Camp Quest has finally come to Colorado!
Camp Quest is a traditional sleep away summer camp geared towards children of secular families. The camp experience employs activities geared toward developing critical thinking, ethics, scientific inquiry, philosophy and comparative religions.
Some of City Market’s hot deli items that get put in the trash at the end of each day (Photo credit: YouTube City Market Deli promotional video)
“I’ll give you six pieces of chicken for the price of four,” sighed an unnamed City Market deli clerk to a customer one evening around 8:30 p.m. “It’s all going in the trash in a few minutes, anyway,” the employee lamented.
All that food in the trash? What?
Yes, all of it. Every bit. Every day. In the trash.
Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese, who oversees the county’s human services and food assistance programs
Half of Mesa County residents who are eligible for food stamps get them, while the other half who apply are routinely turned away.
Rose Pugliese, the Mesa County Commissioner who leads the Department of Human Services (DHS) commission in charge of managing food stamp programs in Mesa County, has picked nasty public fights with county DHS management (video) and follows her predecessor, Janet Rowland, in trying to restrict Mesa County residents from participating in federal food assistance programs.
Mesa County Commissioner District 1 candidate John Davis in front of his eponymously-painted motorcoach when he ran for President of the United States in 2012
Another doozy of a Republican candidate is running for local office, this time against Mesa County Commissioner District 1 incumbent John Justman.
It’s John Davis.
The local Republican Party just keeps them coming, don’t they?
The City of Grand Junction’s official proclamation endorsing Gay Pride Week in town
In a landmark action towards welcoming diversity in our community, at its Wednesday, May 4, 2016 meeting, the Grand Junction City Council will officially declare May 2nd through May 8th, 2016 “Grand Junction Pride Fest Week.”
The Citrus Gypsies’ fruit booth at First Street and Patterson Road
They’re BACK! They’re the Citrus Gypsies, and they have the best citrus fruit around! (When I asked them if they had a name, Ana at the First and Patterson booth told me they don’t really have a name for their business, but that’s what they call themselves informally).
These wonderful itinerant young fruit people come from a ranch in Montana and travel the southwest buying great citrus fruit at the height of the harvest and driving it to other places in the west that don’t have great fruit (at least right now). They have by far the best citrus you can get. It’s fresh-picked and doesn’t have any waxy coatings, stickers or other junk on it. They picked this last batch of navel oranges themselves from an orchard in California’s central valley, near Fresno, so they put a great deal of effort into it. Before coming back here, they took a haul to Salt Lake City and got sold out very quickly after someone posted about them on social media.
Local business owners no longer have to pay the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce’s high membership fees if all they really want is a convenient and inexpensive way to network regularly with other businesses. Network Now is a new Grand Junction business networking group not affiliated with the troubled G.J. Chamber that meets every other Wednesday from 8:30-9:30 a.m. in the ReMax 4000 meeting room at 120 W. Park Drive, Grand Junction, at Patterson Road and First Street. The next meeting is next Wednesday, April 20, 2016. For more info call Jill at 970. 270.7958
The Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce in their Monday, April 11 ad in the Daily Sentinel, announced that it OPPOSES Colorado House Bill HB 16-1361, the “Patient Choice in Pharmacy” bill, which would prohibit health insurance companies from restricting subscribers’ ability to select a pharmacy or pharmacist of their choice. The bill also prohibits insurance companies from imposing extra co-payments, fees or restrictions on subscribers if they choose to use a pharmacy outside the insurance company’s network, as long the pharmacy/pharmacist has a valid CO license and meets some other criteria.
The G.J Chamber opposes citizens’ ability to freely choose where to shop for medications. Without this bill, smaller locally-owned pharmacies that are not in an insurance company’s network will lose businesses to bigger chains stores or mail order pharmacies that insurance companies tell subscribers they have to use.
Once again, the Chamber opposes a measure that would help smaller and locally-owned businesses, and that is beneficial to all citizens and working people.
Crucifixes in a slide from Shelly Donahue’s “WAIT” program at Delta High School
The Delta County School Board is violating state and federal laws in order to keep students from getting medically-accurate sex education information, and it seems to be by design.
