Across the Great Divide

Shelter Report: Losses and Gains.

The wind was blowing hard out of the south today with gusts between 45 and 60 mph. Not an issue heading into town, but I knew I'd have a long, slow, uphill slog at the end of my shift at the Day Center.

This was the morning the Tea Party Express Rally hit town. I'm sure the Don't Tread on Me flags were whipping it. (A photo from there shows about 200 people on the scene.)

A kid showed up at the Day Center carrying a cardboard and marker sign. He looked like a young Benjamin Bratt a bit down on his luck.

The sign said: "Can't find a job." I figured it was his panhandling line until I read beneath the fold, where it said: "Thanks Obama."

He wasn't a client; he was looking for the park where the Tea Party rally was going to be held. I gave him directions.

Not long after that one of our guests — a man in his 60s perhaps; it's hard to tell — started talking to me about the Bushes and how they never cared for the working man, how the Bush family made big money from oil and the Iraq war. He kept prefacing his remarks with "I shouldn't be saying this" and he occasionally jabbed my shoulder for emphasis as he called for bringing back the military draft. I think every president should have the opportunity of being poked by the stump of an arm cut off at the elbow as the questioner asks him what he ever did to stand up for the average worker.

Another veteran — call him Fred — was slumped against the wall. His camp was burned last night and he lost everything but the clothes he was wearing, including his identification, his tent and his sleeping bag. It wasn't clear whether the camp had been deliberately torched. (That happens around here.)

A woman he'd been hanging around with had cleared out and there was some bad blood. One of the other guests said, she's made a lot of enemies, and Fred, who is relatively new in town, was the latest. He was trying to figure out how he could get his new identity papers and track down his VA disability check that had been sent to his old address in Salt Lake City.

It was all complicated before, and now he was saying: "I'm fucked. I'm absolutely fucked."

Another couple, though, got word today they've been approved for one of the housing units owned by Catholic Outreach. They'd been working hard to get their lives together and now it had paid off. For them, at least, it was a happy day.

I rode back up the hill into the wind. It was going to take awhile, but I knew I was going to make it.

Even in Small Town Colorado, I Can't Escape Rep. Bachmann.

I see the Tea Party Express III is hitting Grand Junction Wednesday morning. This event, we are told, is the real Tea Party deal, not a bogus one like some of the others being organized in the valley. (It is the same caravan landing in Minnesota April 6th, the day before the GOP-sponsored Sarah Palin-Michele Bachmann rally.)

Normally, I'd be all over it. Last year's local rally was a gold mine, but Wednesday is my volunteer day at the Day Center and there's something perverse about skipping out on a commitment to watch people whine about the government.

This rolling RV-fest will feature an appearances by local congressional candidate Bob McConnell, a retired Army Colonel and attorney for whom "God, Country, and Family come first. Party comes second."

Aside from his trinitarian notion of who's on first, McConnell is a Tenther who believes President Obama is a socialist (at least) and "In order to recover from devastating unemployment, the federal government has to get out of the Third District of Colorado.  That is the mission I intend to accomplish as a congressman."

McConnell is a relatively recent resident in the Third District. He moved to Steamboat Springs after an outfitting business he started near Colorado Springs went bust. He was working for the ski patrol when Minnesota's Michele Bachmann hit town last August to speak at The Steamboat Institute Freedom Conference.

McConnell said Bachmann "looked me right in the heart and said 'If you’re that angry, get out and do something.'"

Getting the federal government out of Colorado's Third District? How about getting Minnesota's Sixth District Congresswoman out of the federal government, so she can do her Palin Junior act full-time?

(Digging up background on McConnell from one of the local papers served up this Bachmann ad. She's everywhere.)

Colorado County Wants to Solve Budget Crunch with Unequal Enforcement.

My home state offers a useful bellwether to Minnesotans  who wonder how those "leave us alone" low tax policies will work out if the GOP actually gets a chance to fulfill its promises. Colorado Springs has gotten most of the attention lately for cutting city services and seeing its city manager resign after only two years on the job, but the tea party mentality is strong on the western side of the state, too.

The latest is this story  about Mesa County planning to cut back on services to certain communities that declined to be annexed into the city of Grand Junction.  More accurately, not enough property owners representing enough acres in the communities of Clifton and Fruitvale signed a petition requesting annexation.

The details might not make sense in Minnesota, especially in the metro, where counties largely overlap with incorporated cities. Out here, there are plenty of unincorporated areas within the "metro" of the Grand Valley, along with plenty of property owners who want a rural lifestyle (heavy equipment, junked cars and horses in the yard) along with city-style law enforcement and emergency services.

When the annexation fell through, the conservative county commissioners said, you want rural, we'll give you rural! (And they showed that it's not just liberal city governments that end up threatening to cut law enforcement when their budgets shrink.)

