3. Plevin, Nancy. “Iglesias, Madrid square off in attorney general’s race.” The Santa Fe New Mexican. September 29, 1998. p. A-1.

By J.B. Adams

From what I’ve read and heard, I believe it’s fairly common knowledge the ACLU, along with it’s allies — the American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion — have a hatred of all things religious.

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By J.B. Adams

From what I’ve read and heard, I believe it’s fairly common knowledge the ACLU, along with it’s allies — the American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion — have a hatred of all things religious.

I’ve read where the ACLU (with the backing of said allies) is filing actions to have all religious symbols (specifically: crosses, at least for now) removed from our national war memorials and cemeteries.

I may also be mistaken, but if I remember my history lessons correctly, there is something in the Bill of Rights (Amendment 1), which gives every citizen of this country the right to believe, or not believe, whatever the individual’s choice.

Unlike the “state” religions of other countries (Iran is a good example) where the all citizens are required to believe, on pain of sanctions (including death) by their governments, there are no such laws in the U.S. You believe, that’s your business.

You don’t believe, that’s your business. That’s how it’s supposed to be, unless the ACLU and it’s allies get their way.

Should the bullying actions of these organizations succeed and laws be passed which would ban them, all religious symbols (including, but not limited to the Christian cross, Judaism’s Star of David, Islam’s Crescent Moon, Hinduism’s various deities, Native American prayers and symbols, etc.) would have to be removed from all war memorials and the headstones of those buried in our national cemeteries, who gave their lives so the ACLU, the American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion could have the right to hate religion and those who believe differently than they do.

All you have to do is read the ACLU, the American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion press releases to understand they won’t be content until every symbol of religion is removed from the outside of every venue and building (including churches, as a member of one of these groups might walk, or drive by and be offended at having to see it) across the country, along with any religious symbols in private cemeteries, as they too, are in full view of anyone passing by; nor will you be able to display any religious symbol on your house, vehicles, or person made from any material, or tattoo.

That cross or Star of David around your neck: take it off, or hide it; as it’s offensive to the ACLU, the American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion folks. That bald eagle tattoo on your forearm: cover it up as it could be construed as a symbol of a Native American religious belief. Your wife’s, or daughter’s Islamic burka; that’s gotta go. That sign of the fish on the bumper of your car, not a chance.

If you think me crazy, or believe I’m tilting at windmills, read some of what the ACLU actually says.

Need some examples? Try these:

a. “It still doesn’t mean a damn thing. Voters should have never voted [to save the Mt. Soledad cross] . It’s a waste of taxpayer money.” - ACLU attorney James McElroy after San Diego voters passed by a 3-1 margin a ballot initiative transferring the Mt. Soledad cross to federal land to protect it from the ACLU’s legal attacks.

b. “If they [individuals who offer public invocations] continue to break the law, I want to say, the handcuffs are gonna come.” - Michael Deanhardt, ACLU of South Carolina board member

c. “Their [individuals who pray publicly] refusal to comply ... should and must result in their removal from society.” - Joe Cook, Executive Director of the ACLU of Louisiana

Where does it end?

I recognize there are people in this country who attempt to force their religious beliefs on others and it’s everyone’s right to ignore them, as I do.

By what right do the ACLU, the American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion folks justify their efforts to force their “beliefs” on the rest of us?

J.B. Adams is a resident of Arvada.

By Alison Berry

BOZEMAN, Mont. - Idaho, Utah, Oregon, Montana.

Once again, the West wears a shroud of gray ugly smoke this summer. Huge, spectacular clouds of smoke billow thousands of feet into the sky and then settle into the valleys, the lives, and the lungs of all who live here.

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By Alison Berry

BOZEMAN, Mont. - Idaho, Utah, Oregon, Montana.

Once again, the West wears a shroud of gray ugly smoke this summer. Huge, spectacular clouds of smoke billow thousands of feet into the sky and then settle into the valleys, the lives, and the lungs of all who live here.

Wildfires are no longer news so much as a fact of life, and federal forest managers need to recognize this fact and deal with it more effectively. Not only do they need new policies regarding fire suppression, they need budgets that will provide incentives to restore functioning ecosystems. The mistakes of the 20th century should not be repeated in 21st.

For most of the 20th century, U.S. federal fire policy focused on suppressing all fires on national forests. The goal was to protect timber resources and rural communities, but this policy ignored the ecological importance of fire. North American forests have evolved with fire for thousands of years. Fire returns nutrients to soils, reduces thick undergrowth that can fuel a fire, encourages growth of older fire-resistant trees, and promotes establishment of new seedlings.

Without fire and exacerbated by decreasing federal timber harvests since the late 1980s, many forests are now uncharacteristically dense.

These dense forests fuel devastating fires that burn at a much higher intensity than historic levels, killing entire forest stands.

Meanwhile, more people are living and building homes near forested areas, in the “wildland urban interface.” In response, most fires on federal lands are still suppressed. While forest managers have long recognized the benefits of fire to forest ecosystems, in practice, very few fires are allowed to burn—in 2005 less than 1 percent.

One problem in any attempt to restore fire to forest ecosystems is funding. About 22 percent of the Forest Service budget for 2008 is dedicated to fire suppression. Furthermore, emergency funding to fight fires is virtually unlimited.

Emergency funds are generally borrowed from other projects during the fire season, and then reimbursed by Congress once the smoke has cleared.

Since there is no defined limit to this emergency funding, there is little discretion in spending.

Firefighters have admitted to spending more money attempting to preserve structures — like mining shacks and hunter’s cabins — than the structures themselves were worth.

Therefore, a problem that the Forest Service created — excess fuels — prevents appropriate burning, and so the problem grows. According to Forest Service estimates, almost 70 percent of federal forests (151 million acres) are in need of some fuels restoration treatment, and more than 60 million acres, an area the size of Oregon, are at high risk of catastrophic wildfire.

One way to restore fire to forest ecosystems and to eliminate hazardous fuels could be to allow some wildfires in remote areas to burn, as long as they pose no threat to communities or private land. This approach also is far less costly than trying to put the fires out. By some estimates, per-acre costs for monitoring these burns are 80 percent less than fire suppression costs.

Of course in the wildland-urban interface, the risks to life and property make wildfires too dangerous. A fuels reduction program using prescribed burns or mechanical removal could alleviate the problem before a fire flares up.

These treatments can be expensive, however, and they must be ongoing — as fuels will grow back in the absence of wildfire.

The current system, under which virtually unlimited funding is provided for emergency situations, undermines preventative and restorative approaches to fire management.

Instead, the Forest Service budget should be reformed to reward the prevention of these costly emergency situations. With the right incentives, management will focus on approaches that restore fire to remote forests and reduce fuel loads in the wildland urban interface. The result would be functioning forest ecosystems and safer communities — a step forward into the 21st century.

Alison Berry is a research fellow at PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Mont.

By Fidel “Butch” Montoya and Flora Archuleta

With the Senate’s failure to resolve the immigration debate, enforcement-only proposals are sprouting up across the country. The Department of Homeland Security has announced new get-tough regulations. Cities and states are proposing local initiatives to deal with one of our countries most pressing issues.

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By Fidel “Butch” Montoya and Flora Archuleta

With the Senate’s failure to resolve the immigration debate, enforcement-only proposals are sprouting up across the country. The Department of Homeland Security has announced new get-tough regulations. Cities and states are proposing local initiatives to deal with one of our countries most pressing issues.

One thing is clear: the majority of Americans want U.S. immigration policy changed. But will enforcement-only policies do the trick and at what cost?

A year ago, Colorado’s legislature in a special session passed some of the toughest immigration enforcement measures in the country. A year later we should take stock.

The effects of Colorado’s new enforcement environment on state industries have been well publicized. Immigrants, regardless of legal status, are fleeing the state for less hostile destinations where they will not be subject to racial profiling and fear.

With fewer immigrant workers, Colorado businesses are forced to adjust by downsizing production and cutting total jobs. This, in turn, negatively affects US citizen workers. A recent survey by the Colorado Employers for Immigration Reform found that, across industries, for every 2.6 immigrant workers lost one U.S. native will lose a job.

Just last week, Colorado lawmakers announced prospects for a recruiting office in Mexico to remedy the flight of immigrant workers. Such a proposal is a Band-Aid solution to what has become a gaping national wound.

Our state is not just losing money on falling productivity. Enforcing new laws is also expensive. HB 1023, touted as Colorado’s toughest new immigration law, is intended to keep undocumented immigrants from using Colorado’s tax dollars. This month local media reports the new law has cost Colorado state departments $2 million to enforce while saving the state nothing.

Of course, the costs of enforcement-only policies are much more than financial. While these costs are less quantifiable, they are infinitely more dear: equality and justice for all US residents.

HB 1023, intended as an immigration enforcement measure, has had the unsavory side-effect of preventing needy US citizens from accessing services. Many citizen Coloradans are unable to comply with new identification requirements and end up in dire circumstances because of it. Maureen Farrell of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy notes, “We have nothing to show that this law is doing what it was intended to do. The reality is that more citizens appear to be impacted than illegal immigrants.”

Equality and justice also seem far-fetched with Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducting raids in communities throughout Colorado. In the past eight months, families have been ripped apart, community members dragged to jail and children stranded in Greeley, Denver, Westminster, Monte Vista, Pueblo, and Dillon.

Fear is wide-spread. A teacher from Lafayette was recently asked by a student who knew of the raids, “Will my mom be deported?” She had to assure him that his mother, a US citizen of Latino descent, would not be.

