American Notes South Dakota

% You can't get any more monumental than Mount Rushmore: Abe Lincoln's face alone is three times the height of his statue in Washington. In a gigantic party last week, 3,500 revelers attended the 50th anniversary of the sculpture's completion. George Bush presided over a formal dedication ceremony and the launch of a $40 million fund-raising drive to renovate the memorial.

But not everyone was in a mood to celebrate. Environmentalists decry the busts as a desecration of nature. New Republic writer Alex Heard identified Gutzon Borglum, Rushmore's eccentric creator, as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. And the Sioux Indians charge that the memorial is sculpted from sacred land that was stolen by the government. In a gesture of reconciliation, the Ziolkowski family since 1948 has been carving an even grander likeness of Crazy Horse, the Sioux warrior, from a nearby mountain.