humanities have struggled with for centuries,” Limerick said. To her, the apparent deliberateness of the obelisk’s construction and placement on the landscape qualify it as a piece of art.

The object is assembled from precision-milled stainless steel, but it bears no inscriptions or other identifying features, according to Lt. Nick Street of the Utah Department of Public Safety.

“Somebody would have had to really do some planning,” he said, “and have the will and desire to carry all this stuff, along with some pretty precise cutting equipment that they used to cut out the rock base.”

The triangular hole cut in the rock perfectly matches the dimension of the obelisk.

“As sturdy as the thing is, I would guess that it would have to have at least a foot and a half, if not more, of the monolith down inside of it,” Street said. “The other thing is it’s perfectly plumbed. It’s exactly 90 degrees to the surface and perfectly level on top.”

These indicators are more in line with art than a mere stunt, according to Limerick.

“It’s not just something thrown together, accidental, or done in a distracted moment. The way it’s embedded in the rock is the furthest thing away from that,” she said. “There is really an enormously powerful dialogue between a person looking at it and thinking, ‘Which one of my fellow human beings did this and what is it the person was thinking, feeling, dreaming, aspiring, and what message are we receiving from this?’ That is a pretty exciting trip to go on if you buy the ticket for that.”

One theory gaining traction is that the obelisk is the work of the sculptor John McCracken or one of his students, who may have installed it after the artist’s death in 2011. David Zwirner, a prominent New York City art dealer who represents McCracken, suspects the object is connected to the artist who lived in Santa Fe, N.M., at the end of his life.

“The gallery is divided on this. I believe this is definitely by John,” Zwirner said in a statement. “Who would have known that 2020 had yet another surprise for us? Just when we thought we had seen it all. Let’s go see it.”

The California-born McCracken was famous for minimalist sculptures of geometrical precision. After the release of Kubrick’s famous film, it was widely though incorrectly assumed that McCracken designed the monolith worshipped by apelike pre-humans in the opening scene, according to his obituary.

(Although the Utah sculpture has been most commonly called a “monolith” in news coverage, Utah’s former state archaeologist Kevin Jones has pointed out that’s a misnomer; monoliths are cut from a single piece of stone.)

If the object’s discovery accomplishes anything, Limerick observed, at least it provides a diversion from the Trump presidency, the pandemic and the faltering economy. During times of global trouble, the obelisk is a reminder the world is still full of wonder.

“Whoever the artist is, we are in that person’s debt for saying, ‘Think about something else, folks. Why don’t you think about something else?’” she said. “This is really great that I turn a page [of the newspaper] and I’m asked to think about something that has nothing to do with the usual stuff we are going around in circles on.”

‘Bring Windex’

If it was harder to imagine the object beamed down by a UFO while standing beside it, several visitors noted the care that went into its placement and construction: the precise alignment with the watercourse, the aesthetically pleasing contrast of metal and rock, and its hidden location that brings the piece into the realm of performance art.

“It’s surreal to see it,” said JP Baker, Zercoe’s friend. “I’m glad I got here before the T-shirt stand was installed.”

In just a few days, visitors had already left more than a few marks on the sculpture. The top two rivets on one side were snapped off in an apparent attempt to peer inside. Its surface was marked with fingerprint smears and a streak of blood, possibly left by someone who cut themselves on the sharp metal edges while trying to climb on top.

“Bring Windex if you want to get a great photo,” advised Mark Trunzo, a guide from a nearby town who approached the site Wednesday by ATV.

Aside from who put the object in the desert, the big question is what will the BLM decide to do with the sculpture, which was embedded illegally into publicly owned land. The law and policies point toward its eventual removal.

Yet it can be seen standing in that remote alcove in a satellite image dated to October 2016, causing no known harm before it became an internet fixation, so what would be the point of extracting it?

While officials ponder how to proceed, they are cautioning people against visiting the object out of concern they could get stranded in a remote spot while searching for it or could damage the land if they come in large numbers. A tow truck was already in the area Wednesday.

“This is not an improved site. There’s no restrooms, there’s no trail signs. It has the potential for people to get into trouble,” Finch said. “You have a situation where something’s gone internationally viral and then you have a large impact of people going out on a site that is not prepared for that kind of visitation.”

Limerick hopes the BLM allows it to remain to continue challenging the public’s imagination.

“This is refreshing in ways that art is supposed to be,” she said. “It’s not shouting, it’s not saying, ‘Look at me.’ It doesn’t seem to be bragging. What I’m liking about it more and more and more is, this is historic. It is not just an event, a thing you take a picture and move on. It’s a dynamic story in which we are all invited to participate.”

Limerick said it reminds her of the rock towers stacked by anonymous artists in the desert, a practice federal land managers frown upon. But unlike the rock stacks that can be scattered back on the ground, the obelisk is drilled into the landscape; removing it will leave a hole, both physically and metaphorically.

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The legacy of Manifest Destiny (and why we re-named this podcast)

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 06:00:00 +0000

The legacy of Manifest Destiny (and why we re-named this podcast) Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/07/2020 - 00:00

Original article can be found at Center for Western Priorities
Originally published on October 7, 2020 By Aaron Weiss

Go West, Young Podcast is now The Landscape—still all about America’s public lands and the outdoors, but now without the play on words that referenced Manifest Destiny and America’s legacy of Native American genocide.

Rather than just re-name the podcast, we wanted to meet this moment in American history with a conversation about the history and legacy of Manifest Destiny and the westward expansion of the United States.

Guests

Patty Limerick, Center of the American West, University of Colorado Boulder
Philip Deloria, Harvard University

News

Host/producer: Aaron Weiss
Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
Music: Purple Planet
Photo: Emmanuel Leutze, “Westward the Course of Empire,” 1861

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