Conditions in detention are also troubling, as those taken in after a raid are often deprived of humane treatment, not to mention basic due process. The U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a recent report on the detention center in Aurora, along with 16 others throughout the country. It found that detainees had difficulty making phone calls, including to legal assistance. The report also found sanitation issues with food preparation and rooms filled beyond capacity.

Stricter enforcement of immigration laws seems reasonable because the abundance of “law breakers” is obvious: 12 million undocumented living in the U.S. The truth, however, is that immigration law, as well as its enforcement, is out of sync with our country’s needs and those of immigrant workers and families. Enforcing the decades-long wait that most immigrants face in coming to this country legally is costing us dearly. Ripping people out of their homes and workplaces is as well.

We need new policies that allow immigrants to contribute to our economy, and to do so in safe and legal ways. We need new policies that don’t waste tax-payer money on redundant enforcement measures but dedicate our precious resources towards the real threats our country faces. Immigration is not one of them. The erosion of equality and justice for all Americans is.

Fidel “Butch” Montoya, a long-time community activist, is the coordinator of the Latino faith-based initiative H.S. Power and Light in Denver. Flora Archuleta is executive director of the San Luis Valley Immigrant Resource Center in Alamosa.

By Rich Batten

Rocky Mountain News columnist Tina Griego concludes her Aug. 30 effort on the irresponsibilities of Denver Broncos running back Travis Henry and the stellar determination of Oshanette Neal — single mother of six — with a quote from Sidney Poitier’s book, The Measure of a Man.

By Rich Batten

Rocky Mountain News columnist Tina Griego concludes her Aug. 30 effort on the irresponsibilities of Denver Broncos running back Travis Henry and the stellar determination of Oshanette Neal — single mother of six — with a quote from Sidney Poitier’s book, The Measure of a Man.

Poitier writes, “The measure of a man is how well he takes care of his children.” Neal wants all her sons, and I presume daughters, to know and believe that no matter who you are, male or female, single or married, dead beat or dead broke, that “when you have children, life is not about you anymore. It’s about them.”

Neal is not alone in this belief. There are moms and dads across Colorado who are doing everything they can to be there for their children. There are also men and women who either through their own irresponsibility or outside barriers are falling far short of what their children need and desire.

As a fatherhood and family specialist with the Colorado Department of Human Services, I have the privilege of administering a five-year federal grant designed to promote responsible fatherhood across the state.

More than half of the funds are going to community and faith-based organizations that are focusing on improving the well-being of children of at-risk families by helping dads develop a lasting, positive and nurturing connection with their kids.

Here are just a few examples of what is going on across the state: In Salida, dads are learning what it means to be a nurturing father. Teen dads in detention centers across the state are learning what it means to be a responsible father. Child-support enforcement agencies in Larimer and Jefferson counties are trying to transform the image of their agencies by helping dads develop parenting and employment skills as well addressing other needs. Latino dads in Adams, Boulder and Weld counties are learning how to be their child’s and family’s best advocate through a program called Los Padres. I could go on and on with stories from agencies currently helping dads measure up.

It is not happening overnight and, as Neal’s story demonstrates, it takes hard work, sacrifice and commitment, but she is not alone in her efforts. There is a great deal of work being done across the state to help dads be there for their kids.

Rich Batten is a fatherhood and family specialist with the Colorado Department of Human Services.

By Alexander Thome

Congratulations, Mayor Hickenlooper, on creating a comprehensive and well-thought-out draft for the City of Denver Climate Action Plan draft. It is clear that your Greenprint Denver Advisory Council has done extensive research and has attempted to address many issues related to reducing carbon emissions in Denver.

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By Alexander Thome

Congratulations, Mayor Hickenlooper, on creating a comprehensive and well-thought-out draft for the City of Denver Climate Action Plan draft. It is clear that your Greenprint Denver Advisory Council has done extensive research and has attempted to address many issues related to reducing carbon emissions in Denver.

As you have said, “... if even a small percentage of 95 percent of the climate scientists are correct in their assessment ... doing nothing is a risk we cannot afford to take with our future.”

Well it’s about time! The plan’s goals are based on the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which developed nations agreed to limit their greenhouse gas emissions relative to the levels emitted in 1990. Although a total of 169 countries and other governmental entities have ratified that agreement, the United States has failed to commit to reaching their identified goals of reducing carbon emissions to levels 7 percent less than those in 1990 by the year 2012.

So, Greenprint Denver is stepping up to the plate and developing its own plan, which commits to “... a 10 percent per capita reduction by 2012 ...” and a more ambitious “2020 Goal: Decrease total community-wide emissions to below 1990 levels, which equals a community-wide reduction of 4.4 million metric tons of CO2 annually. This is equivalent to eliminating two small coal-fired plants or taking almost 500,000 cars off the road.”

The plan is well organized and necessarily complicated in order to address the myriad of cause-and-effect issues related to carbon emissions. The highlights of the Top Ten Strategy Recommendations to Reduce Carbon Emissions focus on the overarching objective to avoid the construction of new, coal-fired power plants. The entire plan can be reviewed at www.greenprintdenver.org.

Commercial and industrial buildings are the largest offenders identified and, therefore, should be the largest part of the solution. The city must set higher mandatory energy-efficiency standards for all buildings. The additional construction costs could be offset with “green loans,” which would be paid back over time with the savings from realized utility and maintenance costs.

The plan also needs to better address alternative power sources. Due to the current configuration of the downtown Denver power grid, it is nearly impossible to install clean energy sources such as solar arrays or wind turbines on downtown buildings and “net meter” excess power generated back to the grid. As a result, opportunities to take advantage of our 300 days of sunshine per year are being missed. The city, along with the State of Colorado and the Public Utilities Commission, must push Xcel Energy and other utilities to re-examine their infrastructures and make clean-power strategies such as these a priority, thus reducing dependence on coal-fired power plants.

Unfortunately, too much of the plan’s stake is invested in voluntary travel offset, which allows travelers to purchase credits to “cancel out” their carbon emissions created by travel in Denver. The real effectiveness of this strategy is questionable, although it does ease traveler’s consciences about the carbon emissions they have created.

Instead, the plan should focus on developing Denver’s future, based on new and existing green modes of travel. Programs could be set up to encourage and reward travel by bicycle, alternate-fuel vehicles and public transportation. It is astonishing that in a mountain-bike crazed area like Denver, accommodations or incentives for bicyclists are nowhere to be found in the plan. The bicycle culture here should be embraced, and an emphasis on adding bike racks and paths downtown or even development of shared-bicycle-transport programs could go far in reducing carbon emissions.

Clean water is a great concern to all Coloradans and water management strategies such as the re-use of gray water and landscaping strategies such as xeriscaping should be addressed in the plan. The projected population of the Denver metro region is expected to increase from 1.8 million (1990) to approximately 3.8 million by 2020, placing fresh water and energy at even more of a premium in the future.

A lot of effort was put into the plan, but that effort pales in comparison to the effort required to enforce it. Public engagement, of which only one page of the plan was dedicated, along with implementing strategies that also bolster the economy are by far the biggest challenges that lay ahead. Can you say media blitz? Getting the plan into the public eye is critical to getting public approval and the ultimate success of the plan.

Whether Denver citizens realize it or not, we are at a great crossroads in history full of opportunity. This plan is a great start, and we must take advantage of this plan to move Denver forward and lead and inspire others. Ultimately, when it comes to global warming, failure is not an option.

Alexander Thome is a Denver architect. He is the chairperson for the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment.

By Paul Vertrees

Hunters and anglers need to support the Brown’s Canyon Wilderness initiative. Not only is this rugged and beautiful low-elevation wilderness valuable to Colorado sportsmen now, obtaining federal wilderness designation will secure this area for generations to come. Sportsmen and all concerned Colorado citizens need to get involved now to ensure this happens.

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By Paul Vertrees

Hunters and anglers need to support the Brown’s Canyon Wilderness initiative. Not only is this rugged and beautiful low-elevation wilderness valuable to Colorado sportsmen now, obtaining federal wilderness designation will secure this area for generations to come. Sportsmen and all concerned Colorado citizens need to get involved now to ensure this happens.

In my estimation, the majority of hunters and anglers are just not well educated on this issue, and they aren’t aware of what’s at stake. Low-elevation wilderness habitats support more wildlife species and provide more winter range than higher elevation backcountry. They also offer year-round recreation for users of all types. The lower wilderness has a great diversity of landforms and vegetation.

Brown’s Canyon possesses all of these valuable characteristics. There are many wonderful recreation opportunities in Brown’s Canyon, including primitive recreation (hiking, backpacking, hunting, fishing), solitude, wildlife watching and many others.

Since the 1980s, the Brown’s Canyon area has supported a sizeable population of bighorn sheep, and the herd’s long-term survival depends on quality habitat. Wilderness designation would provide that. The area also holds good populations of elk, mule deer, black bears, mountain lions and a whole host of small game.

There has been an attempt from a small group of off-road vehicle users to slow or stop the progress of the Brown’s Canyon Wilderness proposal. These “sportsmen” have argued that OHV opportunities might be significantly reduced, and that hunters might be denied access. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I am a native Coloradoan, and have been hunting for thirty years, powered by my own two legs.

I have seen the advent of the ATV, and I have seen the impact it has had on big game. The off-highway vehicle (OHV) has had the single biggest, negative, impact on big game hunting and habitat of any technology since the invention of the repeating rifle. What these motorized hunters won’t tell you is that as road and OHV trail density increases in an area, the quality and size of wildlife habitat declines significantly. Once a certain level of motorized use occurs during a hunting season, the elk will completely abandon an area and often move onto private land. The result is that the motorized hunting crowd has, in effect, denied their own access to the very game they pursue. Many recreational opportunities exist in the vicinity of Brown’s Canyon for OHV users. It’s time to get a handle on the use of motorized travel in the backcountry. It’s a proven fact that loss of habitat is the greatest threat to wildlife and hunting. How long are sportsmen going to sit on their hands, while valuable habitat disappears right under their noses?

