When Colorado was still part of the untamed West, it was home to a mellifluous babble of foreign tongues, the native languages of myriad migrants who worked its soil, built its railroads and hunted in its canyons. French, Russian, Spanish and German were just as likely to be heard as English in those days, as was a more exotic language—Chinese.

Chinese migrants laid tracks for railroads over the mountains and worked in the mines of Leadville, Black Hawk and Cripple Creek. By the 1880s, Denver had the highest concentration of Chinese in the Plains states, numbering several hundred people, who created a thriving Chinatown located on Wazee Street near where Coors Field is today. But Chinatown was burned by a racist mob and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which suspended Chinese immigration, dwindled their ranks. For most of the past century, the Chinese language had once again became a rarity.

Now it’s making a resurgence in a most unlikely place—the middle and high schools of Erie, the epicenter of a thriving Mandarin Chinese language program in Colorado public schools. More than 1,600 students are learning the language in this small East Boulder County town, by far the highest concentration of Chinese students in the state. The elective program has grown so large so fast—it’s only four years old—that the Chinese Hanban (China’s equivalent of the Department of Education) is considering opening an official Chinese cultural hub in Erie High School. Called Confucious Institutes, these facilities promote Chinese language and culture throughout the United States.

It makes sense, said Steve Payne, Erie High School principal, because Chinese is the second most widely spoken language. The growth in China’s economy, combined with advances in technology, make fluency imperative for those interested in international business.

“About three and a half years ago, as we were getting larger, we needed to look at adding another foreign language,” Payne said. “At the time, we had a very small German (program) and very large Spanish. We did a lot of research and discovered that the No. 2 language spoken in the world is Chinese. …A major piece in this whole decision is China’s economy. It made sense to do it.”

Payne hired Ya-Wen Chang, a Taiwanese doctoral student at CU-Denver to develop the program and write the curriculum. In just four short years, it’s grown to the extent that they hired four college teachers from China, whom they interviewed over Skype and flew to Colorado on temporary work visas. The program is so large, they’ve also needed to hire a Chinese coordinator.

Chang says filling classes for a language that’s rarely heard outside the classroom hasn’t been a challenge. With the globalization of business, China’s astounding economic growth rate of 10 percent over the past 30 years and the ease with which anyone can experience different cultures through YouTube and social media, parents have quickly gotten the message that having their kids learn Mandarin, even in a state where Asians comprise barely 3 percent of the population, is a good idea.

“All of our parents are very supportive,” Chang said.

If kids are dissuaded by learning a vocabulary that consists of complex characters rather than letters, it’s not apparent. Chang recently quizzed her classes, asking for reasons why students take it. Among the responses were that the course is fun, that it’s likely to be useful in the future, that it makes them feel proud to learn an uncommon (for Colorado, at least) language and that they enjoy making international friends.

“The big piece for me is building the relationship with kids,” Chang said. “When you build those relationships, they just want to follow you and learn from you. I learn from them as well, and that’s a beautiful piece for me.”

The Confucius Institute in Denver fills some of the cultural gap, hosting artists and performers from China that give Chang’s students a glimpse of the Orient. When a troupe of singers from East China Normal University in Shanghai visited Colorado, a group of Chang’s students sang for them in Chinese.

“At that moment, you feel the connection between the two groups and that was beautiful,” she said.

The Chinese program is expected to do nothing but grow, according to both Payne and Chang. Currently, Erie elementary school kids are given exposure to the language through songs and simple phrases on a non-testing basis; the middle and high school classes are elective. Payne says St. Vrain Valley School District administrators are interested in offering the language at more schools throughout the district.

“St. Vrain already has more Chinese students than any other feeder system in Colorado,” Payne said. “And more schools are starting to pick up on what we’re doing. …

“I guess our ultimate goal,” he continued, “is to get students started in kindergarten so that by the time they graduate from Erie High School, they are fluent in Chinese, know and understand the Chinese culture and are ready to walk into college and blow the socks off of wherever they go.”

The post China Syndrome appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

In an interview in October, State Board of Education member Angelika Schroeder pondered the importance of teaching students to be better prepared to enter the workforce. It used to be, she said, that kids who weren’t so good at math and science always had a safety net in the “vocational” classes—code for wood working and shop class, the tacitly acknowledged production line for the world’s blue collar workers, birdhouse builders and oil changers.

But these days, assembly line workers—who in the past only needed to be healthy enough to stand for long hours—now have to know about robotics, computers and industrial design, specialized skills that have changed the landscape of vocational curricula. Likewise, with technological developments in communication, the nature of business has changed drastically as well, making the world more accessible. Whereas the idea of entering the workforce with a company based in Dubai or Hong Kong was considered rare and exotic just a few decades ago, it’s now commonplace.

So what’s that done for those vocational classes? For one thing, they are no longer the destination for the less bookish of the student population. In fact, several of the class offerings in the Career and Technical Education sections of both the Boulder Valley School District and St. Vrain Valley School District could be considered required training for many disciplines and a strong step on a variety of career paths. There are many seasoned workforce members who wish they’d taken a Photoshop course in high school, for instance.

Here, we take a look at 10 course offerings available to high school students that would be unimaginable in their parents’ day, but which will set a strong foundation for careers in everything from international diplomacy to app development. Anyone looking down their nose at kids in the vocational classes these days runs the risk of one day being their employee.

Languages

Remember when your choice of foreign languages was restricted to French, German and Spanish (and in some cases, the highly useless Latin)? Quomodo odiosis. Today, students can chose from a variety of world languages that, in years past, might never be encountered outside of an art house theater. Arabic, for example, is critical for anyone hoping to work in the Middle East (although, so far, there’s only an introduction class available as an elective). Russian and Japanese classes can prepare you for business and diplomacy, and Mandarin Chinese (see the full article on page 58), the second most-commonly spoken language in the world, is increasingly necessary for international business, considering China’s growing economic power.

Greenhouse Management

Yes, that’s right. In the state that just legalized marijuana, high school students can learn all about how to grow plants. Of course, Amendment 64 only legalizes pot for adults, so there will be no hands-on experience with what will soon become the state’s most famous flora. But students will definitely get their fingers dirty learning about soil, lighting, nutrients and pest management, as well as horticulture business management. The course will put students well on course for a career in nursery management, which, by the time they’re 21, will surely be one of the state’s fastest growing (so to speak) industries.

Forensic Technology

Fans of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation might be disheartened to learn that analyzing clues at the scene of murders and assaults isn’t usually as simple as it’s depicted on television. Students in this one-semester course (which complements the course Introduction to Criminal Justice) will nevertheless learn all of the skills needed to process a crime scene, including photography, evidence collection, witness interviews, preserving the scene, taking notes, filing a police report and searching for clues. Students are also introduced to the related specialties of toxicology, pathology, ballistics, anthropology and serology. They’ll also learn that you typically can’t crack a case in under an hour.

Web and Gaming Applications

How’s this for a perk? The next time your mom yaps at you for playing too much Call of Duty, tell her you’re studying. If you’re enrolled in Web and Gaming Applications, a course that teaches the basics of Xbox coding and flash game design, you won’t be lying. Students will also work on web design with Adobe Flash, Dreamweaver and Fireworks, with the goal of creating an online portfolio, which everyone over the age of 3 will be expected to be able to do within the next decade. In terms of useful (not to mention fun) classes, this one can’t be beat.

Robotics in the 21st Century

Practically nothing in modern manufacturing is made by hand any more, unless it’s at the hands of a robot—about half of all robots in use by industry are used to make automobiles. But until robots can invent more robots, humans will still be able to find work. Robotics in the 21st Century gives students a hands-on approach to robotics through actually designing and building one. The course also explores the use of robotics in business and industry and how robotic devices affect practically every aspect of our lives. Students will form a robotics team and represent their schools in local, regional and national robotics competitions.

Multimedia and Photography

It used to be that photography and “movie making” were the exclusive realm of emo geeks who needed an asocial hobby—more than half of which was spent in a darkened room with dangerous chemicals—to express themselves creatively. Now, taking pictures, filming your cat and sharing the results instantly from your phone to the entire world has made multimedia as much a part of life as breathing. But what sets the professionals apart from the legions of amateurs is an introduction to the fundamentals of design and the tools used to manipulate images and video. Anybody can take a picture, but not everyone has the skills used in everything from journalism to graphic design.

Culinary Arts/Chef Training

With the advent of the celebrity chef and reality TV cooking competitions, food is huge, having taken on the status of art. So it’s no surprise that the “cooking classes” from Home Economics—where an entire generation of parents learned to make meatloaf—have mutated into their own unique course that teaches the basics of food safety, knife skills and preparation of desserts, entrees, soups, sauces, salads and sandwiches. The second year class teaches students to run a restaurant from production to service, as well as catering. And if budding chefs don’t turn out to be the next Gordon Ramsay, the course also teaches barista skills, which will never go out of demand.

Agribusiness

If you think getting into agribusiness means becoming a farmer, think again. The agriculture industry accounts for 17 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product and 20 percent of all jobs in the country. It involves a staggering array of regulations, laws, research, transportation, lobbying, packing and shipping. The employment opportunities are equally vast, and students in this course will get a global view of this industry and learn how they can play a part in the food chain.

Computer Information Systems

Anyone looking for a bombproof career path that is guaranteed only to grow as far as the eye can see can do no better than to look at computers…deep into computers. They already run the world, from finance and electricity delivery to transportation systems and defense. Computers allow us to communicate instantly with anyone around the world face-to-face; they’ve changed how we consume media like music, books and movies; and they’ve allowed for advances in medical care that were inconceivable just a few years ago. This course introduces students to computer operating systems, programming, app development, hardware repair, networking and all of the “I’m going to rule the world!” voodoo needed to keep the trains running, satellites orbiting and water flowing. One word of advice: Don’t upset any future Anonymous members taking this course or you may find one day that your debit card doesn’t work.

Starting Your Own Business

Of course the best business to be in is the business you own. But being your own boss is also a shortcut to premature baldness and ulcers, so this course covers the essential artery-saving basics of being a cog in the U.S. economy. Topics include incorporating a business, marketing, selecting a form of ownership, hiring and compensating employees, acquiring finances and planning a profitable exit strategy. Students will actually run their own businesses as part of the course (or compete in a realistic business simulation).

The post Unique Electives appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

At first glance, Catalyst High School, tucked away in a nondescript office park in Lafayette, looks like a dentist’s office. Or a place that sells car insurance. Or even a paper company like Dunder Mifflin. What it doesn’t look like at all — with its muted carpet, a corner lounge area lit by strings of white lights and tiny, office-sized classrooms —is a high school.

“Well, I hope not,” said Ed Porritt, the founder and executive director of this small six-year-old high school that is the essence of “alternative education.” Home to about 40 students, Catalyst has thrown out the traditional education playbook and come up with its own ideas about how to teach. It gets its cue, Porritt says, from the students themselves.

“Students create their own individualized contracts with teachers,” he said. “For every one of our students, we have created for them what’s called a customized academic plan. … It identifies the student’s strengths, their interests and their long-term goals, and it identifies their academic goals. The teacher working hand-in-hand with the student knows what they’re good at, what their deficiencies are and what their goals are. It’s a conversation starter.”

The curriculum at Catalyst is also a good conversation starter, because it’s as unique as each student. No two educational contracts are the same. Rhys Olsen, a student who went to three schools (including taking classes at CU) as well as being homeschooled before landing at Catalyst earlier this year, tried to help a visitor understand how eclectic the classes could be. In a classroom with just two other pupils and the teacher (class sizes rarely exceed six students per teacher), he was composing a college entrance essay and working with classmate Liam Fox to create a style for the document that combined Chicago and MLA “with a few personal adjustments.”

“For me, this is a composition class,” Olsen said, “but it’s also turned into a political science class.”

His other classmate, Stephanie Kilpatrick, defined Catalyst as a place where “we learn what we want to learn at our own pace, and you can tailor it to how you learn best.”

What does that look like in practice? Past Catalyst students have learned about the physics of sound by reconstructing a cello. They’ve learned about social justice by participating in Peace Jam. A teacher introducing the civil rights movement once started the discussion by reading a poem by Joan Baez and then seeing where the discussion led. Musicians in geography classes can study the countries of their favorite composers, and those interested in film and communication can learn broadcast skills at Catalyst’s in-house TV studio, which is also used by East Boulder County’s public access station. One student choose to study bulimia and anorexia as part of her life sciences class.

“The only thing we have in common,” Olsen said, “is that a typical education wasn’t working for us.”

Although Porritt started Catalyst as a place for students who weren’t thriving in traditional classrooms, he says the structure is applicable to all kids. But the school seems particularly suited for those who benefit from a more dynamic learning environment. Days are shorter, classes are more intimate and there’s a focus on community involvement you’d be hard pressed to find in other schools.

“The biggest benefit is being able to advocate for myself,” said 17-year-old Scooby Davie, who was on her way to a photography class. (When asked if Scooby was her real name, she laughed and said, “It’s as real as it’s going to get.”)

“If I put in a lot of effort, I will get a fantastic result,” she said. She came to Catalyst from Fairview High School in Boulder, which she found to be too regimented, rushed and structured, to the point where it seemed learning was often less important than adhering to rules and schedules.

“I’m thriving here more than I ever have,” she said.

And it’s not just the students who are thriving. Mark Friedman, a retired science teacher from the Thompson School District—who, when asked what he teaches at Catalyst, simply says, “I teach students”—calls his man-of-many-hats role “a dream teaching job.” In addition to science, he also teaches art, poetry, music, marketing and web design as well as helping to run the TV studio.

“Everything we do is customized around the students’ interests and passions,” he said. “We put them in the driver’s seat of their own education.”

As much as it sounds like it could be, Catalyst is not all fun and games. Accredited through the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement, the instruction is tailored to satisfy enrollment requirements at the best universities in the country, meaning that even though the path to proficiency in a subject might be unusual, proficiency is still required to graduate. And because the class sizes are so small, there’s no slacking off or showing up unprepared.

“You’re in the front row every day,” Porritt says. (It’s also likely that the cost of attending Catalyst provides an incentive to participate, at least in terms of satisfying the parents who are footing the bill—tuition at this private non-profit school is $17,000 per year, although students can apply for scholarships.)

So does this unique approach to education work? Porritt said the proof that it does is right before his eyes every day.

When they arrive at Catalyst, “most of our kids are not earning credits, they’re not functioning, they’re getting a low GPA when they come in,” he says. “When they exit, about 80 percent of our kids are going on to college and having very successful experiences in college. We had a student who wouldn’t write or do math when she got here a couple of years ago and she’s now taking a college level class during her senior year here, and she’s got the highest grade in her college class.

“Right now, we use the statistical data from GPA, from earning credits and from graduation and college entrance as our indicators,” he said, while noting that Catalyst is working with the state on developing more detailed and more skill-based benchmarks in the coming year.

“We have a Mary Poppins-sized tool box,” he said.

For more information about Catalyst, see www.catalysths.org

The post Square Pegs appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

While the passage of Election Day has eliminated most political buzzwords from the lexicon, there’s one term we’re hearing with increasing breathlessness: “fiscal cliff.” It’s a reference to more than just economic calamity in general, but to a specific set of deficit-reducing triggers that will go into effect on Jan. 1 if Congress doesn’t act.

What’s so bad about reducing the deficit? Theoretically, nothing. But the deep spending cuts mandated by the fiscal cliff would gut programs that both parties hold dear while simultaneously raising taxes through a combination of allowing certain tax reductions to expire and imposing new ones. Long-term effects on the debt would be positive, but the shock to our economic system raises the risk of recession.

How did we end up on this precipice? It goes back to the debt ceiling fiasco of 2011. Voting to raise the debt ceiling is a formality that allows the government to incur debt in order to make expenditures that have been previously approved by Congress—the ceiling has been raised 74 times since 1962, usually without fanfare. But in 2011, Congress held up the vote, demanding that it be accompanied by a plan to reduce spending. House Republicans (who were in the majority) hijacked the effort by calling for deep spending cuts on programs that Democrats favored, while also swearing off tax increases. The standoff ended when both sides agreed to appoint a bipartisan “super committee” to explore reducing the budget deficit, but not before Standard & Poor’s downgraded the American credit rating for the first time in history, rocking world financial markets.

Since Congress had proven especially inept over the past two years, the formation of the super committee came with the equivalent of a death threat: If you can’t reach an agreement, the debt will be reduced automatically in ways no one will like. The threat was specific and aimed at both parties’ sacred cows. Defense and non-defense discretionary spending will share the burden of $110 billion in automatic cuts. Bush era tax cuts, which President Obama extended, will expire, as will the 2 percent FICA payroll tax cut and $26 million in federal emergency unemployment insurance. Everyone would suffer if the super committee didn’t reach a deal.

No deal was made. Now it falls on the shoulders of the same Congress that couldn’t do it in the first place. The difference is that it’s now a lame duck Congress, making a solution all the more unlikely.

