Anne Landman

Children, Elections, Gun violence, Health care, politics, Poverty, Public health, Violence, Women

CO Rep. Ray Scott Throws Women and Kids Under the Bus

by Anne Landman • July 29, 2014 • 0 Comments

Colorado Rep. Ray Scott poses with a fancy car while Mesa County's poorest women and children go without health insurance

Colorado Rep. Ray Scott proudly poses with a hot sports car while Mesa County’s poorest women and children go without health insurance

Colorado House Rep. Ray Scott may love fetuses, but he doesn’t care much about women and apparently doesn’t think much of kids, either.

Besides being a chronic no-show at election-time debates sponsored by the League of Women Voters, in January of 2012 Ray Scott co-sponsored HB1130, a bill titled “Penalties for Violent Offenses Against Fetuses.” The bill’s very title ignores the fact that typically the woman surrounding the fetus would be the primary recipient of any violent acts perpetrated against the fetus. But in Ray Scott’s mind, women matter less than their fetuses.

Ray Scott even supported a fetal personhood amendment in the past. Such proposals are among the ultimate affronts to women, since they are religiously-based efforts that would make it a crime for women to use some forms of contraception, in accordance with Mr. Scott’s own personal religious beliefs.

Sheriff Candidate Mike Harlow: The Ugliest Face of Mesa County

by Anne Landman • July 13, 2014 • 1 Comment

Mesa County Sheriff write-in candidate Mike Harlow

It’s no surprise that Mesa County’s tea party faction endorsed custom holster-maker and write-in candidate Mike Harlow for sheriff.

What is a surprise, though, and a huge embarrassment for Mesa County citizens, is that Harlow got the endorsement of anyone at all.

Harlow’s smugness and extreme hate-filled views reveal one thing: he is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

If his writings are any indication, contempt and hostility ooze from Harlow’s every pore.

Grand Junction Gun Club Urges Action End to Mass Shootings

by Anne Landman • July 11, 2014 • 0 Comments

A portion of the postcards delivered to Congressman Scott Tipton by members of the Grand Junction Gun Club on Friday, July 11.

A portion of the postcards delivered to Congressman Scott Tipton on Friday, July 11, by members of the Grand Junction Gun Club .

A new citizens’ group in Grand Junction is saying “no more” to gun violence. The group came together to advocate action be taken to reduce the growing number of mass gun slaughters occurring in the U.S.

On Friday, July 11, 2014 the Grand Junction Gun Club presented Congressman Scott Tipton (R-CO) with 1,500 postcards from constituents in his district saying “Not One More” person should be killed by gun violence. 150 of the postcards were from residents of Grand Junction. The postcards were collected by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Everytown for Gun Safety, two national groups working to overcome the inaction by Congress on the issue of growing gun violence.

The words were inspired by Richard Martinez, whose son Christopher Martinez, was one of the six people killed in the May 23 gun massacre in Santa Barbara, California. In a statement to the media after his son’s death, Mr. Martinez said,

“When will this insanity stop? When will enough people say ‘Stop this madness!’ Too many people have died. We should say to ourselves, ‘NOT ONE MORE!'”

His words inspired a national movement to urge legislators to enact measures to reduce the number of guns getting into the hands of unstable and violent people. The Grand Junction Gun Club is standing in support of the survivors, families and communities throughout the U.S. that have been affected by mass shootings.

The perpetrator of the Santa Barbara shootings, Elliot Rodger, sought retribution against women for rejecting him and to punish young men whom he believed lived a better life than he did. Rodger visited a shooting range to train himself in shooting handguns and owned a Glock 34 pistol. When he finished his gun rampage, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Grassroots advocacy, politics, Secrecy

Secrecy Surrounds Sudden Ditching of Colorado National Monument Upgrade

by Anne Landman • July 8, 2014 • 0 Comments

Scott Tipton: Hiding the actual number of public comments he received both for and against upgrading the Colorado National Monument to a national park, but ditched the proposed legislation saying support wasn't there.

Scott Tipton is hiding the number of public comments his received both for and against upgrading the Colorado National Monument to a national park, but says support for the change just wasn’t there.