The good news is that hunters and anglers can get involved now to support the Brown’s Canyon Wilderness proposal. Supporting the proposal will ensure that valuable winter big game habitat is protected, that quiet, clean and environmentally sound recreation is enhanced and that maintaining a traditional hunting heritage through quality habitat is ensured. Let’s do what’s right for our backcountry, both today and tomorrow.

Paul Vertrees is a resident of Cañon City.

By Erin Stutelberg

It’s hard to know where to begin in a response to the Rocky Mountain News’ editorial piece, “Overheated tactics.” As a teacher for Denver Public Schools, I know the issues first-hand and I am insulted once again by the arrogance and the assumptions made by the RMN editorial board. My colleagues and I want nothing more than to see this district turn around.

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By Erin Stutelberg

It’s hard to know where to begin in a response to the Rocky Mountain News’ editorial piece, “Overheated tactics.” As a teacher for Denver Public Schools, I know the issues first-hand and I am insulted once again by the arrogance and the assumptions made by the RMN editorial board. My colleagues and I want nothing more than to see this district turn around.

Many of us are here because we know that in our system of school choice, there are students who have no advocates or no way to choose a “better” education. We aim to provide the best education for all our kids, even in the worst possible situations. During his first days on the job, we rejoiced in the prospect of working with Michael Bennet and other administrators on school reform. What we have found, however, is that the administrators do not want to partner with teachers. They do not want to hear about our realities in the classroom. They do not want our input in the decision-making process. They want us to work longer and harder, but refuse to compensate us or remain competitive with other school districts.

They lead through control and coercion. Collectively, this approach has caused a lack of respect and trust between the teachers and administrators in Denver. When administrators are blaming the teachers (consistently and, often, solely) for the system’s woes, how can we not feel pitted against them? When we see our paychecks go down while neighboring districts’ pay goes up, how much longer can we stand to stay here while raising our families and living our lives?

In another year, The Rocky Mountain News will no doubt be unveiling a new series, “Leaving to Teach.” That is what is happening and will continue to happen to Denver’s teachers. Already, teachers who would otherwise be advocates for the kids who need them most are leaving DPS to teach in JeffCo, Cherry Creek, Adams 50, Douglas, and the list goes on and on.

Denver will always be able to attract some brand new teachers because of the high turnover, but the district has a reputation now for breaking them through stress and overwork. We are lucky if they don’t leave the profession entirely. Within a couple of years, they will be gaining and sharing their expertise in another district. Is that what Denver wants for its students?

I find the RMN editorial board’s practices to be unethical at best. These hateful articles are always anonymously written and representative of an entire newspaper organization. To use anonymity and false authority to lie is hardly journalism.

Congratulations. You made a teacher feel degraded and insulted today.

Still, some of us are not afraid to sign our names.

Erin Stutelberg is a Denver Public Schools teacher. She is a resident of Denver.

By Mike Heiny

I recently wrote a letter supporting “birthright citizenship,” even for the children of illegal immigrants, that stirred some debate. It seems that a lot of people are strongly opposed to illegal immigration. Some of the arguments against illegal immigrants are that they don’t pay taxes but use government services, that they drive without licenses or insurance, that they speak foreign languages and won’t assimilate, and that they take jobs from decent, legal Americans.

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By Mike Heiny

I recently wrote a letter supporting “birthright citizenship,” even for the children of illegal immigrants, that stirred some debate. It seems that a lot of people are strongly opposed to illegal immigration. Some of the arguments against illegal immigrants are that they don’t pay taxes but use government services, that they drive without licenses or insurance, that they speak foreign languages and won’t assimilate, and that they take jobs from decent, legal Americans.

Many people make the argument that “I don’t mind immigrants, I just don’t like illegal immigrants.” But the illegals didn’t risk their lives in the Arizona desert or in the back of a coyote’s 18-wheeler because they were too lazy to fill out the paperwork or because they thought that would be more fun than entering legally. They came here illegally because they couldn’t come here legally.

The US government has limits on how many can enter legally, and these limits are far below the number that would like to enter.

I think the real reason people don’t like illegal immigrants is because they are mainly Hispanic. But assuming that’s not the case, I have a proposal that will eliminate the illegal immigrant problem overnight: grant a general amnesty to those already here and allow legal entry for essentially all who apply in the future.

I’m completely serious. I’m not saying we should make them automatic citizens with the right to vote, and I’d want to screen out serious criminals, but I’d give pretty much anyone the right to come here legally and make their best in this land of opportunity. Let them get drivers’ licenses and pay taxes and be subject to all the laws of US citizens. They can then apply for citizenship through established channels.

The only reason I’m a US citizen is that I was lucky enough to be born here. That’s probably the case for the vast majority of the people reading this.

Unless you are a real Native American, you have immigrants in your family tree. My mother is a US citizen, but she’s Hungarian by birth. Her family left everything behind and fled the Russian “liberation” after WWII when she was barely a teenager.

They were lucky enough to be granted entry into the US. All four of my children are US citizens, although two of them are Chinese by birth. By sheer luck they were adopted by my wife and me.

My kids range from in age from three to ten. Two are obviously my biological offspring and two are obviously Chinese. When we are out as a family we elicit second glances and many positive comments. Most people seem to think we’ve done something wonderful by bringing these two girls from a life of likely drudgery and poverty to this land of opportunity and riches. But why should anyone feel differently about my adopted daughters than they do about a 25-year-old Mexican laborer? Or than my biological children? Or than my mother for that matter? They are all using our resources and our government services. They are all (well, maybe not Mom) going to compete for jobs, the Mexican immediately and the kids in 10 or 15 years. They’re all polluting and consuming and adding to traffic and taking places in the ski lift lines. The only differences are race, age, and country of birth.

If, by happenstance, I had been born into desperate poverty in Central America and my best chance to improve my family’s situation was by coming to the United States to work, I’d do it, legally or illegally if necessary. I’ll bet most of you would, too.

And I don’t blame anyone else for taking that chance.
If you don’t like the fact that immigrants (legal or not) are receiving government handouts, then your real complaint should be against government handouts, not against immigrants. I’m solidly against government handouts. If you don’t like the competition for jobs, then you shouldn’t like any newcomers, whether they’re American newborns or adult immigrants, legal or illegal. If you don’t like their languages or culture or don’t think they “act American", I think that’s just xenophobia.

Let them all in legally. This sounds somewhat radical, I know, but if your only objection to illegal immigrants is the fact that they came here illegally, this would solve that problem. If you’re anti-Hispanic, that’s a whole different problem.

Mike Heiny is a resident of Colorado Springs.

By Thomas R. Anthony

The new American obsession with biofuels finds consumers subsidizing the new acreage of corn, soybeans and God-knows-what to be used in powering our riverboat SUVs back and forth from the suburban farmlands recently converted to subdivisions.

By Thomas R. Anthony

The new American obsession with biofuels finds consumers subsidizing the new acreage of corn, soybeans and God-knows-what to be used in powering our riverboat SUVs back and forth from the suburban farmlands recently converted to subdivisions. (Let’s not mention the road subsidies themselves.) Then, consumers are dealing with the booming cost of corn which, it turns out, can be found in nearly every other food product. Then, because corn and soybean farming has suddenly become more profitable, consumers are dealing with tens of thousands of fewer acres planted in other food crops, a condition which, by the law of supply and demand, drives up the cost of all other food products that automobiles would voraciously consume side by side with people.

Nowhere are the economics of biofuel so egregious as in Denver’s Elyria neighborhood. Last year, Biofuels of Colorado (also doing business as Bioenergy of Colorado) and principal Thomas Foley, undertook, with federal grant money, to build a biofuel refinery in Denver County in a sheetrock storage warehouse on a lot bordering a National Western Stock Show parking area and the Platte River Greenway between Elyria and Globeville.

The first contact between Biofuels and Denver building permit and inspection officials came about as a result of an April 2006 explosion that blew through the roof and two walls of the building. A third party called 911 and the Denver Fire Department arrived to find a) the zoned use had been changed to a biofuel refinery, b) hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer-subsidized refining equipment had been installed without a single building permit, and c) no air quality or stormwater permitting had been issued, or even sought.

At that point Foley happily commenced the permitting process, conveniently omitting the fact that Biofuels had been in business for about a year in Adams County, also without permits, and was at the time under a cease-and-desist order from the Colorado Department of Health and Public Environmentfor for more than 27 code, environmental and discharge violations, including the polluting of Clear Creek.

Despite protests from four neighborhood groups and the National Western Stock Show, the zoning administrator approved an operating permit for Biofuels. The Elyria Neighborhood Association subsequently spent $15,000 filing and arguing an appeal to the Board of Adjustment, which ruled that the administrator had erred in issuing the permit.

In June 2007, Bioenergy of Colorado, without listing Foley as a principal, re-applied for a permit, this time calling its operation “recycling of waste oil,” a permitted use in the I-2 zoned lot. In its application, Bioenergy announced its intention to process waste oil using “esterification” with sulfuric acid and methanol in quantities approaching 10 million gallons a year about 100 feet from the Platte River Greenway. Unbelievably, although “esterification” is not an activity allowed in the zoning code, the administrator approved the application, which could result in a permanent refinery in this location as a new use!

