Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper put on his usual demonstration of drinking a bottle of contaminated water to show that the Animas River is just as potable as FRACKING FLUID. What he has really shown is that the mine waste which the EPA un-dammed from the Gold King Mine into the Animas River was toxic enough to kill GIARDIA. Who drinks river water in Colorado?! The EPA may have unleashed the waste seeping from a mine closed in 1928, but the extraction industry that created it is still hard at work making more.
Tag: John Hickenlooper
Waldo Canyon Wildfire gives Colorado Springs a front range seat to war zone movie set, says Governor Hickenlooper
COLORADO SPRINGS- Governor Hickenlooper made the remark after touring the Waldo Canyon Fire by helicopter. After touching down on the grounds of Coronado High School, cleared mid-press-conference because it fell in the freshly designated evacuation area, the governor said the wildfire resembled the movie set of a military invasion. Predictably the media clipped his observation to just "movie set", adding the fire chief's "epic" and "historic". President Obama is expected to visit the disaster zone on Friday. I wonder if he'll match our governor's candor. He is certainly in the position to say whether our present horror is any match for the devastation unleashed by our invasions. Perhaps he can tell us the fire's equivalency in drone strikes. Is 100 homes a week's worth? If President Obama wanted to be partisan about it (pretending his Democratic Party was the antiwar party) he might suggest that conservative war-mongering, race-baiting, climate-denying Colorado Springs had this front range seat coming. Unless sentimentally doused in prayer-sharing reverence, our local disaster, with Governor Hickenlooper's unedited comment, could be an empathy-learning moment.
Hey Mike!
After last week, it seemed this entry would be a pep talk for disheartened Colorado Springs Occupiers. Instead it seems it will need to be my own mind meandering around in an attempt to make sense of the new dynamic rising from the ashes of the original manifestation we had going here, which has surely been destroyed. It feels something like a kids cabin make of Lincoln Logs or something after he knocks it over to build something else. It's been over a week since the City shut our permit down and confiscated our ramshackle, wind-ragged tents down at Acacia Park. After a few days of curious and somewhat disconcerting quiet, Occupiers in Colorado Springs are reconnected, reinvigorated, and in many cases really pissed off. Yesterday a contingency of us made our way to the old Venetucci Farm south of CSprings to harass Colorado's Gov. Hickenlooper at the groundbreaking ceremony for a solar garden project of the city's publicly owned utilities company. About 20 Occupiers of Colorado Springs mic-checked the governor and briefly disrupted the speechifying before a group that was made largely of Occupy's natural allies, raising the ire of some attendees, but most assuredly reminding Hickenlooper that he won't be allowed to ignore the movement simply by leaving Denver. Some Occupiers present , including i, were ambivalent about our project. Hickenlooper is something of a liberal darling, having supported projects like the SunShare solar garden in the past, and the crowd at the event was populated by many of Colorado Springs's "liberal" elite. The business of interrupting at these proceedings is a little sticky, and may have cost some in support for Occupy among this crowd. On the other hand, some of the issues addressed by Occupy were aptly illustrated within the very brief span of our attendance. Jerry Forte, who wrangles close to $300,000 a year for himself without considering bonuses as CEO of Colorado Springs Utilities, spent a few smooth-talking minutes going on about how cool the city's utility non-profit is, noting the great advance the two or three dozen solar panels undergoing installation at Venetucci Farm toward his goal of deriving 20% of city power from renewable resources by 2020 represents. Gee whiz! At today's use rates, by 2020, the world's inhabitants, especially in the U.S., will be stabbing one another over firewood if we can survive the toxic byproducts of the petroleum industry, or the potentially nuclear wars we are preparing for our next trick in the Middle East. Hmm--wonder what gas prices will look like if the Levant and its environs are sealed under a "sea of glass." Forte also sits on the board at the local branch of the United Way, where Bob Holmes's Homeward Pikes Peak brought in around $650,000 last year, and still can't figure out how to house or manage the low-ball ,(and variable), estimate of around 1,100 homeless residents in Colorado Springs. Hickenlooper, a million dollar winner in the American sweepstakes who loves to project an aw-shucks, up-by-the-bootstrap, populist kind of
Thief of Jerusalem to speak in Denver
In Israel's continuing PR barrage to elevate US jingoism against Iran, the regime has sent another official to lobby the Denver Jewish community. This time Mayor Hickenlooper and Governor Ritter are welcoming the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, to speak at the University of Denver. If you oppose Israel's continued appropriation of occupied Jerusalem, which Barkat calls "the Jewish people's eternal capital," you'll want to join Palestinian activists and the CFP, to protest Israel's ongoing propaganda campaign. Come Tuesday, November 3, to the D.U. Newman Center for Performing Arts, 6PM.
