Showing posts with label Colorado. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Colorado. Show all posts
Sunday, November 29, 2015
rash of violence in USA
29/11/2015
Friday’s mass shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood health center, alongside last week’s white supremacist attack on a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis, is a stark reminder that domestic terrorists continues to be one of the most real and present threats to Americans’ safety.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
pro-gun laws; where can't we carry them?
By CAMERON MCWHIRTER and KARISHMA MEHROTRA
June 29, 2014 9:11 p.m. ET
ATLANTA—Bars, houses of worship, and other public establishments are wrestling with what to do about a new law in Georgia that starting on Tuesday dramatically will expand gun-permit holders' right to carry weapons where people congregate.
The law allows licensed gun owners to bring weapons to bars and houses of worship, unless forbidden by proprietors. Legally-owned guns also are allowed in unrestricted areas of airports and government buildings, and may be carried at schools and in colleges if permitted by officials.
Several other states allow guns in bars or churches, but Georgia's "Safe Carry Protection Act," which passed the state legislature overwhelmingly earlier this year, is unusual in that it expanded gun rights in multiple places with one omnibus law.
This is horrifying: According to multiple news outlets, a Target employee found a loaded handgun in the toy aisle of a store in South Carolina.
When you're shopping at Target, you shouldn't have to worry about someone parading around with a semiautomatic rifle, or whether your kid is going to find a loaded handgun while looking at toys.
More than 115,000 people have already signed the petition to Target asking for gun sense policies to protect customers and employees from gun violence -- and over the next two days volunteers are going to be delivering these petitions all across the country.
SAN FRANCISCO – A divided federal appeals court on Thursday struck down California's concealed weapons rules, saying they violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
By a 2-1 vote, the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said California was wrong to require applicants to show good cause to receive a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
"The right to bear arms includes the right to carry an operable firearm outside the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense," Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote for the majority.
June 29, 2014 9:11 p.m. ET
ATLANTA—Bars, houses of worship, and other public establishments are wrestling with what to do about a new law in Georgia that starting on Tuesday dramatically will expand gun-permit holders' right to carry weapons where people congregate.
The law allows licensed gun owners to bring weapons to bars and houses of worship, unless forbidden by proprietors. Legally-owned guns also are allowed in unrestricted areas of airports and government buildings, and may be carried at schools and in colleges if permitted by officials.
Several other states allow guns in bars or churches, but Georgia's "Safe Carry Protection Act," which passed the state legislature overwhelmingly earlier this year, is unusual in that it expanded gun rights in multiple places with one omnibus law.
This is horrifying: According to multiple news outlets, a Target employee found a loaded handgun in the toy aisle of a store in South Carolina.
When you're shopping at Target, you shouldn't have to worry about someone parading around with a semiautomatic rifle, or whether your kid is going to find a loaded handgun while looking at toys.
More than 115,000 people have already signed the petition to Target asking for gun sense policies to protect customers and employees from gun violence -- and over the next two days volunteers are going to be delivering these petitions all across the country.
Gun extremists armed with semiautomatic rifles have walked into Target locations around the country, weapons out and loaded, making sure customers saw their guns.
It’s often legal to do this, because many states have weak laws that allow people to openly carry around loaded weapons without any permits, training, or background checks. That means it’s up to companies themselves to protect their customers when the law won’t. Yet according to the Wall Street Journal, Target doesn’t have any policies to stop people from carrying weapons in its stores:
Target, which boasts on its website that between 80% and 90% of its customers are women, has no restrictions on customers carrying guns in its stores.
Chipotle, Starbucks, Chili’s, Sonic Drive-In, and Jack in the Box have already responded to petitions from moms and other gun sense supporters asking the stores not to allow guns. Now it’s up to Target to protect families who shop in its stores..
Sign the petition
Concealed weapon law tossed by fed appeals court
Published February 13, 2014Associated PressSAN FRANCISCO – A divided federal appeals court on Thursday struck down California's concealed weapons rules, saying they violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
By a 2-1 vote, the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said California was wrong to require applicants to show good cause to receive a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
"The right to bear arms includes the right to carry an operable firearm outside the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense," Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote for the majority.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
hyper-fertile baby machines
Mexifornia (also Calexico or Califaztlán) is a Portmanteau and Neologism of Mexico and California, which refers to what some see as the Mexicanization/Hispanicization of the U.S. state of California as a result of increased legal and especially illegal migration of Mexican and other Hispanic people into California and the transformation of many aspects of the culture of the state.