The post What is the Fiscal Cliff? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

A Boulder company made up of former NASA employees announced plans to fly tourists to the moon for $750 million each. Coloradans can now break out the Cheetos and Goldfish: Gov. John Hickenlooper officially made recreational marijuana use legal by certifying the election results nearly a month sooner than expected. He made the move the day after two CU students were arrested for serving pot brownies to their history professor and classmates without telling them what they contained; they face felony charges. Two Boulder police officers were arrested for DUI in separate incidents and the CU Buffs got a new head football coach after Jon Embree was fired; former San Jose State coach Mike MacIntyre accepted the job. The Bureau of Reclamation suggested piping water from the Missouri River to Denver, a plan that would require 600 miles of pipeline across Kansas. A Colorado Springs-based doctor was captured by insurgent forces in Afghanistan and subsequently freed after a raid by coalition forces, which resulted in six deaths, including that of a U.S. Navy SEAL. A 17-year-old was arrested at a Boulder movie theater for wearing a Joker mask and causing a panic; and CU failed to segregate gun-toting students in “gun-friendly” dorms when no one signed up to live in them. The world was expected to end when the Mayan calendar expired on Dec. 21.

By The Numbers

$1
The amount, in billions, CU president Bruce Benson warned the university might lose because of legal pot.

2.1
The number of Coloradans, in millions, who don’t have access to dental care.

$2.75
The amount, in millions, Aurora is willing to pay for abandoned property appraised for $77,000, for reasons unknown.

70
The number of roosters
seized from a Denver cockfighting ring, along with cocaine, meth and cash.

Small Talk

“When the numbers don’t add up, people get very discouraged and wonder if the election integrity process is really there.”

— Pueblo GOP chief Becky Mizel, who is requesting a recount of the city’s election results.

“I hereby request a recount of the House District 11 contest for which I was a candidate in the 2012 General Election.”

—Losing candidate Ellyn Hilliard, a Republican, who lost by more than 5,000 votes to Jonathan Singer, in a letter to the secretary of state.

“(P)eople who breathe with their mouths wide open, shake your hand awkwardly and don’t look you in the eye.”

—Black Cat and Bramble & Hare chef Josh Monopoli, on his pet peeves.

“We will be creating a security plan for future hearings to ensure that everyone is made to feel welcome for taking the time to let his or her voice be heard.”

—Boulder County Commissioners in a statement after Encana Oil & Gas spokeswoman Wendy Wiedenbeck was allegedly harassed by anti-fracking protesters on her way to her car after testifying at a hearing.

Sources: Westword, Examiner.com, Denver Post, Daily Camera

The post Month in Review appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

OK, so we’re not really ones for sharing cute cat videos, but considering that it’s back to work for most of us after a weekend of gluttony, we figured an attitude adjustment couldn’t hurt. We dare you not to “awwwww” over this, whether you’re a cat person or not.

The post Post-Thanksgiving cute cat video appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Anyone hoping for relief from the crippling drought under a blanket of soothing, moisturizing winter snow for the next several months should prepare to be disappointed. The official winter weather outlook published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts higher than average temperatures through February over much of the Western United States, including all of Colorado. That means what snow we do get on our parched farmland is more likely to evaporate than to penetrate.

In the history of mankind, few endeavors have been as capricious as the ability to predict the weather. With modern scientific instruments, it’s become easier to do, but it’s still heavily influenced by chance and by factors that often can’t
be measured.

Take this year, for example. NOAA forecasters usually rely on the development (or absence) of the El Niño weather pattern to make temperature and precipitation predictions. El Niño influences the jet stream and can generally indicate whether or not the United States will be inundated with tropical winds and Pacific moisture. But this year, El Niño can’t make up its mind whether or not to appear.

“This is one of the most challenging outlooks we’ve produced in recent years because El Niño decided not to show up as expected,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, in an article on NOAA’s website. “In fact, it stalled out last month, leaving neutral conditions in place in the
tropical Pacific.”

So what can we expect? As much as 40 percent warmer than average temperatures in Colorado and much of the Central Plains and Midwest, cooler and wetter conditions in Florida, and pretty much an “anyone’s guess” forecast for the
East Coast.

It’s interesting to note that despite all the brainpower and technology at NOAA’s disposal, its winter outlook is not much different this year than that presented in the Farmers’ Almanac, whose long-range forecasts rely on such dubious indicators as sunspots and planetary alignment. Almanac forecasts have been retroactively studied and determined to be not much more accurate than blind luck—that may be the case this year for NOAA as well.

The post Cheat Sheet: Blowing in the Wind appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Colorado and winter sports go together like hot chocolate and whipped cream. Is there anyone in the state who hasn’t gazed at the newly dusted mountains and conjured images of their favorite ski slope? Even if you’re not one to pick a steep line through the trees at Copper Mountain or turn aerial pinwheels off a halfpipe at Breckenridge, you’ve probably cozied up to an outdoor heater at a café in Vail or Aspen to enjoy the idyllic après-ski (or, in some cases, the avant-ski) atmosphere of a snowy day in alpine heaven. Winter is for escaping into the mountains for a reminder of the majesty we enjoy living in Colorado.

But the truth is, it’s easy to get complacent with what we like to do. We have our favorite sports and destinations and we’re sticking to them. And because of that, it’s also easy to forget that Colorado in the winter is about so much more than standing in the cattle-call lines just off the parking lot at A-Basin. To give you a sense of the variety of winter activities available in our fine state, we turned to a half dozen elite athletes—everyone from champion snowshoers to world class climbers—to learn a little about their favorite winter sports destinations. Who knows? Next time you think about reaching for the snowboard for yet-another trip to Eldora, you might just consider renting an ice ax and heading for the frozen waterfalls of Vail.

Sam Lewis

Snowshoeing

This former Boulder High School student is a three-time national champion snowshoe racer who now competes in the NCAA as an Oregon State Beaver.

“My favorite place to snowshoe in Colorado is at Eldora Mountain Resort. I have done the Nighthawk Snowshoe Racing Series up there the past three years and I absolutely can’t get enough of it! All the races are in the dark, which, of course, adds an extra sense of adventure and makes the race that much more exciting, but all the races go back into the trees, taking you right out of reality for a bit as you get lost in the snow. Being able to race in the dark with only a headlamp to guide the way is one of the coolest experiences ever because not only is it very peaceful, you get to race under the stars and the moon, which creates a sense of eeriness that keeps you on your toes. The trails up at Eldora all vary and you can always find intense uphills, long and extremely fun downhills, the trails that take you out to frozen ponds or the long trek up to the cabin. It’s pretty obvious that you could never get bored snowshoeing up there!”

Nearby amenities

Finish your workout with a coffee and pastry at Buffalo Bill’s Coffee & Confections, located in the can’t-miss restored train cars in the center of town, or with a burger and beer at Ned classic The Pioneer Inn.

Maddy Schaffrick

Snowboarding

A member of the USSA snowboard team, Maddy Schaffrick finished in the top 10 of all five Grand Prix Olympic qualifying events in 2010 at the young age of 16. After an injury kept her out of the 2011 season, Schaffrick took second in the Sprint Grand Prix at Copper Mountain and fourth in the Dew Tour at Breckenridge, earning an invite to the X Games. She learned to ski at age 3 in her hometown of Steamboat Springs.

“I have a difficult time choosing my favorite ski mountain in Colorado. I have been fortunate enough to visit the majority of the areas around the state, but my loyalty to Steamboat Ski Resort has yet to fade. I think all the memories of following my dad through the trees on a powder day and drinking hot chocolate with my friends on the benches in the base area has created an eternal love for that mountain. I know every chairlift and run, every secret powder stash and every hidden feature. It may seem I am obligated to say Steamboat is my favorite ski area because it is my home mountain, but I am proudly and independently willing to represent Steamboat as my favorite resort in Colorado.”

Nearby amenities

The town of Steamboat Springs is one of Colorado’s true gems, far from the I-70 corridor so you won’t get your typical herd of winter tourists. Its storybook setting in the Yampa Valley is perfect for snowmobiling, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. Soak your tired bones at the outdoor Strawberry Park Hot Springs about 10 miles north of town (strawberryhotsprings.com).

Rory Sutherland

Cycling

An Aussie native transplanted to Boulder, Rory Sutherland is a professional bicyclist who made his adopted hometown proud by winning Stage 6 of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge this summer, which ended atop Flagstaff Mountain. He won the UCI American Tour riding for UnitedHealthcare and was recently signed by Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank for the 2013 season.

“One of the benefits of Boulder in itself, while being at the altitude that it’s at … is that there could be snow here like there was a few days ago and you can still go out and ride your bike a few days later. Everything is plowed pretty well, and if you can’t go up in the mountains, you can go out on the flats, head out toward Carter Lake or I-25 or ride up to Fort Collins. [The climate] does make it much more manageable in the winter. The sun makes a pretty big difference and helps it a lot.” [Tips for winter riding]: “Wear enough clothes, that’s a pretty big one, but if it’s really cold, you could put aluminum foil or a plastic bag over your toes in your shoes for another barrier against the wind. I always get cold feet. … It sounds silly and it sounds stupid, but it saves you a lot of discomfort for something so simple.”

Nearby amenities

Boulder obviously has too many amenities to list, but one stands out for long-distance cyclists (even though Sutherland didn’t mention it)—it’s proliferation of microbreweries. Drinking a pint of beer after a hard workout is good for you, according to Spanish scientists. It’s better for hydration than plain water, helps replace lost calories through its carbonation and replenishes lost nutrients with its trace sugars and salts.

Sam Elias

Ice Climbing

Boulder ice climber Sam Elias competes on some of the most difficult waterfall and mixed ice/rock climbs in the world, and he placed as high as second in the Ouray Ice Climbing Competition, won the inaugural Winter Teva Mountain Games Mixed Climbing Competition and competed in an Ice World Cup competition in Russia.

“My favorite area to ice climb is the Fang amphitheater in West Vail. It is where I learned ice and mixed climbing, and it is where I have developed almost all of my skills. The community of climbers, the setting and the concentration and variety of climbing make it a very special place for me. With Vail Village being so close, there are many places to grab coffee before and/or a beer after.”

Nearby amenities

“My regular stops include the Loaded Joe’s coffeehouse in the village and the Bearfish bar and grill in West Vail.” And don’t forget, if you want to work different muscles, you can always hit the slopes.

Bruce Cranmer

Cross country skiing

As head coach of CU’s Nordic ski team for the past 12 years (which were preceded by his being on two champion Buffs teams as a college student), there are few people more qualified to offer an opinion about great cross-country skiing destinations than Bruce Cranmer. Under his coaching, the Buffs won the NCAA championships in 2006 and 2011 and placed in the top three seven other times. To top it off, his grandfather, George Cranmer, established Winter Park Ski Resort.

“It’s hard to say this is my absolutely favorite place to ski, since I have many, but Devil’s Thumb Ranch (DTR) is one of my favorite places to ski. I learned how to ski at DTR so that gives it special meaning for me. It has a great variety of terrain from easy meadow skiing to some very hilly racecourses. Late afternoon skiing can be especially beautiful when the sun is starting to set and you get alpenglow on the peaks nearby, and then you can finish it off with a drink by the fire in their beautiful lodge.”

Nearby amenities

Just minutes from his grandfather’s legacy at Winter Park, near the town of Tabernash, Devil’s Thumb Ranch Resort and Spa is an awesome getaway that combines alpine beauty with spa pampering, luxury accommodations and world class cuisine in a rustic setting that’s second to none.

Lynn Hill

Rock climbing

Lynn Hill is one of the greatest rock climbers of all time, having consistently pushed the boundaries of difficult sport and traditional free climbing for more than two decades. Her greatest claim to fame is being the first person to free climb the 31-pitch, 2,900-foot The Nose route on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley in 1993, then to outdo herself by climbing it free in under a day, a feat that remained unrepeated for more than 10 years.

“The thing about Rincon is that it has to be a winter like we may be having this year, with not too much snow, because you have to hike about 45 minutes to get to the wall. So if it’s a big snow year, you don’t want to go to Rincon. But Rincon is great. It’s got good southern exposure and probably gets the most sun of any of the cliffs that I know of in Eldo. … The best line in my opinion is Climb of the Century, especially the first pitch. It’s really not so scary, and to the right of that, there’s good stuff for more moderate climbing. There’s a classic 5.10 to the right of that, Over the Hill, 5.10b, really classic dihedral climbing. Even though it could be a popular area when the weather is cooler, there are a lot of routes to do. There’s plenty of good stuff in all ranges (of difficulty).”

Nearby amenities

Eldorado Canyon is an amenity in itself, a steep-walled copper-hued canyon carved by South Boulder Creek that’s good for all kinds of recreation, from something as relaxing as picnicking to something as gripping as extreme rock climbing. Downtown Boulder is only a 10-minute drive to the north.

The post Winter Warriors appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The post Video: Behind the scenes, November cover photo shoot appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

It’s well known that taxes and death are the only certainties in life, but in Colorado, add another inevitability—the need to vote on ballot issues that 90 percent of the time are asking you to raise taxes on yourself. So it’s little surprise that voters in Boulder County and the North Metro area are being asked to fund a number of pet projects. Here’s our opinion of each measure:

Boulder

2A The Climate Action Plan tax extension asks voters to extend the life of the current energy excise tax for five years to pay for incentives to reduce energy consumption.

Endorsement: Yes. The issue does not raise taxes but extends an existing one. Residential customers pay an additional $0.0022 per kilowatt-hour and businesses pay an extra $0.0004 per kWh. This modest excise tax has allowed Boulder to meet 43 percent of its goal of reducing carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2012. Although there’s work yet to be done, now isn’t the time to give up.

2B An extension of the 0.25 sales and use tax from its current expiration of 2015 to 2035 to fund Parks and Rec.

Endorsement: Yes. Outdoorsy, healthy and active, Boulder’s parks and recreation are among its legacy characteristics that deserve continued funding.

2C Voters are asked to approve changes in the way City Council is compensated, changing from the current policy of paying councilmembers for four meetings per month to paying them for 52 a year.

Endorsement: Yes. This is a bookkeeping matter that eliminates the occasions when councilmembers must attend five meetings a month when they’re only funded for four per month. It’s hard enough being a City Council member without having to do it for free every now and then.

2D This measure will allow the city to lease its property to private entities for up to 30 years, a change from the current maximum of 20 years, as long as the tenant agrees to make improvements to the property that are in the public interest.

Endorsement: Why not? This measure saves the city the hassle of releasing or renewing leases without the benefit of public improvements, so it seems like a no-brainer.

Erie

Increase property taxes through a bond to fund construction of a $6.2 million police and courts building.

Endorsement: Yes. Big capital projects do run a risk of skyrocketing over budget (FasTracks, anyone?), but as Erie grows over the coming years, this infrastructure is going to become essential. Better to fund it now than pay for a more costly construction in the future. Bonus: It’s a job-creator.

Lafayette

2B Residential Growth Management. This measure asks Lafayette voters to extend the current building permit cap until 2019, to allow the City Council to set the number of annual permit allocations and to exempt developments that have already received priority status.

Endorsement: Yes.

Lafayette & Louisville

Both cities will ask voters to extend their 0.25 sales and use tax to fund open space for another 10 years.

Endorsement: Yes. Call us tree-hugging hippies if you must, but open space is among the many reasons that we call Boulder County home, and programs in Lafayette and Louisville do more than just increase livability within their own city limits but add to the overall character of the county.

Longmont

2A allows Public Service Co. the right to reasonable use of city property and easements and the right to acquire all necessary facilities for equipment storage, for the purpose of delivering natural gas services to the city and its residents.

Endorsement: Yes.

Question 300: Probably the most controversial ballot measure of this election (at least locally) is one that will ban the practice of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) and forbid drillers from disposing of fracking waste within Longmont’s city limits.

Endorsement: Yes. Although passage of this measure will certainly result in more legal headaches for Longmont, fracking is regulated only by the state, with local municipalities left to rely only on land-use regulations and set-backs to mitigate the negative effects of the practice. Communities deserve far more local control over fracking—including an outright ban—considering its potentially serious implications to health and the environment.

St. Vrain Valley School District RE-1J

3A will approve a mill levy increase by up to 6.72 mills, with the estimated $14.8 million in revenue used to offset state funding cuts and pay for teachers, upgrade technology and enhance early childhood education.

Endorsement: Yes. There’s no question that funding for education is at critical levels in Colorado, and until the state legislature can figure out a solution, it’s up to local school districts to do so.

Rocky Mountain Fire Protection District

5A A mill levy increase of 8 mills over four years to pay for capital assets.

Endorsement: Yes. As we’ve seen this year, now is not the time to skimp on firefighting assets.

Boulder Mountain Fire Protection District

5A A mill levy increase of 2.723 mills to pay for firefighting equipment, training and other firefighting needs.

Endorsement. Yes. See above.

Allenspark Water and Sanitation District

5A A measure to “de-Bruce” revenue, meaning that all revenue collected may be spent outside the proscriptions of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

Endorsement: Yes.

Statewide

Amendment 64 The Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act: If passed, Colorado will be first political subdivision in the world to legalize marijuana for recreational use by adults (actually, it could be one of three, as Washington and Oregon have similar measures). This amendment would remove all penalties against buying, selling, growing and using certain amounts of marijuana by people over 21. Individual communities can vote to ban retail marijuana outlets. Marijuana sold in Colorado will be subject to an excise tax to be voted on at a later date; the first $40 million collected from the tax will be earmarked to fund education.