Now, the Elyria Neighborhood Association will once more be back to the zoning board on Oct. 2, with the taxpayers of Denver County paying the city attorney’s office to argue against the neighborhood!

Biofuels are seen as a large component of the United States’ energy future, and perhaps they will be, although some experts suggest that converting all farmland to production of biofuel crops will only accommodate 10 percent of Americans’ current demand for petroleum.

Elyria, Globeville and Swansea, Denver’s three central northeast neighborhoods north of Interstate 70, are working to establish an identity beyond “the region’s most polluted communities.” The Hickenlooper administration’s Greenprint Denver initiative might contemplate use of food products in our motor vehicles as fulfilling some “sustainability” goals, but parking new refineries next to the Platte River Greenway in between historic neighborhoods and regional entertainment facilities isn’t necessarily going to encourage quality mixed-use infill development.

Thomas R. Anthony is the president of the Elyria Neighborhood Association.

By Margo Wootan and Scott Groginsky

By approving the bipartisan Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act (S 771 and HR 1363), members of Congress have an incredible opportunity right now to improve the health of schoolchildren across the country by getting soda and junk food out of America’s schools.

By Margo Wootan and Scott Groginsky

By approving the bipartisan Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act (S 771 and HR 1363), members of Congress have an incredible opportunity right now to improve the health of schoolchildren across the country by getting soda and junk food out of America’s schools.

In fact, much of the food and beverage industry no longer oppose national legislation to do so. And while we respect that many aspects of school policy are determined primarily at the state or local level, leaving school foods to local control means continuing to rely on an outdated national standard that no longer makes sense.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s nutrition standards for foods sold out of vending machines, snack lines, and other foods sold outside of the school lunch program date back to the 1970s. They’re not in sync with current concerns about child nutrition and are out of step with current science. Under its disco-era standards, USDA doesn’t consider cookies, chocolate candy bars, sugary juice drinks, and Cheetos to be junk foods, since its standards don’t address calories, saturated fat, trans fat or sodium.

School food, unlike most other aspects of education, has long been regulated at the federal level, a heritage that dates back to the Truman administration. Down to the size of a vegetable serving and what type of milk has to be served, Congress and USDA set detailed standards for school lunches and breakfasts.

Another difference is that the federal government is the major funder of school foods, investing $10 billion a year in school lunches and breakfasts. Selling low-nutrition foods in schools undermines that taxpayer investment.

Schools won’t suffer

The ultimate source of local control is parents. Parents are fed up with junk food in schools; a recent Harris poll found that 88 percent don’t want sugary drinks and junk food sold in public schools.

Parents entrust schools with the care of their children during the school day. The sale of low-nutrition foods in schools, where children eat 30 percent to 50 percent of their calories on school days, makes it difficult for parents to ensure that their children are eating well. Without their parents’ knowledge, some children spend their lunch money on HoHos and sugary sports drinks from vending machines rather than on balanced school meals.

Some school administrators whine that ridding schools of sugary drinks and candy will devastate school budgets. But their worries are unfounded.

USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found “students will buy and consume healthful foods and beverages — and schools can make money from selling healthful options.” Their survey of 17 schools and school districts found that, after improving school foods, 12 schools and districts increased revenue and four reported no change. The one school district that initially lost money later saw its revenues increase and surpass previous levels.

While school vending contracts provide a discretionary source of funding for school administrators, they generate an average of just $18 per student per year for schools and/or school districts. An average school beverage contract provides only one-quarter of 1 percent of the average cost of a student’s education. Also, the money comes out of the pockets of children; it’s not a donation from beverage companies.

Why standards are needed

Establishing national nutrition standards for foods and beverages sold in schools would provide a valuable tool for school districts working to feed children well. The majority of the nation’s 14,000 school districts aren’t equipped to develop science-based nutrition standards for school foods — most don’t even have nutritionists on staff. If USDA sets science-based standards for school foods, then school districts can use them to select specific food and beverage items for sale in their district that will appeal to their students’ tastes and preferences.

Setting national nutrition standards for items sold in schools will ensure that students in all school districts receive the benefit of healthy food choices. If nutrition standards for school foods are left solely to local action, then schools and districts serving low-income students may have less-healthful food and beverage options than schools in more affluent areas. Fewer parents in low-income communities have the time, resources and empowerment to advocate for change in their children’s schools. As a result, health disparities might widen.

The threat of obesity

Changing USDA’s school nutrition standards will cost the federal government nothing, but not changing the current policy is costly. Obesity is one of the most pressing issues facing Colorado and the nation; one that costs Colorado $874 million a year, half of which is paid for by taxpayers through the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Local school districts, individual states, the USDA and Congress all have important roles to play in addressing childhood obesity. Congress shouldn’t shirk its national responsibility by overemphasizing local duty. It shouldn’t pass the buck to local school districts, and leave them with the full burden to address childhood obesity and junk food in schools.

Margo Wootan is the nutrition policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C. Scott Groginsky is the education initiatives director at the Colorado Children’s Campaign.

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By Pete Klammer

Our Labor Day picnic was hosted by a friend and neighbor in their backyard, which borders on a woodsy pond with an apple tree or two. After as many beers and hamburgers and bratwursts as we could stand, we were chitchatting about kids growing up and whatnot, when a squirrel caught our attention, muscling a windfall apple weighing almost as much as himself up a fencepost and having his (her?) own picnic precariously perched on the rail.

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By Pete Klammer

Our Labor Day picnic was hosted by a friend and neighbor in their backyard, which borders on a woodsy pond with an apple tree or two. After as many beers and hamburgers and bratwursts as we could stand, we were chitchatting about kids growing up and whatnot, when a squirrel caught our attention, muscling a windfall apple weighing almost as much as himself up a fencepost and having his (her?) own picnic precariously perched on the rail.

Now I am descended from nordic tribes who put a great deal of stock in the spirituality of nature and wildlife, and I consider it a measure of mankind’s maturity the degree to which we can look into the eyes of smaller creatures and see ourselves. Even the most unsentimental branches of science are finding it harder and harder to draw the line between “human” and “non-human” — it used to be tool-wielding that separated us, but we found tool use among apes and less. For a time it was thought we were unique by use of language, but then we discovered gorillas and chimps who could sign, and who might even speak if the physiology of their vocal tracts only weren’t so restrictive. And most recently DNA decoding has proven that we are more alike most of the animal kingdom than we are different: over 90% of our genetic inheritance is shared with anything vertebrate, right down to salamanders.

I’m not sure what tribe my host is descended from, or if he’s not done descending, but his impulse toward our picnicking squirrel was telling. “I bet I can pick that sucker off,” and he went in and fetched out a small rifle with a telescopic sight. Somehow I sensed that he didn’t share much empathy with his warm-blooded neighbor, if he was so eager to blast it into expiring bloody bits. And I understand there’s a lot of that going around, lately, in hotter, sandier locales than our own.

I can’t think of any instance in which I might have experienced such delicious, exquisite irony: The very distinction I’m sure my shooting friend uses, the rationalization I think he views wildlife through his gunsight with, is the same deficit of mentality, the same lack of ethical capacity, that lumps him with those creatures and separates him from my kind.

His absence of humaneness, his inability, whether incurably innate or merely naive, puts him low on my evolutionary scale of civilized wisdom.

As babes in kinderland, we enter the drooling, diapered mob ready to bite, kick, shove and grab to gain our wants by physical means. Somewhere in prehistory, ancestors of our kind lived out their lives in the same brutish struggle, clubbing and throwing rocks for survival. But language and thought and wisdom have brought us to a state of civilization in which even kindergarteners learn to share, take turns, and get their needs met without violence. Yet there remain the wooden-headed few who, perhaps frustrated by having been thwarted from their aims in kindergarten, insist upon re-asserting the right of the violent to dominate when they reach the age of enlistment or conscription. As if throwing rocks were OK if the rocks were technically “cool,” or the throwers involved precision electronics or night-vision goggles. A rock-throwing ape is still a rock-throwing ape; even if you elect him president.

Anyway, I didn’t think either the squirrel or my host had the linguistic depth to appreciate any lofty notion as effete as “irony,” so I didn’t confront either of them with it. I just quietly quit the party early; maybe he noticed our departure when he was done shooting, and maybe he didn’t.

Pete Klammer is a resident of Wheat Ridge.

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By Robert E. Forman

Let’s really look at Idaho’s Senator Larry Craig’s alleged “crime,” compare it to President Clinton’s, and look at how each party responded to alleged “sexual immoralities” within their own party.

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By Robert E. Forman

Let’s really look at Idaho’s Senator Larry Craig’s alleged “crime,” compare it to President Clinton’s, and look at how each party responded to alleged “sexual immoralities” within their own party.

But before we do that, I would like to note that I only saw a few people who seem to be bothered by a police tactic that I thought had disappeared long ago: Placing male police officers in male public bathrooms to specifically target, arrest, prosecute, and jail homosexuals.

But besides that, what Senator Craig is alleged to have done, if the allegations are true, would be virtually the equivalent of Monica giving “innocent” non-verbal signals to President Clinton. That’s it. The allegation is that Senator Craig made “signals” that the police officer “assumed” were “standard” homosexual inquiries of a sexual nature — the reason the officer was in the restroom: To arrest those dastardly and immoral homosexuals.

Signals. A few signals. Unlike a standard prostitution sting, there was absolutely no offer of money in exchange for sex. Unlike President Clinton, there was no actual sexual activity. No stained blue dress. No proof of adultery. No proof that Senator Craig sought sex with someone the same age as one of his children. Nothing. Just a few “signals” that one police office “knew” to be “standard” signals that homosexuals use all the time in public restrooms because...apparently homosexuals can’t use “signals” out in public. They have to sit on a toilet and “signal” to some stranger in the next stall instead wasting their time sitting on a barstool flirting with one another.