Mexifornia is seen as a state level version of what is now known as Amexica, the merging of America and Mexico;
"The United States of “Amexica” share more than a border and a common heritage: both sides welcome the benefits of trade but struggle with the pressures of growth". Timemagazine.[1]
This is a topic of a heated debate between the advocates of amnesty for illegal immigrants on one side and those wishing to enforce immigration laws on the other side.
See also
- Anti-Mexican sentiment
- Chicano
- Chicano Movement
- Chicano nationalism
- Immigration to the United States
- La Raza
- Reconquista (Mexico)
References
- ^ “A Country of 24 Million”. Time magazine, vol. 157, no. 23, p. 46, June 11, 2001.
- ^ Mexifornia: A State of Becoming by Victor Davis Hanson ISBN 1-893554-73-2
- ^ Mexifornia: A State of Confusion a Commentary by Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D
- ^ MacLachlan, Colin M.; Jaime E. Rodriguez O. (1980). The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-04280-8.
A Frightening Analysis
We all know Dick Lamm as the former Governor of Colorado. In that context his thoughts are particularly poignant. Last week there was an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington, DC, filled to capacity by many of American's finest minds and leaders. A brilliant college professor named Victor Hansen Davis talked about his latest book, "Mexifornia," explaining how immigration
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Stand Your Ground
Michigan shooting: Reasonable self-defense or second-degree murder?
By , Staff writer / November 15, 2013
In a case that is drawing comparisons to George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin in a gated Florida community, a white homeowner in suburban Detroit was charged Friday with second-degree murder in the shooting death of an unarmed young black woman who came to his front door in the middle of the night two weeks ago.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Dark Knights
A man alleged to have lured two US volunteer firefighters to their deaths in Webster, New York left a long note outlining his plans, police say.
No motive was given but the note left by William Spengler, identified as the gunman said he was planning to "do what I like doing best - killing people."
No motive was given but the note left by William Spengler, identified as the gunman said he was planning to "do what I like doing best - killing people."
Homelessness
Housing officials said the declining population of homeless people could be credited in part to a $1.5 billion infusion of federal stimulus money. As part of the stimulus-financed Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, local governments identified vulnerable people and intervened to stop them from becoming homeless by helping them find and pay for new places to live, for instance. That program prevented or ended homelessness for more than one million people, the housing agency estimates.
HUD and its partners also increased the number of available beds in emergency shelters by about 15 percent over five years, and the number of beds in longer term housing by nearly 50 percent.
But with emergency stimulus financing at its end, experts worry that homelessness might increase for some vulnerable groups in the coming year. Ms. Roman, for instance, predicted that the end of the rapid rehousing program might result in more family homelessness in 2013.
Housing officials said they had invested in research and data analysis to learn how to use their resources more efficiently. “There’s always a start-up period where we’re trying to learn what works, and trying to understand the best and most effective uses of our resources,” said Ann Oliva, the acting deputy assistant housing secretary for special needs. “We know what we need to do now and between 2015 to get to zero.”
Some analysts say the large federal expansion of Medicaid coming in 2014 might help reduce homelessness. States that join the Medicaid expansion — with the federal government chipping in $9 for every $1 the state spends — will be required to provide coverage to all adults whose income is up to 33 percent higher than the poverty line. Many states do not provide Medicaid to childless adults now, no matter how poor.
Mark Johnston, the acting assistant housing secretary for community planning and development, estimated that homelessness could be effectively eradicated in the United States at an annual cost of about $20 billion. The housing department’s budget for addressing homelessness is currently about $1.9 billion.
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Colorado Springs Police officers said a homeless man who was beaten at a park Sept. 13 died Thursday at the hospital.
According to officers, 47-year-old John Carlos Martinez was hit repeatedly around 11 p.m. Sept. 13 while he was sleeping on the playground at Dorchester Park in the city. A person reported the assault the next day.