In a stunning reversal, Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) suddenly killed area citizens’ longtime effort to upgrade the Colorado National Monument to a national park.

But the reversal is shrouded in mystery, and neither Tipton nor Senator Udall’s offices will make public the data about number of comments they received for and against the proposal.

The legislators asked the public to submit comments on proposed legislation to upgrade the Monument to a national park over a period ending June 30. Citizens submitted comments via the legislators’ websites, phone, mail and email.

Both Tipton and Udall’s offices report they received thousands of comments about the proposed change, but when asked for the total number of comments received and the breakdown for and against, they refused to answer.

Public Information, Big Secret

When asked how many comments they received for and against the Monument upgrade, Deanna Pickman, an intern at Rep. Tipton’s Grand Junction office, said 500 people contacted them online and over 2,500 people signed petitions about the redesignation. She added a “vast majority were against” upgrading the Monument to a national park, but refused to give the actual numbers, saying flatly, “We’re not giving that out.” She referred me to Rep. Tipton’s Washington, D.C. office.

Barbara, an intern at Rep. Tipton’s D.C. office who refused to give her last name, said they got “quite a few” comments about the Monument legislation, but when asked for the hard numbers, she said flatly “I can’t give that to you.” She said the numbers “are not available.”

Not available? The Congressman just based a legislative action with significant consequences on the results of these numbers, but the numbers “aren’t available”?

Wow.

Retail Marijuana Boosts Businesses in Carbondale

by Anne Landman • July 7, 2014 • 0 Comments

Colorado's new marijuana economy is bringing big benefits to towns that embrace it.

Colorado’s new marijuana economy is benefitting towns that embrace it.

Carbondale is one of the few towns on Colorado’s western slope that started selling retail recreational marijuana on January 1, 2014. Only one marijuana shop opened in Carbondale, The Doctor’s Garden, but that one store is boosting the fortunes of other businesses throughout the town. A grocery store across the street from the Doctor’s Garden reports a definite increase in the number of people in town after marijuana became available, and says sales of snacks and drinks increased markedly. New people are also coming to town from other resort towns, like Aspen and Vail, and people are even coming from outside the contiguous U.S., to buy marijuana at the Doctor’s Garden. When the X-Games were ongoing in Aspen last winter, the Carbondale chamber of commerce got a call from an out-of-state ski club seeking to bring 450 people to Carbondale, specifically to go the Doctor’s Garden. Tourists going out of their way to patronize the marijuana shop also patronize other businesses in the course of doing so. Coffee bars report increased business and a local pizza shop, Peppino’s Pizza, reported gaining plenty of new customers after marijuana went on sale last January. Business owners say the demographics of the new visitors are not the “stoner” or younger, slacker-type crowd they expected, but 50-something people, which one business owner described as “an older, normal clientele.”

Source: Colorado Independent, February 5, 2014

Consumer advocacy, Democracy, Economics, Environment, Grassroots advocacy, Worker advocacy

National Park Designation Boosts Economic Fortune of California Town

by Anne Landman • July 3, 2014 • 0 Comments

The spire at Pinnacles National Park reflects on a calm reservoir below it. (Photo: NPS.gov)

Some fearful “old-guard” folks in Grand Junction are trembling in their boots at the prospect of the Colorado National Monument being upgraded to a national park, but if the experience of Soledad, California is an indicator, national park status confers a significant bump in the local economies of small towns situated near them.

In the year and a half since the Pinnacles National Monument near Soledad, California was designated the nation’s 59th national park in February, 2013, Soledad has seen its sales tax receipts jump 11 percent. Nearby restaurants report that signage posted on the routes to the new national park is bringing in more customers.

Pinnacles National Park has also seen a jump in admission fees over when it was a national monument, and the park’s book store has experienced record sales.

Park designation has brightened the economic outlook for Soledad, which previously struggled with a limited economic base.

Prior to the national park designation, Soledad’s economy was based almost solely on agriculture and the presence of a state prison. The national park designation has opened up a whole new area of clean, sustainable economic productivity for the town.