Endorsement: Yes. Marijuana is already widely available on the black market and has proven immune to four decades of effort to eradicate it through brute force. Like alcohol during prohibition, it’s time to legalize and regulate its cultivation, distribution and sale in order to prevent it from getting into the hands of children. Taxing marijuana will provide a much-needed revenue stream, deal a blow to organized crime trafficking in illegal pot and save millions enforcing current marijuana laws, which have had no effect on decreasing usage over the years. It may also encourage the federal government to remove marijuana from the schedule of controlled substances, which would open the door to research into its medical benefits, an avenue of inquiry that’s hampered by its current status as a drug with no medical value.

Amendment 65 Colorado Corporate Contributions Amendment: This is an advisory question that, according to Balletpedia: “urges the state to support tweaks in state policy on limiting corporate contributions and expenditures in state and national elections. The measure seeks to charge state lawmakers with furthering the state’s policy on the matter and ask congressional delegates to support efforts to overrule the Citizens United decision by amending the U.S. Constitution.”

Endorsement: Yes. This will codify the state’s opposition to the influence of corporate contributions in elections by requiring the Colorado Caucus to propose and support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution overruling Citizens United, which gave us Super PACs and anonymous spending on campaigns by both corporations and individuals.

Amendment S A measure that changes how the state hires employees, evaluates candidates, gives preference to veterans and make it easier to attract and retain talented employees.

Endorsement: Yes. Colorado hasn’t changed its personnel system since Nixon was president. This measure would modernize the state’s personnel system and bring it into the 21st century. Endorsed by the current and past two governors, there seems to be no formal opposition to this measure. Far be it from us to be the first.

The post Ballot issues appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Stephen Ludwig–Democrat

voteregentludwig.nationbuilder.com

Best campaign gimmick: Ludwig spent 10 days of his vacation visiting all of Colorado’s 64 counties touting his at-large campaign for re-election…and more often than not, explaining to people what a “regent” is and that you can vote for one regardless of whether you attended a CU system school.

Accomplishments: Ludwig cites his efforts to help pass a measure that guarantees that community college students who maintain a 2.7 GPA and completed 30 credit hours will be admitted to a CU school. He also notes that CU set records for fundraising and the value of research grants while he has been on the board.

Most pressing issue: “By 2023, there will be no money for public education in Colorado,” he says. “The state is heading for a brick wall. That’s what the next six years will be.” It’s inevitable not only that regents will have to go to the voters for additional revenue (i.e., taxes), but also that the university system find efficiencies in such things as an increase in online education, better technology transfer and increased partnerships with the private sector.

Favors: Banning guns on campus and offering the children of illegal immigrants special tuition rates.

Dr. Brian Davidson–Republican

davidsonforcuregent.com

Best medical analogy: When a patient is on life support, you want a doctor nearby—and CU’s fiscal health qualifies it for the ICU. An MD grad of the Anshutz Medical Campus (who also holds an MBA), Davidson knows firsthand the burden of student debt since he’s still paying his.

Big picture: Davidson argues that skyrocketing tuition has downstream effects that aren’t often debated—crushing debt leads to contraction in spending and fewer alumni donations to their alma maters.

The treatment: Davidson favors a combination of efficiencies and new revenues and touts how Anshutz does business as an example moving forward: “I come from an area of the university where the faculty … elects to provide, off of revenues, 15 percent back to the institute. …I’m very proud to be a part of that group of people that not only teach, but we practice [medicine], and we also contribute tens of millions back to the institution to keep it a quality institution.”

Tyler Belmont–Constitution

Defining characteristic: For all of his earnestness, it’s hard not to consider Belmont a joke candidate who entered the race on a lark. At only 18 years old, he hopes to help run a university system with a $2.9 billion budget, although he has no website, hasn’t raised or spent any money on his campaign and as of mid-September hadn’t given any speeches or attended any campaign events. He explained that he’s been busy applying to colleges (including non-CU colleges in other states) and is “realistic” about his chances.

On the other hand: Belmont has a point that younger voices aren’t often heard among the Regents, and with tuition rising as a result of funding cuts, those who are shouldering the burden deserve to be heard.

Prospects: Belmont stands no hope of being elected Regent, but with a philosophy that he defined as “jump[ing] at the opportunity to learn about the political system and gain real world experience about how things work,” don’t assume you’ve heard the last of him.

Daniel Ong–Libertarian

ongforcuregent.com

Claim to fame: What’s a 53-year-old college student who lives in off-campus student housing to do other than run for CU Regent for the third time (other than star in a reality TV version of “Old School,” that is)? A self-described “longshot” for the post, Ong is inspired to run again (his first campaigns were in 2004 and 2006) to raise awareness about what he calls the university’s discrimination against part-time students. He calls the issue “tuition equity,” which at its heart is CU-Boulder’s policy of charging a flat per-semester tuition for part-time and full-time students, rather than the per credit-hour rate charged by CU-Denver and CU-Colorado Springs.

Cuts: Ong would eliminate student athletic fees to help cut expenses and explore eliminating a requirement that the faculty spend 20 percent of its time doing community service, forcing them to spend more time in the classroom.

Best reason to vote for him: If you agree with him that “the current board has failed miserably in its job.”

YS Endorsement: Stephen Ludwig

This was a tough race to call, as both major party candidates strike us as competent and capable of tackling the substantial challenges faced by the CU system in the coming years. In the end, our endorsement goes to Stephen Ludwig, who makes a credible case that his experience as an incumbent (and his proven willingness to travel the state to put meaning behind the term “at-large”) gives him the edge over Brian Davidson.

The post CU Regent At Large appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Ann Fattor–Republican

fattor4stateboardofeducation.com

Pedigree: It’s rare that a non-incumbent candidate comes to the ticket with such a hefty resume. Fattor is an eight-year veteran of the Gilpin County BOE, a four-year member of the Colorado Association of School Boards (serving as president in 2002) and a member of the Colorado Association of School Executives.

Strengths: Fattor says that because local school boards are nonpartisan, she’s learned the skill of paying more attention to colleagues’ arguments and ideas than whether there’s an R or D behind their names. She says she’s a “doer” who prefers to test ideas in real life rather than studying and testing them to death, and she’s a fan of teacher innovation, such as online learning and using new technology in the classroom.

The takeaway: Fattor is a major proponent of choice—not only through vouchers and alternative schools like Montessori, but also for parents, teachers and administrators. She’s concerned that education in Colorado risks becoming too prescriptive, with the state dictating more than is healthy for districts with individualized needs.

Angelika Schroeder–Democrat

schroederforsbe.com

Passion play: Voters in the 2nd Congressional District will choose between two qualified state board candidates who claim to have a passion for education. With more than 20 years of history in education—in committees, as a volunteer, as an eight-year board member with the Boulder Valley School District and as a one-term incumbent (elected to fill a vacancy in 2008)—Schroeder embodies passion for what she does.

Feather in her cap: Schroeder points to the new school standards and teacher evaluation tools that have been rolled out to Colorado’s districts as an accomplishment she’s happy with, especially because “we have teachers at the table” helping shape the new policies. “That’s been huge,” she says.

The future: In addition to fully funding K-12, Schroeder says Colorado must work harder to integrate technology into schools to prepare kids for careers that increasingly demand high-tech knowledge. Gone are the days when poor-performing students can fall back on manual labor—these days even car mechanics and factory workers must have background education in robotics and computers. “The world changed, and education hasn’t caught up with it,” she says.

David Cottrell–Libertarian

No interview.

YS Endorsement: Angelika Schroeder

This was a hard race to call because we believe both candidates would do an excellent job for the students of our state. In the end, Schroeder, as an incumbent, is in a better position to continue her work than someone who would be new to the position.

The post State Board of Education, 2nd CD appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Maureen Denig–Republican

maureenforbouldercounty.com

Soccer mom stats: A relatively new resident of Boulder County, Denig moved from Massachusetts four years ago. She quickly became the president of her HOA, an active Rotarian, a member of the Longmont Senior Citizens Advisory Board and a member of the Shining Mountains Club. In Massachusetts, she was a town selectman and served three terms as a board member of the Middlesex Regional School District. She owns a travel agency.

Platform: Denig is a small government advocate who believes Boulder County is too intrusive into the lives of its residents, particularly in the area of land use. She opposes Longmont’s attempt to ban fracking, believing regulation lies with the state. She believes the county should do a better job maintaining its open space and she believes the county needs to have a better diversity of voices.

Deb Gardner–Democrat

debgardner.net

Moving on up: Gardner left a seat in a safe house district to join the Boulder County Board of Commissioners, a job that she calls “much more intense” because of the level of intimacy it requires. She’s talking not only of acting as the CEO of a multi-billion dollar agency with responsibilities from land use to energy policy, but also because her decisions affect people in her neighborhood. “People trust me because they know me,” she said.

Biggest misconception: The Land Use department has a reputation of being less than customer friendly, but Gardner says it’s improving. She says she’s willing to listen to complaints and continue working toward improvements.

Biggest priorities: Closing the achievement gap, investing in education and encouraging diversity in leadership roles in the county.

YS Endorsement: Deb Gardner

While Maureen Denig’s admirable history of community service speaks well of her, Deb Gardner has a real grasp on the office of Boulder County Commissioner and a style of governance that respects its complexity and importance. That she left a sexier political post to toil with more grassroots issues speaks to her dedication to the county she calls home and recommends her for her first full term.

The post Boulder County Commissioner, District 2 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Shane Hampton–Libertarian

facebook.com/ShaneHamptonForCountyCommissioner

The accidental candidate: Twenty-two-year-old CU student Hampton is running for commissioner purely because the Libertarian Party needed a candidate on the ticket, and “it sounded like a cool idea.”

On fracking: Hampton believes county open space should be open for fracking, pointing to a 5,000-acre parcel set aside for prairie dogs that “isn’t doing anybody any good.”

On GMOs: Likewise, Hampton supports GMO crops on county open space, claiming that they “have saved farmers’ lives” since they don’t have to spray them with potentially harmful pesticides.

Errata: Hampton also has concerns that have nothing to do with county jurisdiction, such as creating a rental agency to prevent students from getting ripped off by “slumdog landlords.” He admits the idea isn’t very Libertarian but offers no apologies. “I’m willing to go against my political affiliation on that one,” he says.

Elise Jones–Democrat

elisejones.org

The Big Issues: Jones won a hard primary in which the central issues have been headline grabbers all year—she’s opposed to fracking and supports Longmont voters in being able to ban the practice, she’s opposed to GMOs on county open space, and she wants Boulder County to be a leader on energy, pointing to a summer of wildfires and heat waves as evidence that climate change needs to be tackled on the local level. She’s a proponent of deeper investment in wind and solar energy sources.

One you might have overlooked: Aside from the big ticket items, Jones is also concerned about poverty in the county, which she calls an “invisible issue.” “A quarter of kids under age 5 live below the poverty level in Boulder County, which is really unacceptable,” she says.

FasTracks: Like nearly everyone in Boulder County, Jones is frustrated with RTD’s FasTracks system, but says, “We’re not there yet” in terms of choosing to leave the consortium of communities paying into the transportation project. “If we leave now, we’ve just paid for other people’s transportation infrastructure,” she says. “I’m still committed to making FasTracks work, but if that fails, there could be options in the future about giving up, but I’m not ready to give up yet.”

YS Endorsement: Elise Jones

In another instance where voters are lucky that the only serious candidate in this race is also a very well qualified one, Elise Jones is the clear choice in the BCC District 1 race. We’re confident that her reasoned consideration of the issues and her dedication to environmental values will serve county residents well.

The post Boulder County Commissioner, District 1 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Rollie Heath–Democrat

senrollieheath.com

No IOUs: For Heath, most of the issues facing Colorado can be traced to a need to adequately fund the core functions of government, most importantly for education. With Colorado having fallen to last place in per-pupil funding, he says the state risks continuing its “downward spiral” if lawmakers don’t return to the voters and make the case for more revenue. The state of educational funding directly impacts other areas of Colorado, like jobs and the economy, he says. “The key to economic development,” he says, “is an educated work force.”

Accomplishments: Although it was defeated, Heath is proud of his Proposition 103, which would have done what he says still needs doing—raising taxes to fund education. He says he’s hopeful that anti-tax Tea Partiers are not representative of most voters who will see the urgency if and when something similar is proposed.

Barry Thoma–Republican

nomorenonsense18.com

No interview.

YS Endorsement: Rollie Heath

No one likes taxes, but no one likes being in last place in per-pupil funding. Heath gets our endorsement because he wasn’t afraid to be unpopular by strongly endorsing a tax to fund our schools. We’re confident that if anything similar is proposed in the future, Heath will continue to be as fearless in endorsing it as he was in the past.

The post Senate District 18 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Matt Jones–Democrat

mattjonesforcolorado.com

Background: Jones might be new to the race for state senate, but he’s no stranger to politics, having served as state representative for House District 12. But as much as he touts his legislative experience, he says life experience is just as important. Jones is a two-time cancer survivor, which he says taught him strength in the face of adversity, which is a trait he says the state needs.

The issues: Jones says he’s committed to finding bipartisan solutions to the issues facing the state: creating jobs, increasing school funding and working to create a clean-energy sector.

Charlie Plagainos–Republican

plagainos4senate.com

No interview.

Ken Bray–Libertarian

No interview.

YS Endorsement: Matt Jones

Jones is the only candidate in this race to respond to our requests for interviews and while we’re comfortable with his experience (both in life and as a former HD 12 rep), his platform lacked specifics and left us a bit uninspired. This is a race where we would have preferred to weigh some options.

The post Senate District 17 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Cherylin Peniston–Democrat

cherylinpeniston.com

Show me the money: If anyone is acutely aware of the dire state of the economy, it could well be those incumbents who served during better times, such as Peniston, who has served House District 35 for the past six years. “We’re fully aware of what we have to do,” she says, referring to the woeful state of the economy. “We know that government doesn’t create jobs.”

Silver lining: Peniston is proud of the work of the Education Committee, on which she serves. The revamped educational assessment program and new standards for teachers are “leading to a higher quality of education for our students” but will need some time to be rolled out. She also brought up the idea of a Constitutional Convention to help make Colorado’s many budget restrictions—TABOR, the Gallagher Amendment and Amendment 23—work more harmoniously.

Money quote: “No and hell no,” in response to whether she favors raising the RTD tax to further fund FasTracks, the multimillion-dollar-and-counting boondoggle of a transportation project for which Longmont, a paying partner since 2005, has seen nothing.

Brian Vande Krol–Republican

brianvandekrol.com

No interview.

YS Endorsement: Cherylin Peniston

Though it seems crazy to suggest that incumbents are the best choices for fixing the financial messes that happened on their watch, in this case we believe that to be true. Peniston is under no illusion about the work that needs doing and she deserves a chance to do it.

The post House District 35 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Dianne Primavera–Democrat

primaveraforcolorado.com

A mile in her shoes: Primavera, a legislator in District 33 for the past eight years, is convinced that she’s walked the district farther and more frequently than any of her opponents, past and present. The former chairwoman of the Legislative Audit Committee, she sponsored more than a dozen bills to reign in the cost of government and increase transparency. It’s little wonder that money issues are at the top of her agenda.

Immediate concerns: “Unemployment is a huge problem in the state,” she says, pointing to a need to create jobs as a high priority and “making sure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely,” a close second. Funding education is just as much a key issue for her as it was in the past, and she promises to do her part to “look for ways to ensure K-12 has the resources.”

Across-the-aisle-ability: Primavera touts her bipartisanship as a key reason she’s deserving of re-election and she has the “Legislator of the Year” award from the Colorado Nonprofit Association to prove it.

Tell us how you really feel: Being a House Representative is “the best job I’ve ever had.”

W. Earl Allen–Libertarian

allmax.com

Motivation for running: No stranger to campaigning (this is Allen’s fourth time running for office as a Libertarian), Allen hopes to make sure that “Colorado does not get Californicated,” at least in terms of its moribund economy and crushing debt. The solution to that, he says, is to rely on free market solutions in energy and jobs. Over-regulation and over-taxation are barriers to economic recovery.

Why Libertarian? “Libertarians are here to make sure that there is an alternative,” he says. “If you don’t like the two big-government candidates, you can vote for Libertarians.”

Operating philosophy: “Less is more,” he says. Allen is in favor of local control over fracking, advocates opening the energy markets to more development to bring down the cost of energy in Colorado and rolling back regulations to prevent the government from “destroying jobs.”

Parting words: “If you really want to continue the downward spiral of our economy … you will vote for a big-government candidate. Both of my opponents are big-government candidates.”

David Pigott–Republican

davepigott.com

No interview.

YS Endorsement: Dianne Primavera

Dianne Primavera is the sort of politician we’re proud to endorse (and proud to have working in our backyard). Her blend of fiscal restraint coupled with the pragmatic need to fund education for the good of both students and the economy of the future embodies the sort of push-pull we wish more politicians displayed.