Martinez was taken to the hospital with severe injuries but survived nine days before dying around 1:35 p.m. Thursday.
HUD and its partners also increased the number of available beds in emergency shelters by about 15 percent over five years, and the number of beds in longer term housing by nearly 50 percent.
But with emergency stimulus financing at its end, experts worry that homelessness might increase for some vulnerable groups in the coming year. Ms. Roman, for instance, predicted that the end of the rapid rehousing program might result in more family homelessness in 2013.
Housing officials said they had invested in research and data analysis to learn how to use their resources more efficiently. “There’s always a start-up period where we’re trying to learn what works, and trying to understand the best and most effective uses of our resources,” said Ann Oliva, the acting deputy assistant housing secretary for special needs. “We know what we need to do now and between 2015 to get to zero.”
Some analysts say the large federal expansion of Medicaid coming in 2014 might help reduce homelessness. States that join the Medicaid expansion — with the federal government chipping in $9 for every $1 the state spends — will be required to provide coverage to all adults whose income is up to 33 percent higher than the poverty line. Many states do not provide Medicaid to childless adults now, no matter how poor.
Mark Johnston, the acting assistant housing secretary for community planning and development, estimated that homelessness could be effectively eradicated in the United States at an annual cost of about $20 billion. The housing department’s budget for addressing homelessness is currently about $1.9 billion.
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Colorado Springs Police officers said a homeless man who was beaten at a park Sept. 13 died Thursday at the hospital.
According to officers, 47-year-old John Carlos Martinez was hit repeatedly around 11 p.m. Sept. 13 while he was sleeping on the playground at Dorchester Park in the city. A person reported the assault the next day.
Martinez was taken to the hospital with severe injuries but survived nine days before dying around 1:35 p.m. Thursday.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Prohibition
Even as smoking up became protected by state law in Washington starting Thursday, coast-to-coast prohibition as provided by a long-standing federal ruling remains on the books. For marijuana advocates in the Pacific Northwest, the lifting of the ban is a pretty big victory. That doesn’t mean that the Justice Department has ruled out an intervention, though.
Since voters in Washington and Colorado opted on Election Day to legalize small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, the Department of Justice has been relatively quiet over how it will handle what is likely to become a heated debate regarding states’ rights. In an article published by The New York Times this week, reporter Charlie Savage says senior White House and Justice Department officials are already attempting to tackle how to handle the new marijuana laws, and are amid deliberations right now that will determine when, where and how national law enforcement can intervene.
Savage cites anonymous sources familiar with the discussions in DC, whom he says are considering plans for legal action against the states of Colorado and Washington. Meanwhile this week the Obama administration once again chimed in on the topic, but as with earlier abbreviated statements, the only words out of the nation’s capital forecast an ominous battle likely to brew for some time.
When the results of the legislations up for vote in both states trickled through on the evening of Election Day, the Justice Department dispatched a short statement clarifying the federal classification of marijuana as an illegal substance. This week, the United States attorney for Seattle, WA once again warned that federal law is still on the books.
Since voters in Washington and Colorado opted on Election Day to legalize small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, the Department of Justice has been relatively quiet over how it will handle what is likely to become a heated debate regarding states’ rights. In an article published by The New York Times this week, reporter Charlie Savage says senior White House and Justice Department officials are already attempting to tackle how to handle the new marijuana laws, and are amid deliberations right now that will determine when, where and how national law enforcement can intervene.
Savage cites anonymous sources familiar with the discussions in DC, whom he says are considering plans for legal action against the states of Colorado and Washington. Meanwhile this week the Obama administration once again chimed in on the topic, but as with earlier abbreviated statements, the only words out of the nation’s capital forecast an ominous battle likely to brew for some time.
When the results of the legislations up for vote in both states trickled through on the evening of Election Day, the Justice Department dispatched a short statement clarifying the federal classification of marijuana as an illegal substance. This week, the United States attorney for Seattle, WA once again warned that federal law is still on the books.