Now Soledad is gearing up to capitalize even more on the good fortune of having a national park in its back yard. The city is welcoming the diversification of its economic base and all the benefits it confers.

This summer, Soledad will open up a brand new visitor center downtown to enlighten tourists going to the park about other nearby offerings, like wineries, vineyards and specialty restaurants.

Grand Junction is poised to experience the same type of boost to its economic fortune as legislators consider bringing a bill to upgrade the Colorado National Monument to a national park.

Source: KAZU 90.3, June 25, 2014, National Park Status Boosts Tourism and Hopes

Advertising, Consumer advocacy, Economics, Ethics, Food, Marketing

Unlike the G.J. Chamber, Bin 707 Walks the “Local” Talk

by Anne Landman • July 3, 2014 • 0 Comments

Bin 707 Foodbar in downtown Grand Junction is serious about supporting local food products and organic food producers. “We’re local first, Colorado second,” says Bin’s new website. “Locally purchased products keeps money in the local economy for longer, instead of investing it in large corporations.”

Yup, Bin gets it.

When the time came to create a new website, Bin patronized Synergy Marketing Consultants at 2478 Patterson Road, a full-service digital marketing agency located right here in Grand Junction. Cat Mayer of Cat Mayer Studio, located at 3360 Star Court in Grand Junction, did the photography for the new site, and the photographs are gorgeous.

Bin’s seeking out of local talent and expertise contrasts starkly with the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce, which claims to promote local business while frequently taking its own business out of town, and often clean out of the state.

Bin 707’s true devotion to local, and its creative, innovative culinary offerings have catapulted it to success — all without joining the chamber.

Now the highest-rated restaurant in town on TripAdvisor and the second highest-rated on Yelp, Bin has quickly become a well-loved local institution. It provides GJ residents with a top-level eatery for special occasions as well as everyday dining.

Thank you, Bin 707, not just for helping to bring our town’s culinary offerings into the 21st century, but for demonstrating you are truly devoted to the real meaning of “local.”

Consumer advocacy, Education, Health, Public health, Secularism

Grand Junction’s First Secular A.A. Group Moves to New Location

by Anne Landman • July 1, 2014 • 0 Comments

Mesa County's new secular Alcoholics Anonymous group meets every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Veterans Art Center at 370 S. 12th Street (SW corner of 12th and Ute.)

Mesa County’s new secular Alcoholics Anonymous group now meets every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Veterans Art Center at 370 S. 12th Street (SW corner of 12th and Ute.)

Mesa County’s new secular Alcoholics Anonymous group, “We Agnostics,” which started up just a few months ago, has already moved up to better digs. The group now meets at 6:30 p.m. every Wednesday the Veteran’s Art Center at 307 S. 12th Street (at the southwest corner of 12th Street and Ute Ave., in the old Sentinel Printing building). We Agnostics is for recovering alcoholics who prefer an alternative to AA meetings that emphasize religion and use the “higher power” rhetoric commonly encountered in many meetings. As We Agnostics says on their brochure (pdf), “The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.” We Agnostics’ goal is “to assure suffering alcoholics that they can achieve sobriety with the support of A.A. without having to accept anyone else’s beliefs or deny their own.”

Corruption, Diane Schwenke, Economics, Grand Junction Chamber, Lies, Marketing, Propaganda

Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce Violates Own “Buy Local” Advice — Again!

by Anne Landman • June 30, 2014 • 1 Comment

Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce President Diane Schwenke (Photo Credit: YouTube)

The Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce once again dealt a hard slap to local businesses by hiring an out-of-state web developer to create its new “Save Local Now” web page and mobil app.

As quickly as the chamber debuted its new “save local” program, the Daily Sentinel revealed it had hired an Ohio-based firm to create it.

Such web development expertise is available in Grand Junction. Thin Air Web at the corner of First Street and North Avenue is one local company that offers such services, but the chamber chose not to patronize this or any other local web development business for this need.

Local-Washing

The Grand Junction Chamber regularly rolls out programs nominally aimed at supporting local businesses, like it’s “Blue Band Buy Local” program, while actually taking much of its own business out of town. This practice is known as “local-washing,” or trying to look concerned about local businesses without actually supporting local business.