The post House District 33 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Claire Levy–Democrat

clairelevy.org

Only in Boulder: Levy fits right in in Boulder, a city known for its liberal leanings. She is for allowing CU-Boulder to ban guns on campus, cares deeply about environmental issues and is in favor of marriage equality. But she’s more than just a run-of the-mill liberal—having been in a leadership role in the Democratic Caucus, she’s also dedicated to sentencing reform (particularly by reducing most drug possession charges from felonies to misdemeanors) and fiscal responsibility. As a member of the Joint Budget Committee, she committed to visiting every state agency in order to understand their funding needs and to identify efficiencies.

Education: Levy is concerned about the level of per-pupil funding in Colorado and says it’s time for a statewide discussion about increasing it. One option is passing a new tax to fund education, but whether voters will approve one is an open question.

Adam Ochs–Republican

adamochs.com

No interview.

Howard Lambert–Libertarian

No interview.

YS Endorsement: Claire Levy

We might not agree with all of Claire Levy’s ideas all of the time, but there’s no arguing with her dedication to Boulder’s values. While we would have liked to have heard alternative ideas from her opponents, we’re happy to endorse her for another term.

The post House District 13 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Mike Foote–Democrat

mikefoote.org

Best thing on his resume: Foote heads the white-collar crime unit for the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office in his current job as deputy DA, which he’s done for the past 10 years. Who better to send to the state legislature?

No. 1 priority: Finding a way to restore funding to K-12 education in Colorado is high on Foote’s list, including grappling with the budgeting restraints in the state Constitution (TABOR, Gallagher Amendment and Amendment 23). “There’s dysfunction in the budget,” he says. “The system right now is just not sustainable. … Colorado is close to last [in terms of per-student funding]. That’s not acceptable.”

Novel idea: Foote proposes on-bill financing for energy efficiency upgrades at home and for businesses—your low-cost loan for improvements will added to your monthly bill but in payments that are no more than the value of your savings. That means your bill will stay the same until the loan is paid off, an easy way to increase energy efficiency without breaking the bank.

Russ Lyman–Republican

russlyman.org

Operating philosophy: A self-described “geek’s geek,” Lyman’s job with Level 3 is to unclutter the information superhighway so that the Internet can function properly—he wants to bring the same concept to politics, where he says he doesn’t want to be known as the guy who introduced a bunch of laws, but as the guy who got rid of useless ones.

15 minutes of fame: Lyman didn’t plan to get into politics—“Running for office was not on my bucket list,” he says—but he felt compelled after attending a straw poll and realizing that no other Republicans had tossed in their hat. On being nominated, he gave an impassioned, impromptu speech after which “people were literally throwing money at me.”

Highlights: Republican with a healthy dose of libertarianism, Lyman wants to do away with the idea of state-sanctioned marriage and legalize drugs and other “victimless crimes.” He will fight to preserve the TABOR amendment. He’s driven by a desire to restore liberties that have been taken away by needless and frivolous laws. “You don’t give up your power and choice just because you vote for somebody,” he says.

Matthew Webber–Libertarian

matt4co12.weebly.com

Nickname: In 2008, we had “Joe the Plumber;” this year’s candidate is “Matt the Plumber,” who (unlike Joe) actually worked in plumbing sales and marketing before going back to school at Metro State to study industrial design. “I decided to run because there was an opening,” he says. “We didn’t have anyone else who was interested and I felt the voters deserve a different choice, a Libertarian choice.”

Legalize it: Webber’s platform is boilerplate Libertarian, advocating a combination of personal liberty and personal responsibility that includes legalizing both drugs and prostitution as a means of saving money from enforcing laws against them as well as generating revenue by taxing them.

On the role of government: “[Government should] stop people from blowing you up, first of all, [and] stop foreigners from invading your space and liberty,” he says. It should also keep your neighbors out of your business by preventing them from infringing on your liberties. “Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean that somebody else shouldn’t be allowed to do it.”

Claim to fame: Endorsed by Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson.

YS Endorsement: Mike Foote

It’s lucky that in a lopsided race, the one candidate to stand out is one we’re comfortable endorsing. As well-intentioned as Lyman and Webber may be, House District 12 deserves a representative who entered the race deliberately and with the intention of winning. Mike Foote impressed us with his background as well as with his dedication to solving the state education funding problem.

The post House District 12 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Jonathan Singer–Democrat

singerforcolorado.org

Background: A former employee of Boulder County Human Services, Singer specialized in at-risk adults and children. He worked for the Denver Office of Economic Development and was appointed to the Longmont Planning and Zoning Board before a citizen’s appointment panel tapped him to complete the vacated term of former Rep. Deb Gardner, who filled a seat on the Boulder County Board of Commissioners. Although he’s served since January, this is his first election for this position.

Proudest accomplishment: “The fact that I’ve been able to show more constituents that we can really open the doors to government. … I have an ‘open mind, open door’ policy. I’d invite them to the Capitol, I’d get them on the House floor, I’d get them into committee meetings if we felt like they could testify on something from a position of knowledge, and at the end of the day, they felt like they had control over their own legislative destiny, or at least better understood it.”

On fracking: “We tried to pass a bill this year that would give cities and counties local control over the fracking issue. That bill was killed by Republicans. It’s a bill that I would support next year because our state is too diverse to really have a one-size-fits-all strategy. If we can [regulate] medical marijuana in Longmont, we can definitely do it with fracking.”

Ellyn Hilliard–Republican

ellyn4colorado.com

The distinction: Not dissimilar to House District 10 candidate Bill Eckert, Hilliard defies GOP stereotypes; she’s a former Democrat, an organic farmer and a supporter of both civil unions for same sex partners and legalizing marijuana. She was drawn to the Republican Party as a small business owner who believes that over-regulation stifles economic growth and that “people are being taxed to death.” Hilliard is a big fan of the private sector and free markets.

Schools: Like many other candidates, Hilliard believes that quality schools are important to Colorado but believes the biggest impediment to full funding is not the clash of amendments in the state Constitution (TABOR, Amendment 23 and the Gallagher Amendment) but the Public Employees Retirement Association, the pension fund for state employees, including teachers.

Her take on the race: From Hilliard’s perspective, the choice for state representative in District 11 is clear—her opponent, she says, is “pro-government,” while she is “pro-business.”

YS endorsement: Ellyn Hilliard

As much as we were impressed by Jonathan Singer, our endorsement goes to Ellyn Hilliard in this race. The districts covering Boulder County have no lack of progressive representation and Hilliard impressed us with her pro-business stance and her liberal social positions, which puts her in a good position straddle ideological fences while also helping keep in check policies and regulations that could hamper economic recovery for small businesses.

The post House District 11 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Dickey Lee Hullinghorst—Democrat

dickeylee.net

Making progress: Dickey Lee Hullinghorst is convinced that progressive politics are the solution to the state’s problems. “The Democrats … really have a sense that there are things government can do to help,” she says, adding that it’s important for Democrats to gain a majority in the Capitol. “My concept of progressive government is providing services for the common good,” she says.

Her issues: Providing for well-financed public education, including raising taxes to do so; passing a civil union law; providing college tuition assistance to children of illegal immigrants; and working on environmental issues, such as supporting renewable energy (which she says will have the added benefit of creating new jobs).

Taxes: Hullinghorst is also interested in tax reform, particularly to enterprise zones and tax-increment financing, which she says is unfairly tilted in favor of special interests.

Bill Eckert–Republican

billeckert2012.com

Here’s a curveball: Bill Eckert is a self-described small-government conservative Republican who is also a vegetarian/vegan who believes in hard science over emotion when considering such things as fracking and climate change and who supports the idea of civil unions. A former 34-year employee of Proctor & Gamble in New York, Eckert moved to Colorado in 1998 and is active in the Rotary Club and political circles. “I’m not one that’s going to go by feel-good emotional responses to things,” he says. “I want to be convinced about what’s going on.”

Reason for running: “I’m concerned about Colorado and the issues facing Colorado and how we’re going to solve them,” he says. He’s particularly concerned about the economy and says the state faces hard choices in the months and years ahead. He believes all aspects of government should be examined with an eye toward cutting spending but notes that he’s not in favor of further cuts to education. He adds that he’s not too impressed with the current crop of politicians—whether they’re Republicans, Democrats or independents. “We’re in a fiscal crunch right now, and we need the right people who’ve had experience to make the right decisions,” he says.

YS Endorsement: D.L. Hullinghorst

We were tempted to go Republican in this race because Eckert is such an iconoclastic GOP candidate that he could well provide a needed independent spirit that is usually so lacking in politics, but Hullinghorst has incumbent credentials that we believe will be very important in the coming session. Her progressive politics provided important ballast to the more conservative members of the General Assembly and they serve her district well.

The post House District 10 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Cory Gardner–Republican

corygardner.com

Biggest strength: When the 4th Congressional District was redrawn to cover practically every farm east of I-25 from Wyoming to New Mexico, no one was better served than the incumbent, a conservative Republican who won back the district in 2010 after its brief flirtation with Democratic representation under former Rep. Betsy Markey. Now the size of South Carolina, the 4th’s values of “common sense conservatism,” as Gardner calls them, play to his strength.

Is it too homogenous? “People are really worried about the future, their jobs, the economy,” he says. “That’s true whether you live in Lone Tree or Lamar.” Though vastly rural, the district is also home to big retail at Park Meadows Mall, telecom interests like Dish Network and lots and lots of energy companies.

Brandon Shaffer–Democrat

shafferforcolorado.com

Biggest strength: The former state senator and Senate president can look like a dark horse in a district redrawn to remove its one big strength for Democrats—the liberal-leaning college town of Fort Collins. But he comes into the race for Colorado’s rural hearts and minds with a reputation for bipartisan cooperation and hoping to ride a wave of “throw the bums out” frustration that could harm the GOP incumbent.

Leadership style: “I would be honored to serve in Congress ,because my style of leadership is opposite of the sort of leadership we see in Washington, D.C.”

Resume bullet points: Former U.S. Navy, served in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Doug Aden–Constitution

dougaden.com

Biggest plank: If it’s not in the Constitution, it shouldn’t be in the government. Like many in the Constitution Party, Aden is an advocate of doing away with agencies like the Department of Education, returning the currency system to the gold standard and returning the country to the literal word of the Constitution. But he tells those who are nervous about such things that it wouldn’t happen overnight, even if Constitution candidates found themselves in the White House and with a majority in Congress—itself a long shot, to put it mildly. “I try to tell people that it’s a process,” he says. “It’s not going to happen tomorrow.”

Social issues: True to being a third-party candidate, Aden is a little more scattershot than other candidates but consistent with his belief in the Constitution as a driving force. He would legalize drugs on one hand but outlaw abortion on the other. The Constitution, he points out, says nothing about the former and addresses the latter by promising citizens the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Josh Gilliland–Libertarian

joshgforliberty.com

Motivation: Josh Gilliland entered the race because of his “utter frustration with the direction of the country” and a concern for the world he was leaving for his kids. The country is so bad in his estimation, he had little choice but to run to try fixing it. He hopes to attack crony capitalism with full force and move the economy toward a purer free market system. He says the government shouldn’t be concerned with defining marriage or criminalizing drugs and he’s in favor of a strict “hands-off” approach to foreign policy except where clear and direct national security is at stake.

Background: Gilliland has never held elected office. He’s a program manager for content delivery at Level 3, and he has three kids.

YS Endorsement: Brandon Shaffer

While Cory Gardner is clearly in his element in this district, Brandon Shaffer’s history of bipartisanship is needed more urgently in Congress than fealty to party identity, which during the last Congress brought the country to the brink of financial ruin and resulted in a downgrading of America’s credit standing. More than ever, Congress is in need of a bipartisan peacemaker, and there is no one better suited for the job than Shaffer.

The post 4th CD: appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Jared Polis–Democrat

polisforcongress.com

A liberal’s liberal: Voters in the 2nd CD couldn’t have a clearer choice between its major party candidates. Polis is for legalizing marijuana, allowing gay marriage, giving local communities the power to more stridently regulate fracking than the state, replacing the No Child Left Behind Act with “something that makes more sense,” doing away with warrantless wiretapping, protecting a woman’s right to choose and supporting other Democratic stalwart positions. In his past term, he worked to defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act on the grounds that they threatened free speech, and he led the debate against the renewal of FISA, which allows warrantless wiretapping (FISA was renewed nonetheless). But Polis admits that in a Republican-controlled Congress, few bills in this last term were brought up that he supported.

Biggest issue: With vast experience in education reform, strengthening schools is among Polis’ highest priorities.

Biggest issue facing Congress: Getting along with the other party. “What I hope is that in this election, those who are elected to serve in the next Congress are sent to Washington with the mandate [to] work together to move our country forward,” he says. “I hope that [the mandate] is: work with the other side, get things done, govern responsibly, move our country forward.”

Kevin Lundberg–Republican

lundberg2012.com

Party bona fides: On the other side of the ticket for 2nd CD is conservative stalwart Kevin Lundberg, playing yin to Polis’ yang. Having served 10 years in the General Assembly, the Berthoud lawmaker has amassed a slew of recognitions from conservative organizations for his adherence to the principles of small government, lower taxes and prudent spending. Where Polis is a biolerplate Democrat, so is Lundberg a down-the-line Republican who supports limited regulation on businesses; a limited, Constitutional government; “holding the line” on taxes; and the sanctity of “family values.”

The horserace: Going up against a popular incumbent in a liberal-leaning district (redistricting combined most of Boulder County with mountain areas and the former liberal holdout from the old 4th CD, Fort Collins), Lundberg is confident that his message of fiscal responsibility in a climate of economic stagnancy will land with voters. He notes that 55 percent of his constituents are new to the district—and therefore new to Polis.

Randy Luallin–Libertarian

randyluallin.com

Favorite hobby: Running for office. Although this is the first time Luallin is running for Congress, it’s not his first rodeo. He has run twice for Louisville City Council, once for Louisville mayor, once for Louisville Charter Commission and four times for Boulder County Commissioner. He has never been elected. Luallin says he wants to give voters a choice that doesn’t involve voting for candidates out of fear of their opponents. Like other Libertarians, he is “fiscally conservative and socially liberal.” He wants to balance the budget immediately, increase transparency in government and fight for freedom and liberty. Government, he says, should be the servant of the people, not the other way around, and he wants to restore that balance.

Don Quixote factor: “I don’t do things I don’t care about,” he says. “A Libertarian candidate is the best candidate and we should be in it to win it.”

Susan Hall–Green

hallforhouse.org

Battle cry: Tax the rich! As a Green Party candidate, Susan Hall eschews corporate donations to her campaign, but she’s equally adamant that corporations pay higher taxes, especially those that benefitted financially from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly Halliburton. She also includes GMO seed-maker Monsanto as targeted for higher taxes (even though she admits the company probably didn’t benefit from the wars) and calls for a 50 percent tax on billionaires.

She’s for: Ending the war in Afghanistan, legalizing marijuana, implementing a single-payer healthcare system, closing Guantanamo and repealing the National Defense Appropriations Act.

She’s against: Nuclear power, Citizens United, corporate money in politics, GMOs, having gotten involved in the Libyan war, fossil fuels, secrecy in government and state control of fracking.

YS Endorsement: Jared Polis

Jared Polis has proven to be a no-nonsense force in national politics, a congressman who has earned a second term. His dedication to his values is a necessary strength for anyone in national politics facing the tough work of righting our economy, improving the quality of education and repairing the rift between the parties.

The post 2nd CD: appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Mitt Romney–Republican

mittromney.com

The Big Picture:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the son of former Michigan Gov. George Romney, comes from a business background that’s most notable for his involvement with Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm, and for his role as the president and CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. A conservative Republican and member of the LDS Church, Romney rose to the top of a gaggle of contenders during a bruising Republican Party primary. As governor, Romney crafted a health care plan that was used as the basis for Obamacare, although Romney has promised to undo the president’s plan if elected. He’s pledged to seek passage of a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, he is pro-life and he is in favor of increased military spending. Romney is in favor of lowering the corporate tax rate, eliminating taxes such as the estate tax and cutting individual tax rates by 20 percent (among other reforms). He has not detailed specifically how the revenue lost from these lower or eliminated taxes will be replaced.

Barack Obama–Democrat

barackobama.com

The Big Picture:

The first African-American president came into office with a national economy that immediately collapsed and sent the country into a deep recession from which it is still struggling to emerge. Obama attempted to jumpstart the economy with an $817 billion stimulus package that successfully bailed out some Detroit automakers but hasn’t made a significant dent in unemployment. The domestic highlight of his first term in office was the passage—amid much partisan bickering on both sides of the aisle—of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, which goes into effect next year. His foreign policy highlight is the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at the hand of Navy SEALS in Pakistan; another foreign policy measure that often doesn’t get as much attention is Obama’s increased use of unmanned drones in attacking terrorist cells overseas. Such strikes have resulted in the deaths of at least three Americans in Yemen, making Obama the first president to approve the extrajudicial killings of

U.S. citizens.

YS Endorsement: Barack Obama

While President Obama’s first term has been less-than-dazzling for many, we believe his action with the stimulus bill and the health care bill has earned him a second term. We also acknowledge the nearly impenetrable roadblocks erected by Republicans in Congress and hope that both parties can turn away from partisan gridlock and toward issues that urgently need attention, such as jobs and the economy.

