With lift ticket prices soaring into the realm of its real estate prices, Vail Mountain has responded not by elevating guest expectations, but by redefining the very thing they depend on: snow. Once the unquestioned foundation of the ski experience, snow is now merely one option among many. This season, Vail has embraced the unthinkable and then spread it evenly…
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Language Doesn’t Go on Trial It just gets a closer look
There was a time when people, places and things were named, they were granted a kind of permanent residency. They arrived for practical reasons, settled in, gathered familiarity, and over the course of fifty years, they felt less like labels and more like wallpaper. No one interrogated them too closely. They simply were. But over the past few decades, something…
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Trump’s Next Big Demolition The West Wing Gets the Wrecking Ball
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s been less than a week since President Donald J. Trump gave the order to tear down the historic East Wing of the White House to make room for his newest architectural indulgence: the Trump Presidential Ballroom, complete with crystal chandeliers, imported marble, and allegedly, a built-in karaoke stage for “international diplomacy through song.” Today, CNN has…
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The Unbearable Politeness of Being Me How I've had to wrestle with the "have to's" in life
“These are the times that try men’s souls.” – Thomas Paine (1776–1783) Life, for all its wonder, is mostly a long queue of indignities. Every day, we’re served a buffet of unavoidable discomforts that suddenly appear on our skin, awkward small talk that lasts longer than most relationships, and family photos that feel like solar torture wrapped in love. We…
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Trouble on Aisle Six My descent into the blue-vested underworld of Walmart greeter boot camp
I was born to be a Walmart Greeter. It’s in my blood, like high cholesterol and disenchantment. My grandfather, Earl “Pops” Haskins, manned the door of Store #118 for 22 years, armed with nothing but a crooked smile and a wooden cane he used to redirect feral children. My mother, Loretta Mae, served during the great “Plastic Bag Transition of…