Local-washing is akin to “greenwashing,” in which the chamber claims to be environmentally conscious while backing environmentally devastating pursuits unpopular with many businesses, like fracking and oil shale mining. The chamber also “job-washes,” or claims to support efforts to create jobs locally, while working to undermine innovative new economic pursuits that are already generating significant economic activity and good-paying jobs in other parts of the state.

Clueless Colorado House Rep. Ray Scott Denies Climate Change

by Anne Landman • June 24, 2014 • 1 Comment

In this 2013 video, Colorado House Representative Ray Scott, a climate change denier who represents Colorado’s western slope, argues against increasing the amount of renewable energy required from rural electric co-ops to 20% within the next 6 years. The bill, SB 252, was ultimately signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Scott says “We have better things to do.” and “We’re going too darn far.” Incredibly, he further states,

“I have people in rural Colorado who say ‘You know, I don’t have a problem with renewable energy. I have solar panels on my house, that’s fine.’ But they’re having a hard time getting their mind around fields of solar panels in a field, or wind generation facilities out in the plains that they’ve never seen before. And if we’re really environmentally conscious, why would we want to look at those things? They don’t even make sense to me. I know I’ve driven through places in Utah and California and said, ‘Oh my gosh. All of this just to say we are changing something that we’re not even really sure we’re changing, based on studies that make no sense and the science is not necessarily true?’ “

According to NASA, 97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the last century are very likely due to human activities. Most leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.

Some of the current consequences of climate change, according to NASA and a majority of scientists, include loss of sea ice, longer and more severe heat waves, and accelerated sea level rise.

The Crucial History Lesson Behind CO Ballot Initiative #75: the “Community Rights Amendment”

by Anne Landman • June 10, 2014 • 0 Comments

Colorado citizens learned their lesson from the Summitville Mine Disaster of 1992-93, but the state courts and legislature did not, and have repeatedly invalidated local laws that communities enact to protect their citizens from hazardous business pursuits.

Colorado citizens are now gathering signatures to get Ballot Initiative #75, a groundbreaking constitutional amendment, onto the state wide ballot in November.

Business interests have called Initiative #75, also known as the “Right to Local Self-Government” or the “Community Rights Amendment,” an “anti-fracking” initiative, but the measure confers more protection on Colorado citizens than just an anti-fracking initiative, and there are some very solid recent history lessons that are driving Colorado citizens to push for this initiative.

One of them is the Summitville Mine Disaster of 1992-1993.

The Summitville Mine, operated by the Summitville Consolidated Mining Corporation, Inc. (SCMCI), was an open-pit gold and silver mine located in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, about 40 miles west of Alamosa. SCMCI used a cyanide heap leaching technique to extract gold and silver. The process involved excavating ore from the mountain, then crushing it and placing it onto a 1,235 acre open leach pad lined with clay and synthetic material. The company then poured a sodium cyanide solution over the crushed ore to leach out gold and silver. The contaminated water was collected and held in leach ponds on the mine property.

Sodium cyanide is highly toxic, and among the most rapidly-acting of all poisons.

13 Insane Republican Arguments Against Upgrading the Colorado National Monument to a National Park

by Anne Landman • June 3, 2014 • 0 Comments

LIES, LIES, LIES -Opponents to changing the Colorado National Monument into a national park posted this photo on their website, "Friends of the Colorado National Monument," to warn that lack of access will ensue if the Monument becomes a national park. The photo's caption says it was taken at the entrance to the "Kapalua National Conservation Area." No such conservation area exists.

Mesa County Republicans who oppose changing the Colorado National Monument into a national park posted this photo on their website, “Friends of the Colorado National Monument,” to warn that lack of access will ensue if the Monument becomes a national park. The photo’s caption says it was taken at the entrance to the “Kapalua National Conservation Area.” There is no such conservation area.

Name a simple, cost-free way to boost our area’s sagging local economy and put Grand Junction on a lot more tourist maps.

That’s right, it’s upgrading the Colorado National Monument to national park status.

The push to turn the Monument into a national park has won widespread support from a broad spectrum of the community, and for good reasons.

