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And now for something completely different . . .

By David Feela

I watched a National Geographic special about the Taliban's destruction of the giant Buddhas in the Bamyan Valley of Afghanistan. These impressive statues had stood for 1,600 years, carved out of the sheer face of a rock wall. The Taliban drilled charges of explosives into the statues and blew them up. Just like that. Over a thousand years of history, religion, and art reduced to a pile of rubble. When the Taliban government was overthrown, I said good riddance.

I could hardly think of any use for men who called themselves the Taliban ever again - that is, not until I heard about the scheduled March 28 opening for the Skywalk on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Where is a fundamental, intolerant and fanatically driven group of men with explosives when you really need them?

Two years and $40 million after its inception, on a reservation belonging to the Hualapai Indian Tribe located roughly 90 miles west of Grand Canyon National Park, a vision of prosperity has materialized. A Las Vegas developer completed his part of this modern economic treaty, fronting the cash to construct a Skywalk that extends 70 feet beyond the edge of the canyon. It comes complete with a transparent deck, no visible supports and a vomit-inspiring view of the canyon floor from 4,000 feet above it. For $25 (plus additional unnamed fees) over a hundred people at a time will be able to stand together and stare into the abyss below their feet. Dizzyworld for the West. We can only hope a bungee jump or a parachute drop is in the planning stages.

Why is it that Americans feel the urge to transform natural wonders into national blunders? This cutting-edge version of a Hualapai theme park has grand plans: To increase its trickle of 300,000 visitors into a revenue-busting million. One-third of the tribe that lives in poverty will be hypothetically happier, with new employment opportunities like the opening and closing of the gate behind each group of Skywalkers, and keeping depressed tourists from jumping. If a button could be pushed that moved the platform up and down like an elevator, additional personnel might be required.

We speak so much about the sacred, and we use words like "respect" and "diversity," which is why I'm baffled when the people themselves whose traditions have been systematically eradicated turn to the eradicators for hope and salvation. One tribal elder said, "This is going to be our bread and butter." I wouldn't care to eat those words.

Promoters spin the idea of Skywalk as something akin to a moonwalk. They paid Buzz Aldrin and native American astronaut John Herrington to take the first steps out on the glass floor. From the photos I've seen, Skywalk looks more like a casino - a truncated craps table, to be specific - stuck to the side of that grandest of canyons, the Grand Canyon. It's a $40 million crap shoot. Roll those tourist bones onto its surface all day long, but odds are the birds circling overhead will be placing their bets with better accuracy before the Buzz wears off.

A hyped tourist trap on a dead-end road that drops rather abruptly into a canyon should never have been a serious proposal to answer a long-standing systemic problem with tribal poverty. It's a sham to argue Skywalk into existence by invoking a "pity the natives" mentality. If the tribal elders actually held a ceremony, as it is reported, to get permission to use the land in this way from their ancestors, then we might as well all fly to Las Vegas and invoke the spirit of Bugsy Siegel to look favorably on our investment schemes.

That the Grand Canyon inspires the human spirit with awe and wonder is true, and once you stand at the rim, obvious. Skywalk, however, is just an act of hubris. Part of me prays it won't stand up to the test of time, while the other part of me fears it will. Built by engineers who had a hand in the Hoover Dam, with shock absorbers and a structural integrity to withstand 100-mile-per-hour winds, the Skywalk hangs over the canyon with the elegance of a hemorrhoid. We might as well encourage a Disney executive to mount a roller coaster high in the buttresses of Notre Dame Cathedral under the rationale that riding it brings us closer to God.