Across the Great Divide

DFL Candidates for Governor: Desperately Seeking Country Cred.

Thank goodness I'm only a blogger instead of a candidate for Governor. Otherwise, my About page would have to read more like this:

Charlie Quimby was born in Rifle, Colorado, a town of about 2,000 known as the Trout Hatchery Capital of the World. Growing up in a large family in small towns on the western slope, he learned the value of hard work from putting himself through college with jobs in construction and oil exploration — and from his grandfather Homer Quimby who ran a hardscrabble Arizona cattle ranch near the Mexican border.

He was inspired by his great grandmother Jenny who, as a single mother, homesteaded in northern Colorado, and his maternal grandmother Emma, whose first husband died when her children were very young. Emma did bookkeeping for the Rifle Dodge dealer and took in laundry to support the family. One of her customers was "Pop" Nelson who had immigrated from Sweden at the age of 16 and worked for the railroad. They married...

Yes, I've been reading the bios of Minnesota's DFL gubernatorial aspirants.

The question of who's country and who's not came to me after listening to Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak at Drinking Liberally last week. I asked him who among his fellow contenders he'd have as a Lt. Governor running mate and to name names. He demurred, with good nature, and then admitted he needed to work on his answer.

Checking the Greater Minnesota bona fides for the DFL contenders, I found most candidates either play the ancestry card or punt.

Idyllic, but not rural

John Marty (avoids the question; the son of a theologian cannot lie)

Mark Dayton (he "grew up in a house in Long Lake" which still sounds kinda rural)

Steve Kelley ("you could find him feeding the family’s two horses or climbing his favorite apple tree" ... before he left suburbia and headed off for exclusive Williams College)

Susan Gaertner (goes for the Pawlenty approach — she "grew up on the East Side of St. Paul during the height of opportunity for working class families")

These guys got "roots"

Paul Thissen's "family roots in Minnesota date to the 1860s when his great-great grandfather established a homestead along the banks of the Minnesota River" (but Thissen grew up in Bloomington)

R.T. Rybak's "Minnesota roots go back more than 150 years to New Prague, Minnesota, where you can still see his family name carved in stone on a building on the main street in town" (but R.T. himself is a Minneapolis kid who traces his early days to his dad's drug store at Chicago and Franklin Avenues in south Minneapolis)

"It's hard to talk about Matt Entenza without talking about a town in southwestern Minnesota called Worthington."  (No, it's impossible. "Matt Entenza's Minnesota roots reach back to the 1870s" but he only spent three years in Worthington)

She will milk her youth

Margaret Kelliher Anderson grew up on a dairy farm just outside of Mankato and was the 4-H State President and the Blue Earth County Dairy Princess (which gives her some pasture cred, but she's now a representative from Minneapolis)

Unimpeachable Toms

Tom Rukavina grew up on "the north side of the small Iron Range city of Virginia" and he's still up there (say no more, though he does)

Tom Bakk worked as a carpenter and union leader and lives near Cook on Lake Vermillion (is the pope Catholic?)

So who might be the DFL's 2010 Mae Schunk or Carol Molnau? Does the Dairy Princess go Iron Range or pick an urban partner to offset her supposed farm-tricity? Would Rukavina, who jokes about his stature, seek out a mini-Mee Muoa? Does "Entenza-is-Norwegian-for-Governor" pair himself with an actual Norwegian?

Next, an analysis of the GOP hopefuls.

Happy is as Happy Does.

I can almost see Ultimate Happiness from my front door. From Colorado, that is, where we're about 25 miles from the Utah border.

Utah scored the best among U.S. states in a study based on the Gallup Organization's Well-Being Index. Colorado and Minnesota tied for fourth.

"Our research shows that happy individuals are on average healthier and live longer, have higher incomes, better social relationships and are better citizens," Diener said. "Therefore, aiming to increase the happiness in one state is a valid goal."

I suppose. Or you might say being healthier and living longer, having more money and better relationships, and being active in your community make you happy.

Is happiness a cause or an effect? I could see a case being made that close families (but not inbreeding) are good for happiness. Same with beautiful, isolating spaces (but not in the backwoods).

Libertarians are pretty sure John Galt is hiding out west somewhere.

Either way, I think the founding fathers had pretty well figured out the pursuit of happiness angle without benefit of University of Cambridge researchers.

In a baby book that had an entry for her two-year-old's most common phrase, my mother wrote: "I'm so-o-o happy!"

Some kids (and some states) never get past "I'm so-o-o big!"

Taxonomies of Bike Commuting and Scooby Doo Watching.

I was supposed to be in Colorado now, so I look over some complications of the last few weeks and decide maybe there is a god, albeit with a highly disordered set of priorities. [Photo: Andy Cross, Denver Post]

Also from Colorado, a bicycle commuter's seven-point taxonomy, whose creator's ride yesterday rated a IV.

Mine today was a III going in to the shelter and a borderline IV heading back. No snow, but generous rain at a London sort of temp, where the rain gear keeps you dry, but it's not cool enough, so you still end up soaked in sweat.