Last October, the school district hired controversial abstinence-only-before-marriage pontificator Shelly Donahue as a sex education speaker for students. According to students, this was the only “sex education” the Delta County School District provided them, and the school board and district administration apparently consider this an adequate sex education.
Far from it.
For those who aren’t familiar with Shelly Donahue, she is an evangelistic Christian abstinence-only speaker who rakes in government grant funds by giving “WAIT” (“Why Am I Tempted”) training in public schools. Donahue’s website says
“She is passionately committed to Jesus Christ as the ultimate answer to the teen sexual activity problem in America. As a motivational speaker and a leading sex education expert, she is making a significant impact for the Kingdom of God!”
The leading “T” in Donahue’s business logo is a flaming crucifix; the logo and cross appeared in every slide in her presentations at Delta schools
In her talks, Donahue dishes out vast amounts of medically inaccurate information to kids and uses broad, simplistic analogies that convey stereotypical images of what boys’ and girls’ personalities are like. She includes liberal doses of religiously-based, guilt-and-shame to frighten students out of having sex before marriage.
The Delta County School District is in serious need of help.
The recent exposure of the extent of Christian proselytizing in the Delta County school system has not just raised eyebrows locally, state-wide, nationally and internationally. It has encouraged Delta area residents to come forward with their own personal stories of proselytizing and discrimination in Delta public schools and their workplaces, and how it has affected their lives.
The above article from the March 27, 2016 issue of the Grand Junction, CO Daily Sentinel says that the increase in registered Democrats is happening without any kind of organized registration drive being put on by Mesa County Democrats, while at the same time, the Mesa County Republican Party is actively working to register new members and is even meeting their goals. The growth in Democrats is coming from people switching parties, as well as from new registrants.
Marlboro Train (2007) from Marty Otañez on Vimeo.
Philip Morris’ “Project Thunder” was public relations plan to construct and operate a wildly-luxurious, custom-built 20-car Marlboro train as a promotion for Marlboro cigarettes. The train was to consist entirely of double-decker cars and feature amenities such as a hot tub car, massage rooms and gambling. The train would stop at locations throughout the scenic southwestern U.S. and let passengers off to partake in iconically western activities like horseback riding, bicycling, river rafting, and paragliding. Philip Morris planned to give selected smokers the “trip of a lifetime” on a “deluxe train through Marlboro Country.”
The train was going to be used for only one season, from May-September 1996, at an estimated cost to Philip Morris of $44 million.
The train was built at tremendous expense to PM, but PM ultimately pulled the plug on the project very late as the train was close to completion. PM then ordered the train destroyed. The company made the rail car company workers who were manufacturing the train in Fort Collins, Colorado, sign nondisclosure agreements that forced them to stay silent about the project and its ultimate demise.
Plans for Project Thunder can be viewed at this link at University of California San Francisco’s Legacy Tobacco Documents Library: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/neg36e00
Shelly Donahue, an abstinence-only teacher from Elevate Youth, a religious ministry based in Plano, Texas, who was hired to give trainings to Delta County School District Students last October. The sole funder of the program was a religious ministry.
News about the pending distribution of atheist and Satanic literature in Delta County schools April 1 is encouraging more students, parents and even teachers to come forward with information about what they say is a persistent pattern of state/church violations, religiously-based discrimination and even outright bigotry, harassment and demeaning of atheist and non-believing students occurring within the Delta County School system.
Parents from Delta County contacted Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers (WCAF) Tuesday morning (3/22/16) to alert the group to what they feel is pervasive Christian proselytizing occurring in Delta County Schools. They say they and their child have suffered to a great extent from the school district’s persistent embrace of religious promotion.
Brochure to be distributed to Delta County High School students on April 1
The Delta County School District (DCSD) has approved the distribution of atheistic, secular and Satanic literature to middle and high school students throughout Delta County on April 1, 2016, and will carry out the literature distribution on behalf of the groups who have applied to do it.
Palisade Mayor Pro Tem Dave Edwards accepts the nomination to run for District 3 County Commissioner at Central High School auditorium
The Mesa County Democratic Party became the party of “Yes” today when it came to allowing recreational marijuana commerce in Mesa County.