The post President: appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Ask anyone running for office what their big issue is and they’ll tell you, “It’s the economy, stupid.” While most candidates agree that creating jobs and getting through the recession are key concerns from the county level to Congress, there are other big ones as well. Having a well-funded state educational system is one. Energy and environmental issues are others. Social issues like civil unions and legalizing marijuana are hot topics this election season, as is the controversial practice of fracking for natural gas (as well as attempts by at least one city—Longmont—to ban it altogether).

Wading into the fray are nearly 40 candidates in the Boulder County/North Metro region for offices as varied as U.S. Representative and CU Regent. Yellow Scene caught up with most to get a taste of their motivations, their priorities and their past accomplishments.

(Candidates we endorse are in bold type.)

President: Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney

2nd Congressional District: Jared Polis v. Kevin Lundberg v. Randy Luallin v. Susan Hall

4th Congressional District: Cory Gardner v. Brandon Shaffer v. Doug Aden v. Josh Gilliland

House District 10: Dickie Lee Hullinghorst v. Bill Eckert

House District 11: Jonathan Singer v. Ellyn Hilliard

House District 12: Mike Foote v. Russ Lyman v. Matthew Webber

House District 13: Claire Levy v. Adam Ochs v. Howard Lambert

House District 33: Dianne Primavera v. W. Earl Allen v. David Pigott

House District 35: Cherylin Peniston v. Brian Vande Krol

Senate District 17: Matt Jones v. Charlie Plagainos v. Ken Bray

Senate District 18: Rollie Heath v. Barry Thoma

Boulder County Commissioners, District 1: Elise Jones v. Shame Hampton

Boulder County Commissioners, District 2: Maureen Denig v. Deb Gardner

State Board of Education, 2nd Congressional District: Ann Fattor v. Angelika Schroeder

CU Board of Regents, At-Large: Stephen Ludwig v. Brian Davidson v. Daniel Ong v. Tyler Belmont

Ballot issues

The post Election Guide and Candidate Profiles appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Mason Tvert first began campaigning to convince Coloradans that marijuana is safer than alcohol after Lynn “Gordie” Baily, a CU student, and Samantha Spady, a CSU student, died just days apart in separate alcohol poisoning incidents in 2004. Since then, he led successful campaigns to decriminalize marijuana possession on both campuses, succeeded in passing an initiative to make possession of small amounts of marijuana legal for adults in Denver and backed an unsuccessful bid to legalize marijuana possession statewide in 2006 (the measure failed by a 60-40 margin). Now, Tvert is campaigning for the passage of Amendment 64: The Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act, which is ahead 47-38 in the latest poll, conducted in July. Tvert spoke to Yellow Scene about the amendment and why he thinks 2012 will be the year Coloradans finally legalize marijuana.

YS: What’s been the reaction to this initiative?

MT: Support is growing and the opposition is going down. I think that’s in large part to a strong effort to educate the public about the initiative itself as well as the issue behind it.

YS: There’ve been other attempts in the past to legalize marijuana, not just in Colorado, but in other states, most notably in 2010 in California, that have failed. What’s different this time?

MT: We certainly looked at the experience in California in 2010 as we were drafting the initiative and planning out the campaign to take into account what happened out there. Ultimately there are two or three very big differences here. The first is that this is a presidential election year. There was an analysis done in California following the election that showed that had it been an election year, based on the turnout, the initiative would have received 49.5 as opposed to 46.5. … No. 2 is obviously that it’s 2012 and not 2010. Support traditionally in this country goes up about one and a half percent per year and it’s been accelerated here in Colorado.

YS: So what’s unique about Colorado?

MT: Well, that’s No. 3. It’s not California. There are a couple of big differences. … In California, there were a number of different efforts going on, but here in Colorado we were very focused on making sure that the public is aware of the fact that marijuana is far less harmful than alcohol, and really shifting the attitude. That led to the development of a much more comprehensive and sensible approach to medical marijuana. Obviously we’ve seen the emergence of a state-regulated medical marijuana system, which has demonstrated that it is possible to regulate marijuana. …

And of course people have experienced the tax revenue and the benefits of it. We generate millions of dollars for our localities and our state through licensing fees and sales tax revenue. More people are appreciating that there is a net benefit.

YS: As you know, marijuana is still illegal on the federal level and 64 won’t change that. Has the shadow of the federal government affected the campaign at all?

MT: Certainly, it’s a situation that’s being discussed, but ultimately the federal government’s position on this initiative is irrelevant. Colorado has the right and the ability to adopt this initiative and end the arrest and prosecution of adults 21 and older for the private possession, use and limited cultivation of marijuana. Obviously we’ve seen that it is possible for our state to regulate marijuana. …

It’s important to point out that if it passes, it immediately will remove the penalties for private adult marijuana possession and we certainly hope the federal government will not take action to prevent the state from controlling this now-legal substance. The federal government can’t do anything about Colorado changing its state and local laws when it comes to marijuana. If our state decides to not continue to arrest and prosecute people for marijuana possession, the federal government without a doubt has the ability to do that [itself], the legal ability to arrest and charge people at the federal level, but they have made it very clear that that’s just not even a possibility. They do not have the resources to be patrolling the streets and handling 12,000 cases of marijuana possession every year.

YS: But they could do something else, like threaten to withhold transportation dollars, for instance.

MT: I think that would further upset people around the country, let alone in Colorado. Clearly they haven’t taken any sort of step like that when it comes to medical marijuana. The federal government, much like virtually everyone in the country, recognizes that this is going to happen, whether it’s in 2012, 2016 or 2020. There’s no doubt that at the rate that support for marijuana reform is going, marijuana will become legal and will be treated similarly to alcohol. Taking that sort of measure would be on par with the federal government having done that when states began repealing alcohol prohibition. For example, Colorado repealed alcohol prohibition prior to the federal government [repealing it]. Many states did. That’s what ended up forcing the federal government to evaluate federal prohibition, because all the states essentially said, “We’re no longer going to enforce this law.” … [Withholding transportation funds] would be a nuclear option that we don’t think the federal government has any intention of taking. It would spark far more support for this than ever before, and they would really speed up the process of changing federal laws to allow for marijuana.

The post Smoke Signals: Q&A with Mason Tvert appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Boulder city leaders discussed a potential smoking ban for the Pearl Street Mall, and a gay couple from New Jersey filed a law suit after a photo of them kissing appeared in campaign materials attacking a Colorado senator who supported a civil unions bill. A Louisville man was arrested after allegedly punching a police officer in the neck. Three people who were wounded in the Aurora shooting are suing Cinemark USA over lax security, and an electrical fire forced Ann Romney’s airplane to make an emergency landing at DIA. “I just want to find my daughter and bring her back home,” said Jeremiah Bryant, father of Jessica Ridgeway, a 10-year-old Westminster girl who went missing on Oct. 5 on her walk to school. Ridgeway’s body was later found about six miles from her house. As of press time, no suspects have been identified. The Adams County Coroner said a 2-year-old died after ingesting 1,702 nanograms of Oxycodone. The CU Buffs had their first win of the season against a surprised Washington State, and Colorado’s Secretary of State Scott Gessler is now being called “The Honey Badger” in the national media. Trygve Bauge, the grandson of Nederland’s frozen dead guy, may ship the body of Bredo Morstoel out of Colorado after a financial dispute with the man who keeps Morstoel frozen.Frozen Dead Guy Days organizers say the event will go on with or without the body.

Small Talk

“We do ask them about the use, but there is no request to name the tenant. There is nothing that indicates who the tenant is.”

—David Driskell, director of Boulder’s Community Planning and Sustainability Department, on whether Walmart will open in Boulder’s Diagonal Plaza.

“Instead of going to the office, I went straight to the courthouse and put it on the conveyor belt. I didn’t know what had happened until I heard one of the guys say, ‘Bagley! What the hell?’”

—Longmont City Councilman and attorney Brian Bagley on accidentally bringing a concealed .45-caliber Colt Defender into the Boulder County Justice Center. He does not have a concealed carry permit and now faces charges.

“I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not going to keep spending money on things, borrowing money from China to pay for it.”

—Presidential candidate Mitt Romney during his first debate against Barack Obama, which was held on the University of Denver campus.

“Without being able to observe the process, how can we have confidence in the process?

—Mary Eberle, an elections integrity activist who hoped to inspect Boulder County ballots being printed to ensure they are untraceable. Activists were not allowed to observe.

By the Numbers

7

The amount, in millions, awarded to a Colorado man with “popcorn lung” after suing microwave popcorn makers and retailers.

33

The number of years Boulder Beer has been brewing. The company celebrated with a cornhole tourney and a beer rave.

63

The amount, in millions, being spent on overhauling the CU rec center, which will include a new Ralphie-shaped swimming pool.

35

The number of noncitizens Scott Gessler says have voted in a Colorado election. (Though at least one of those is a citizen.)

The post Month in Review: September 2012 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Update: 4:40 p.m. — The Colorado Political Action Conference, charged up after a clear win by Mitt Romney in his debate with Barack Obama, has wound down from its earlier sugar rush and settled into a vibrant, if more subdued, series of salons, panels and presentations meant to solidify conservative resolve in the few remaining weeks before the election.

Second Congressional District candidate Kevin Lundberg described the gathering as “charged up,” especially in light of last night’s debate. Romney’s performance has been a touchstone throughout the gathering, with many panelists referencing some frantic post-debate moments on left-leaning cable TV as evidence of how well Romney performed.

In many ways, the debate has been the launch point for all the topics on the agenda, which have included panels meant to debunk the supposed GOP “war on women,” discussions of economic policies, and the role of the media in covering the election.

But as charged up as the gathering may have been early in the day, the ranks are thinning noticeably as the day goes on. Compared to the crush of media on hand during Mitt Romney’s impromptu appearance early this morning — which included about a dozen reporters and photographers traveling with his campaign — the media has all but vanished from the Crowne Plaza Convention Center in Aurora. Attendance in the main hall is still respectable (with about half the seats filled), but seats in the lobby and the hotel bar are also filling up.

That’s not to say that enthusiasm among those attending the various breakout sessions have dampened since this morning. If anything, it seems that the post-debate glow that was so noticeable when CPAC kicked off has endured throughout the long day. There have been many pronouncements from the stage that would make liberals go crazy — “Thank god for fracking,” said Montana Sen. Ryan Zinke — and each has been meet with hearty whoops from the audience.

Overall, however, the convention has been absent overt Tea-Party hyperbole and instead reflective of something that seems to have been lacking from the political right for much of the election — a cohesive party that was enthusiastic in its support for its candidate.

—

Posted earlier: Fresh off of what has been almost universally viewed as a decisive victory over President Barack Obama during the first debates ast night in Denver, GOP nominee Mitt Romney made a surprise visit this morning to the Colorado Conservative Political Action Conference. The impromptu appearance electrified a crowd that was already flying high from his performance last night.

Romney reiterated the points that he used to keep Obama on the ropes, again calling the president’s policies “trickle down government” that have failed during his first term and which will continue to fail for another four years if he’s re-elected. Sticking to what worked so well last night at Denver University, he spoke mainly of the economy and promised to make jobs his primary goal.

The debate, he said, “was a wonderful opportunity for the American people to see two very different visions. … I saw the president’s vision as trickle down government. And I don’t think that’s what America believes in.”

Romney spoke after senators Orrin Hatch and Marco Rubio used the occasion of the debate to drive home the importance of Colorado to the presidential election, rallying the several hundred attendees to make use of the momentum to help carry Romney into the White House.

“We need to win Colorado,” Romney said, “and you know what, if we do, we’ll take back the White House.”

Although he was speaking to a sympathetic audience — the crowd surged to its feet when he took the stage and didn’t sit until he’d left some 10 minutes later — he was clearly just as jazzed about his debate performance as those attending the convention.

CPAC continues throughout the day with speeches, panels and breakout sessions. Check back here for frequent updates.

The post Romney make surprise visit to CPAC appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

I feel sorry for the squirrels living in the upper reaches of the towering cottonwood tree in my backyard. One of their favorite pastimes is staging raids on each others’ nests and then running down the massive trunk as one of their buddies, perhaps startled out of a midday snooze, gives a high-speed angry-squirrel-chatter pursuit. They make themselves dizzy chasing each other in spirals around the trunk until one of them has had enough and springs to the cedar fence to make tracks for another tree and another raid.
But she’s far from perfect. Ellie seems genetically incapable of not giving chase to animals that run. Squirrels, rabbits, cats, mice, other dogs, you name it…if it’s quick and furtive, Ellie is on it like she’s possessed. Or at least she tries to be on it. More often, she ends up clothes-lined by the leash and whoever is walking her ends up with a sore shoulder.

She’s great in a dog park where she’s free to approach other dogs, assert her alpha-female status, and then go about sniffing as if she were the only four-legged creature there. But while on a leash, every dog we pass is like some long-lost enemy who must be pounced on and made to pay.

And then there’s the doorbell. Ellie goes completely haywire at the sound, like one of those creatures in I Am Legend. The only benefit is that random solicitors rarely make the mistake of ringing our bell twice when they hear the frantic growling, barking, gnashing and clawing on the other side, the stuff of nightmares.

All of these various trouble points came to a head (minus the doorbell) in the training room of the Petsmart, where we were enrolled in obedience school. Ellie was among six or seven other dogs, most of whom were nonplussed at the presence of other canines. Our dog, however, was behaving like a wild boar brought straight from the jungles of some remote island filled with flesh-eaters where the ethos was kill or be killed. I grappled with the leash like I’d just lassoed a spooked horse. It was beyond absurd for me to be struggling with this apparently out-for-blood beast—who typically is the sweetest and most docile creature when she’s not in the presence of other animals—while pretending to listen to the trainer, who choose to ignore the spectacle.

But once it became clear that Ellie would knock herself into unconsciousness before giving up the fight, the trainer grabbed a squirt bottle and shot a quick stream of water at her butt. The effect was amazing—you could practically see Ellie thinking, “What the heck was that?” She was confused and distracted by this ghostly touch and thrown off her game enough that she actually calmed down.

Ellie improved greatly during the class, helped immensely by a new collar that circled her shoulders and some general all-around conditioning around other dogs. But I kept marveling at how the squirt bottle had immediately brought her under control. I was torn by it…did it constitute a punishment? Was it just a gentler way of giving her a smack, something I’d promised not to do? I asked the trainer about it.

“As long as you’re not shooting her in the face or causing her discomfort, it acts like a distraction, like a tap on the shoulder,” I remember her saying. “Sometimes, dogs need to be brought out of that tunnel vision they get and back to reality.”

Still, I was undecided about whether to try this approach. Opinion on the Internet (where I of course turned for more guidance) seems about evenly split between those who see it as cruel and those who see it as no big deal. It’s clear that how squirt guns are used makes a lot of difference here—screaming “bad dog!” while repeatedly soaking her in the face is mean and unnecessary, but a discrete spritz on the back, along with a reinforcing “uh-uh” (or whatever term you use to mean “no”) could serve as a gentle reminder that whatever she was about to do is off limits.

I bought a small water pistol and decided to see if I could use it to produce some behavior changes at home. The first experiment came when we invited a friend over, one who Ellie routinely pummels by jumping up on her…but with a single shot to the hind end just as she was about to launch, she became as docile as a mouse. You could tell she wanted to jump, but thought twice about it. All it took was once or twice more of this ghostly spray (I tried to make sure she didn’t see where it was coming from, so that it would be all the more mysterious, as if some doggy-god were tapping her from the heavens) and we broke her of the jumping habit.

To my great delight, I found the same was true of her tendency to lunge at other dogs during our twice-daily walks. Sure, I looked a little strange holding the leash in one hand and a water pistol in the other, trigger finger at the ready, but result was amazing. One of Ellie’s biggest nemeses is a huge great Dane whose owner seems to be on the same walking schedule. She can spot him a block away and starts straining at the leash; I’ve been on opposite sides of the street from these guys and been stuck holding back my snarling dog until they’ve turned the corner.

But on the first day of water pistol training, her tune changed completely—as soon as she spotted the great Dane and got into her “I dare you to come closer” posture, I shot her on the butt, totally short-circuiting her. “What is that?” she would have said if she could, looking all around for the source. Finding none, she turned back to growl and I sprayed her again. Now completely discombobulated, she resigned to just continue with the walk.

This is a miracle, I thought. The trick even worked on a rabbit—I sprayed her just before the rabbit bolted and, amazingly, Ellie stayed put.

Maybe the best thing about the water pistol is that I barely had to use it. Being sprayed out of nowhere is apparently so distracting that it makes an impression (see the tips below to be sure you’re being as effective as possible).

The one thing I didn’t bother trying to change was Ellie’s self-imposed vigilance against squirrels entering our back yard. A dog’s got to have some mission in life, after all, not to mention a venue for her natural instincts to take over.

As for the squirrels? Until they can figure out how to use their own water pistols, they’re just out of luck.

The post Water Works appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Pairing service dogs with injured U.S. veterans is nothing new. Man’s (and woman’s) best friends have long been trained to act as an extra pair of eyes, ears, feet and hands for people with serious injuries and disabilities. For those wounded in combat, a service dog can help with their mobility, their independence, and their transition back to civilian life, which can be all the harder when that transition involves a wheelchair or prosthetic limbs.