The Colorado grades also seem affected by the season in which they were created. A I is a perfect day, but the rest of the scale trends to rain and cold. There's no 0 or -I for those days of murderous heat and/or humidity.

This suggests that each locality needs its own commuter index to cover these variables. A Phoenix bike commuter (is there such a beast?) might construct a seven-stage gradation between the -I and the III, for example.

We had a full house in the preschool, and with the rain, no chance of going outside. The gym is dedicated to a haunted house/gym, so we couldn't go there. And the classroom is a no-running zone, so we couldn't convert it to a gym for an hour without creating confusion about the rules.

Therefore, we went for the All-American solution and did what any sex offender treatment facility (note:  obscure Minnesota reference) would do in our shoes. We watched a Halloween-themed Scooby Doo video.

The next hour was a study in power politics as kids shifted position, strove for dominance of various kinds and took advantage of low-light conditions to torment each other. Some were good, of course. A scale could cover the range of behavior from passive watching to chair touching to shifting to block views to chair tilting to.... About 10 points should cover it.

I was stationed with two boys who tend to cause the most trouble — one with serious ADHD. They actually did very well.

I can't say how much was the video (which is not a usual activity) and how much had to do with a supportive male presence who also nipped any hijinx in the bud. But I was struck by how some kids get branded as trouble and then live up to it, especially when they get the wrong kind of attention.

A once-a-weeker like me can come in and not be influenced by what happened the previous day or earlier in the week, and give these kids full and loving attention that would be hard for a teacher who's on the job every day, responsible for the entire class and burned out on a particular set of antics.

If you have any idea you'd like to work with young kids in this way, I highly recommend doing it.

Staying Staying Positive.

The Stay Positive people are still at it in Grand Junction. I ran into them last summer when they were handing these out at a Sarah Palin rally.

Eight young adults stood outside in the sprinkling rain Tuesday waving signs — not protesting war, a health care bill or taxes — instead they're on a mission to promote positive thinking, no matter what your political bent.

Weekend Cherrypicking.

Friendly Atheist calls out a scripture-festooned gay-basher for blatant cherrypicking of scripture. [h/t Hal Davis]

*****

The Aspen Times writes about sudden aspen decline — the trees, not the town — and is careful not to push the climate change angle too hard. Same with the New York Times. (It wrote basically the same story three years ago.) The LA Times emphasizes the connection with this lede:

From the hillsides of extinct volcanoes in Arizona to the jagged peaks of Idaho, aspen trees are falling by the tens of thousands, the latest example of how climate change is dramatically altering the American West.

Starting seven years ago, foresters noticed massive aspen die-offs caused by parasitical insects, one of them so rare it is hardly even written about in scientific literature. But with warming temperatures and the effects of a brutal drought still lingering, the parasites are flourishing at the expense of the tree, beloved for its slender branches and heart-shaped leaves that turn a brilliant yellow in autumn.

And commenters, of course, put it all in perspective:

It's a damn tree. Only liberals would get their panties in a twist over a tree.

Split Estate: Meet the New Neighbors.

Ranchers and other generally libertarian types may favor drilling on public lands like ANWR and Colorado's Roan Plateau. Some locals love the oil and gas jobs exploration brings. But as pressure to explore all domestic reserves increases, resistance starts to erupt in the land of the Sagebrush Rebellion.

In more contemporary terms, "split estate" is where Drill, Baby, Drill meets Leave Us Alone.

Split estate lands are located throughout the Rocky Mountain region.

[A] split-estate property is defined as a parcel of property consisting of two separate legal estates: the “surface estate” and the “mineral estate.”[2] In the states of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Utah this translates to roughly 51 million acres of surface estate properties being owned and managed by private parties such as ranchers, farmers, homeowners, and retirees and the subsurface mineral estate being owned, leased and managed by the federal government.[3]

The only thing missing from this definition is the oil and gas companies who buy up the leases and move in next door to claim the wealth under the land.

Forty-eight percent of Wyoming’s private land is split estate.

A documentary shot in my homeland (and former drilling land) called Split Estate premieres on Planet Green on October 17, 2009 at 8pm ET. It will re-air on Planet Green on October 18 at 12pm ET, October 22 at 11pm ET, and October 23 at 3pm ET.

Finding the Lost Beer Mine.

This story about a lost beer mine ran in the local news last week.

Verne Anderson and Dick Beye were rabbit hunting north of the Highline Canal in the fall of 1950 when they opted for a little target practice, aiming their .22 rifles at a shiny object in on the bank of an arroyo.

Much to their surprise, fluid erupted – and on further investigation the fluid was found to be beer from a well-perforated can of Schlitz.

Digging into the hillside, the boys found row upon row of Schlitz beer, the cardboard containers beginning to deteriorate.

Now, a witness/co-conspirator has come forward, with two cold cans of 60-year-old Schlitz to fill in some gaps in the story. [Photo by Lynn Lickers]

What Obama May See in Grand Junction.

