2011 DIVERSITY FAIR, NOTES, PART 1- What is our police department doing with high school age “explorers?” They’re uniformed and have their own shoulder patch. Exploring what? The limits to which they impose their weight against peoples’ rights? I’m at a civic festival in Confluence Park, across from a canopy whose shade does not conceal a mass of blue uniforms, adult officers bulky with bullet-proof vests and leather, holstering all manner of law enforcement weaponry, and CSPD apprentices, skinnier for lack of the armor and accouterments, but otherwise dressed exactly like police officers, and adopting the swagger which comes of trooping the colors, emboldened by the anonymity of the requisite Ray-Bans.
I don’t know what the CSPD think they’re doing. Community outreach would be far better accomplished in t-shirt and shorts. I can’t help but think that the authority communicated by the uniforms is being abused in this setting. I’m reminded immediately of the menace which fascist youth groups projected over even their parents. These kids are strolling around the event like appointed hall monitors. Patrolling, some of them would you believe, with their thumbs looped on their leather belts. If they had clubs they’d be twirling them.
Of course, they stroll pretending it means assimilation, as if submission to authority is a normal ingredient of any balanced community. I suspect that’s what the early indoctrination “explores.”
Actually, the Explorers get their name because they’re “exploring law enforcement as a career.” Yes any profession would be something an apprentice might want to explore, but police craft is one which requires alerting the public that this uniformed person does not have full-on authority/responsibility over you. Well, responsibility is probably what they’re most concerned about.
No one should doubt the craft of policemanship bears complexities worthy of journeymen, but I’d rather recruits came into law enforcement in the more common manner, after a college education.
Well, this IS the EVERYBODY WELCOME Diversity Fair, so we can’t exclude the Fascists. But do the city’s traditionally marginalized populations really feel welcomed by such an asserted police presence? I’m thinking of the immigration-challenged circles. But in general, how welcome do you suppose Hispanic, African, or Native Americans feel with white kids semi-officially playing cop?
Presumably the Klan was excluded from invitation, like any hate-group, because it offends the hatees. Probably law enforcement should take a backseat too, and not pretend that policing be considered a cultural component of a community.
It’s given me an idea however. Maybe the point could be brought home if we injected the event with worse than these crew-cutted crackers. How about a para-militarized presence?
I’m thinking cops in riot gear, patrolling like it was no big deal. In protest situations it’s become the norm, imagine if the average non-protester were to see the face of the US police state. Would citizens be so comfortable if instead of officer friendly, or junior uniformed friendlies, the event was patrolled by storm troopers. The CSPD knows better than to expose itself like that, but imagine a riotous development to draw them out.
Or, why not assert a pseudo-authoritarian presence for them?
If not riot gear, maybe a paramilitary uniform, American dark blue, with plenty of USA insignia, the American eagle made to look a little Germanic, let’s say. Jack boots, riding pants, leather straps, and black gloves a must.
Technically, the force could pretend to be a secret service, community outreach for the NSA or the plethora of intelligence agencies. The idea would be to present a dark, ominous authority. Handing out small fliers that read “Please take no notice of us, if you’ve done no wrong, you’ve nothing to be afraid of.”
That line probably gets lots of laughs at Tea Parties, but over Denver airwaves, Congressman Doug Lamborn’s 
Former Weatherman Bill Ayers, now a respected professor of education, was recently nominated for emeritus status but ran into trouble when a right wing blogger complained that a 1970 underground publication coauthored by Ayers, Prairie Fire, had been dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. (Let’s not leave aside the possibility that lone Sirhan was the fall guy in a conference room full of CIA operatives, the immediately the suppressed narrative, which would make Sirhan a victim among the 209 other anti-imperialist heroes to which the Weather Underground wanted to dedicate their efforts.) While hindsight might reveal the WUO to have erred with some of its honorees, it seems likely the majority might be worthy of a following up.
Preceding the longer list is a preliminary dedication to the three WUO comrades who died in the NYC townhouse accident: Teddy Gold, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins.
Game On QuiBids. We received a letter today from an Oklahoma law firm, on behalf of “QuiBids LLC,” apparently the preeminent of “penny auction site” confidence scams, who took exception to our earlier 
adventure shopping, gambling scenarios or lotteries. They are con games that lead you to believe you are getting something for your money, until you don’t.
Just because YOU can figure it out -from an objective distance- doesn’t mean Quibids is not patently dishonest. US laws governing fraud are enforced by local statutes, but common law is enough to define this internet scam as representation of falsehood with the intent to profit. Whether or not the auctions use shill bidders, or fail to honor unprofitable outcomes, as have been accused by disgruntled victims, the websites are misrepresentations. The former are obvious illegal practices. The latter is fraud. Or are we so cynical that we accept this kind of scam as merely “predatory capitalism?”
A scan of the various “penny auction” websites would seem to indicate they are using identical software. That opens a whole other can of worms, doesn’t it? This could be an installation one can license, just as one would WordPress or Zen Cart. In fact there is a PHP setup marketed by 
Layers of press releases and paid editorial columns appear to shore up a single real news item which the Quibids outfit eked from an Oklahoma news team earlier this year.
Quibids hasn’t chintzed on PR, but they do appear to lack for real faces to front their operation…
Have a look at who NEWS9 is interviewing for the so-called customer testimonial. The kyron reads “Zach Stevens” who purports to be thrilled with the deal he’s gotten on Quibids.
Do we know whether this interview footage was pre-packaged for the NEWS9 team? The distinction is unimportant, but we might note that the cuffed sleeve does not belong to the female reporter.
But enlarged in these captures, a closeup of “Zach’s” laptop and username reveals this “customer” is none other than Quibids’ owner Matt Beckham, smiling like he has no idea the perp walk that awaits him.
Greyson
Before Coloradans were chasing off out-of-state migrant workers, yesterday’s illegal immigrants, they were offended by earlier indigent encampments. When miners struck in Colorado’s southern coal fields, the mine owners evicted them from the company-owned houses. The unions were left to build a tent city in Ludlow to put pressure on the industry to accept some labor demands. The standoff was spun as a standoff between the ungrateful miners, most of them recent immigrants, and a nation’s critical source of heating fuel. The Colorado population was roused to man a militia and beat the miners into submission. As much as consumers feared an interrupted coal supply in the record cold of the winter of 1914, imagine the miners enduring in their tents. In the end, we all know the result: the Ludlow Massacre and the unions were defeated.
COLORADO SPRINGS- This year for Halloween I’m dressing up like yokel heroes Sean Paige, Richard Randall, Tom Gallagher, and Doug Lamborn, the rabble-rousers behind our local Teabag mobs. They’re reveling in the white man anger, against immigrants, ACORN, and taxes for social programs, laughing off accusations of being racist, while probably praying to God their mob doesn’t seize upon a passing African American and lynch him. Until recently a Halloween costume like this would have been mistaken to be a ghost, but for the resurgent ugly white man. The Pikes Peak region was crawling with 
There’s the rub. An iconic photograph from the Vietnam War shows an American GI wearing a peace symbol necklace between a bandoleer of machine gun bullets. Which is it soldier? Nonviolence or destruction? Peace or war? Many Americans cannot make the distinction and think you can have both.
The Democrats pledged today to keep the Republican implementation of ‘No Child Left Behind’ intact, and as a result the nation’s corporate media is aglow celebrating the supposed great wisdom of Barack’s not so new Education Dunce Plan. Key points of Obama’s speech outlined that he would continue the previous efforts of the Republican dismantling of the public education system in our country, and continue the privatization of schools. Let’s take a look at what was encouraged in Obama’s speech…