But in the past few years, dogs have been used to help people suffering from combat injuries that are not so easy to see — post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI). According to the Veterans Administration’s National Center for PTSD, 30-40 percent of combat veterans have or may develop PTSD, a condition that is marked by depression, flashbacks, nightmares and anxiety. People with PTSD can feel vulnerable in crowds, are often hyper-vigilent and may be suicidal. Similarly, around 15-22 percent of veterans who’ve fought in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from some form of TBI as a result of explosions, vehicle accidents and other head injuries. Those with TBI can have a broad range of symptoms, from mood changes and depression to light sensitivity and debilitating headaches.

Only recently have organizations that train service dogs begun to see how these specially-trained companions can assist vets with PTSD and TBI.

“Those dogs will do things like ‘post and block,’ which is either get in front of the soldier or behind the soldier so that people can’t get too close. It also feels like their back is protected, so that if someone comes up behind them, the dog is there,” says Sharan Wilson, the executive director of Freedom Service Dogs in Englewood, one of only a handful of organizations in the United States accredited by Assistance Dogs International to train dogs to help with PTSD and TBI. “They can bring them out of night terrors, either by putting their paw on them or by licking their face. We have one dog whose soldier will scream and scream and scream but he really won’t wake up; his dog will flip the light on, jump up on the bed beside him and do a settle command, which is push his body as close as he can to the soldier’s. Then the soldier’s breathing starts matching the dog’s and he doesn’t even wake up.”

Some dogs, like the soldiers to whom they’re assigned, have gone above and beyond the call of duty. According to an article on the website Mother Nature Network, Army Specialist David Bandrowsky attempted suicide, but his service dog, Benny, knocked a pistol out of his hands. Benny wasn’t trained for that situation, but he knew what to do.

“They are amazing dogs,” Wilson said.

Freedom Service Dogs has been providing these therapeutic companions to veterans for 25 years, but the focus has been on animals that can perform more common tasks like turning on the lights, opening doors and guiding their partner through the grocery store. Utilizing them for harder-to-quantify tasks, like providing comfort and aid for those suffering from emotional trauma and brain injuries, is an outgrowth of their work with autistic patients.

“A lot of the skill sets that we have been teaching for autistic kids have come over for post traumatic stress disorder,” Wilson said. “But there aren’t very many dog organizations that are [training for] PTSD … because it’s very difficult. You’re putting a living animal in a home with a person with mental health issues. There’s a lot of risk that you have to make sure you mitigate, so we screen really, really closely. A dog can’t help everyone. If you still have such anger management issues that you can’t control that, we’re not going to put a dog there. A dog in some instances might be able to help you, but in other instances the dog might be in danger, so that wouldn’t work.

“And if you have TBI to such a degree that you have no cognitive ability, or you can’t do the commands or you forget to feed the dog, things like that, then we can’t place in that situation,” she said.

Wilson said there are a lot of trainers popping up who—well-intentioned or not—purport to provide PTSD dogs but which may not be trained in public access skills required of service dogs under the Americans with Disabilities Act. If the dog isn’t trained to behave in, say, a restaurant, any chaos that might result could exacerbate a patient’s PTSD.

For these reasons and others, the U.S. Army has adopted a strict policy limiting where the dogs allowed on military bases have come from. The Army requires that soldiers only get dogs from one of the organizations accredited through Assistance Dogs International, which sets the standard for training requirements. Unfortunately, demand has far outstripped the supply. There are no ADI-accredited organizations in 18 states and only six organizations nationwide, including Freedom Service Dogs, are certified specifically to provide PTSD and TBI dogs.

All of the dogs at Freedom Service Dogs have been rescued from animal shelters. They spend about a year being trained in specialized skills while staff members work with Fort Carson’s Wounded Warrior Battalion to match them with clients who’ve been carefully screened to determine if they qualify for the program. Once a soldier is paired with a dog, a Freedom Service Dog trainer works with them for a couple of weeks, putting the dog’s skills to the test in public and private. The dogs are re-certified annually, and the organization considers its commitment to the dog/soldier partnership to be lifelong.

Because of the intense level of training and follow up, the dogs are enormously expensive, costing Freedom Service Dogs about $25,000 each. But proudly citing what she calls “the worst business model in the world,” Wilson says the dogs are provided to their soldiers free of charge.

“It’s a very expensive product that we give away,” she said. “Every year, we have to raise every penny that goes to making this happen. The number of people we can help is totally dependent on how much money we can raise to do that. This year, we’re hoping to raise enough to do 35 client/dog teams but we have 64 still on our waiting list. The need is far, far, far higher than the ability we have to do it.”

It’s not a pet

Your dog might know some good tricks and make you feel better when you’re anxious or stressed, but don’t mistake your pet for a service animal or vice versa. Service dogs are working dogs with specific tasks to do and their specialized training and registration give them obvious advantages over pets. For one thing, the Americans with Disabilities Act allows service dogs into places where most pets just can’t go, such as restaurants, movie theaters and the cabins of airplanes.

Sharan Wilson, the executive director of Freedom Service Dogs of Englewood, says that while pets can provide love and companionship, the fact that they’re largely homebound limits their usefulness to people suffering from PTSD whose triggers exist outside the home. Service dogs are not only trained to behave better in public than your everyday pet, they’re trained to identify things that could upset their partners. For instance, many people with PTSD become anxious in crowds; service dogs can steer them away from large groups or even respond to hand signals from their handler to lead them to a quiet place where they can regroup if things get overwhelming.

Although there’s a long line of applicants for a trained PTSD dog from Freedom Service Dogs, it’s worth the wait. As one of the few organizations in the country accredited through Assistance Dogs International, their dogs are the real deal. And they’re free. Wilson says those who are looking for a service dog for PTSD should be wary of non-ADI trainers and those who seek to sell the animals to the patient.

For more information—as well as to download an application or to make a donation—see freedomservicedogs.org.

The post Above and Beyond appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

“I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer.” Homer Simpson said that, of course, and it makes you wonder whether Springfield is located in Colorado. While not resorting to Homer’s extremes, the simple truth is we love our beer, with the emphasis on our. There are few other places in the country where you can earn so many looks of puzzlement (or, on occasion, outright derision) for ordering a “Miller Lite” at the local pub when there are so many better choices on tap, usually brewed just around the corner, if not on the premises. In fact, the sheer selection can overwhelm even veterans of the Colorado beer scene. Kriek lambic? La Folie? Who you calling a Frambozen, bozo?

With fall just around the corner—and with it, the Great American Beer Festival and the launching of an untold number of handcrafted seasonal beers from Grand Junction to Fort Collins—this month’s Cheat Sheet offers up a little reminder of how seriously we take our hops and barley. And how seriously important it is to our economy. Breweries big and small employ nearly 6,000 people throughout the state and contribute an estimated $18.5 billion to the economy. That comes partly through direct sales, but also through tourism. Practically every brewery in the state—from Bud and Coors to Avery and Oskar Blues—offers tours and tastings. These aren’t just for out-of-towners from good-beer wastelands like Mississippi (which had outlawed craft breweries until just this year), but for locals as well, if only to keep abreast of what’s on tap. How else will you know that referring to “Old Chub” isn’t necessarily scandalous ?

The post Cheat Sheet: The Beer Runs Through It appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Neil Armstrong died, and an intoxicated woman in Longmont was arrested for shoving a puppy down her pants. The USA Pro Cycling Challenge roared through Boulder in what one event organizer said was the “biggest day” in the event’s history. Some 35,000 waited on Flagstaff Mountain for the Stage 6 finish, which was won by Australian (and Boulder resident) Rory Sutherland. A Boulder man retired after a 63-year career as a flight attendant for United Airlines. President Obama returned to Boulder for another appearance; Colorado tourists were among those who witnessed a shooting outside the Empire State Building in New York City; and a CU professor was told he couldn’t cancel classes if students bring firearms to them. A 31-year-old Longmont woman accused her 19-year-old boyfriend of stealing and pawning her coin collection. Boulder residents worried that a “mystery grocer” opening soon at Diagonal Plaza would be a Walmart; and George Boedecker, a founder of Crocs footwear, was charged with  a DUI when he failed to convince police that his “batsh*t crazy” girlfriend, the country singer Taylor Swift, had driven his Porsche to a residential street where he was found asleep behind the wheel of the car, which was half on and half off the sidewalk. Swift is not dating Boedecker.

Small Talk

“We think we found the secret sauce. We’ve found the recipe, which is very different from the old model.”

—Boulder planetary scientist Alan Stern, on a unique way of budgeting space exploration, combining federal funds with private capital, including from crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo.

“I think you’re totally, completely that stupid.”

—New Mexico museum owner Jim Gordon, to Erie resident Gene Newton, who asked Gordon if he thought he was “that stupid” to try pawning a stolen gun on a reality TV show. Newton was arrested after he was featured on the show American Guns trying to sell an 1849 pistol he stole from Gordon’s museum.

“This one will definitely get us in hot water.”

—Longmont Councilman Alex Sammoury after the council voted to approve an anti-fracking ballot measure. Sammoury was one of three members who spoke against it; he did vote to put the measure on the ballot.

“Ale to the Chief.”

—The name of a “Presidential” Pale Ale (as opposed to an Imperial one) brewed for the election by Avery Brewing of Boulder.

“I’m pretty confident that Romney will win the election.”

—Ken Bickers, political science professor at CU, relying on a unique model of prediction based on studies of past Electoral College votes.

By the Numbers

60

Boulder’s rank among Money Magazine’s 100 best places to live.

15

The number of state employees who failed a required polygraph test to continue in their jobs.

$15M

The amount of money released by DRCOG to complete various improvements to U.S. 36.

50+

Years the Boulder International Youth Hostel was open, before closing to make room for a frat.

$780K

Amount granted by the Gates Foundation to CU professors to invent a solar-powered toilet.

The post Month in Review: August 2012 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Ward Churchill is nothing if not tenacious.

The former CU professor, who was fired by the Board of Regents over accusations of plagiarism, fabricating evidence and violating academic standards lost his latest appeal to be reinstated to his job when the Colorado Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s opinion that the regents had the authority to remove him.

Now, he will appeal his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to his lawyer, David Lane, who is quoted in the Denver Post as saying that his client’s First Amendment rights were violated.

That claim stems from Churchill’s contention that his firing was motivated by a controversial essay he wrote after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in which he compared some of the victims to Nazi Holocaust architect Adolph Eichmann.

Lane has argued that the regents superseded their authority by firing Churchill, but so far, every court that heard the case has concluded that regents have “quasi-judicial immunity” from lawsuits, even though they are elected officials.

The Supreme Court decision acknowledged that regents’ status is a bit muddled.

“We conclude that the federal case law in this area is too unsettled to defeat the regents’ claim of qualified immunity,” according to the decision quoted in the Post.

Churchill won a civil lawsuit against the university in 2009, with the jury concluding that he was unlawfully fired. He was awarded $1 in damages.

The post Churchill turns to U.S. Supreme Court to get his CU job back. appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Planning to head into Boulder Saturday to cheer on riders in the U.S.A. Pro Cycling Challenge? If so, you’d better put the emphasis on the “planning” part of your trip, because the city is expecting something like 100,000 spectators to hopelessly jam its already famous downtown gridlock to witness the finish of the race’s Stage 6. Add in road closures and an unknown number of folks who will be riding their bikes to the event and you have the ingredients for an unprecedented traffic headache.

But Boulder has been preparing. RTD is adding expanded bus service into Boulder from surrounding cities in an effort to reduce the number of cars on the roads, they’ve established temporary park-n-bike locations on the fringes, and they’ve produced an interactive map that will be updated with road closure information, parking locales and the race route.

If you’re going, here are some tips the city suggests you heed:

• Map your route in advance and know when and where roads are closed;

• Arrive early and plan to spend the day in Boulder;

• Identify your preferred viewing location, and be flexible;

• Dress for changing weather;

• Bring water and wear comfortable shoes;

• Bring cash for parking, bike corrals, and the festival – no credit cards will be accepted for parking or bike corrals.

Click here to view the entire press release (PDF), with detailed information about bike corrals, shuttle service, parking fees and other information.

The post U.S. Pro Challenge will be a challenge for Boulder traffic appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Chances are, you’re as tethered to your smartphone as the next guy or gal, incessantly texting, browsing and emailing throughout the day. But chances are equally high that you’re not using that smartphone as well as you might to save yourself time, trouble and — most importantly — cash, at least when it comes to shopping.

The power of your smartphone goes well beyond the ability to kill time playing Angry Birds while waiting for your flight to board. From easily building smart grocery lists to instantly comparing prices at various retailers, your Android, Blackberry or iPhone has a vast reservoir of untapped (pun intended) time- and money-savers, literally at your fingertips.

Whether it’s for essentials or frivolities, shopping is a part of life. And streamlining what you spend (and how much time you spend looking for a great deal) can make your life all the more stress free. Here’s your guide to making the most of your phone

Grocery IQ

A free app for both iPhone and Android, this makes adding items to your grocery list a breeze. Forget tapping them into a note app or (God forbid) scribbling them onto a list kept on your fridge — just use your phone’s camera lens to scan the barcode when you use up the mustard or snag the last Coke. The item will be automatically added to your grocery list, which can then organize items by aisle so you don’t spend half the day running laps around Safeway.

Remember the Milk

The ultimate task-master, Remember the Milk is a free app that allows you to synch your to-do lists from iGoogle, your Google calendar, iCal, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and practically anything else you can think of. Phone not handy? Update your lists online from your laptop and synch up later. Tasks can be organized by proximity to where you are and you can get reminders by email, SMS or instant messenger to pick up your laundry as you’re passing by the dry cleaner. You can even email your to-do list to your hubby so he has no excuse for skipping a grocery trip on his way back from the golf course. Never forget the milk again.

CraigsPro

With Craigslist firmly stuck in 1995 and showing no signs of wanting to usher its still-popular classified ad site into the modern age, CraigsPro is the solution. Browse listings, post ads, scroll through full-screen photos and (coolest of all) see deals near you in an app that’s easier to use than the Simple Simon site itself. $1.99.

Red Laser

This must-have free app for iPhones, Androids and Blackberrys will change the way you shop forever. Scan the barcode of any item and quickly see price comparisons for online and nearby local retailers for the best deal, complete with a map of the closest places to buy. Prefer to buy online? Do it from the app and pick it up at a store near you. Allergic to nuts? Scan items in the grocery store for a list of a product’s known allergens.

Mint

We’ve all been there, splurging on a session of shopping therapy only to wonder a week later why there’s no money left to fill the gas tank. Those days are behind you with the Mint app, available free for iPhones and Androids (and even iPads). Named one of the top personal finance apps at the 1st Annual App Awards, Mint keeps your bank accounts up to date in real time, as you make purchases, letting you see exactly how much you have left to binge on a pair of Manolo Blahniks.

The Coupons App

Do you remember when people used to “clip” coupons made of “paper”? LOL, ask your grandmother about it. Today’s coupons come to your phone, personalized through GPS to deliver those that are in your vicinity. Search for the cheapest gas, get daily deals at retailers and restaurants, scan products’ barcodes to find out who has slashed prices, and share the love through text, email, Twitter and Facebook. And to think that grandma’s phone only made calls. Free for Android and iPhone.

Walmart

Say what you will about this retail behemoth and its impact on American culture, its updated iPhone app gives you something to do with your phone other than take pictures for PeopleOfWalmart. Flip it into “store mode” when you walk in the door and locate all the items on your shopping list by aisle, scan barcodes to calculate your bill, check for in-store deals and even check the inventory to be sure what you need is in stock before leaving home. Sadly, Android users have to wait for a future update to capitalize on these
cool features.

Safeway

Apps for individual stores are becoming more and more commonplace, and Safeway’s new app has some nice touches (especially compared to another local grocer, King Soopers, whose parent company, Kroger, offers a much more basic no-frills app that still has a way to go). Safeway offers the standard features of grocery lists, weekly coupons and store locator, but it has the added bonus of tracking what you buy in order to offer you deals on the items you actually use. If you can get over the Big Brother aspect of it, it can save you some bucks.

Whole Foods

In the grocery category, Whole Foods takes the (gluten-free) cake. This app is a powerhouse, allowing you to search recipes, filter them by categories such as “budget” and “dietary restrictions” and add the ingredients to a shopping list. You can shop smart by looking for low fat or vegan ingredients and even search for recipes using ingredients you already have. The app even has handy cooking tips you can use to make your selection, eliminating the possibility of buying the wrong kind of mushroom, for example, when experimenting with a new recipe.

Fastmall

As much as Amazon has changed the shopping experience, there’s still nothing like parking in a sea of cars and spending the day wandering around an old-fashioned mall, trying not to give into the temptation of the smells from Cinnabon. With Fastmall, you no longer have to seek out those oddly rare mall directories to find your favorite stores—the app comes loaded with interactive store maps that don’t rely on GPS or WiFi. Locally, you can navigate the Twenty Ninth Street mall in Boulder, Flatiron Crossing, the Orchard Town Center and dozens of others. The best feature might be “Where Did I Park?”, which uses GPS to take you back to your car.