Pres. Obama's western swing this weekend was announced as a tour to encourage people to visit America’s national parks. He'll be landing in four places that qualify, including Grand Junction, where Colorado National Monument unfolds outside my front door. Unfortunately, I'll miss the opportunity to watch a presidential convoy buzz by.

Then, again, his visit to Colorado will actually focus more on health care, and he many only take in Monument views from Air Force One. It happens that all the states he's visiting are represented by key committee members and health care fence sitters.

Aug. 14th, Obama and family will be in Bozeman, Mont., home of Finance Committee Chair and Friend of Pharma Sen. Max Baucus. Obama visits Yellowstone, Aug. 15. Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming is the leading GOP member of the Senate Health Committee and is one of the negotiators reconciling the health care bills. 

The Obamas will spend the night in Grand Junction, and then head to Phoenix, where he'll address the convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and visit the Grand Canyon Aug. 16. Arizona is home to two more Blue Dogs, Reps. Gabrielle Giffords (whose Town Hall Meeting in my Grandpappy's town of Douglas included a dropped firearm) and Harry Mitchell.

Grand Junction is in the Congressional district of Blue Dog Democrat Rep. John Salazar, who has not yet come out squarely in favor of a public health care plan option. The linked story says an email from BarackObama.com urges supporters to contact Salazar’s Grand Junction office: “Let the person who answers know that you’re a constituent. Then tell them: ‘Thanks for working to enact real health insurance reform this year. Voters like me support your efforts.’ ”

Grand Junction is highly rated by the Dartmouth Medical Atlas for its relatively low medical care costs. If you drill down into the reasons why locals get quality care for less, the answer boils down to socialism — the good kind — but no one would dare call it that.

The Rocky Mountain West is fairly conservative territory, and Grand Junction is far from a Democratic stronghold (the vote here was nearly 2-1 for McCain-Palin). The local protesters of the president's visit are sponsoring a "Hands off Health Care Rally" before he arrives, and are announcing, but not "sponsoring," the protest at the site of the Town Hall meeting.

The first rally is at Lincoln Park, next to the VA Hospital, where the government already has its hands on health care. 

The organizers provide some helpful instructions for protesters who can't come up with a clever sign by Saturday: "take a plain piece of cardboard, (cut like a signboard) put it in a black plastic trash bag and tape up the loose ends and slack with duck tape on the reverse side.  Your black protest sign is symbolic of your protest against the Obama administrations' [sic] move to the dark side with their attempts to silence the voice of the American people."

Green Building Code Creates Quandry for Renewable Energy CEO.

The CEO of a Boulder, Colorado, renewable energy company has the motivation and the means to meet Boulder County's green-building code, BuildSmart, one of the strictest in the country.

Ronald Abrahamson has already maximized insulation, installed a geothermal system and sited the house to take advantage of passive solar gain, but he still needs to put up 2,500 square feet of solar panels to meet BuildSmart's requirements.

"I have the land for the solar system; that's not the issue," he said. "And I have the desire to put it in."

[...]

"I think that BuildSmart is a very well-intentioned law," Abramson said. "It's the implementation that's the problem."

County officials are planning to reconsider some of the rules, which set goals for energy efficiency. The larger the new house, the more energy it's required to create.

The only thing Abramson apparently hasn't tried is building a house much smaller than 13,000 square feet.

Water: Simple Solutions to a Basic Problem.

When we built our house in Colorado, we decided putting a cistern under the driveway to cache rainwater was going to cost too much. But it also would have made us lawbreakers.

Harvesting the rainwater that falls on your property is now legal on Colorado.

A study in 2007 proved crucial to convincing Colorado lawmakers that rain catching would not rob water owners of their rights. It found that in an average year, 97 percent of the precipitation that fell in Douglas County, near Denver, never got anywhere near a stream. The water evaporated or was used by plants.

As growth continues in the arid west, water rights will provoke a bigger fight than gay rights.

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Elsewhere in the world, access to water may produce greater conflicts than over access to oil. And clean water in third world countries may do more to extend lifespans than vaccinations.

Hal Davis sent me a link to this video awhile back. It shows the winner of the 2008 Innovate or Die design contest sponsored by Google and Specialized bikes.

The Aquaduct, like a Detroit concept car, is slick and visionary and so far out of sync with the realities of the market — in this case ensuring clean water in developing countries. They designers say they are "working to evolve the concept into a viable solution," but the hurdles of cost and maintenance seem pretty high.

Segway inventor Dean Kamen has another device he showed on The Colbert Report that uses vapor compression distillation but requires much less power than conventional technology. His solution to the cost problem is micro-capital loans to entrepreneurs who sell water and power in poor communities.

Contrast the Aquaduct solution for transportation with this simple one — and the purification solution with this very low-tech one.

Personally, I can see the entry from Mayapedal working better with the bikes and conditions I've seen.

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And one last related bike link. It looks to me like George is going all right with his current can-hauler.