We’re “a nation of cowards” when it comes to talking about race.

That’s according to our attorney general, a smart and accomplished black man named Eric Holder who is being succeeded after six years by a smart and accomplished black woman, both of whom work for our twice-elected black president.

I agree with Holder. Refusing to talk about race is cowardly, even if the reason is an understandable aversion to being called ugly names by those who might disagree with what we have to say.

Holder later said in the wake of the Ferguson riots, “It means that we as a nation have failed. It’s as simple as that. We have failed.”

I agree with Holder on that, too. Continue reading →

The kinky movie “50 Shades of Grey” came out this Valentine’s Day weekend (St. Valentine must be turning in his Catholic grave), so naturally, a movie review is necessary.

Others at the newspaper are assigned to report on skiing conditions here in Aspen or they get to review “American Sniper.” Me? I have to review a kinky movie. I admire the way the bosses identify and utilize each person’s unique talents to the fullest, but, um, how did they know?

Anyway, the movie is about a woman named Anastasia (exotic, huh?) and a man named Christian (ah, there’s the connection to St. Valentine) who engage in the sort of vile, grotesque and evil eroticism that others have the prudence only to hope for, fantasize about and dream of.

In some scenes, Continue reading →

Here’s what a global warming “denier” said recently in the Wall Street Journal:

“The idea that ‘climate science is settled’ runs through today’s popular and policy discussions. Unfortunately, that claim is misguided. It has not only distorted our public and policy debates on issues related to energy, greenhouse-gas emissions and the environment. But it also has inhibited the scientific and policy discussions that we need to have about our climate future.”

Except he isn’t a “denier.” He’s President Obama’s former undersecretary for science, Steve Koonin. He’s also a former professor of theoretical physics and a provost at Cal Tech, and holds a Ph.D. from MIT. His piece is titled “Climate Science is Not Settled,” published Sept. 19 on the Wall Street Journal’s website.

Koonin explained that global warming exists, or doesn’t, depending entirely on the time period you’re referencing. Dinosaurs thrived on an Earth that was much hotter than it is now. (In fact, there were no polar ice caps at all for the great majority of Earth’s history.) Mammoths romped on a colder Earth. Romans ruled one a little warmer. Columbus sailed in one a little cooler. President Bill Clinton held office in one that was slightly warmer than it is now.

So next time people ask if you “believe in” global warming, answer yes — and no.

Notwithstanding Continue reading →

It’s the time of year when we ring in the New Year, wring out the old one and wipe up the dirty squeezings with a newspaper column.

Fit for what?

Aspen Skiing Co. conducted employee “fitness tests.” Employees are required to do (drum roll) 15 pushups. Resting between each pushup is allowed, and knees (but not the belly) can be on the floor.

Most employees passed. A spokeswoman announced, “I have definitely noticed the apprehension level dropping.”

Whew, what a relief. Now everyone hydrate! But some failed. That’s OK, it turns out. The “penalty” for failure is they get what Skico calls “an accommodation.”

It’s like modern schools, you see. The test is so easy that everyone passes, including the ones who somehow manage to fail.

The bosses of the bus go cut, cut, cut

Citing money shortages, the bus bosses Continue reading →

Antarctica is the latest adventure-travel hotspot, says a brochure in the mail.

You put on skis and walk 700 miles up, down and across the frozen wasteland, dragging a 200-pound sled. You’d better like frozen food.

You do this for 60 days. The price is $65,000, or about $1,100 a day.

Who would want to do that?

Here’s who: Some moneyed people have it all, except one thing. The one thing missing from their lives, they think, is authenticity. Stated another way, they think their lives are great, but not “real.”

Aspen, I’m talking to you.

These people were taught Continue reading →

Comedian and commentator Bill Maher donated $1 million to the Obama campaign in 2012. He made that kind of money in the art of mockery.

He’s good at his job. The more sacred the subject, the more biting is his mockery. He reserves some of his best for religion. In that, his liberal fans delight (as do I, occasionally).

So you might think he’d be welcomed by the liberals at Berkeley, where he has been invited to give the commencement address next spring. You’d think wrong.

Berkeley liberals are demanding that he be uninvited because, you see, the target of Maher’s most recent religion-mocking routine was Islam.

The judgment of the Berkeley liberals (who are not Muslims but claim to speak for them) is that Muslims are offended. And so Maher’s commencement invitation must be revoked. He must be silenced. He must be “shut up.”

In the old days Continue reading →

When I was 16, I got in an ugly shouting match with my father and he punched me in the face.

He stood in front of me, fists raised, awaiting my counterpunch. But his good fathering of me over the previous 16 years overcame the bad moment between us. I didn’t punch back. I instead squared my still-narrow shoulders to him, looked him in the eye and said quietly, “Don’t ever hit me again.”

And he never did.

My father was a good man, whom I loved until and after he died 15 years ago, who’d done a bad thing that day. I called him on it, as he’d taught me to, and we both became better people for it. I too have done bad things with those I love, they too have called me on it, and we too have become better people for it.

Such is the nature of humans and power. Power does not make a person bad, but it enables them to do bad things if they aren’t called out for it. The Quakers had an expression for this: “Speak truth to power.”

America was born because wise and courageous people spoke truth to power, and America survived because they established a system to ensure that people could always speak truth to power.

People spoke truth to power in demanding Continue reading →