And at this point in time, I can believe Senator Craig when he says that the only thing he did wrong was to plead guilty to a reduced charge “to get it over with.” People do that with traffic/parking tickets all the time. If someone has a good driving record and gets the first ticket they ever got in years, sometimes they think it is the simplest and easiest thing to do is to just pay it — especially if they get a notice from the court offering a quick and easy plea bargain if they just send a check in the enclosed envelope.

But now let us take up the issue as to how each party responded to the alleged sexual immoralities of their own.

Senator Craig was gone in a week. President Clinton is still the Democrat’s Golden Boy.

Compare Gingrich, Hagwell and Baker with Kennedy, Kennedy and the Congressman who had $90,000 in his freezer. Compare “gone,” “fired,” and “fired” with “not,” “not, “ and “not.” The contrast could not be not be more plain.

The Republican Party and Evangelical Christian organizations don’t want immoral hypocrites in their midst; immoral hypocrites are fired or told to resign. But the Democrats are so morally corrupt from the get-go, that if Senator Craig had been a Democrat, the focus would hardly been about what he was alleged to have done; the focus would have been on a police department using 1960s tactics to target gays in 2007, and the “vast right-wing conspiracy” to try to bring down a Democrat for simply “flirting” in public.

In other words, Democrats are so morally corrupt that if Senator Craig was a Democrat, even if the allegations of what he did were true, he would fit right in with all the other morally corrupt Golden Boys in their party.

Robert E. Forman is a resident of Lakewood.

By Mark Hillman

Two years ago, lawmakers asked voters for a “timeout” from the spending restrictions of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in order to allow the state budget to rebound from the recession of 2001-’02.

By Mark Hillman

Two years ago, lawmakers asked voters for a “timeout” from the spending restrictions of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in order to allow the state budget to rebound from the recession of 2001-’02. Referendum C, which passed by a narrow 52 percent to 48 percent margin, erased the TABOR spending limits for five years and permanently increased spending caps thereafter. Voters were promised that K-12 education, colleges and universities, and health care would split the lion’s share of the resources if the measure passed.

Following the 2005 vote, Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald said, “We already agreed, if Ref D failed, it would be 331/3, 331/3 and 33 1/3,” for schools, colleges and health.

But a funny thing happened after the election. Spending on programs not associated with Ref C has grown more than twice as fast as spending on education and health care. Now, voters have cause to believe they were sold a bill of goods.

According to the Joint Budget Committee, nearly $3.2 billion from the Ref C windfall has indeed been split between K-12, higher ed and health care. However, as any economist knows, money is fungible.

Since the 2005-’06 budget, passed prior to Ref C, general fund spending has increased by $1 billion, or 16.1 percent. Spending on K-12, higher ed and health care has grown by just 11.9 percent, or $557 million. Meanwhile, the remainder of the general fund, which wasn’t targeted for a Ref C infusion, has grown by 28.7 percent, or $446 million.

Advocates for loosening the state’s remaining spending limits complain that the 6 percent cap on annual growth in general fund spending is too restrictive. Yet even with this limit, lawmakers chose to shift spending away from Ref C beneficiaries and into other programs.
After Ref C passed, lawmakers approved a fiscal shell game, reducing K-12, higher ed and Medicaid spending from existing sources, then replacing those funds with money from Ref C. In some instances, education and health care actually received less money immediately after Ref C passed.

The Joint Budget Committee’s 2006-’07 Appropriations Report details what happened. After Ref C passed in November 2005, the legislature cut $306 million in K-12 spending from the general fund and “replaced” it with $261 million from Ref C. A similar cut-and-switch took place in Medicaid. Higher ed initially absorbed a $271 million general fund cut, mostly offset by a $253 million Ref C appropriation.

Such maneuvering gave the legislature a free hand to divert ordinary resources to other programs. Not surprisingly, some who expected their programs to be bolstered are now frustrated by the “Ref C shuffle.”

University of Colorado President Hank Brown, widely credited with convincing moderate Republicans and Democrats to support Ref C, recently told higher ed leaders, “I would not use the terminology that higher ed gets 30 percent of Ref C. We are not getting 30 percent.”
Brown has cause to feel double-crossed and so do Colorado voters.

Prior to Ref C, the state’s annual subsidy to colleges and universities was cut from $750 million to $498 million — with students and parents taking up the slack by paying higher tuition. For 2007-’08, general fund spending on higher ed is $746 million — still below pre-recession levels.
Ironically, Ref C’s health-care beneficiaries have fared even worse. General fund spending on “medical services premiums” has actually decreased since Ref C passed, despite receiving more than $1 billion in “excess revenues.”

By contrast, K-12 education, which was shielded from cuts even during the recession by its sugar daddy, Amendment 23, has reaped a $359 million general fund increase.
It’s fair to assume that Colorado voters expected that education and health-care spending would fare better than those programs not identified with Ref C. Since that clearly has not happened, convincing voters to approve new taxes for higher ed, transportation and health care — as leading Democrats have proposed — will be a tough sell.

Mark Hillman is the former Colorado Senate majority leader. He is co-author of “Budget Scrutiny Reveals Ref C Shuffle,” available at www.independenceinstitute.org.

By Cindy Sovine-Miller

The fundamental problem with the single payer system is that it doesn’t deal with the primary issue: RISING MEDICAL COSTS. Increasing income taxes to support an — all the care you can consume — system will skyrocket costs. Not decrease them. The long term viability and sustainability of such a plan has to be called into question.

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By Cindy Sovine-Miller

The fundamental problem with the single payer system is that it doesn’t deal with the primary issue: RISING MEDICAL COSTS. Increasing income taxes to support an — all the care you can consume — system will skyrocket costs. Not decrease them. The long term viability and sustainability of such a plan has to be called into question.

The single payer plan has been receiving a lot of press around its so called pricetag coming in lower than any of the other plans. It is a disservice to the public that nobody is talking about the assumptions that the LEWIN Group is making for this to work. We will have go to Congress and demand billions of dollars with no strings attached. And if the Feds don’t approve (which they likely won’t), income taxes would have to go up a lot more than the already proposed 7% to support the system.

The single payer plan will require several acts of Congress. The changes required are controversial and are already polarizing our national leaders.

And let’s not forget that if Congress were able to act quickly and efficiently, we as a state would not be forced to grapple with health care reform on our own to begin with. Even minor tweaks to Medicaid take years to get the Feds to approve. Now we are just going to scrap Medicaid and Medicare altogether and expect to keep the Federal dollars? Do we really think Congress is going to change ERISA law for us? Seriously? It would take years to hash this out ... what happens in the meantime?

I think everyone in this debate agrees that we currently have a broken system that is failing Coloradans. The worst thing that could happen is nothing. The status quo is unacceptable. But let’s not turn the state upside down just for the sake of change. At least not without talking about what COULD and likely WOULD happen.

Whether it is the state or a health insurance company paying for it, real reform cannot be successful without dealing with the cost issue. The very first step we should take as a state is to create a strong level of meaningful transparency within insurance, hospital costs (not charge data but actual cost information) and with docs for all procedures (routine, emergency and elective). That is the only way we can get our heads around what health care is actually costing us. Second, use that information to educate consumers and empower them to take control of their health care decisions instead of letting government or health plans do it for them.

Cindy Sovine-Miller is a spokeswoman for the Colorado State Association of Health Underwriters.

By Kim Ursetta

Anyone who has been involved in education for even a short time knows that “education reform” is truly in the eye of the beholder.

By Kim Ursetta

Anyone who has been involved in education for even a short time knows that “education reform” is truly in the eye of the beholder.

Open classrooms? An education reform cooked up by experts. New math? An education reform cooked up by experts. New testing regimes — put in place before changes in curriculum or purchasing books and materials aligned with the standards of the test? An education reform cooked up by experts.

The problem with too many education reforms is that they are not thought through or are underfunded. It’s usually a combination. But too much of the discussion about “new” and “promising” reform fails to take into account what teachers and parents know will make a difference.

It’s gotten so far out of whack that teachers are often discounted — or denigrated — as incapable of reforming their own operations. It’s perplexing why the teacher’s voice (and the voices of parents as well) is so little regarded when we think about what education reform ought to be. If we listened to them, we might hear some of the same things that are revealed in national polls, such as the annual Gallup Poll on the condition of education conducted each year for Phi Delta Kappan magazine.

Consistently, parents and teachers (when asked) say that class size, teacher quality and high standards — matched with the resources, including books and materials aligned with the resources and qualified teachers — will make the difference.

If it were just the uninformed opinion of the masses of people (the 99 percent or so who are not education experts), that would be one thing. But the fact is that teacher quality and class size have consistently proven by research to make a difference in student achievement.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association supports education reforms. But the reforms we continue to support are those that take into account the human factor, not just the mechanics of school structure (schools within a school, charter schools and open enrollment, pay schedules, procedures, guided instruction, etc.) Every teacher knows what too many experts miss: Schools are communities of people, and we must take human factors in consideration.

Do teachers and parents have the opportunity (including time) to communicate on an ongoing basis about the progress of students?

Do teachers have opportunities (including paid time) to share information and strategies about how to help specific students?

Are classes small enough to allow the type of individual attention that every student deserves?
Are teachers empowered to do what they know how to do — to teach students? Or are they consumed by a constant barrage of new time conflicts and pressure to perform before our community has dealt with some fundamentals?

It’s not that we ignore the mechanics. It’s just that we think they need to be considered in the real world — our day and age, our classrooms, our community — not what somebody else thinks worked better in 1957 or what somebody else thinks works in India.