“In enacting the Controlled Substances Act, Congress determined that marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance,” state attorney Jenny A. Durkan announced in a statement. “Regardless of any changes in state law, including the change that will go into effect on December 6 in Washington State, growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law.”Additionally, the New York Times quotes Durkan as saying the Justice Department maintains that its "responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," meaning federal law enforcement isn’t necessarily interested in adhering to local rules.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
climate is the long-term pattern
WELTON, Iowa (Reuters) - Bob Bowman runs his hand over a slender green corn leaf here on his Iowa farm, and sighs.
"This corn should be as high as my head right now, and it is only waist high," he says, as a cool morning breeze belies the 90-degree Fahrenheit temperatures forecast to descend by afternoon inWelton, Iowa.
"If we get rain real quick here, we might be down 25 percent," said Bowman of prospective losses from the persistent dryness. "If we don't get rain in the next two weeks, it will be a lot more serious."
Bowman farms 2,200 acres in east-central Iowa in one of the state's highest production areas. There may not be much to brag about this year, however.
After getting off to a record-fast planting pace following the mildest winter in decades in the Midwest that promised a record harvest, the corn crop got into trouble when rains became scarce, especially during pollination when yields are set. And a scorching heat wave hit the state recently.
Taking a cue from a deteriorating crop, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday cut its estimate of this year's corn production in the United States, the world's top grower and exporter, by 12 percent, slashing the average yield by a whopping 20 bushels to 146 per acre.
Prices of corn futures at the Chicago Board of Trade have surged 40 percent this summer in the wake of the worst drought in about 25 years in the Midwest grain belt.
In Iowa, the top U.S. corn-growing state, there is still time for many fields to make at least half to three-quarters of their production potential. But some are already too far gone.
All of Iowa is now considered as "abnormally dry," compared to none of the state a year ago, the U.S.Drought Monitor reported on Thursday.
About 13 percent of the state is now in severe drought, with the worst-hit areas in the east-central section and southeastern corner of the state. The entire eastern half of Iowa is in at least moderate drought.
Drought in the Midwest worsened over the past week, with a third of the nine-state region in severe to exceptional drought in the week ended July 10, up from about a quarter of the region a week earlier, the Drought Monitor said.
The toll that the drought is taking on the U.S. corn crop is so severe in some areas of the Midwest that farmers are writing off whole fields, or fear they will soon have to.
MISSOURI SUFFERS TOO
In Missouri, the misery is amplified. Corn farmers are watching weather forecasts and praying for rain relief while ranchers who have seen their pastures burn up in the heat and drought are scrambling to secure now hard-to-find and high-priced hay and grain to feed their hungry animals.
"The drought is very serious all the way across Missouri," said Eddie Hamill, state director of the USDA's Farm Service Agency.
To try to aid farmers who badly need hay for their cattle, the USDA has agreed to release land in 14 Missouri counties from conservation programs and Gov. Jay Nixon has requested federal approval to release land in all 114 counties throughout the state as part of a disaster declaration.
"This is the worst drought I have ever seen in my lifetime," said Hamill.
In Iowa, Gov. Terry Branstad will hold a town hall meeting in Mount Pleasant, about 130 miles from capital Des Moines, on Tuesday to talk to residents about the impact of the drought on the state.
Corn is pollinating now -- at least trying to. The plants need roughly an inch of water a week to grow well. Spotty rain showers have dotted the region, but overall Iowa, and the entire Midwest is well short of normal rainfall.
Neal Keppy, a 35-year-old corn grower in Eldridge, Iowa, said he's never seen conditions this dire. Of his 1,200 acres of corn, he has lost hope for roughly half the crop.
One field is so bad he has stopped treating it with fungicides and insecticides, essentially letting disease and insects take what the drought has not yet killed.
"I have never seen anything like this," he said.
Land in this part of Iowa goes for $10,000 an acre or more and is known for its rich soils and good rainfall. The area typically boasts some of the highest production in the state. But this year things are starkly different.
"I see a whole lot more stalks without ears on them than do have ears," said Keppy. "We need to get some rain."
Corn conditions are so bad on Missouri farmer Joel Abeln fields that he is talking with his insurance agent about mowing down a portion of his 6,500 acres. "I don't want to put any more money into it. It would be cheaper to just bush hog it down," said Abeln.
