The first Thursday in May of every year is the National Day of Reason, a celebration that coincides with the National Day of Prayer, which encourages Americans to pray to God for peace and prosperity for the nation. A big problem with the National Day of Prayer, though, is that it excludes almost a quarter of the U.S. population that doesn’t belong to any religion or doesn’t believe in God. That’s a whole lot of people to leave out of a national celebration.
Activism, Elections, Grand Junction Chamber, Inept Republicans, politics, Pollution, Safety, Stupid Republicans, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
Flex your muscle by getting out and voting in the May 8 Drainage District election!
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Why drainage matters: Sherwood Park flooding after a sudden heavy summer rainstorm
Mark your calendars: there’s a local election coming up that Grand Valley progressives and intelligent voters can actually win if they just get out to vote: It’s an election in which typically only about 200 people turn out vote, so one or two dozen extra voters coming out could really tip the entire election in a good way for our valley. It’s for the District 3 seat seat on the Grand Valley Drainage District (GVDD) board, and it’s coming up May 8. (pdf)
The difference between the two candidates is stark. It should make for a very easy decision by voters.
Consumer advocacy, Corruption, Crazy Republicans, Energy, Environment, Front groups, Pollution
Sen. Ray Scott tanks bill to boost electric vehicle charging stations across the state
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Colorado State Senator Ray Scott
Mesa County’s State Senator Ray Scott was the key “no” vote that killed a bill to encourage utility companies to build more infrastructure across the state for electric vehicles (EVs). The bill, SB18-216, would have permitted electric companies to build more EV charging stations and recoup the costs of the construction by charging fees to users. The bill would have expanded the use of clean-running electric vehicles in Colorado by making it easier for people to charge them when traveling across the state.
Tanking the bill was a goal of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), an astroturf front group funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers, owners of Koch Industries, a private conglomerate with holdings in oil and gas.
Consumer advocacy, politics, Public health, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
Canal roads voted “Best Health Club” in Sentinel’s “Best of the West” contest
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Area residents voted trespassing on the Grand Valley’s irrigation canal roads as the “Best Health Club” in the Daily Sentinel’s “Best of the West” contest in a “favorite write-in votes” section. Almost 4,000 people voted in the “Best of the West” contest.
Crazy Republicans, politics, Public health, Weird Grand Junction Stuff
State Sen. Ray Scott votes with Dems
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Corporations, Crazy Republicans, Gun violence, politics, Propaganda, Public health, Safety, Security, Stupid Republicans, Trump Insanity
Don’t be fooled. Gun massacres are about GUNS, not mental illness.
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Yes, President Trump, it IS a ‘guns situation.’
In the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, Republicans are claiming that the easy availability of guns in the U.S. isn’t even a factor in our national epidemic of mass shootings. Instead they point to mental illness as the only factor that should be considered.
Hogwash.
Crazy Republicans, Extremism, Hate
Milo Yiannopoulos’s Grand Junction show cancelled
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Milo Yiannopoulos
Grand Junction has been spared a potentially embarrassing and costly problem. A show by white supremacist provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos scheduled for April 14th at an undisclosed location in Grand Junction has been cancelled. The website for the event, “A Night with Milo, Grand Junction” says tickets to the Grand Junction event are no longer on sale. No more details are provided. The tickets had been priced at $40-$109 — expensive for any event in Grand Junction. Yiannopoulos was also supposed to appear in Las Vegas the night before the Grand Junction event, but that appearance has also apparently been cancelled.
Great news, and another win for Grand Junction’s growing liberal/progressive community.
Activism, Atheism, Diversity, Education, Religion, Secularism
Atheist billboard graces entrance to Grand Junction at Easter, 2018
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Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers (WCAF) has a new digital billboard up in front of Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A at Rimrock Marketplace on I-70 B just in time for Easter. It shows a child with a shocked look on his face holding a book that looks very much like a Bible. It says “Belief without proof is gullibility.” You can see the board as you are heading west on I-70 B.
WCAF wanted their spring billboard to have an educational component this year. The group wanted to emphasize that people deserve proof before believing what they’re told. They also want to urge people to come to logical conclusions based on verifiable facts rather than on lore, mythology or pure faith.
WCAF’s mission is to educate the public about atheism, promote acceptance of atheism as a rational belief system and preserve and promote the wall of separation between church and state.
The board is up through Tuesday, April 4. WCAF says anyone who takes their photo with the billboard and posts it on WCAF’s Facebook page will get a free package of M&Ms. To donate to more billboards like this, go to WCAF’s Donation page.
Consumer advocacy, Safety, Trump Insanity, Worker advocacy
Trump’s war on worker safety
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Construction is one of the most dangerous occupations, but the Trump administration is not on the side of workers.
Falling from scaffolding, getting hurt by chemical hazards, getting cut by, caught in or crushed by equipment… many Mesa County workers face hazards like this every day on the job.
A significant number of people in Mesa County work in some the country’s most dangerous occupations. Nationwide 5,190 workers were killed on the job in 2016. On average, that’s more than 99 people a week, or over 14 worker deaths every day. The construction industry has by far the highest fatality rate of any industry in the U.S., accounting for fully 21% of workplace fatalities. 823 oil and gas industry workers were killed on the job in the U.S. from 2003 to 2010 — a fatality rate seven times greater than the rate for all U.S. industries. There were over a dozen fires and explosions at Colorado oil and gas facilities in the eight months following the fatal blast in Firestone, Colorado, in April, 2017 that killed two people in their home. In one 12 year span, one oil and gas worker was killed every three months in Colorado, all while workers face a system more focused on protecting drilling companies than the people who work for them.
Activism, Children, Ethics, Gun violence, politics, Public health
Grand Junction’s huge anti gun-violence march and rally
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Around 3,000 people attended Grand Junction, Colorado’s March for Our Lives, on Mach 24, 2018. It was one of 800 “sibling” marches happening around the country and the world at the same time as the main March for our Lives in Washington, D.C., organized by students who survived the February 14 gun massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The attendance at Grand Junction’s march was impressive given that this area of Colorado has long been considered a gun-friendly, conservative stronghold. That may not be the case any more, as many gun owners are joining with the students in saying there are now too many guns in too many people’s hands, and a higher priority should be put on people’s safety rather than on guns.
Such significant participation in an event like this was unthinkable as recently as just a couple of years ago.