At their assembly at Central High School auditorium, Democratic Party delegates voted by an overwhelming majority to amend the party’s platform to back ending the ban on recreational marijuana sales and cultivation into the County.
The current Board of Mesa County Commissioners have banned marijuana commerce, sending cash-carrying tourists and area residents seeking legal weed up-valley to DeBeque, Parachute, Silt and Glenwood Springs, to purchase legal pot.
Democrats in favor of the measure cited the economic benefits much of the rest of the state is enjoying from sales taxes on marijuana, the tourism and job creation Mesa County is missing out on, and the lives unnecessarily ruined by the criminalization of marijuana, which is now widely accepted to be a failed strategy. Opponents cited the fact that marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, but those in favor countered that the federal government is no longer actively enforcing marijuana laws in Colorado and other states that have legalized it.
Scott McInnis got a national conservation area named after himself in violation of a federal House Rule that prohibits Congressmen from naming public works and lands after themselves.
In another notable amendment to their platform, Mesa County Dems also voted to support reverting “McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area” back its original name, “Colorado Canyons National Conservation Area.” The change would require an act of Congress. Speakers in favor (and all speakers were in favor) noted that the idea to change the area’s name did not originate from Colorado’s representatives or from any Colorado citizens. Also, in order to pass the name change, a handful of House representatives suspended a Congressional House Rule that prohibits sitting members of Congress from naming public works and lands after themselves. Supporters also cited the fact that national conservation areas are always named after the geological features that make them unique, and not after people. Others took exception to former Congressman Scott McInnis’ opposition to land conservation locally, and his 2010 plagiarism scandal as making him unfit to have the area named after him.
The vote to revert the name was unanimous, without a single dissenter among the approximately 150 delegates at the assembly.
Also by another unanimous vote, Mesa County Democrats backed adding a 5-10 cent deposit on bottles and cans locally to encourage recycling, help clean up litter around the county and provide a source of income for homeless people.
Fruita City Councilman Mel Mulder
Palisade Mayor Pro Tem Dave Edwards formally accepted at nomination to run for District 3 County Commissioner. The District includes eastern Mesa County, Palisade, Orchard Mesa, DeBeque). The seat is currently held by incumbent Rose Pugliese, an attorney who is currently mired in a malpractice lawsuit and facing legal sanctions, and who openly opposes wilderness areas.
Fruita City Councilman Mel Mulder accepted the nomination to run for County Commissioner in District 1 (western Mesa County, Fruita, Mack, Loma and Glade Park) to replace incumbent Commissioner John Justman, who last year took a controversial $2,500 trip to Hawaii on the taxpayers’ dime, and who holds anti-federal government views while also accepting over $200,000 in federal agricultural subsidies for his own farm.
Both candidates vowed to start working on turning around Mesa County’s failing economy as soon as they are elected. Since the County Commission consists of only three members, they pointed out, electing both of them at once would allow them to start initiating quick changes for the better as the two would be a majority on the county commission.
Dems enjoyed the morning, and each other’s company, snacking on union-made doughnuts from Safeway and locally brewed coffee from Traders’ Coffee at 7th and Patterson Road as they organized to move forward stronger than ever before.
“It’s Okay Little Buddy” – Mel Mulder and his super-cute little friend are featured in this famous local painting by his wife, artist and art teacher Vera Mulder
Longtime Grand Valley resident and Fruita City Council member Mel Mulder is running for Mesa County Commissioner in District 1. He is easily of the most qualified candidates for this office that Mesa County has seen in the last 35 years, and certainly the best artistically-rendered candidate. (See picture above.)
The Satanic Temple’s Children’s BIG BOOK of Activities
A locally-produced brochure about atheism called “It’s Okay to Not Believe in God” (pdf), the Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities and other literature critical of the Bible and Christianity will be distributed to Delta Middle School (DMS) students if the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) gets their way.
Three groups — the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers and the Satanic Temple — have all submitted literature to Delta public schools for approval for distribution in an effort to get Delta County Schools to stop distributing Gideon Bibles to students during class time.