C.E.L.L. house of horror indoctrination
DENVER, COLORADO- The visitor brochure explains that THE C.E.L.L. exhibit SHATTERED LIVES is "designed to encourage critical thinking." But a step through its doors proves it intends everything but. With a patronizing audacity beyond Orwell, these A.G.E.N.T.S. lurk with sensory trauma to infect your personal American idyll with fear. To my mind, they're Alarmist Goons Elevating a Nonsensical Terrorism Scare. Picture-taking is forbidden beyond the lobby doors, but after the collage assemblage in the atrium, there's nothing to photograph. The ticketed portion of the ride consists of crooked halls filled simply with video screens, projections, and blurbs of text on the walls; self-described "sophisticated multimedia techniques." Monitors and kiosks are peppered throughout in multiples, as if the installation were anticipating subway-strength traffic making a beeline through; or large school groups with no freedom to move laterally. Of course, the omniscient repetition also indoctrinates us subliminally. The TV news clips sample a half dozen terrorism incidents, Munich, Lockerbie, Nairobi, et EL AL. Remote voices accompany still photos of bloodied carnage. Amidst the intonations of observers and analysts ring two repeated motifs: JFK's mocking condemnation of terrorists, and Edmund Burke's admonition "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Someone can't resist that adage. I wonder if it's true. PUTS YOU AT THE SCENE Before I relate the plenty creepy details, I'll jump straight to the orchestration's third movement. Perhaps someone else can compare the programming of THE CELL according to known indoctrination stratagems. I'll call the third chamber the climax. Automatically-timed doors enforce a six-minute collective "immersion." Signs warn away anyone with a weak heart, etc, although I didn't see an alternate passage around. Neither do the doors allow anyone to pass quickly through. They release the previous group before locking to entrap the next. ( S P O I L E R - A L E R T ) Inside, a video-surround chamber simulates a camera obscura viewpoint, first we're at a summer fair in Denver's Civic Center Park, then outside the DAM, then a sunny morning on the 16th Street Mall. The movement of bystanders and passersby around us sometimes slows or accelerates. Until SUDDENLY --OF COURSE-- we're at the epicenter of a FURIOUS EXPLOSION and our mid-west urban tranquility is engulfed in fire. Soon enough, floating in the flames come images of urban battlefields, destruction and carnage. Eventually we can recognize the iconic photographs of Pan Am Flight 103, and the rescue of embassy employees in Kenya, about which we were just reminded in the previous chamber. Then we're treated to a large text message which reminds us that a terrorist attack can strike "anyone, anytime, anywhere," and we're released into an antechamber of analysis. Actually, claustrophobes might want to know that every segment of THE CELL is time-released. But there will be intrusive control elements to offend everyone. PERSONALIZED ID For starters, the entrance fee is $8, or $6 to Coloradans. Can you think of why the cost of admission would be more expensive
They had hid shit in bags!
Like a carefully choreographed play, accusations by the police that they have uncovered shit and urine stockpiles by protesters has been their routine to cover up their actions at both the Democratic and Republican Party Conventions. By making these false accusations in the press, the police and politicians hope to cover up their own shitty actions against lawful protesters. What they are actually trying to do is make political dissidents in the US out to be of the same stripe as common criminals in the police torture chamber prisons around the US, thus justifying their overkill storm-trooper presence these last two weeks. Thus helping tear up all our legal protections and rights. Sorry, Guys, it won't work. To the world it looks like American police and government are of the same stripe as what we saw on TV in Beijing, China. Smart, Dudes! American police may still have the support of the conservatized American population as a whole, but this support will ebb if you keep these actions up for much longer. Of note is that Denver's Democratic Party mayor, John Hickenlooper, has joined with St. Paul's Democratic Party mayor, Chris Coleman, in backing up these police smears in the press. The Denver Post today ran this piece of police disinformation backed up by the DP mayor of the city... Mayor: Protesters hid feces and tools Yeah, right! The real poop in bags being hidden is that of the mayor and police. When are Democratic Party liberals going to hold their party accountable for acting like the Republicans, on behalf of the Republicans, and on behalf of abusive national policing policies? Many of you DP voting liberals are among the group of protesters being smeared with dishonest shit by these false accusations by Democratic Party mayors, so why do you take it? Shame on you and your party! All you can seem to do is scream about Sarah Palin. Democrats, you are a pathetic lot indeed. Cop talking shit!