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Category Archives: History

Monorail to the Future: reasserting the American Dream for #HopeTuesday

Posted on 2016.09.20 by winterSmith 2 comments

With the 1962 World’s Fair, Seattle asserted itself as the city that invented the future. Seattle Center, home to the Space Needle, Key Arena, the Pacific Science Center and other Jetsonesque architectural wonders, gave us a stunning Mid-Century Modern vision of our presumed technotopian future. In 2000 the EMP Museum opened, inserting a postmodern generational overlay in the form of Frank Gehry’s gripping postmodern

Examining a cynical, fake-patriotic Facebook meme

Posted on 2016.09.16 by winterSmith Leave a comment

Instead of making yourself a tool for those whose agendas run counter to the best interests of the nation that flag represents, how about stepping back and asking who’s playing you, and why? This meme came across my Facebook feed earlier today. Obviously somebody has an issue with Colin Kaepernick (and other black athletes) protesting injustice in America by refusing

Abandoned: Leadville, Colorado

Posted on 2016.06.29 by winterSmith One comment

Muhammad Ali: The Champ for racial equality and social justice

Posted on 2016.06.04 by winterSmith 5 comments

Not everybody loved The Greatest: what Muhammad Ali meant to one racist Southern kid That was always the difference between Muhammad Ali and the rest of us. He came, he saw, and if he didn’t entirely conquer – he came as close as anybody we are likely to see in the lifetime of this doomed generation. – Hunter S. Thompson

Columbine: 17 years ago today

Posted on 2016.04.20 by winterSmith 3 comments

April 20, 1999. I remember exactly where I was, exactly what I was doing. My co-worker at US West, Joe Lopez, turned to me and said “hey Sammy, there’s been a shooting at a school down in Littleton.” “Find out everything you can,” I said. I’ll go tell Marti. Marti was Marti Smith, our VP, and thus began some of

My Brother's Bar: 2376 Fifteenth St., Denver

Posted on 2016.03.06 by winterSmith 2 comments

An unremarkable corner in downtown Denver. No signage announces the nature of the business within. But this is My Brother’s Bar, one of the 5280’s most historic spots, and if you know a bit about the Beats, you know that this is the place from Kerouac’s On the Road. Everything has changed around it, but the place itself? More or less the

Confederate PTSD: Curing the South

Posted on 2015.07.05 by winterSmith 4 comments

When I was in graduate school at Iowa State in the late 1980s I hit a period, during my second year, where a little homesickness set in. So I did something to remind myself of the place and people I was missing: I bought a Confederate flag and affixed it to my desk in the office, which I shared with

It’s time we stopped worshipping our “founding fathers”

Posted on 2015.06.28 by winterSmith 4 comments

For our founding fathers, “people” was a euphemism” that meant “rich white men.” Sadly, the same is true for many of our current leaders.

Row A, Seat 109

Posted on 2015.05.05 by winterSmith Leave a comment

Berlin Wall falls – 25 years ago today (your time will come)

Posted on 2014.11.09 by winterSmith One comment

Where were you when you heard the news?

40 years ago today: where were you when Tricky Dick Nixon resigned?

Posted on 2014.08.09 by winterSmith 5 comments

You know those events where people always remember where they were? Like Kennedy’s assassination. The Challenger disaster. 9/11. Well, 40 years ago today was another big one: on August 9, 1974 Richard Nixon became the first American president to resign from office, finally bowing to pressure in the wake of the Watergate scandal. And yes, I remember where I was:

Tony Dungy is the Clarence Thomas of football

Posted on 2014.07.22 by winterSmith One comment

When he goes to bed tonight, Tony Dungy should offer a prayer of thanks that the US isn’t at the mercy of people like him. Tony Dungy wouldn’t have drafted Michael Sam. But not because he’s gay! No, no. Because things will happen. You know … things. Three thoughts. 1: Look! Look! See, Michael Sam is on TV being interviewed about

Amusing ourselves to death: new Sciencegasm meme nails it

Posted on 2014.06.25 by winterSmith 2 comments

The public interest is what the public is interested in, bitches. Thanks to Facebook, we all see new memes every day. Some of them are funny, some insightful, and a lot are of the preaching to the choir variety, which even though they’re right as rain, they occasionally get tiresome. Like a lot of us, frustrated as hell with the

20 years ago today: OJ’s famous ride

Posted on 2014.06.17 by winterSmith One comment

Remembering one of the most bizarre moments in American popular culture history. JFK’s shooting. The Challenger explosion. 9/11. Where were you? Our history occasionally presents us with events so iconic, tragic, traumatic, or perhaps flat-out weird that we can always tell you where we were when they happened (or when we found out). June 17, 1994 was one such moment for many