He estimates his very best fields on his north-central Missouri farm this year will likely yield only about 75 to 80 bushels per acre, down from his average of about 150 bushels an acre.
Corn that should be above his head is only about knee-high. "This is the worst drought I have been through," he said.
(Additional reporting by Michael Hirtzer and Karl Plume in Chicago; Editing by K.T. Arasu, John Picinich and Sofina Mirza-Reid)
Millions without power as stifling heat wave hammers eastern US
The eastern U.S. on Monday was hammered by the fourth consecutive day of stifling heat after a weekend of violent storms that killed 15 people and knocked out power to millions.
More than 2 million people were still without power Monday morning, with the biggest concentration of outages in the Washington, D.C. area.
"Hot and hotter will continue to be the story from the plains to the Atlantic Coast for the next few days," the National Weather Service said.
Monday morning brought another grim challenge when many embarked on a difficult commute over roads with darkened stoplights.
Weather is specific events, climate is the long-term pattern. Catastrophes like the forest fire in Colorado that has expelled 32,000 people from their homes are the results of weather. But long-term climate change can increase the likelihood of such events. That is, we may have a big, wet snow in Colorado some winter in the near future. But you have to average it with all the winters like the past one, relatively warm and dry, and the latter will have the edge over time if we go on with our high-carbon ways.
Over the coming decades, the American Southwest will become drier and warmer as a result of all the carbon dioxide and soot that the US, China and other industrial societies are dumping into the atmosphere.
Therefore there will be more forest fires like the one in Colorado. And, as Deborah Zabarenko writes for Reuters, the scientific evidence on this dim future is building up.
Zabarenko follows up on a recent article in the journal Ecosphere, which lays out the case, and I was delighted to find is available in full text on the Web.
Professor Max A. Moritz at the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley and his colleagues find the long-term probability of increase of forest fires in the American southwest is high.
Texas and Arizona are among those states at risk — further evidence that the Red States that engage in active climate change denial are committing suicide. I suspect most Coloradans know exactly what is happening to them and why, and my heart goes out to them.
Monday, June 18, 2012
marijuana decriminalization
Chicago looks set to pass a marijuana decriminalization ordinance later
this month after Mayor Rahm Emanuel endorsed the effort. Chronicle story here.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I) signed marijuana decriminalization into law Tuesday. It goes into effect April 1, 2013. Chronicle story here.
Stop the Drug War
Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I) signed marijuana decriminalization into law Tuesday. It goes into effect April 1, 2013. Chronicle story here.
Stop the Drug War
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Sand Creek Massacre
On November 29, 1864, approximately seven hundred soldiers, under the command of Colonel John Chivington, approached a Cheyenne encampment near Sand Creek, in Colorado. The dawn's early light revealed to the soldiers about a hundred lodges scattered below.
Chivington knew that in an attempt to demonstrate that they were no threat, the Indians of this village had voluntarily turned in all but their hunting weapons to the Federal government. He knew that the Indians were considered by the military to be prisoners of war. He knew further that nearly all of the Cheyenne men were away hunting buffalo. His response to all of this: "I long to be wading in gore."
As was true of Descartes centuries before him, Chivington was no lone lunatic, but had an entire culture for company. This highly respected man—a former Methodist minister, still an elder in good standing at his church, recently a candidate for Congress—had already stated in a speech that his policy toward Indians was that we should "kill and scalp them all, little and big." It would be comforting to think that such a murderous impulse would stamp the man an outcast. We would be wrong. The Rocky Mountain News, the paper of record for the region, had ten times during the previous year used editorials to urge "extermination against the red devils," stating that the Indians "are a dissolute, vagabondish, brutal, and ungrateful race, and ought to be wiped from the face of the earth." The paper worked closely with the governor, who proclaimed it was the right and obligation of the citizens and the military of the region to "pursue, kill, and destroy" all Indians. Chivington and his troops did not act alone.
Two white men who happened to be visiting the camp spied the soldiers, and tied a tanned buffalo hide to a pole, then waved it above their heads as a signal that this was a friendly village. Black Kettle, the Cheyenne's principle leader, raised first a white flag and, fearing the worst, a United States flag (given to him by Abraham Lincoln) in a desperate attempt to convince the soldiers not to attack.
