1965 Journey To A Rich Land

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About a square mile.

My friend Jess and I have driven through mountains and deserts to a prearranged meeting point: Off in the distance we can see a stony point sticking out of the top of a mesa. Ominous and alluring, this is our first sight of Star Axis. At 5pm, a man called Harry Leippe arrives in a pickup truck. A sculptor based in New Mexico, Leippe is 90, and has known Ross, his junior by 12 years, since the late s, when both were at Berkley, where Ross was studying mathematics.

Despite the monumental scale of the project, it is being built by a surprisingly small number of people: Leippe leads us down five miles of dirt road. We go through two gates warning away trespassers and bumpily ascend the mesa. At the top is a granite pyramid, glowing pinkish in the late afternoon.

Much of the granite was donated by a company in Texas: Ross estimates its value at a million dollars. When I ask if the project has been easy to fund, he shouts with laughter. Inside the pyramid, a curving flight of steps leads to the Hour Chamber. This is a pyramidal room with a triangular opening nearly 30ft tall. Jess and I sit on a bench at the back and wait for night to fall.

Before long, as promised by Ross, Polaris appears, clear and bright at the apex of the triangle. Polaris, the north star, is around light years from Earth, directly above the north pole. On the eastern side of the pyramid are two more lines, the higher of which points to the position of the sun at noon on the summer solstice; the lower to the sun on the winter solstice. There are steps to the top of the pyramid, which offers astounding views of the empty plains stretching out for miles around.

At the bottom of the pyramid is a ledge. Jess and I peer over it and gasp: At its base is the start of a real stairway to heaven: Through this, at night, you can see the north star.

California made a suitable starting point for the UN visit. It epitomizes both the vast wealth generated in the tech boom for the 0. Ressy Finley, 41, was busy sterilizing the white bucket she uses to slop out in her tent in which she has lived on and off for more than a decade. She keeps her living area, a mass of worn mattresses and blankets and a few motley possessions, as clean as she can in a losing battle against rats and cockroaches. She also endures waves of bed bugs, and has large welts on her shoulder to prove it.

A friend brings her food every couple of days, the rest of the time she relies on nearby missions. She cried twice in the course of our short conversation, once when she recalled how her infant son was taken from her arms by social workers because of her drug habit he is now 14; she has never seen him again. The second time was when she alluded to the sexual abuse that set her as a child on the path towards drugs and homelessness. What does she think of the American Dream, the idea that everyone can make it if they try hard enough?

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Dan Tuffs for the Guardian. At night local parks and amenities are closed specifically to keep homeless people out. Skid Row has had the use of nine toilets at night for 1, street-faring people. He has been living on the streets for almost a year, having violated his parole terms for drug possession and in turn being turfed out of his low-cost apartment. Of all the people who crossed paths with the UN monitor, Chambers was the most dismissive of the American Dream.

I might not be too much longer. That was a lot of bad karma to absorb on day one, and it rattled even as seasoned a student of hardship as Alston. At a certain point you do wonder what can anyone do about this, let alone me. And then he took a flight up to San Francisco, to the Tenderloin district where homeless people congregate, and walked into St Boniface church.

The church opens its doors every weekday at 6am to allow homeless people to rest until 3pm. David Levene for the Guardian. About 70 homeless people were quietly sleeping in pews at the back of the church, as they are allowed to do every weekday morning, with worshippers praying harmoniously in front of them. The church welcomes them in as part of the Catholic concept of extending the helping hand. It was a rare drop of altruism on the west coast, competing against a sea of hostility.

Perhaps the most telling detail: In fact, many have begun, even at this season of goodwill, to lock their doors to all comers simply so as to exclude homeless people. As Tiny Gray-Garcia, herself on the streets, described it to Alston, there is a prevailing attitude that she and her peers have to contend with every day. Coy Catley, 63, in her homeless box made of cardboard sheets on a sidewalk of Tenderloin, San Francisco.