The sheriff, who is elected but has his budget approved by the commissioners, is caught in the middle.

His department is the primary law enforcement agency for an area that's about two-thirds the size of Connecticut. They have to cover some rural, remote and rugged country, but also a patchwork of suburban and exurban communities. The area in question has about 18 percent of the county's population and accounts for roughly 40 percent of the department's calls.

The sheriff, a Republican, says he can't selectively pull back enforcement in some parts of the county and provide a different level of service in the more upscale areas.

"It’s one thing to not put a sidewalk in. But if you weren’t to provide law-enforcement services, that criminal element or apathy gains a foothold. And there are no guarantees that apathy or the criminal element stays in that neighborhood.

“We have to hold the line in order to keep this entire county a good place to live.”

Good for the sheriff.

As for the county board members making noises about reducing services, I feel their pain. But not very much, because they are among the small government conservatives who helped create the idea that government and local communities can get along just fine with lower taxes.

Bachmann Speaks the N-word.

Can you spot the real Nostradamus?

The original is famed for writing obscure but dire-sounding quatrains that are continually reinterpreted until they can be made to fit some historic outcome.

Over the course of more than 400 years, a few matches have been made. Others continue to miss.

Bad poetry being even less in vogue than in Nostradamus's day, the one who "looks like Nostradamus" today spouts prose soundbites hinting at insurrection, violence and treason — and claims inspiration from other obscure but widely interpreted ancient texts.

The real Nostradamus supposedly predicted the death of kings, the burning of London and the French Revolution.

Still stumped?

One difference is that the real Nostradamus didn't try to make his meanderings come true and didn't — as near as I can tell — incite others to do so.

All he did was write harmless ditties like this:

The pretender will rail from the fox's lair

Locked with newt and loaded with bile;

The blind shall lead the one-eyed subjects

Over the precipice as their cocks crow.

I looked it up.

 

Radiating Beauty.

Beauty to me does not sit on the surface, it radiates through how you make an example of yourself to others.

– Izabella Demavlys, interviewed by Paul Schmelzer in eyeteeth 

Demavlys is former fashion photographer now doing documentary work — currently, a series called "Without a Face" featuring portraits of Pakistani women healing after attacks by men wielding kerosene oil or battery acid.

How the GOP Views Itself on a Trip to Target.

Kevin Watterson is the director of public affairs for the Minnesota House Republican Caucus. That means he is a government employee who works for people who derive at least part of their livelihood from the government, and he draws a pay check from the tax payers.

So it's curious that he would tweet something like this:

Sat on a bench in Target for 20 wating for pharma 2 open. Guy next to me the whole time gets up & opens it. Imagine when he's a govt worker.

Got that? A guy who's a government worker observes a private-sector employee and uses him to impugn government workers.

I'm not going to argue that government at any level is a total paragon of efficiency, enterprise or long-term decision-making. But the people arguing the loudest for defunding the public sector seem to believe that government  is incapable, while the private sector is a model of efficiency, creativity and adaptation that will save America from the cesspool of creeping socialism.

Got that? Watterson sits apparently inert waiting for a private business to open — presumably at the time it has established its business hours — and uses the occasion to demean any government employee who might do the same.

Self-loathing, anyone?

Timewarp, With Tacos.

Spent some time at the century-old Elks Lodge in town, where many moons ago a band of mine played a dance in this hall.

Photo: Christopher Tomlinson

Tonight, it was filled with folks who'd come to tour the place (check the photo link for more views), eat tacos, hear music and raise money for a program that commissions sculptures of localluminaries.

Without even being that connected here any more, I could run into a former classmate, my ex-English teacher, and — seeing a familiar name on a name tag in the taco line — suppress the impulse to say, "Are you Jim's parents?"

Fortunately, because the old folks in front of me proved to be Jim and his wife — another classmate.

A greater highlight, though, was trying to order beers from the bar. The only "microbrews" they had, said the waitress, were Corona and Guinness. I was away at the taco table for $3 seconds, or probably would've gone with a margarita, but my brilliant domestic partner came up with the idea of a microbrew Black & Tan, which I poured very nicely into the plastic cups, using the Corona bottle neck as the spoon to drizzle the Guinness.

The other highlight was the roll of past presidents of the Lady Elks. Allow me to share some of them here:

• Leta Peep
• Dorothy Dollar
• Beryle Apps Belt
• Wilda Fortune
• Lois Sorter
• Maude Dooling
• Caroline Huck
• Norabelle Easely
• And, best for last, Aura Moon

Shelter Report: Something to Celebrate.

Today was St. Paddy's Day at the Day Center — same as everywhere else. You'd be surprised how many guests showed up this morning wearing green. Keeping track of the date is a challenge for some, but the vast majority not only remembered, they had a green article of clothing.