There is an awful inevitability about what happened next. Soldiers opened fire. Indians fled. Chivington ordered his artillery to shoot into the panicked mass of women and children. Troops charged, cutting down every nonwhite in their path. Women scratched at the creek's sandy bank, trying to scoop out shelters for themselves and their children. As one soldier later reported, "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed, and four or five bucks outside. The squaws offered no resistance. Everyone I saw dead was scalped. I saw one squaw cut open with an unborn child, as I thought, lying by her side."
Picture the scene: a happy Chivington wades in gore. Mutilated Indians lie still in the cold November morning. In the distance, you can see a group of Cheyenne women and children trying to escape on foot. Far behind them, a group of soldiers charges on horseback. A movement in the dry creek bed to your left catches your eye. In the middle distance you see a child. As a soldier later recalled, "There was one child, probably three years old, just big enough to walk through the sand. The Indians had gone ahead, and this little child was behind following after them. The little fellow was perfectly naked, traveling on the sand. I saw one man get off his horse, at a distance of about seventy-five yards, and draw up his rifle and fire—he missed the child. Another man came up and said, 'Let me try the son of a bitch; I can hit him.' He got down off his horse, kneeled down, and fired at the little child, but he missed him. A third man came up and made a similar remark, and fired, and the little fellow dropped."
Now picture another scene, this of the soldiers riding home, victorious. You know that they scalped ever body they could find, even digging up those which by accident had been buried with their heads full of hair. You see so many scalps that, as The Rocky Mountain News will soon report, "Cheyenne scalps are getting as thick here now as toads in Egypt. Everybody has got one and is anxious to get another to send east." You know also that the soldiers cut off fingers and ears to get at the jewelry of the dead. But now you look closer and closer still, and you see that the soldiers "cut out the private parts of females and stretched them over the saddle-bows, and wore them over their hats while riding in the ranks."
Now picture, if you will, a third and final scene. Congress orders an investigation into what Chivington calls "one of the most bloody Indian battles ever fought," and what Theodore Roosevelt later calls "as righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier." The investigating committee calls a meeting with the governor and with Chivington, to be held at the Denver Opera House. Open to the public, the meeting is well-attended. You are in the back. You smell sweat, smoke, and you cannot be sure, but you think liquor. During the meeting someone asks whether, as a solution to the obvious Indian problem, it would be better to civilize or exterminate them. The crowd explodes. As a senator later wrote, "there suddenly arose such a shout as is never heard unless upon some battlefield—a shout almost loud enough to raise the roof of the opera house—'exterminate them! exterminate them!'"
Chivington did not act alone.
Chivington was neither reprimanded nor otherwise punished, and parlayed his fame into fortune as an after-dinner speaker. The University of Colorado named a dormitory after his second-in-command.
That these Indians were killed was in no way surprising. They were never considered human. The women were "squaws" and the men "bucks." The children? They counted even less. They should be killed because, as Chivington was fond of saying, "Nits make lice."
(Derrick Jensen, A Language Older Than Words, 2000)
Chivington knew that in an attempt to demonstrate that they were no threat, the Indians of this village had voluntarily turned in all but their hunting weapons to the Federal government. He knew that the Indians were considered by the military to be prisoners of war. He knew further that nearly all of the Cheyenne men were away hunting buffalo. His response to all of this: "I long to be wading in gore."
As was true of Descartes centuries before him, Chivington was no lone lunatic, but had an entire culture for company. This highly respected man—a former Methodist minister, still an elder in good standing at his church, recently a candidate for Congress—had already stated in a speech that his policy toward Indians was that we should "kill and scalp them all, little and big." It would be comforting to think that such a murderous impulse would stamp the man an outcast. We would be wrong. The Rocky Mountain News, the paper of record for the region, had ten times during the previous year used editorials to urge "extermination against the red devils," stating that the Indians "are a dissolute, vagabondish, brutal, and ungrateful race, and ought to be wiped from the face of the earth." The paper worked closely with the governor, who proclaimed it was the right and obligation of the citizens and the military of the region to "pursue, kill, and destroy" all Indians. Chivington and his troops did not act alone.
