(The following may be used with permission from the author: mort@mortrosenblum.net) On God's 560 little acres, High Noon for us all By Mort Rosenblum TELLURIDE, Colorado - We've watched that hoary Hollywood scene a million times: High Noon, white hats against black. Now, in a corner of high-country Colorado, it is real. Whoever remains standing will define us all in a new sort of world fast taking shape around us. After tapping out local resources -- down to pennies in kids' piggybanks -- Telluride has only two weeks to find the last $2 million needed to save the Valley Floor. This is no local crisis. For all our hype and hyperbole these days, human truths are hard to see. But the looming May 14 showdown is a perfect metaphor for what we all face on a planet being ravaged at frightening speed. The basic issue seems simple enough. A California gazillionnaire wants to carve out trophy home sites on 560 acres he bought years ago. Never mind that Mother Jones included him among "10 little piggies" for feeding at the public trough long before his fresh windfall from selling high-tech Predator aircraft for Iraq. This is America. Yet the Valley Floor is Telluride's front yard, aspens and elk runs under snowy peaks of such raw beauty that words won't capture it. Open www.sheepmeadowalliance.org and see for yourself. Whatever one's concept of God or gods, surely some greater force meant this to last. Townsfolk voted to exercise eminent domain to protect the Valley Floor forever. A jury set the price at $50 million. Big checks poured in. Schoolchildren pitched lunch money into the town wishing well. With a deadline coming up fast, Telluride is just over $2 million short. Meantime, the developer, Neal Blue, has gone to a higher court to challenge the town's right to condemn the land. Plainly, this is no mere property dispute. Personal scores figure in. For one, Blue still faces outrage after a misdirected memo in the 1990s revealed his scheme to drain the wetlands for bogus agricultural purposes. A few, in fact, see this all as simply a pissing match between a quirky town and a guy with an ego condition. Zooming away Google-Earth fashion, however, a much bigger issue is clear. We have reached the point where no one on the Forbes 400 list of rich Americans has less than a billion dollars. So: Is everything for sale to anyone who can write a big enough check? Look your kids and nephews and nieces in the eye before you answer. Back in the penny-ante days of mere Hearst-size fortunes, Citizen Kane's factotum, Mr. Bernstein, got to the heart of it: "It's no trick to make an awful lot of money if all you want to do is make money." Capitalism is not the problem. Warren Buffett, as capitalistic as they come, knows how much his progeny can possibly use until the end of time. He contributes the rest wisely so our forbears have a livable planet with traces of what we inherited. This is about misguided values that equate money with "power." Some people who have amassed money assert themselves by despoiling what humankind must share for a long time. This is pathetic weakness, not power. At some point, we all must define what is simply not for sale. A few months back, I wrote a letter to friends about what was at stake. It said, in part: "As life at warp speed turns hearts into hard drives, most of us keep tucked in our softer recesses memories of places that make believers out of us. For those who have seen it in autumn gold, winter white, and the greens of summer, Telluride's Valley Floor dominates that space. "One day in 1980, a Tucson pal wrote to tell me about a living relic of the old West set in a Rocky Mountain paradise. I was living in Paris, a reporter who had visited wonders across the world. But my friend doesn't exaggerate. I got on a plane and, a few days later, we hung that right at Society Turn. "A narrow black road followed a babbling creek past three miles of cottonwoods and willows, ancient elk trails and remnants of old miners who settled the place. A funky gas station fit right in, across from the red two-story Brown Homestead that sat in isolated glory among the shimmering aspens. On three sides, Telluride's snowy peaks loomed straight upward. I knew I was a lifer." After that letter, I returned for a fresh look. For all the new money and obscenely lavish mountaintop ski homes, Telluride is still defined by people who love what it represents: a living link between our pioneer days and a new sort of society we all must define. The town, quite literally, gave us light. Miners built America's first alternating current plant in 1891. Perhaps now it can be the catalyst that restores what we have lost of our humanity. Climate change threatens what we cherish but so does human depredation we can prevent. The Valley Floor is as good a place as any to make a stand, to define ourselves. Pass this along to friends. Surely, someone out there can write those last checks. The site is www.valleyfloor.org.