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association has a well-deserved reputation for being an innovative union when it comes to considering new ideas. When the district proposed a “merit pay” plan, we worked for years to analyze the impact and develop a system that would not be fraught with favoritism and unintended consequences. We have proposed improvements and supported improvements proposed by others regarding some tough issues — consistently, thoughtfully and with the best interests of students in mind.

We will continue to work to have our voices heard. We believe that when we advocate for things like compensation that will attract and keep good teachers, we are saying the same thing as the vast majority of parents and others who care about children and our future.

Kim Ursetta is the president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association.

By David Schneider

As a native of New Orleans and a recent import to Colorado Springs, Aug. 29, 2005, is a day in my life I will never forget and a day that will forever affect my life and the life of thousands of others.

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By David Schneider

As a native of New Orleans and a recent import to Colorado Springs, Aug. 29, 2005, is a day in my life I will never forget and a day that will forever affect my life and the life of thousands of others.

I was born and raised a short distance from the now famous Ninth Ward of New Orleans in a neighboring Parish, in a community called Arabi.

As a small child in September 1965 we suffered, what at the time, was a major natural disaster. Hurricane Betsy came ashore and quickly over came the nonexistent protection system and flooded my childhood home with about five feet of water. My father took us out of the sub-division by boat and then went back to rescue others.

That was the first and last time this should have happened, but as we have all learned, almost 40 years later, it happened again but on a much grander and deadlier scale. We will forever dissect the cause, who was at fault, could it have been prevent, why we live where we do, etc. But, even though those discussions need to be held it is more important to focus on what has and has not happened in the two years since Katrina and how a once great city has fallen so far, so quickly and what must be done to resurrect it, if it is at all possible.

My family and I did not leave New Orleans out of fear or suffering, we left because of an opportunity that does not exist in New Orleans at this time. We worked hard to repair our home, we borrowed money, used inadequate insurance proceeds and used up most of my savings to put our life back together. (I think it is important to note, that Flood Insurance that can be purchased and backed by the Government, which I had does not sell a policy with a greater value than $250,000 and generally can only purchase up to the value of the home. So it is not that we were underinsured on purpose, we were underinsured because my home value was greater than the coverage available.)

We stayed and rebuilt our life, everyday since the levees failed.

Thanksgiving 2005 we ate a Red Cross turkey dinner in my yard while I gutted my home. Christmas 2005, we were one of only two families on my block that had returned, living and eating on lawn chairs in the kitchen and sleeping in the two rooms upstairs; thank God it was a mild winter. But we survived, school opened shortly after the New Year, I was employed and so was my wife. Things were beginning to look up, I had great hope the city would learn from its past mistakes and become something it had not been for a long, long time, economically vibrant and safe.

After two years the city has neither. Murders are out of control, business continue to leave the city or state. The mayor has turned out to be a very poor leader (putting it nicely), although he argues differently, he is a leader to a few, but not the many. It appears he is surrounded by yes men and women. Many of the corrupt political appointees are still in power, some are even elected under a cloud of suspicion. And so the cycle that was started decades ago continues and an opportunity of a lifetime is being squandered by corruption and ineffective leaders that have no vision of the future or what it could be.

We natives are then looked at as inept, stupid, lazy, etc., and for the most part that is untrue. Thousands of people are working hard to put their lives back together, without the help of the city, state or federal governments.

I know what it means to miss New Orleans, but not the one that exist today. I asked my family to leave for a better environment in which to live and raise my son and daughter. One day I would like to return and help lead a resurgence of this once great city, enter politics and make a difference, help educate the young and develop businesses and give the people hope. But that dream will have to wait until the nightmare of Katrina subsides.

David Schneider was born and raised in New Orleans and recently moved to Colorado from the University District of New Orleans. He is a resident of Colorado Springs.

By Francis M. Miller

The Governor’s 208 Blue Ribbon Commission is finally unveiling the five proposals it has been considering to solve Colorado’s health care system problems. As anticipated, this is becoming a false choice between the lesser of evils, since none of the problems solve the central problem, which is rising health care costs which is the driving force preventing the nearly 700,000 Coloradoans who cannot afford to buy health insurance.

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By Francis M. Miller

The Governor’s 208 Blue Ribbon Commission is finally unveiling the five proposals it has been considering to solve Colorado’s health care system problems. As anticipated, this is becoming a false choice between the lesser of evils, since none of the problems solve the central problem, which is rising health care costs which is the driving force preventing the nearly 700,000 Coloradoans who cannot afford to buy health insurance. I suggest that before the Commission asks the citizenry for a tax increase that they take a pause and consider two other efforts that preceded them.

The first is the recent debacle over failed computers in the State.

There were five major computer systems acquired from vendors during the Owens reign which either could not be implemented or did not get the job done once in place. Post-mortem analysis identified that the State rushed to purchase custom solutions before they had adequately defined user requirements or evaluated all the alternatives. Easily done when a committee acting like purchasing agents is in charge instead of architects.

The second consideration requires going back in time nearly 20 years.

When Frederico Peña was elected mayor of Denver, he commissioned a blue ribbon commission to look at Denver Health & Hospitals and providing health care access for the working poor. I served on that committee under the brilliant chairmanship of Rex Morgan, now deceased. As the committee did its work we discovered that hospitals have high fixed costs and that the infrastructure in place should allow additional services to the poor to be provided at the low marginal costs. If you are already staffed, the incremental cost of taking care of someone should only be 25% to 40% of the average cost, we reasoned. But, by concentrating care for the poor in Denver Health and University Hospital, both teaching hospitals, we were doing exactly the opposite.

We were then and are now paying greater than the average of the most efficient hospitals in the metro area.

When our insights were presented to Mayor Pena, it became obvious that he had no intent or ability to affect wide-scale health system change and that the airport and revenue enhancers would be the thrust of his terms. So, we trotted on down to the Legislature and went over our ideas with Ron Strahle, then Speaker of the Colorado House. Strahle was a brilliant man whose experience as an interrogator in WWII, combined with his legal skills was legendary. Strahle put together an Interim Committee of the Legislature that included members of both houses and six citizen experts from the outside. I served on that committee for two years as it took testimony from experts across the nation. It was a slow, deliberate, process that took years, not months.

Unlike the current 208 Commission which is trying to select between what I believe are false choices, the Interim Committee of the Legislature explored the root causes to the problem of access for the uninsured. We concluded that a sincere, but ill-conceived series of public policy programs to increase access to the poor, enacted in the decade preceding us, was fueling hyper-inflation, making affordable health insurance an increasingly unattainable goal for everyone. It was obvious to everyone that we were on a slippery slope and would eventually go over a cliff on the matter.
Our prescription for success was very different from the 208 Commission’s suggestion of a mandate that everyone buy health insurance.

We wanted to set in motion market forces that would reverse the movement towards socialized medicine. We felt there was just enough time to reinstitute the disciplining and countervailing forces of a market-driven health economy. First, we called for and got enacted a health data commission to publish data that revealed the significant differences in costs and quality between hospitals. That Commission, which I served on for over five years was a leader in the U.S. until the insurance and hospital lobby got it defunded in the mid-1990s. The Colorado tree was never able to bear fruit the way it has in Virginia and Pennsylvania, two other states who have perservered.

The second thrust was to create a counter-vailing force in the market that would create health plans that were affordable and rivaled those offered to state employees and major employers. We called it The Alliance and it was incorporated as the first member-owned and governed health care cooperative in the U.S. The big businesses pooled their purchasing might and the smaller businesses were going to piggy-back.

Two years after we incorporated, the Colorado Legislature enacted anti cooperative legislation, backed by special interests and the Alliance is now gone.

A weapon in all of this was to activate the multiple employer provisions of Federal ERISA laws. When ERISA was enacted it not only allowed labor unions and big companies to create their own health plans it allowed small companies to band together. The early MEWAs were often shams because they were not member owned and governed. But, the feds had given regulation over to the states and we believed we could create a level playing field.

The combined effect of these and other initiatives was tantamount to dropping a nuclear bomb on the health care market. It was too much change, too fast and the vested interests rose up in opposition. Not only did the hospitals go after us, but the insurance companies felt threatened. About that time US West and Public Service were being deregulated, going regional or national and their CEOs lost the taste for health care reform. Roy Romer, unlike Dick Lamm had little interest in health care and he chased the holy grail of education reform, which he is quixotically chasing to this day. The special interests got to the Legislature and Strahle and Morgan died, leaving the regiment without leadership. It all went down in flames. A case of a brilliant set of strategies that failed to be executed in the crucible of political reality.

The current 208 Commission is doing one really big thing to avoid that.

They are not trying to over-engineer the situation with an elegant set of strategies that would solve the problems of hyper-inflation in health care. They are using the blunt instrument of forcing people to buy insurance and then forcing the rest of society to subsidize it. Exactly the kind of solution you would expect a committee to come up with.

At this point, I don’t think we have got it. A “dumb and dumber” solution to a complex problem is probably not going to pass muster with the public once they realize not only will they have to pay more taxes to subsidize the poor, but that injecting more steroids into the health care system will cause more inflation, increasing their health insurance premiums.

Colorado has made numerous attempts to solve the access problem as health care has increasingly become a desireable right. Only the most curmudgeon amongst us suggests children, the elderly and the poor should not receive the fruits of medical research and technology. What we have not come to grips with is a delivery system to do that efficiently and uniformly. The current hybrid system that is part public and part market-based is clearly incapable of getting the job done. But, to allow ourselves to become bipolar and rush into the arms of a more socialized system is a finger-in-the-dike solution.