Two white men who happened to be visiting the camp spied the soldiers, and tied a tanned buffalo hide to a pole, then waved it above their heads as a signal that this was a friendly village. Black Kettle, the Cheyenne's principle leader, raised first a white flag and, fearing the worst, a United States flag (given to him by Abraham Lincoln) in a desperate attempt to convince the soldiers not to attack.
There is an awful inevitability about what happened next. Soldiers opened fire. Indians fled. Chivington ordered his artillery to shoot into the panicked mass of women and children. Troops charged, cutting down every nonwhite in their path. Women scratched at the creek's sandy bank, trying to scoop out shelters for themselves and their children. As one soldier later reported, "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed, and four or five bucks outside. The squaws offered no resistance. Everyone I saw dead was scalped. I saw one squaw cut open with an unborn child, as I thought, lying by her side."
Picture the scene: a happy Chivington wades in gore. Mutilated Indians lie still in the cold November morning. In the distance, you can see a group of Cheyenne women and children trying to escape on foot. Far behind them, a group of soldiers charges on horseback. A movement in the dry creek bed to your left catches your eye. In the middle distance you see a child. As a soldier later recalled, "There was one child, probably three years old, just big enough to walk through the sand. The Indians had gone ahead, and this little child was behind following after them. The little fellow was perfectly naked, traveling on the sand. I saw one man get off his horse, at a distance of about seventy-five yards, and draw up his rifle and fire—he missed the child. Another man came up and said, 'Let me try the son of a bitch; I can hit him.' He got down off his horse, kneeled down, and fired at the little child, but he missed him. A third man came up and made a similar remark, and fired, and the little fellow dropped."
Now picture another scene, this of the soldiers riding home, victorious. You know that they scalped ever body they could find, even digging up those which by accident had been buried with their heads full of hair. You see so many scalps that, as The Rocky Mountain News will soon report, "Cheyenne scalps are getting as thick here now as toads in Egypt. Everybody has got one and is anxious to get another to send east." You know also that the soldiers cut off fingers and ears to get at the jewelry of the dead. But now you look closer and closer still, and you see that the soldiers "cut out the private parts of females and stretched them over the saddle-bows, and wore them over their hats while riding in the ranks."
Now picture, if you will, a third and final scene. Congress orders an investigation into what Chivington calls "one of the most bloody Indian battles ever fought," and what Theodore Roosevelt later calls "as righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier." The investigating committee calls a meeting with the governor and with Chivington, to be held at the Denver Opera House. Open to the public, the meeting is well-attended. You are in the back. You smell sweat, smoke, and you cannot be sure, but you think liquor. During the meeting someone asks whether, as a solution to the obvious Indian problem, it would be better to civilize or exterminate them. The crowd explodes. As a senator later wrote, "there suddenly arose such a shout as is never heard unless upon some battlefield—a shout almost loud enough to raise the roof of the opera house—'exterminate them! exterminate them!'"
Chivington did not act alone.
Chivington was neither reprimanded nor otherwise punished, and parlayed his fame into fortune as an after-dinner speaker. The University of Colorado named a dormitory after his second-in-command.
That these Indians were killed was in no way surprising. They were never considered human. The women were "squaws" and the men "bucks." The children? They counted even less. They should be killed because, as Chivington was fond of saying, "Nits make lice."
(Derrick Jensen, A Language Older Than Words, 2000)
Saturday, March 31, 2012
children in Colorado are experiencing rising rates of hunger and obesity
October 27, 2011; Source: Westword | Nutrition education programs promoting healthy eating habits are spreading in schools throughout the country, and one Colorado-based nonprofit provides an interesting case study for why the country’s changing demographics makes this focus on food so important right now. According to Westword, at an event last week in Denver representatives from the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a nonprofit advocacy organization focusing on health and education, revealed that children in Colorado are experiencing rising rates of hunger and obesity. As indicators of this relatively recent shift, representatives from the organization explained that between 2000 and 2009 the number of children living in poverty in the state doubled, and that the state jumped from having the second lowest rate of obese and overweight children in 2003 to having the tenth highest rate in 2007 (the second highest rate of growth, behind Nevada). As added evidence of the severity of the situation in the state, last year one in five children was living in a household where the availability of food was uncertain or “insecure” at least once, and one in six children currently lives in poverty.