The Monument has all the natural features it needs to qualify as a national park, and making the change would clarify what tourists are looking for. Right now, tourists think the Colorado National Monument is a statue or a commemorative plaque. If the Monument were called a “park” instead, it would clarify what they are heading to see. Also, as a national park the Monument would draw more travelers from the airport and more tourists off I-70, boosting business at local hotels, restaurants, coffee bars, rental car companies, gas stations, art galleries and other businesses.

Sounds like a good idea, right? That’s because it is. And for that reason, the Grand Junction Economic Partnership endorses it. The Chamber of Commerce has supported it. The Grand Junction Visitors and Convention Bureau says it is a “clear opportunity to attract more visitors.” Even the Western Slope Colorado Oil and Gas Association supports it. The Daily Sentinel supports it, saying “Studies show that monuments which become national parks don’t necessarily see a big increase in the number of visitors. But they do see a change in the types of visitors, with more people coming from outside the immediate area, staying longer in the area and spending more money.”

So if upgrading the Colorado National Monument to a national park is such a no-brainer and it would do our area so much good, why isn’t the effort going forward full throttle?

Growing Discontent with Mesa County Politics

by Anne Landman • May 27, 2014 • 0 Comments

This sign at a recent street fair indicates growing frustration with the long-time establishment GOP influence on Mesa County’s politics and culture.

Advertising, Health, Religion, Secularism

Nonreligous Alcoholism Recovery Group Forms in Western Colorado

by Anne Landman • May 22, 2014 • 0 Comments

At long last, a non-religious alcoholism recovery group is finally available in Grand Junction.

We Agnostics of Western Colorado, meets every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Fourth Door, a music club in a building at the northeast corner of 4th Street and Grand Ave. The group is open to all nonbelievers, including atheists, skeptics and agnostics.

We Agnostics organizer Sam C. is one of four people who spent two months working on finding a suitable place to meet, creating a flier and performing other tasks needed to establish the group. Sam says that Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) works best for recovery but notes that nonreligious people who participate in AA have try to “ignore the god stuff.”

The flier promoting We Agnostics says it’s for “Recovering alcoholics who prefer an alternative to the emphasis on religion and ‘Higher Power’ commonly encountered in many meetings.” The group maintains a tradition of free expression and offers a place where people struggling with alcoholism can feel free to express any doubts or disbelief they may have, as well as “share their own personal form of spiritual experience, or their search or rejection of it.” The group does not endorse or oppose any form of religion or atheism. Their only wish is “to assure suffering alcoholics that they can achieve sobriety with the support of AA without having to accept anyone else’s believes or deny their own.”

Sam reminds people that the only real requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

For more information on We Agnostics. contact Sam C., via text or phone at (303) 818-6312, (he is local), or send an email to WeAgnosticsofWC@gmail.com.

Advertising, Corporations

You Heard it Here First! Sentinel Adopts AnneLandmanBlog’s “LoJo” Name for its Neighborhood

by Anne Landman • May 22, 2014 • 0 Comments

This ad run in today’s Daily Sentinel shows the paper has adopted AnneLandmanBlog’s new nickname for lower dowtown G.J.: “LoJo”

Today’s Grand Junction Daily Sentinel has an ad promoting a run the paper is sponsoring called the “Wrong Side of the Tracks Run” planned for July 3 that starts at the paper’s office building at 734 S. 7th Street and ends at the Edgewater Brewery at 905 Struthers Ave.

In the ad, the Sentinel adopts the nickname first proposed by right here in AnneLandmanBlog for Grand Junction’s southern downtown area as it undergoes its urban renewal phase. We called it “LoJo.” The nickname appeared in our April 17, 2014 blog titled “Jumpin’ Without Jesus: Get Air at the Silo Opens Soon in Grand Junction,” about the old Mesa Feed grain silo and building being made into a trampoline and jumping facility.

Yes, folks, you heard it here first!

Thanks, Daily Sentinel!

Below is the photo with the caption using the name “LoJo” from the April 17th Jumpin’ Without Jesus blog:

The old Mesa Feed building on south 7th Street in LoJo is being rebuilt into a climbing and trampoline amusement park.