Pay Pal

Here’s an app that independent sellers have been dreaming of — a credit/debit card swiper (via the free card reader, delivered separately, that plugs into your phone’s mini-jack). Install the app, plug in the card reader, synch up your Pay Pal account and whether you’re selling tomatoes at the local farmer’s market or old furniture at a yard sale, you can take Visa, MasterCard and American Express through your phone. Receipts can be emailed to buyers through the app and you can even deal with the occasional refund, all from your phone. (Card reader and app are free, but Pay Pal charges a 2.7 percent transaction fee on each purchase.) Available for iPhone and certain Androids running specific software; check Google Play for your phone’s compatibility.

The Secrets of QR Codes

If you’re a bit behind the curve on just what your smartphone is capable of, it might come as a surprise that it can also interact with the physical world in order to deliver deals, specials and detailed information about products and services to you no matter where you are. This is done by scanning a QR Code, those square 2D blocks of black and white pixels you see everywhere from advertisements (including in this magazine — be sure to keep your eyes peeled) to the sides of buses to business cards. Finding a QR code is like finding an Easter egg — scan it and see what happens. Most commonly, you’ll be directed to a company website, a secret coupon, product information or a person’s contact information. Almost all new smartphones come with a QR reader, but if not, download any of the free versions from iTunes or Google Play. You can also generate your own QR codes to send customers to your company or personal website. Flip through this issue to find QR codes for local businesses Vilas Online and The Dawson School, to name a few.

The post How to Shop Smarter With Your Smartphone appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

To hear Bob Pierce describe it, the scene inside the Boulder County Courthouse on Tuesday, July 19, was pretty bizarre. It all started when his wife Cathy was prevented by a sheriff’s deputy from entering the courthouse. She was clad in sneakers, shorts and, on top, nothing but a see-through mesh sun top.

“He said, ‘You’re dressed inappropriately,’ and I said, ‘How?’” Cathy recalled a few days later. “He said, ‘I can see your nipple.’”

By now, Cathy’s nipples have been seen by an untold number of people and, like the deputy that day, not all of them have been happy about it. As long-time nudists and naturalists, Bob and Cathy see nothing wrong with showing a lot more skin than others are comfortable with, but as long as they’re indoors, no one cares what they do. The trouble is that one of their main hobbies is gardening. And their yard has no fences. And it’s a block away from the K-12 Shining Mountain Waldorf School.

Bob and Cathy have lived in their North Boulder affordable housing community (which is managed by Boulder Housing Partners) since 2001. In the first several years, there were no complaints: Bob gardened in a thong, Cathy in a small bikini. But in 2009, Bob encouraged her to go au naturale from the waist up. That’s when the trouble started.

It began, predictably, with a concern for the kids — police received complaints about the nudists from concerned parents. But the Pierces say the kids themselves were more of a problem than they were; they say they were peeped at through their windows, and subjected to prepubescent jeers and shouts. They suspect the kids’ parents not only allowed the harassment, but encouraged it.

The Pierces held their ground because they knew they’d done nothing wrong. In Bob’s words, “Breasts are legal in Boulder.”

More to the point, baring them is legal. It’s one of those “only in Boulder” sorts of things that most other communities never have to grapple with. Since the 1980s, women can walk around topless in public, just as men can. But as the Pierces discovered, even some cops aren’t aware of it and they found themselves citing the law to more than one person with a badge. Police asked her to consider the kids at the nearby school and put on a shirt while gardening. She considered it and decided
not to.

With the lines thus drawn, the Pierces say the harassment continued. This time, it took the form of police cars parked across the street for hours at a time and days on end, even though there’s a local police substation just a few hundred yards up the street. The Pierces videotaped the cops and, on occasion, noticed the cops photographing them. Cathy said neighbors would drive slowly around the neighborhood, over and over, when she was outside tending to the magnolias near the curb, making her feel uncomfortable and vulnerable. On one occasion, the garden was vandalized. Fox pundit Bill O’Reilly even called her a “pinhead” on the air after they spoke in opposition to City Council’s plan to amend the nudity law to require women to cover their breasts (the measure was dropped). She and Bob say they felt intimidated and threatened.

So they decided to sue, alleging ongoing harassment, stalking and conspiracy against at-risk adults (Bob has PTSD and disabling back pain requiring him to walk with a cane; Cathy has injuries from various car accidents over the years). They sent the city a notice of intent to sue, naming the city, the police department and several individual police officers as defendants. Cathy says they want $100 million in damages. Then they headed down to the county courthouse to get the necessary paperwork.

That’s when things got weird.

When the deputy spied Cathy’s see-through shirt, Cathy says he originally threatened to charge her with indecent exposure if she tried to enter the courthouse. But indecent exposure only applies to the exposure of genitalia. Then they threatened to arrest her for trespassing. Bob demanded the Boulder police be called, and he said they responded in force, showing up in four or five vehicles. While Cathy waited outside to see if she’d be allowed in, Bob, who was fully clothed, entered the building and removed his shirt in protest, continuing to argue with the deputies. Anyone with business at the courthouse that day must have surely been baffled by the heavy police presence, a half-naked woman and a raving shirtless man with a cane at the clerk’s counter.

The Pierces eventually left, but they tried again the next day, with Cathy dressed as before. She didn’t make it through the metal detectors, threatened this time with disorderly conduct.

“Her breasts are not going to start a riot,” Bob said on the third day, as Cathy prepared again to get past the deputies on duty. “They’re not going to cause a child to go mentally insane. It’s the human body.”

Still, though Cathy said she fully expected to be arrested on her third try, she wasn’t backing down.

“They’re denying me the right to go in there and get the paperwork I need to file the lawsuit,” she said, flatly refusing to wear something more modest than the white mesh sun top. Because it’s not really about her nipples, the Pierces say; it’s about knowing your rights and being willing to fight for them.

“I know my rights,” Bob said. “And I know that if you take them away from me, you’re not going to get them back.”

Sgt. Thomas McGrath knew the Pierces were coming for a showdown. As the sheriff’s deputy responsible for courthouse security, McGrath had never encountered a situation like this before. Although many of the judges have dress codes for their courtrooms, there are no laws, rules or ordinances that say how (or how skimpily) people can dress in the common areas like the corridors and the lobby of the clerk’s office. But McGrath was pretty sure that a semi-nude woman walking the halls would cause a significant enough disruption to courthouse operations that he should find a way to stop it.

“Though the city doesn’t have an ordinance or law that they would cite you for being topless, to me it would still create a disruption,” he says. “For that we have laws under unlawful conduct, or disorderly conduct. We were looking at trespassing and then obstructing government operations. We were looking at a number of laws that for her to come in topless would, in and of itself, cause a disruption inside
the courthouse.”

Cathy’s near nudity commanded a lot of resources. McGrath said he’d been in email discussions with Sheriff Joe Pelle, the county attorney’s office and Chief Justice Roxanne Bailin about what to do. The judge, the lawyers and the cops had reached a decision just 10 minutes before the Pierces showed up to test the government’s resolve to keep them from entering the building.

McGrath met them in the courtyard.

“What’s your plan?” the buzz-cut sergeant in his heavy body armor asked the petite, nearly-naked 54-year-old woman. Another officer looked on near the door, thumbs hooked in his utility belt.

“I plan to go in there and get the paperwork I need to file my case.”

Cue the far-off cry of a hawk as everyone imagined Cathy getting cuffed and tossed in a squad car, all because of her nipples. But the decision reached just moments before did not involve tossing her in jail.

“The sheriff’s suggestion was that there really is no law out there that addresses this and it was his suggestion that we let them in the building,” McGrath said later. “Judge Bailin agreed with that. …As for the mesh top, I appreciate the fact that they gave at least that much respect to the court, but if it hadn’t been there, I would have been between a rock and a hard place.

“It’s a public building, and their beliefs on how they want to live their lives on the outside is one thing, but here inside the building, it can create a conflict,” he continued. “It’s not for me to interpret the law, I’m just here to uphold it, but I also have to maintain some kind of peace within this building.”

In the end, McGrath escorted her inside and she stood at the counter like every other customer that day, even though she was the only one shadowed by cops who looked ready to pounce as if she were an Al Qaeda leader.

Leaving with her paperwork, she flashed the V for victory sign.

But in a subsequent voicemail to Yellow Scene, Bob Pierce said it was no such thing. He doesn’t consider it a victory to be escorted through a public building, and he promised that the confrontations aren’t over yet.

Considering that Bob has yet to file the lawsuit he has planned — which will require at least one more trip to the courthouse — that seems obvious.

As for how he’ll handle future encounters with the Pierces, McGrath is going to take it one bared breast at a time.

“I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.

The post Bare Necessities appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Bookended by historic blazes on the north and the south, Boulder’s Flagstaff Fire ignited on the same day that Colorado Springs’ Waldo Canyon fire exploded, eventually destroying more than 200 homes. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle, the county’s fire warden responsible for tracking the fire danger index and requesting firefighting resources in the event of a wildfire, saw the potential for what happened in the Springs to happen in Boulder. The fire, he says, was “on top of the city of Boulder,” but many of the county’s fire crews were fighting other blazes. Here, he shares with YS some of the behind-the-scenes moments that he credits with keeping the fire less than 300 acres.

Yellow Scene: What’s the biggest difficulty in preparing for a wildfire during such a hot and dry season, when there are other huge fires burning elsewhere in the state?

Joe Pelle: One of the difficulties is that when you’re having a fire season such as the one we had, so many of our resources are gone. We have Boulder County fire engines and fire fighters in those other places. It’s one of the first things we’re worried about: What do we have left to throw at a fire if we have one? At the same time, we’re trying to track state and federal resources to see what’s in the region and what’s available. The thing that helped us the most with the Flagstaff Fire was they allowed those heavy bombers to come off of North Fork (the High Park Fire, burning west of Fort Collins) and just crush our fire. We had four slurry bombers and helicopters in an hour.

YS: So it was good, actually, that we had the other fires going.

JP: It was that day. Because normally we’d order a slurry bomber and it comes from Grand Junction or Boise, Idaho, or Albuquerque, and it takes hours and hours for one airplane. We called Rocky Mountain Coordinating Center and told them we had a fire that was a few hundred acres but that was going to threaten the city and we had an opportunity to nail it if we had the right resources. And they sent us everything they had. They dropped a tremendous amount of retardant, and they got right after it, which allowed us to hang it up there on the side of the mountain without having it creep down into town.

YS: What was your role during the fire?

JP: Sheriffs have a unique responsibility in regards to wildfire. We’re the fire wardens for the counties in Colorado. In other states, it’s different people. In Texas it’s a county judge. Our job is largely financial. We become fiscally responsible for the fire. What that means is I have to approve expenditures and then seek reimbursements. Essentially contracting and reaching agreements with state and federal representatives in regards to possible reimbursement.

YS: How big was the fire eventually?

JP: Just under 300 acres. It was not a big fire. But it was on top of the city of Boulder and the first facility that was evacuated was the National Center for Atmospheric Research. It becomes a different kind of fire when it’s that close to a large municipality. We had watched Waldo explode, and we knew we could very easily have had the same situation given the weather we were having at that time.

YS: How concerned were you that it was going to come down into the city?

JP: We were absolutely concerned. We were ordering resources for structure protection from all over the metro area … We had two staging areas, and two fronts really: One was at Fairview High School and that was to protect the city of Boulder and the other was up Flagstaff Road at Bison Drive.

YS: This fire season wasn’t typical.

JP: No. March is normally our snowiest, wettest month and we had zero inches of precipitation. April and May came along without anything better, very little precipitation, warm temperatures, above-normal temperatures, record heat and windy conditions. Same in June, record-low precipitation, record-high temperatures, so, no, this is way above an average fire danger year. The last few weeks with the monsoonal flow have been great. July has actually been the third rainiest July on record. So things turn around fairly quickly but they deteriorate quickly also and people have to keep that in mind.

YS: What are some things residents might not know about the wildfire season, from your perspective?

JP: It’s a very, very stressful and expensive thing when we have a fire season like we’ve had. We’ve spent a lot of money on additional staffing. Twelve-hour shifts seven days a week for our fire crews, extra staffing in our Emergency Operations Center for monitoring lightening strikes, that kind of thing. There is a behind-the-scenes very, very heightened level of awareness and responsiveness as the fire danger increases. After awhile, after the second or third month, it becomes very stressful. It’s like living with a low-grade fever. So this break has been good for everybody in regards to being able to take a breath and do some other work and get caught up a bit.

YS: So what was the final cost of the fire?

JP: One and a half million dollars. We’re usually able to recover about 75 percent of our costs. But here’s the thing, that million and a half dollars sounds like a lot of money—and we were spending, the first night, $100,000 an hour on aircraft and crews—but to not do so on that day under those conditions would have been stepping over dollars to pick up dimes. The Four Mile Fire, if you remember that one, that was $10.5 million dollars. So you spend money upfront to save money in the long run.

The post Q&A with Sheriff Joe Pelle appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

With the Olympics dovetailing nicely with August’s typical back-to-school frenzy, we thought it would be a good time to see how the old “U-S-A” stacks up against the rest of the world in the gold-medal competition of educational spending and results. On first blush, the competition looks like it’s going our way. Nationally, the United States spends an average of $10,995 per pupil, which is about $2,800 more than the average of other industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation.

But this is a competition that can’t be bought. While the United States shows better than average results (again, compared to OECD countries) in reading, it’s turning in slightly worse than average results for math and science. The countries of South Korea and Japan, both of which spend significantly less per pupil ($6,700 and $8,300, respectively), outperform U.S. students in all three categories.

When Education Week compared the United States to all of the world’s educational system, our K-12 achievement grade was a dismal C-, at 69.7 percent. Digging deeper, per-pupil spending in Colorado is less than the national average by nearly $2,000 … does that mean that, like South Korea and Japan, we’re posting better results than the national average? Actually yes, but it’s not much to celebrate. Colorado’s grade for K-12 achievement is barely better at a straight C, 73.8 percent.

Sources: Education Next, The Atlantic, FaceTheFactsUSA.org (part of George Washington University), OECD, U.S. Census Bureau, Education Week

The post Barely a Bronze Medal in Education appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs was the worst in the state’s history, destroying 248 homes and killing two; investigators still don’t know the cause. June was the hottest month on record in Colorado and the first six months of 2012 were the hottest on record in the United States. Lack of rain and fear of wildfires led to fireworks bans across the state, but Erie still allowed fireworks sales to continue. West Nile was found in Longmont, the Boulder Reservoir was closed due to high bacteria levels and the Boulder County trustee was one of 10 who resigned over allegations of misspending public funds. CU-Boulder had the twin distinctions of being name among the top 200 universities in the world and among the top 10 party schools of the past decade. A Longmont cop survived being struck by lightening. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama toured the state, reaffirming its battleground status; Romney walked away with $2.5 million after a fundraiser in Aspen. The Longmont Police Department opened its shooting range to the public, an explosion at Erie Middle School collapsed part of the roof and injured three workers, and a former Boulder detective self-published a book laying out his theory that JonBenet Ramsey was not killed by an intruder. A gunman killed 12 people and injured 58 at the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in an Aurora movie theater.

Sources: Daily Camera, Denver Post, AP, Daily Beast

The post The Month in Review appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Yup, here’s the quote of the day, from attorney David Lane, representing Seth Brigham, an outspoken critic of the Boulder City Council, who is challenging a restraining order the city has against him:

“I’m willing to stipulate that Boulder City Council members huddle under their beds in the fetal position at night crying and having psychological and social distress because their feelings have been hurt by Seth Brigham,” Lane is quoted as saying in Westword. “But if the First Amendment revolved around Boulder City Council members having hurt feelings, no one would be able to speak in this country.”

Worse, we wouldn’t be able to listen to David Lane speak, which — when he’s talking about defending the First Amendment — is a form of entertainment in itself.

Boulder was given additional time to try to defend its restraining order against Brigham. The two sides are due back in court on Aug. 17.

Read Lane’s interview with YS here.

Tip-o-the-hat to Michael Roberts at Westword.

The post Quote ‘O The Day, thanks to lawyer David Lane appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

File this under either “liberating” or “devastating”: A Colorado Springs woman who lost nearly everything when her home burned in the Waldo Canyon Fire, also lost what little she could salvage during her evacuation when she accidentally sparked another wildfire after crashing her car in Idaho.

When she was evacuated from the path of the wildfire sweeping through Colorado Springs, Krista McCann loaded her car with valuables (including her mother’s wedding dress) and headed toward Oregon to surprise her father. But in Idaho, she lost control of the car, sideswiped another vehicle and crashed in a field. No one was hurt, but the car caught fire and eventually burned some 2,000 acres.

McCann lost everything except the clothes on her back and what was in her purse.

But the 19 year old seems to be taking the former option in a “laugh or cry” situation.

“This is a chance to start completely over,” she told a local TV station in Idaho. “I have nothing. So I’ll start with a new wardrobe and a new car, and a new state of mind. And I’ll just move forward.”