In an effort to reconcile the seemingly conflicting findings of rising rates of obesity and food insecurity, the Children’s Campaign invited Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, a research organization focused on advancing social and economic equity, to speak. Blackwell explained that “both are driven by poverty,” and emphasized the value of food programs such as the Pennsylvania Food Financing Initiative that provide nutrition education and fresh food to underserved communities.
Bill Shore, founder and CEO of Share our Strength and also an attendee at the event added that preexisting free and reduced-price lunch programs could make it possible to definitively end childhood hunger by 2015. "If you think of our school lunch or school breakfast programs or summer meals, these are programs that have been around for 35, 40 years, they have bi-partisan support, they are one of the few things Democrats and Republicans agree on by and large, and the amazing thing is, even in this era of budget constraints, they're funded," he said. Shore also highlighted the ongoing problem of children and families not being aware of state and federal benefits, and as a result not claiming them. As a gentle reminder for an audience of adults, he noted, "They're kids, they don't belong to political actions committees, they don't have lobbyists, they don't make campaign contributions."—Anne Eigeman
In an effort to reconcile the seemingly conflicting findings of rising rates of obesity and food insecurity, the Children’s Campaign invited Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, a research organization focused on advancing social and economic equity, to speak. Blackwell explained that “both are driven by poverty,” and emphasized the value of food programs such as the Pennsylvania Food Financing Initiative that provide nutrition education and fresh food to underserved communities.
Bill Shore, founder and CEO of Share our Strength and also an attendee at the event added that preexisting free and reduced-price lunch programs could make it possible to definitively end childhood hunger by 2015. "If you think of our school lunch or school breakfast programs or summer meals, these are programs that have been around for 35, 40 years, they have bi-partisan support, they are one of the few things Democrats and Republicans agree on by and large, and the amazing thing is, even in this era of budget constraints, they're funded," he said. Shore also highlighted the ongoing problem of children and families not being aware of state and federal benefits, and as a result not claiming them. As a gentle reminder for an audience of adults, he noted, "They're kids, they don't belong to political actions committees, they don't have lobbyists, they don't make campaign contributions."—Anne Eigeman
Sunday, February 26, 2012
City and County of Denver will decide on initiative 300:
In November, the voters of the City and County of Denver will decide on initiative 300: which mandates that employers within the City and County of Denver provide paid sick and safe time leave to all employees (including part-time and temporary employees).
Specifically, the paid sick leave mandate would apply to all businesses and non-profit organizations located in the City & County of Denver, and it would cover all full-time, part-time and temporary employees. Paid sick leave could be used by an employee if they’re sick, and to seek medical treatment and preventative care. It can also be used by an employee to care for sick children, family members, or someone whose close relationship is like that of a family member. Employees would earn 1 hour of sick leave for every 30 hours they work, earning up to 9 days of paid sick leave a year. For small businesses with less than 10 employees, employees could earn up to 5 days of paid sick leave a year. When a worker leaves the employer for any reason, the worker would not receive compensation or money from the employer for unused sick time they have earned. The employee would not be required to provide advance notice to the employer to take a paid sick day, and they would not need to provide a doctor’s excuse to the employer unless the absence extends beyond 3 days.
Specifically, the paid sick leave mandate would apply to all businesses and non-profit organizations located in the City & County of Denver, and it would cover all full-time, part-time and temporary employees. Paid sick leave could be used by an employee if they’re sick, and to seek medical treatment and preventative care. It can also be used by an employee to care for sick children, family members, or someone whose close relationship is like that of a family member. Employees would earn 1 hour of sick leave for every 30 hours they work, earning up to 9 days of paid sick leave a year. For small businesses with less than 10 employees, employees could earn up to 5 days of paid sick leave a year. When a worker leaves the employer for any reason, the worker would not receive compensation or money from the employer for unused sick time they have earned. The employee would not be required to provide advance notice to the employer to take a paid sick day, and they would not need to provide a doctor’s excuse to the employer unless the absence extends beyond 3 days.
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