Letters - Wednesday

UP, UP AND AWAY!

Despite weather glitches, Balloon Classic a success

On behalf of the Colorado Balloon Classic’s leadership team, the staff, volunteers, pilots, crews and sponsors, please allow me to thank Colorado Springs and the surrounding cities for your support of the annual Labor Day weekend hot air balloon event. It is our privilege to bring this form of free family entertainment to you.

We would like to thank members of the Colorado Springs City Council and city management for selecting the Colorado Balloon Classic as one of the city’s official sponsored events for 2007. It is only through the combined efforts of many that this event has been selected as one of the “Top 100 events in North America” for 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 according to the American Bus Association.

Weather always presents a challenge for any outdoor festival and ballooning in particular. The morning flights this year were the best. We set a new record by having the hot air balloons land back at Memorial Park on both Saturday and Monday. Sunday morning took the balloons downwind.

The evening weather, however, was not as kind to us. Saturday night, we were challenged with evening winds that calmed down around 8:30. By then, it was too late to safely stand up the balloons due to darkness. Sunday afternoon brought strong rain storms to the park in the late afternoon. Our local and national weather advisors expected another storm to come over Monument Hill at approximately 8 p.m. That system had storm clouds all the way up to 42,000 feet, which would have created a very dangerous situation for both balloons and spectators if it “mixed” down to the surface when the balloons were standing. Again, a difficult call from our side since the ground winds were calm.

Our first obligation to all of you is that we present a safe event. With that in mind and the weather forecasts what they were, we elected to have “Candles in the Park” verses our Balloon Glo® both nights. Our teams would much rather have the balloons with their beautiful fabric envelopes on display for you than just the baskets and burners shooting flames into the sky.

We hope each of you enjoyed the 31st annual Colorado Balloon Classic. We welcome your comments and feedback at our Web site, www.balloonclassic.com, on how we can continue improving the event.

Wishing you gentle breezes and soft landings.

Patsy M. Buchwald

President, Colorado Balloon Classic

Colorado Springs

PUBLIC EDUCATION

Bishop papered over D-11’s shortcomings

Reading District 11 Superintendent Terry Bishop’s opinion piece in Saturday’s Gazette made me extremely sad (“D-11 accomplishments ignored by Gazette”). Sad, because the underlying premise that The Gazette had been too hard on the district was so ridiculous. If anything, The Gazette has been far too easy on all of the districts in the area. Bishop’s piece was further confirmation that there is absolutely no intellectual honesty in the district and thus no hope for any real improvement in performance under the current leadership.

Mentioning the accomplishments of a few elite students, who would have learned in spite of the poor performance of the district, while ignoring the overwhelmingly negative data that tips the balance to the down side is simply propaganda. The hard work and initiatives he mentioned are simply ineffective money-wasters tangential to the much-needed real change which would benefit the students. The results confirm that all of the big, costly, misdirected initiatives have only allowed the slide in achievement to continue.

A balanced report on the district would have to include the fact that the “value added” is negative. For example, if you look at the 2007 CSAP results for math, you will see that the percentages that score unsatisfactory by grade level increase dramatically from 7 percent in the third grade to 31 percent in the 10th grade. The longer the kids are exposed to the district’s tender mercies, the worse they perform. This is not being addressed with any objectivity or it would be fixed by now.

Paul Richardson

Colorado Springs

AIMING HIGHER

Where was Gazette coverage of Pikes Peak Challenge?

Sept. 8 saw the annual Pikes Peak Challenge, the Hike the Peak for the Brain Injury Awareness. We had 370 hikers from 18 states and Canada and not one story from The Gazette. It would seem like the paper would know what’s going on and try to help more people be aware of this great event that we have every September. Come on, Gazette, wake up and keep up the great job you are doing for our area.

Visit the Pikes Peak Challenge Web site, www.pikespeakchallenge.com, for more information and sign up next year for our hike.

Thomas Martin

Woodland Park

MONUMENTAL BLUNDER?

Park Service can’t afford the units it already has

Rep. Doug Lamborn’s proposal to make Pikes Peak a national monument is ludicrous for many reasons.

Pikes Peak is the most famous mountain in America and has been for more than 200 years, and hence needs no more titles.

The National Park Service is, and has been, unable to maintain a budget that will fulfill its already mandated obligations, allow it to repair decaying facilities and roads, and keep a sufficient staff. Planned new facilities such as the visitors center at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument have been delayed for some 30 years. Aside from some ATV problems, the Forest Service is capably managing its responsibilities on the mountain, and the city of Colorado Springs is taking care of the road and its water resources quite well.

The National Park Service cannot even study Lamborn’s proposal without special legislation; nor can it fund a new summit house, which the visitors’ bureau is obviously after.

The National Historic Landmark designation already provides “national” status. I am happy to have had a small role in getting that designation.

As they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In this case, save the taxpayers’ money and let some common sense in so our visitors, for a change, can enjoy some aesthetics without an additional strain on their pocketbooks.

Jack R. Williams

Florissant

DARWIN VS. GENESIS

It’s a near certainty present life forms evolved

I’m writing in response to Steve Stuart’s letter, “Believing in evolution takes faith, also,” in the Sept. 9 Gazette. He claimed evolution “cannot be observed or tested scientifically.” Any of our observations could be questioned. We can’t prove that the physical world exists, but it very likely does, given the reasons for it not existing.

Likewise, it is extremely unlikely that present-day organisms did not evolve from earlier life forms, considering the fossil record as well as genetic and physiological similarities between species, not to mention more than two centuries of scientific findings.

Also, there are three problems with theistic explanations. First, they claim that a deity caused the phenomenon but fail to explain how. After all, if you fail to explain how God created life, then I could just as easily say that leprechauns created it. Evolution, in contrast, explains how genetic variation and natural selection result in speciation. Second, history shows supernatural explanations are often disproved once tested (we know that lightning isn’t Thor’s hammer). Third, even if a cause was supernatural, it could have been a force or law just as easily as it could have been a deity.

He also conflates abiogenesis, the formation of life from non-living matter, with evolution. Even if God created the first cell out of nothing, it would still evolve into other organisms once it got here.

Andrew Luke

Colorado Springs