(I'd forgotten, but Pablo found me a green rubberoid shamrock to save me from pinches.)

Two of the guys around last week have work at the college for $10 an hour, doing some kind of landscaping. I heard that they don't get breaks, so Dan had to "have his smoke break in the shitter."

The college students could smoke, but the workers weren't allowed to smoke on the job, according to my source.  All the other workers speak only Spanish, it's said.

A local bar and restaurant is hiring a dishwasher — experience required. This is not exactly economic renewal in the county with Colorado's highest unemployment rate, but it's still good news for somebody.

There's a guy here who fills his coffee cup to the very brim, adds creamer and the saunters back to his chair with the cup at a 75-degree angle. He never seems to notice the sloshing coffee marking his path.

Last week I noticed one guest who had a cute puppy tethered outside. Everyone who left the Center gave it a belly rub.  Today, I found that his dog had been taken while he was at Wal-Mart.

I hope the dog found a good home.

For Bike-Route Mapping, Look Past the Google Buzz.

Google has been getting a lot of play for its new bike-mapping function, as this Google-centric, front-page story in the Pioneer Press illustrates. Since Google's tool will cover the nation and has the computing power and brand of an 800-million-ton gorilla behind it, a lot of cyclists will soon be using this service.

The story does mention that there's a local Twin Cities bike-route-mapping option, called Cyclopath, which has been built over the last several years as a wiki, incorporating the experience of local cyclists.

When it comes to finding your way on a bike, as with other personal activities, local knowledge tends to be superior to what you can get from the big box info machine.

Which is better — Cyclopath or Google? This won't be a close analysis of the two, but I'd urge cyclists to compare them to see which best fits your needs and riding style.

I've used Cyclopath on occasion to test my own commuter routes or find alternatives when no good options were apparent. It has the advantage of allowing the rider to select along a continuum of bike-friendliness and time. If you want to get to your destination efficiently — and are comfortable with a stretch of University Avenue or France Avenue — then you can move the route selector closer toward "Minimize Distance."

Google might offer an alternative route, but it doesn't allow such fine-tuning... yet.

To compare the two, I chose three destinations that pose some challenges for the cyclist who needs to cover a fair amount of distance and arrive on time. They cross major arteries and are not directly served by bike paths for much of the distance. They are also places I go only occasionally, so I don't have a lot of opportunity to refine the routes myself through trial and error. It's these kind of trips for which these route mappers are most useful.

The first trip is to my doctor's office. He used to be in a more bike and transit-friendly downtown location. Now his office is near the corner of 494 and 169, a place that few people would consider going except in a car.

 Here's the Cyclopath route which covers 13.28 miles and is quite close to the route I actually take. (For this and all sample routes, I picked a midpoint between distance and bikeability.

The Google route was 2 miles longer. For a cyclist who wants to arrive without an elevated heart rate, that's maybe 10 more minutes onto your trip.

The next test was for an eye doctor location, also south, but on the other side of Highway 100. Freeways, and the car-centric sprawl they spawn, tend to make direct commutes most challenging. (To be fair, so do lakes!)

The two mappers were closer on this trek — 12.57 miles for Cyclopath (the green line in the map below) vs. 13.6 for Google, which was not bad, but contained a number of unnecessary jogs to route me through the Country Club neighborhood of Edina. Google also offered two even longer routes of 14.9 miles (because the bike path around Lake Calhoun is one way, forcing you to ride on the far side) and 16.9 miles incorporating the Kenilworth trail.

If you're looking for a nice ride as opposed to a direct and timely commute, you can select such routes on Cyclopath as well.

Here's where the flaws in Google really became apparent — a ride across town to the Raymond/University area of St. Paul. Again, the Cyclopath route approximated what I ride — a 10.46-mile route.

Google gave me two options.  The 12.6-mile low road incorporating the Midtown Greenway is not bad, and one I sometimes take for the return ride when my arrival time is not so important. The 15.2-mile high road is simply ridiculous.

As a route-finding tool with more functions, Cyclopath may be more difficult at first for a casual user, but I didn't do anything special to generate these routes.

For any cyclist looking for alternative routes, Cyclopath is worth a visit.

Colorado Marijuana Rx Law Causing Pain as Well as Relieving it.

Last week I wrote about local difficulties with enforcing Colorado's medical marijuana law.

Here's a pretty good article that gives an overview of the economic and law enforcement issues related to the law as more people in the valley get into the business.

[The legislator sponsoring a new regulatory bill] knows folks in law enforcement and those selling medical marijuana equally are unhappy with how his bill is shaping up. Dispensaries are afraid the cost of staying in business will be too high; law enforcement is angry they’ll be in business at all.

The city of Grand Junction alone could collect $445,500 in annual sales taxes on medical marijuana sold through the dispensaries.