Ed Pilkington for the Guardian. Ronald Reagan set the trend with his s tax cuts, followed by Bill Clinton, whose decision to scrap welfare payments for low-income families is still punishing millions of Americans.

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Now they face perhaps the greatest threat of all. Almost anything seems possible. The link between soil type and demographics was not coincidental. Cotton was found to thrive in this fertile land, and that in turn spawned a trade in slaves to pick the crop. Their descendants still live in the Black Belt, still mired in poverty among the worst in the union.

Perhaps the starkest is the fact that in the Black Belt so many families still have no access to sanitation. Thousands of people continue to live among open sewers of the sort normally associated with the developing world. He leads the district for 13 years, becoming, after Dr.

Priest, the chancellor with the second-longest tenure to date. In March, the Center for Educational Telecommunications moves to its new location and is renamed the R. Today it is one of the largest producers of online learning courses in the nation and the primary distance learning contractor for the U.

El Centro College celebrates its 25th anniversary. Brookhaven College receives a U. The Construction Management program at North Lake College becomes the second community college program nationwide to be accredited by the American Council for Construction Education.

It has maintained continual accreditation since that time. Richland College hosts its first Computer Arts Festival. It houses biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics classes. Cedar Valley College is accredited as an independent institution by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools , with accreditation reaffirmed in and Eastfield College celebrates its 25th anniversary. Colleague , an accounting system, is implemented districtwide. The T Building opens at Eastfield College. The Virtual College of Texas is founded.

Rolling Stone magazine features Brookhaven College as one of the best community colleges in the country for its curriculum, job placement services and relationships with local businesses. Renovations are completed on the west side of the Mountain View College campus to enhance student services. Priest campus in Richland College begins offering its Women in Technology program. The team also won this distinction in and The joint educational enterprise between North Lake College and the Construction Education Foundation houses 60, square feet of classrooms and labs providing both management and skill-based education for the construction industry.

Work is completed within 90 days. As part of its 30th anniversary celebration, Mountain View College creates an urban wildlife sanctuary that becomes the first one certified on a college campus by the Humane Society of the U. Eastfield College celebrates its 30th anniversary. Reminiscences of the First 30 Years at Eastfield College. The Vanguard Learning College Project.

The team also won in and North Lake College celebrates its 25th anniversary by opening a time capsule buried in front of the A Building on Charter Day in Today it is housed primarily in the Miles Building, which was rededicated in Fall enrollment figures establish El Centro College as a Hispanic-Serving Institution for the first time in its history by reaching a milestone 25 percent credit, full-time equivalent enrollment of Hispanic students.

The team also won in , and Brookhaven College reports a record enrollment of more than 10, credit students. The two-story building adds 26, square feet of classroom and student center space.

Though the partnership dissolves several years later, the library continues to serve North Lake students and houses the Student Resource Center and Workforce Development Center. Jesus Jess Carreon becomes chancellor.

He serves until They repeat this feat in As of , Richland has won more than 15 national championships. It is presented by the president of the United States and the secretary of commerce. Richland College is the first accredited institution of higher education in Texas to receive the Texas Award for Performance Excellence , the state's highest honor for performance excellence. It is presented by the governor of Texas and the Quality Texas Foundation.

Thunderbolts and time travel: my journey to the cosmic heart of land art

Mountain View College celebrates its 35th anniversary with a gala featuring entertainer Harry Belafonte as the guest speaker. Priest Institute becomes a campus of El Centro College. The Texas House of Representatives issues a resolution congratulating Dr. Stephen Mittelstet for 25 years of service as the president of Richland College. Our Heroes and the Journey. The team also won in Richland College receives a charter from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to operate a dual-credit high school for juniors and seniors, the first of its type at a community college.

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Successful students can graduate from Richland Collegiate High School with 60 or more college credits, with many simultaneously earning an associate degree. El Centro College celebrates its 40th anniversary. North Lake College celebrates its 30th anniversary with a community festival and convocation featuring former college Presidents Dr. Don Newport , Dr.

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