The post Waldo Canyon Fire evacuee starts another blaze in Idaho, loses everything appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Progressives in Boulder might be lamenting the end of the David Sirota morning drive show on 760 AM, but those in the greater Denver metro area are applauding it. That’s because Sirota, one of the only local progressive voices on the airwaves in Colorado (and without a doubt the most tolerable among those syndicated liberals that 760 features at other times of the day), is moving to the afternoon drive slot from 3-7 p.m. over at KHOW 630 AM. He’ll be co-hosting a new show called The Rundown with Sirota and Brown with former George W. Bush FEMA chief Michael Brown (of “heckuva job, Brownie” fame during the Hurricane Katrina disaster) on the other side of the mic. The show starts on Monday, July 16.

KHOW has been in need of some liberal ballast for some time. Sirota and Brown are taking over the time slot vacated by long-time hosts Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman, who, throughout their eight years on the air, slid ever more obviously toward right-wing kookiness, with Caplis leading the way and Silverman’s more reasonable demeanor never capable of reigning him in. Caplis’s never-ending man-crush on former Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow — who Caplis seriously pondered, on the air, as being a gift from the Almighty — often rendered their show unlistenable. After it was cancelled in June, the time slot was temporarily taken over by John Caldera, who regularly hosts a once-a-week B slot on Sunday afternoons to grind away at “government is too big” issues. Listening to him do it every day during the afternoon commute has been akin to water torture. Considering the rest of the day is filled with Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity (and that morning drive host Peter Boyles often obsesses over off-the-reservation issues like the validity of President Obama’s birth certificate), KHOW seemed lost in the echo-chamber.

Sirota, who is also a columnist for Salon, has long been the only local refuge for listeners wanting something more than party-line bloviation (from either side of the aisle). And Brown, despite his unimpeachable conservative credentials, is also one of the more tolerable local right-wing radio pundits on the air in Denver. Compared to his KOA 850 AM dial-mate Mike Rosen, who is listed as a synonym in many dictionaries for “smug,” Brown at least seems capable of listening to and engaging in thoughtful debate.

Given that talk radio is rarely either local or thoughtful, we have high hopes this team-up.

The post Boulder’s David Sirota switches from 760 AM to 630 KHOW appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Politico had an interesting story this morning about how Democratic “trackers” — those annoying campaign workers who follow opponents around with video cameras rolling at all times — have been acting more like creepy stalkers lately than political paparazzi. The article cites some weird examples of trackers posting footage of Republican candidates’ homes on YouTube, complete with addresses in some cases. The tactic was originally meant to record for posterity every gaffe and goof-up candidates make in every waking hour of their days, and most seem to accept that this is the new political reality. But some say that gratuitous footage that alerts every crazy in the word to where they live, especially in the wake of the Gabby Giffords shooting, crosses the line and serves no political purpose.

Among the targets is Rep. Mike Coffman, who is being hunted like a rare bird by a liberal group called Colorado Fair Share. The article links to a video showing a woman knocking at Coffman’s door with the camera at her back, as if hoping for a gotcha-style ambush interview (like the one 9News was forced to resort to when Coffman wouldn’t address the birther controversy he stirred up a few months ago).

But far from being sinister, the video is a dud. It’s part of a series of videos the group is producing called “Where’s Mike?” that attempt to demonstrate that Coffman can’t be found by his constituents who, in one clip, look for him at the local golf course and, in another, try the offices of one of his campaign contributors. This type of guerrilla campaigning might have been funny if any of the videos had been executed even somewhat competently, but they’re almost painful to watch. To put it mildly, the “constituents” aren’t exactly Michael Moore. In some clips they seem scared to death and all too aware of how lame the schtick must look to those they’re trying to prank. In one, they even ignore what seems to be a reasonable accommodation when they call his local office and ask to chat with Coffman. The person who answers the phone suggests they call his scheduler to work out an appointment. Instead, the caller keeps whining that Coffman isn’t immediately available, as if they expected him to answer the phone. In that instance, Coffman’s hapless assistant comes across as pretty darned patient when dealing with an unusually dense constituent.

Failing to find him at various random stops, the activists finally show up to knock on his door. But does the lady really knock? You be the judge, but it seems suspicious that the woman in the clip conspicuously doesn’t ring the doorbell, which is right there, lady! Instead, she does an air-knock that, if it can’t be heard by the video camera waiting to record Coffman’s stuttering surprise at seeing an actual constituent on his stoop, certainly couldn’t be heard inside. For all we know, Coffman was sitting in there drinking his coffee and feeling a little bored, sorta hoping someone would drop by for a chat.

Unless he gets bionic hearing like Jamie Sommers, Coffman is going to miss a lot of encounters with constituents who knock on doors like they’re mimes.

The post Rep. Mike Coffman stalked by the lamest ‘trackers’ of all time appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

If there’s anything that can be said for the lack of moisture in the state for, oh, the past several months, it’s that we’ve been blessedly bereft of one of summer’s biggest nuisances: Mosquitoes. These pests breed in pools of standing water and their low population so far can be attributed to the distinct lack of rain-produced puddles going undisturbed in backyards and other low-lying areas. With barely any humidity, even puddles from lawn sprinklers are drying up well before mosquito larvae can hatch and ruin our picnics (if it weren’t too hot to have picnics).

But there’s no such relief near natural water features and we’re reminded yet again of why mosquitoes are more than just annoyances—a mosquito trap at the Jim Hamm Natural Area in Longmont revealed the presence of West Nile virus, the first batch of the season, which can be fatal to humans.

West Nile can now be added to the list of weird scourges to be endured this peculiar summer. Another addition is the smoke from destructive wildfires … but this week, we’re not even talking about our own destructive wildfires, of which there are still three that are roughly evenly spaced along the Front Range: The Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs, the Flagstaff Fire in Boulder (both declared to be 90 percent contained) and the long-burning High Park Fire in Fort Collins which was recently declared 100 percent contained. No, the smoke that makes it hard to see the foothills even if you’re at the base of them is coming from other fires, in Utah and Wyoming.

But in a much needed change in weather patterns that could be either good or bad, Colorado is expecting at least three days of significantly lower temperatures and lots of thunderstorms throughout the weekend. Weather.com reports forecasted temperatures in the blessed 70s (which, it’s amazing to be reminded, is a full 30 degrees less than we’ve grown used to) with an average 40 percent chance of rain through Sunday.

While that is certainly reason to celebrate (do we even remember rain?), the downside could be more lightening-ignited wildfires. But even if we get a three-day deluge that prevents any major conflagrations, we will have another thing to worry about: those damned mosquitoes.

Still, at this point in a just-getting-started summer, West Nile is looking like a good alternative to being little more than an explosive tinderbox.

The post Rain and lower temps on the way — but beware the mosquitoes appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

With uncontrolled wildfires running amok and creating havoc up and down the Front Range, it’s hard to imagine a worse business to be in in the days leading up to the Fourth of July than selling fireworks. But in a huge tent near the Safeway at Arapahoe Road and Highway 287, you can buy enough pyrotechnics to keep the nation’s firefighting crews busy until the snow falls.

Because of the tinderbox conditions, Coloradoans statewide are banned from using fireworks and most locations have canceled their traditional fireworks shows on July 4 because of the high fire danger. But the ban doesn’t extend to selling fireworks, leaving the decision up to individual municipalities. In Boulder County, every city except Erie has nixed the seasonal tents that sell everything from sparklers to giant tubs of “grand finale” explosives. Longmont banned sales on Thursday.

At the Olde Glory Fireworks tent in Erie, Jill Hawthorne admits that business is pretty slow, down about 50 percent from past years. She blames the wildfires and understands why sales are off.

“It’s not something I’d say I’d buy at the moment and set off,” she says, as a single customer browses the bins of firecrackers and bottle rockets.

Hawthorne sells the fireworks under contract with Denver-based Olde Glory and earns a percentage of sales as commission. In more typical years, she said she could make about $3,500 selling fireworks in the two weeks leading up to July 4, but this year she’s seen maybe half as many people under the tent than in the past.

“Lots of people are coming and looking, but not a lot are buying,” she says.

Considering that smoke from the Flagstaff Fire is visible through the tent flaps, it’s not a surprise that Hawthorne has mixed feelings about the product she’s selling, although she points out that some of the smaller novelty products like bang-snaps and black snakes don’t pose as much danger as people might think.

“Any of these novelties are probably not going to start a fire unless you’re an absolute moron,” she says.

In the end, she says it’s up to the consumer to make wise decisions. She compares it to selling condoms to teenagers—what they do with them once they leave the store is out of her hands.

“I’m just the middle man,” Hawthorne says. “What you do with it is up to you.”

The town of Erie has much the same attitude. In response to an email from YS publisher Shavonne Blades, Mayor Pro-Tem Ronda Grassi expressed confidence that people buying fireworks would act responsibly and observe the ban.

“Free market suggests that people can buy what they want but may only use the product when allowed,” she wrote. “Given the extreme low crime rate in Erie, it’s reasonable to say we have very responsible people living here. They will wait until the ban is over and use the fireworks at another time or in a place where it is legal.

“I have spoken with our Fire Chief about this as well. He tells me that our conditions in Erie are very different from our mountains and don’t pose the same risk. He didn’t recommend shutting them down.

“Our police force will also be on alert for those not obeying the ban.”

The post Erie still allows fireworks sales despite high fire danger appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

With wildfires breaking out all along the Front Range and resources to fight them strung out from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins, it would seem to be a no-brainer to call out the drones for everything from recon and communication to infrared mapping and live video. But despite that several of these unmanned aircraft are available at CU-Boulder and the U.S. Geological Survey in Lakewood—which has in its fleet MQ-9 Predators, which are used in combat operations in the Middle East—the drones are grounded and will almost certainly stay that way.

As detailed in the current issue of Yellow Scene, CU is home to one of the country’s busier unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) research programs. Its fleet of Tempest UAS are specifically designed to fly into dangerous territory, to get closer to tornadoes than is safe for manned aircraft.

But the Federal Aviation Administration carefully regulates drone flights, approving them only for specific geographic areas through the issuance of a certificate of authorization, or CoA. None of CU’s or USGS’s CoAs cover the areas currently on fire.

Even if they did, or if the FAA were to issue an emergency CoA for the affected regions, it’s still not likely drones would be called into service. The main concern is safety.

“It’s partially because of the congestion of the airspace, with all the tankers and observation planes and helicopters and news copters,” said Mike Hutt, the UAS program director for the USGS in Lakewood. “Mixing manned and unmanned aircraft in the same airspace isn’t generally a great idea.”

As the use of drones domestically becomes more common (and controversial), researchers in the UAS field have been pushing to expand their capabilities to support wildfire-fighting efforts. NASA has flown some Predators over wildfires in California and USGS operators have demonstrated how useful drones can be over controlled burns. But the technology has yet to be embraced.

“It’s something we’re working on developing,” Hutt said, “but the time of the crisis isn’t a great time to be introducing new technology. We’ve been working with the Forest Service and BLM about some ideas of how UAS could help fire fighting in the future.

“But we don’t currently have anything going on.”

The post Why aren’t drones helping the fire fighting efforts? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

It was just days ago that many of us were reassuring out-of-state friends and relatives that, no, not all of Colorado was on fire. Today, we might not be so self-assured.

In addition to the High Park Fire that has consumed more than 87,000 acres outside Fort Collins and claimed more than 250 homes to make it the most destructive fire in state history, new blazes have exploded outside Boulder and Colorado Springs, fueled by gusty winds and record temperatures. The Waldo Canyon Fire near Colorado Springs leaped over hastily-prepared fire perimeters, burned houses and prompted the evacuation of 32,000 residents. It’s estimated to be more than 6,000 acres and growing rapidly.

In Boulder, the Flagstaff Fire, while less dramatic, is no less concerning. At this writing, the fire is uncontained, but so far less than 300 acres in size. However, it’s only a mile and a half from Boulder city limits and 28 homes have been evacuated.

Fire crews across the state are worried about weather. Temperatures are expected to be in the high 90s for the next several days with very low humidity. Afternoon thunderstorms may make matters worse; they aren’t expected to produce much moisture, but could spark more fires through lightening strikes.

There are currently 29 wildfires burning across the country. Gov. John Hickenlooper has called this the worst fire season in state history.

For details on the various fires, check out the websites below and check this page for updates:

• The Flagstaff Fire official information site. Follow on Twitter #flagstafffire

• The Waldo Fire information site at the Colorado Springs Gazette. Follow on Twitter #waldocanyonfire

• The High Park Fire official information site. Follow on Twitter #highparkfire

Update– 10:57 a.m.: The city of Boulder has cancelled fireworks for the Fourth of July.

250 personnel from 50 agencies are fighting the fire. Evacuees can call the Emergency Operations Center at 303-413-7730 for fire and evacuation information. Check out the fire live at boulderflatironcam.com

The post Wildfires break out across the Front Range appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Have we mentioned lately how much we love Rep. Jared Polis? If not, allow us to reiterate, using his recent grilling of Drug Enforcement Agency chief Michelle Leonhart as People’s Exhibit 1. Long frustrated at Washington’s hypocrisy regarding marijuana laws, the Boulder lawmaker attempted to get Leonhart to admit that smoking pot was less dangerous than using drugs like heroin and methamphetamine, which, like marijuana, are Schedule 1 drugs under the Controlled Substances Act.

Leonhart wouldn’t bite. In fact, Polis posed the question with slight variations 11 times in just over three minutes during a hearing Wednesday at the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, but Leonhart dodged them all.

“Is crack worse for a person than marijuana?” he asked.

“I believe all illegal drugs are bad,” Leonhart answered.

“Is methamphetamine worse for somebody’s health than marijuana?” Polis continued.

“I don’t think any illegal drug is good—”

“Is heroin worse for someone’s health than marijuana?”

“Again, all drugs, illegal drugs–”

“Yes, no, or I don’t know?” Polis interrupted. “If you don’t know, you can look this up. You should know this as the chief administrator for the Drug Enforcement Agency. I’m asking a very straightforward question: Is heroin worse for someone’s health than marijuana?”

“All illegal drugs are bad.”

“Does this mean you don’t know?”

This Abbott and Costello routine went on for some time, with similar results. (Watch the full exchange here.) It would have been funny if it didn’t illustrate so starkly the government’s head-in-sand approach to reforming marijuana laws in light of indisputable evidence that marijuana is, in fact, much less dangerous and less harmful to users’ health than other illicit drugs as well as many prescription medications.

Polis has made it a habit to make DEA agents look like fools. Prior to this exchange, he blasted Denver’s new DEA Special Agent In Charge Barbra Roach for saying that she was shopping for a home in a community that has outlawed dispensaries and voiced her concern that marijuana grow operations are a danger because they might expose people to “mold and water damage.”

Polis lambasted her on his Facebook page.

“Her choice of where to live in our state is absolutely her own decision (though I question her judgment, she is entitled to her decision),” he wrote, “but to publicly state shortly after arriving … that living in our premier city and many of our great towns is outright unacceptable to you is nothing short of an affront to our entire state.”

He then addressed the DEA’s pressing concern over mold and water damage:

“No doubt that some idiots have flooded their basements growing marijuana. No doubt that some idiots have flooded their basements growing tomatoes. I stained my tiles in my living room last year growing narcissus. OK. So for this we need a federal cop busting people?

“I mean, if you are dumb enough to flood your basement or create hundreds of thousands of dollars of mold damage, that is entirely your own fault and federal law enforcement should NOT be in the business of preventing you from ruining your basement. The fact that an opponent of medical marijuana uses arguments like ‘it causes water damage to homes’ shows how bankrupt that side is of facts.”

Now you see why we love this guy?

Greg Campbell is the author of Pot Inc.: Inside Medical Marijuana, America’s Most Outlaw Industry.

The post Jared Polis makes another DEA agent look like a fool appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The High Park Fire burning west of Fort Collins showed signs of eventual containment Monday, with fire crews managing to contain 50 percent of the 58,000-plus acre wildfire.

But it is still the most destructive fire in Colorado history, with 189 homes burned and several more threatened. Many of those who’ve been evacuated from the fire zone have no idea whether their homes will be standing when they’re eventually allowed to return. Numerous fundraising efforts are underway to assist those who will be rebuilding from scratch.

One that has support from some Boulder County residents is NoCo Rebuilding, which will disperse 100 percent of all the funds raised to those who’ve lost their houses and wish to rebuild using sustainable building practices and supplies.

“As a resident of Gold Hill and having experienced the Four Mile Canyon Fire firsthand, I am motivated to help an organization called NoCo Rebuilding,” Gold Hill resident Joanne Cole wrote in an email to a list of undisclosed recipients. “This organization is mobilizing quickly to help residents of Larimer County with the task of rebuilding after this monumental disaster.”

“During the Four Mile Fire, a group of us realized the need to keep generous financial contributions local,” Cole wrote. “We quickly formed the Boulder Mountain Fire Relief Fund on day 6-7 of the 2010 fire. We were able to raise $800,000, ALL of which stayed in Boulder County and was distributed amongst individuals in need and the four Volunteer Fire Departments that were impacted by the fire. As you know, the High Park Fire eclipses the Four Mile Fire on every level. Our friends & neighbors in Larimer County are going to need help.”

The Four Mile Fire in 2010 burned 169 homes and resulted in $217 million in insurance claims. There is no tally yet on what the High Park Fire will cost, but agencies have spent $12 million fighting it so far.

To learn more about NoCo Rebuilding and to contribute, click here.

The post How you can help High Park Fire victims appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.