A group of us with some surprise received a warm personal welcome to the Telluride Film Festival from one of its co-directors, Gary Meyer, who then ushered us in to the intimate Le Pierre theatre for a special screening, just for us. No, we were not the press – Telluride gives no privileges to the news media. And for certain we were not wealthy donors, not even purchasers of the regular $780 pass – those happy folks were all gathering with the celebrities in the center of town for the big Opening Night Feed. What we were was pass-holding Cinephiles. […]
A king at rest (C)text and photos by LARRY CALLOWAY Air America was created in 1959 to support covert operations in Laos, a landlocked country of no more than 3 million people then, caught between Vietnam and Thailand. Our man in Laos was Phoumi Nosavan, a diminutive general of the Royal Lao Army who became prime minister in a CIA-backed coup in December 1959, two months after death ended the 55-year reign of beloved King Sisavang. Phoumi was a close friend of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat, his cousin and mentor, who ruled Thailand under martial law with the […]
(c)by LARRY CALLOWAY THE JARS on the Plain of Jarres (French colonialists named it) are empty. The bomb craters from the secret war in Laos, pockmarks of a sick strategy called “madman,” are not empty. They hold the remnants of cluster bombs that popped open in the air and birthed out baby bombs in tricky patterns. The “bomblets” (military jargon) were designed to explode and fragment at intervals, and some were destined to explode years later like forgotten land mines. “The use of delayed-action antipersonnel weapons on the Plain after 1967 made life above ground very […]
Sheriff Mike Norris, who for two decades has encountered every imaginable hazard in Saguache County, has one big fear. “Fire scares the hell out of me,” he told the first public forum on the proposed Crestone Emergency Services District. “One of my biggest fears has been fire in the Baca,” the sheriff continued. That fear almost became a tragic reality on June 16, when an arsonist started fires 30 minutes apart at South Crestone parking lot, North Crestone camp ground and the Karmapa stupa road. The last one was positioned to flare upslope in thick forest. “One shift in the […]
The Crestone community, despite its international reach, is isolated by an apathetic internet service provider. The Fairpoint Communications system is a klunker, and the small-town phone company has no announced intention to update it. Crestone-Baca is not on an equal footing with most of the nation in the category of affordable high-speed internet service. This affects visitors from around the world trying to make reservations at the spiritual centers, home businesses trying to market their handicrafts and other goods, or local people simply trying to place internet orders, communicate with each other, and read a few blogs. The saddest result […]
The Dec. 6 hearing draw a standing-room crowd at the Saguache County Courthouse. The noise of these solar Stirling engines is what drew the most opposition.
The secretary of the interior, a congressman and a former governor go off the bus. If this is Haloween it must be in Moffat.
The mine rescue resulting in national pride and universal acclaim for Chile was indeed “historic,” but not in the cable news context.
It wouldn’t be released until late November, but by Labor Day the critics were suggesting awards for “The King’s Speech.”