We are not there yet and the schemes of the Blue Ribbon Commission should be wadded up and discarded. The Governor needs to go back to the drawing boards. I have always maintained that every great endeavor is the lengthened shadow of a single man. In this case the Governor should assemble a core team of people with the requisite skills to architect a solution that meshes with federal laws. They should take the governor’s first term to develop requirements and evaluate alternatives. When Ritter is up for re-election the health care reform proposal he backs should be a litmus test as to whether he gets re-elected. If he does, then he can consider it a mandate and move with due deliberate speed to use his bully-pulpit to get it implemented.

I am haunted by the admonition of my father. One favorite is “if you are going to do something half-way, don’t do it at all.”

Francis M. Miller was appointed to two successive terms by Govs. Richard Lamm and Roy Romer as vice chairman of the Colorado Health Data Commission. He served on the Mayoral Committee to Review Denver Health and the Colorado Legislature’s Interim Committee on Health Care Reform. He was president of the Colorado Business Coalition on Health and the founder of the nation’s first health care cooperative, The Alliance.

By Dianna Benton

When Congress returns from its summer break, our elected representatives will take up important healthcare legislation that affects millions of Americans. It’s truly a life and death issue for the thousands of Colorado residents who suffer from kidney failure (otherwise known as End Stage Renal Disease) and require dialysis treatments to survive.

This Speakout has not been edited.

By Dianna Benton

When Congress returns from its summer break, our elected representatives will take up important healthcare legislation that affects millions of Americans. It’s truly a life and death issue for the thousands of Colorado residents who suffer from kidney failure (otherwise known as End Stage Renal Disease) and require dialysis treatments to survive.

Colorado, like every other state, has thousands of individuals suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity, all of which are major risk factors for kidney disease. One in every nine adults - 20 million Americans - suffer from chronic kidney disease, which untreated, can ultimately progress to kidney failure. The number of people with end stage renal disease (ESRD) who require dialysis is expected to double by the year 2012.

Because transplantation options are extremely limited, most patients who suffer from ESRD depend on lifesaving dialysis treatments to survive.

Ensuring quality dialysis care remains available is essential to the nation’s patient population, as is providing prevention and education resources so that patients can become empowered to avoid ESRD altogether.

Of the over 300,000 Americans requiring dialysis, the minority communities and underserved populations are two of the most at risk groups. In fact, Hispanic Americans are 4.5 to 6.6 times more likely to develop chronic kidney disease and African Americans make up 37 percent of the dialysis population – both staggering statistics. Reports indicate that 43 percent of African Americans are unaware they have kidney disease until one week before their kidneys fail. And more than half of the 61,000 Americans waiting for a kidney transplant are minorities. These numbers are shocking.

Many of us know someone who requires dialysis and can share personal stories about the devastating impact of kidney disease and the importance of access to dialysis care. As program coordinator at Catholic Charities, I serve over 1,300 households and a handful of my clients are on dialysis. Having access to dialysis treatment means life or death for these patients. It would be devastating and heartbreaking if these patients lost access to their life saving dialysis care.

The current Medicare program provides access to dialysis treatment to anyone, of any age, with permanent kidney failure. But Congress is considering changing the rules on Medicare funding for those in need of dialysis. In fact, the House of Representatives has already passed legislation called CHAMP, the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act that threatens to remove $3.5 billion dollars for kidney care programs – the deepest cuts ever for kidney care in America.

When Medicare funding is the difference between being able to access life saving care or suffering, Congress must do the right thing and protect people. Senator Ken Salazar can be a leading voice on this issue. I pray that he will consider the facts about kidney care and the need for a stable network of dialysis providers.

Adequate and stable funding is critical to ensure that dialysis patients have access to top quality clinics that provide life saving kidney care. Many rural and urban dialysis facilities are already operating on a razor’s edge, since most of their patients are on Medicare or Medicaid. Unless this legislation is modified, patient access to care in these dialysis clinics could be compromised.

We have the opportunity to ensure we create a fair public policy that will deliver quality care with adequate funding. And there is no better time to do that than now when Senator Salazar is back home talking to constituents about important issues.

Call, write, e-mail, or attend a town hall meeting and tell Senator Salazar we need to do what’s right for kidney patients. They are our fellow Americans who are asking their government to help keep them alive through adequate healthcare funding. Is there anything more important?

Dianna Benton is program coordinator for Catholic Charities Northern.

By Erik Palmer, Aurora

It’s back to school time. And naturally, there have been several articles, columns and letters to the editor about schools, school problems, and how to fix them.

By Erik Palmer, Aurora

It’s back to school time. And naturally, there have been several articles, columns and letters to the editor about schools, school problems, and how to fix them.

Generally, they rehash the same arguments, but I think there are five truths that are always missed.

No teacher ever got into the teaching business for money. No, not one. It is not a profession populated by people who put money first.

I have to mention this because our conservative media have done an excellent job of portraying teachers and their associations as greedy money-grubbers out only for themselves.

In fact, few professions have members who are less committed to money. If someone tells you that teachers are only worried about their compensation, they are wrong.

Any teacher with five years’ experience knows more about children and teaching than all the radio talk show hosts, newspaper columnists and letter writers put together.

Teachers don’t resist ideas that benefit children. When good ideas come along, they embrace them. If the teachers don’t embrace an idea, it is almost certainly because the idea will not benefit children, and they are experts in teaching children.

It is not the case that extremely qualified teachers are lined up waiting for the dead weight to go away. It is not true that failing schools will miraculously turn around if we can fire all the bad teachers there and bring in the incredible replacements just jumping at the chance to go in. Rather, it is a miracle that anyone is willing to teach in some schools.

After decades of teacher-bashing, few of our best and brightest college students are seeking careers in education. The percentage of males in education is at a 40-year low, for example.
For those who do go into teaching, the dropout rate is staggering. Fifty percent leave the profession in the first five years.

And here is a corollary to truth three: It is not true that anyone can step in and be a great teacher. Having a math degree will not mean you can successfully teach math; having a degree in engineering does not mean you will be successful at motivating science students.

There is no simple solution. It would be easy to host a radio talk show and spew the party line of vouchers and privatization. It is difficult, however, to manage a school of diverse students in a public school that takes all kids.

My district spends millions on children with severe handicaps — special busing, an aide for each student, special facilities, and so on. A private school could reject these kids and use the voucher money on the elite children, leaving the public schools with all the rejected kids.
In the world of private enterprise, if a supplier sends defective materials to the factory, the factory rejects those materials and finds another supplier. Should schools reject all but the highest quality materials? Private schools do.

Since there are no mentally retarded or autistic or behavior-disordered or emotionally disturbed or special-education kids at them, should exclusive schools get public money? Do you really believe private enterprise has some magic solution to get the autistic child to pass calculus?
Schools aren’t able to do as much as you think. Schools function in an atmosphere that limits the schools’ effectiveness. The average child spends 13 percent of his or her waking life in school. It is not the case that a school has the power to overcome all that goes on in the other 87 percent of a child’s life.

Schools cannot trump parenting or culture or economics.

For example, year after year we look at CSAP data that shows a near perfect correlation between school performance and income level (high income equals high performance). At best, a school can tweak some things to mitigate that problem.

I am not saying nothing can be done to improve schools. I am saying that expecting schools to solve all the issues responsible for subpar student performance is unrealistic.

We have work to do to continue to produce quality education for all children. Looking for simple answers and scapegoats will not help us in that work.

Erik Palmer is a middle school teacher with 22 years’ experience. He is a resident of Aurora.

By Joe Beaver, Lakewood

The 208 Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform was created to make a recommendation to our State Legislature next year.

By Joe Beaver, Lakewood

This Speakout has not been edited.

The 208 Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform was created to make a recommendation to our State Legislature next year. I have attended several of the public hearings and listened as they discussed the various proposals submitted and have the following recommendation based on testimony I’ve heard and my own research.

While in the process of reforming healthcare in Colorado, we can also take a giant step toward improving our economy by attracting new companies to the state. That process would involve adopting a single payer model. Such a system would allow small businesses to attract employees that would otherwise go to large corporations because of health insurance benefits and attract larger corporations because of lower costs of employee benefits.

As a public accountant specializing in small businesses, I have observed the impact of payroll and related payroll expenses on their bottom line.

Compared to large corporations, payroll and employee benefits generally represent a far greater percentage of their gross revenues. Many small businesses would be able to offer a competitive wage if they could eliminate the costs of health insurance and workman’s comp. They could spend that money on better product development and to stimulate creativity from their employees – often stymied in larger organizations. The hidden administrative costs of employee health insurance would also be eliminated.

Many small businesses do not have the personnel qualified to administer benefit packages and must go outside the company for help; adding to their costs. Larger corporations would benefit, as well, as they add to their bottom line by reducing expenses, the main attraction to investors.
If individuals were able to eliminate the cost of health insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays and caps that they currently have to pay, they would be able to afford a modest tax increase with those savings. I say modest increase because if CEO compensation and insurance company profits were taken out of the cost of healthcare, costs would go down substantially. A single payer would also be make it possible to negotiate better prices with pharmaceutical companies.

If, indeed, more businesses were attracted to Colorado, employing more individuals, improving our economy and adding numbers to the health care pool, costs per individual would go down. As costs go down, so would the tax requirements necessary to support the system. As insurance companies can tell you, the larger the pool, the less the risk.

With a universal healthcare plan in place, chronic illnesses should also decrease. Folks would be able to benefit from preventative measures that are often neglected under our present system. When all these benefits are taken into consideration a single payer plan that closely resembles
Medicaid seems to be the most logical choice.