Equal rights, Ethnic/Minority, Grassroots advocacy, LGBT issues, Pop culture

Culture Shift: Grand Junction Embraces Gay Pride Events

by Anne Landman • May 19, 2014 • 0 Comments

Parade participants ready a float in the 2014 Grand Junction Gay Pride Parade May 18

The most overlooked and historic story in Grand Junction this week is the area’s burgeoning gay scene and the growing prominence of the area’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population.

This year Gay Pride week brought an extended celebration of gender diversity to this formerly staid town, where previously people preferred to quietly sweep such culture under the rug.

Not any more.

Saturday, May 17 brought a gender-bending drag queen show to the Mesa Theater on Main Street, complete with a laser light show, throbbing techno music, Cirque-de-Soleil-style dancers atop lit towers and rambunctious performances by hilarious drag entertainers from Denver, Salt Lake and Provo.

Lest you think organizers had to go out of town to find such entertainers, that wasn’t the case. The show featured a performance by a home-grown, local drag troupe, The CDS Drag, with performers Jem Holiday, Donatella Mysecrets and Stella Rae.

Sunday, May 18 brought the Second Annual Gay Pride Parade and street festival. Heidi Hess, the western slope grassroots organizer for One Colorado, which works to secure and protect equality and opportunity for LGBT people and their families, reports that the size of the parade nearly tripled this year.

Botox Victim Wins $18 Million from Allergan after Contracting Botulism Poisoning

by Anne Landman • May 14, 2014 • 0 Comments

Ad for Botox Cosmetic. Allergan hid information from doctors and patients about the dangers of injecting botulinum toxin into the body.

Dr. Sharla Helton, an accomplished obstetrician in Oklahoma City, won $18 million a long-running legal fight against the maker of Botox, after she contracted botulism poisoning as a result of getting injections of Botox Cosmetic 2006.

Botox Cosmetic, which is injected into people’s faces to reduce the appearance of wrinkles, is made from a highly potent neurotoxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. Botulinum toxin is the most acutely lethal toxin known to man, and has been considered for its potential as a biological weapon. Just four hundredths of an ounce of undiluted botulinum toxin is enough to kill one million people by giving them the nerve disease botulism, which causes paralysis. Allergan must dilute their toxin so much that the amounts in its drug Botox cannot be measured in conventional terms. One “unit” of Botox is the amount that will kill one half of a test population of laboratory mice. A typical injection of Botox is 20 times that amount.

Even very slight errors in how and where a doctor injects the drug can potentially cause significant and even lethal health problems.

Midwife Sounds Alert Over Spike in Stillbirths in Heavily-Drilled Vernal, Utah

by Anne Landman • May 14, 2014 • 0 Comments

Drilling density in the Uintah Basin, where Vernal is located

A midwife in Vernal, Utah, has raised a red flag about a spike in the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in the small town in 2013. The statistic has emerged alongside explosive growth in drilling and fracking in the area. Energy companies have flocked to Vernal in the last few years to develop the massive oil and gas fields that underlie Uintah County.

The midwife, Donna Young, who has worked in the Vernal area for 19 years, reported delivering the first stillborn baby she’s seen in all her years of practice in May, 2013. Doctors could not determine any reason for the baby’s death.

While visiting the local cemetery where the parents of that baby had buried their dead child, Young noticed other fresh graves of babies who were stillborn or died shortly after birth.

Young started researching local sources of data on stillbirths and neonatal deaths, like obituaries and mortuary records, and found a large spike in the number of infant deaths occurring in Vernal in recent years. She found 11 other incidents in 2013 where Vernal mothers had given birth to stillborn babies, or whose babies died within a few days of being born.

Vernal’s full-time population is only about 9,800.

The rate of neonatal deaths in Vernal has climbed from about equivalent to the national average in 2010, to six times the national average in 2013.

Along with the surge in oil and gas drilling in the Vernal area over the last few years, the winter time air in the Uintah basin, where Vernal sits, has become dense with industrial smog generated by drilling rigs, pipelines, wells and increased traffic.

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