By Scott Weiser, Boulder

Lifebridge Christian Church critic Richard Juday objects to the Longmont church’s development plans because it might become a “religious enclave” that wouldn’t “integrate into the social fabric of the city.” (“Church’s Union plan dividing Longmont,” July 20 and “Petition tries to undo Longmont church’s plan,” Aug. 30.)

By Scott Weiser, Boulder

Lifebridge Christian Church critic Richard Juday objects to the Longmont church’s development plans because it might become a “religious enclave” that wouldn’t “integrate into the social fabric of the city.” (“Church’s Union plan dividing Longmont,” July 20 and “Petition tries to undo Longmont church’s plan,” Aug. 30.)

Even if true, so what? Who cares? I’m not a religious person, but I believe in the First Amendment, the rule of law, and tolerance for diversity of belief, and I welcome the church to the community.

It’s fashionable to marginalize, demean and taint religion, as if it is a shameful thing to express one’s faith in public. But what those who do so ignore is that — just as the Constitution’s Establishment Clause forbids the government from establishing a state-sponsored religion — its Free Exercise Clause prohibits the government from engaging in religious oppression, especially through zoning.

Some scholars claim that the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses require a “benign neglect” of religion by government, neither favoring nor disfavoring it. But in fact, government has an affirmative obligation to actively protect the rights of religionists against religious oppression by anyone. This duty outweighs all of the petty aesthetic or “character of the neighborhood” canards trotted out by objectors to the church’s plan. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act codifies and ratifies the affirmative obligation of local zoning authorities to actively facilitate religious freedom.

The right of the people to freely assemble and freely exercise their religion is a fundamental right and root precept of our entire system of law and society. This includes the inviolable right to establish “religious enclaves” for the defense of religious practice against those bent on oppression and the destruction of constitutional rights.

Scott Weiser is a resident of Boulder.

By Andrew Wallach

After a rocky period of uncertainty and of conflict with its state government cousins, Great Outdoors Colorado is back on track.

By Andrew Wallach

After a rocky period of uncertainty and of conflict with its state government cousins, Great Outdoors Colorado is back on track.

However, the recipient of about one in four GOCO dollars — Colorado State Parks — badly needs an overhaul.

Colorado voters created GOCO in 1992 and charged the new state agency with distribution of about half of Colorado’s lottery proceeds.

In its 15-year life, GOCO has funded preservation of more than a thousand square miles of Colorado land as open space and wildlife habitat. This is a land area greater than the combined sizes of Denver and Douglas counties.

In the upcoming state legislative session, GOCO will face powerful challenges to its hold on its revenues. State colleges and universities, public school districts, state veterans’ groups and others have all tried to persuade state legislators that they should share GOCO’s lottery riches.

A few years ago, the future didn’t seem to hold much promise for GOCO advocates.

After Gov. Bill Owens’ election in 1998, his administration pushed GOCO away from its early focus on land protection. Instead, Owens favored bolstering thinly stretched state agency operating budgets and curbing expansion of public land ownership.

But now GOCO seems to be back in the land protection business in a big way. In June of this year the GOCO board earmarked $100 million for grants this year, with the majority for land protection and GOCO’s high-profile Legacy Grants.

State agency partners

GOCO’s two largest constitutionally mandated grant recipients are the state divisions of Wildlife and State Parks, each receiving 25 percent of GOCO’s grants.

Early on, GOCO and the state agencies had seemed able to manage their arranged marriages successfully. In the late 1990s, as GOCO provided grants for preservation of more than 230,000 acres, Wildlife used GOCO funds to significantly expand its protected habitat lands. State Parks embarked on its ambitious “Crown Jewels” park acquisition program.

GOCO’s direction changed as the decade closed, with Owens’ appointment of Greg Walcher as the director of the Department of Natural Resources. The department oversees both the state parks and wildlife agencies, and has an important voice on the GOCO board.
Walcher acted quickly to assert independence from GOCO, essentially terminating two DNR agencies’ participation in major land acquisition programs.

In the Division of Wildlife, which faced decreased growth in its fishing and hunting fees, Walcher pushed to channel GOCO funding into salary support for agency staff. At their peak in 2001, these staffing support programs consumed $8 million per year in GOCO funds and elicited growing resistance from the GOCO board.

Unrealized ambitions

In State Parks, efforts to preserve the state’s most desirable mountain properties peaked in 1998. That year GOCO funded acquisition of 17,000 acres for four spectacular parks around the state, sites labeled the “Crown Jewels” by State Parks staff:

Scarce Front Range foothills open space at Cheyenne Mountain, adjacent to the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.

Foothills ranchland at Staunton Ranch, near Pine at the frontier of the southwest Denver exurbs.
The nearly pristine mountain valley at Brush Creek, now part of Sylvan Lake Park near Eagle.
And the remote but spectacular 11,000-plus-acre Lone Mesa in southwestern Colorado, near Dolores.

In 2001 Walcher appointed Lyle Laverty, a former U.S. Forest Service official, as State Parks director.

Laverty faced shrinking legislative appropriations for parks operations. He quickly shut down agency land acquisition and deferred basic development programs at two new parks. He replaced these efforts with a program using GOCO funds to develop “resort-level” amenities in the parks.

Laverty argued these embellishments would provide a revenue windfall for the financially struggling agency. Among his first efforts using GOCO’s “free” capital was investment of $820,000 in “three exceptional, lodge-caliber cabins” at Mueller State Park. While net revenues on this investment have never been published, staffers acknowledge that new cabin “profits,” if any, are meager.

Meanwhile, two of State Parks’ four “Crown Jewels” are languishing. Lone Mesa, with some of the most spectacular scenery in the state, has yet to open to the public except for seasonal hunting use. And the scenic Staunton site is also closed to the public. It awaits, according to State Parks, improvements on nearby U.S. 285.

In February of this year, when Laverty approached GOCO for funding to construct a wedding and banquet “events center” at Cheyenne Mountain, the GOCO board dug in its heels. A commitment from current DNR Director Harris Sherman to thoroughly review State Parks finances has put that project on hold.

State parks users need Gov. Bill Ritter and Sherman to find a new, less capital-intensive approach to using GOCO funds to help restore our existing parks and allow the public to enjoy our new “crown jewels.”

Opening the new parks to dispersed camping, and funding youth and volunteer groups’ construction of new trails seems one good possibility. This would avoid the heavy infrastructure investment necessary to accommodate recreational vehicles and resort-level lodging.

In the meantime, GOCO has consistently been graced with talented and conscientious board members since its inception. It continues to creatively and energetically address the mission Colorado citizens set out for it 15 years ago. The agency deserves undiminished support from the state and its citizens.

Andrew Wallach held management positions in three Denver mayoral administrations and served as deputy director of Great Outdoors Colorado from 1998-2000.

By Allen Peacock, Berthoud

The story begins as a young man enters camp after days spent herding his father’s goats. One day the goats will be his, as well as the great tent in which his father lives with his several wives.

By Allen Peacock, Berthoud

This Speakout has not been edited.

The story begins as a young man enters camp after days spent herding his father’s goats. One day the goats will be his, as well as the great tent in which his father lives with his several wives. One day he will be the patriarch of the tribe and own slaves and large herds, have several wives, make the laws and mete out justice to the rest of the tribe, and hold a position of respect and power. As his father’s eldest son, these are his birthright: the most precious possession a man in his culture could have.

He comes into camp tired, thirsty and ravenous, and is aware of the wonderful aroma of a bowl of stew in his younger brother’s hands. He asks for the bowl and his brother agrees to hand it over in exchange for his older brother’s birthright. The older brother agrees, and in exchange for a moment’s satisfaction, Esau gives his birthright to Jacob, who becomes the patriarch honored by both Jews and Christians as one of the fathers of God’s Chosen People. Regardless of your opinion of the historicity of this story – fact, fiction, a little of both – it contains a powerful message about values.

The founders of our country gave us a magnificent birthright in the form of the first ten amendments to the Constitution: the Bill of Rights. No other country – not even England, which produced Magna Carta and Parliament — had such freedom at that time. Our political forefathers warned us to value this gift above all else and protect it, because it is our birthright.

In the last several years The President and Congress have traded our birthright in exchange for what they claim is security. Last week even the Democrats, who had fought to keep our freedom intact, gave in and effectively traded our most precious possession for a figurative bowl of stew: immediate, promised-but-not-certain security. The so-call Patriot Act began the process, and last week’s legislation allowing the administration to intercept citizens’ phone calls and email without judicial approval completed the trade.

I will be called a traitor for saying that freedom is more precious than security. I gladly join the ranks of such traitors as: Benjamin Franklin, who said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”; Abraham Lincoln, “It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies”; and James Madison, “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” This last statement describes perfectly what this administration is doing to us.

Because I have criticized the President’s plans, I must live with the possibility of being secretly declared an enemy combatant, facing a midnight knock on the door and removal to an undisclosed location where I can be held indefinitely, without being charged with a crime, without contact with the outside world, much less a lawyer. The possibility of Alberto Gonzales doing that to me is as improbable as a terrorist attack happening because of a missed phone call…BUT HE CAN DO THIS …to me and to YOU.

The Book of Genesis ends the tale of Jacob and Esau with the sentence, “Thus Esau showed how little he valued his birthright.” Is our most precious possession, our birthright – the Bill of Rights –not worth the discomfort of the possibility of terrorism? Once the Government takes something away, it rarely gives it back. Twenty years from now the taste of the stew – a stronger sense of security — will be forgotten, but our lost freedoms will be remembered amid wistful yearning for the days when we faced danger, but faced it as free women and men.