Monthly Archives: January 2012

I borrowed money via the Climate Smart loan program back in 2009 thinking that it was a great way to finance energy improvements to my house. In my case windows and insulation upgrades. I am now selling my house and need to pay off the loan. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the program added about 16% in fees to the principle of the loan! If Boulder County was a credit card company, they would be hauled in front of Congress and rightly criticized for gouging and misleading their customers. The Climate Smart program was touted as a way to get inexpensive loans to help homeowners improve the carbon footprint of Boulder County. Instead it has become the most expensive homeowners loan I have ever had. I’ve owned four houses over the last 18 years and Climate Smart’s effective interest rate is equal to the 9.4% loan on first home back in 1994. Even worse, the 16% in fees is effectively an early payoff penalty.
If there is any discussion of continuing this plan, please remember this awful management of the program and don’t renew it. Underwriting home loans written by private sector banks will likely result in far better deals for the people of Boulder County.

Sincerely,

JV Rudd
Louisville Continue reading →

In 1787 at a Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was waiting to sign a document that would hold the fate and destiny of our nation.
As he stood, his eyes fell upon a carving on the back George Washington’s chair, “a carving of a half sun”.

He stared thoughtfully at it for several minutes, then proclaimed the words that would be remembered forever, at least in our country’s history, “I have often looked at that picture behind the presidents’ chair without being able to tell whether it was a rising or setting sun. Now at length I have the happiness to know that it is indeed a rising, not a setting sun.”

How would he or should we answer that question today 2012?

Will the sun continue to rise over America, or have we lost what really made us a great nation.

Has greed, false idols, and imperialism changed our soul?

My hope is that we can still believe it is a rising sun once again.

But the time for denial
Is over and the ensuing darkness is not the same as the “bright” sun of a clear day.

I hope it is not to late to begin to end the
darkness and once again embrace the light of a “rising sun”.

Jim Martin
Boulder Continue reading →

The secrets revealed by Brittany Anas about the corrupt CU tuition scandal is enough to sicken mine and many others stomachs. It is a chilling reality when you start to realize the places which provide knowledge have fallen deep into the corporate realms. University of Colorado has spun their lies to cater to what will benefit the administrators rather than concentrating on what is going to the best thing for the student. In a time where people are already flooding to community colleges, and possibly degrading their education from high tuition costs, it would seem to me that damaging public perception would be the last thing that CU would want to do by receiving something similar to the bank bailouts. The most sickening thing about this article is the reality that most of the money from tuition increases has gone to those who are “running” the school rather than those who are actually keeping the knowledge flow going. Much like the bank bailouts, money that was meant to go to improving the situation actually went to the greedy hands of those already making more than 6-figure salaries. The lying, and the greediness have to have an end somewhere and if it’s not in our schools then I don’t know where it will be.

Hillary Adams
Denver
Continue reading →

An attack upon Iran by either Israel or the United States would be an unmitigated disaster. The full consequences of such an attack are impossible to foresee, but the process is very likely to spin out of control much like the mobilization leading to World War One. Among many other horrendous outcomes, an attack upon Iran could easily generate a rash of assaults upon civilian targets in Europe and the USA.

I do not know whether Iran is really trying to develop nuclear weapons, but if it is I am certain that the purpose is not to attack Israel. However belligerent the leaders of Iran may be, they understand that Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, and they are not about to commit national suicide. It is quite obvious, however, that countries possessing nuclear weapons are far less likely be attacked than countries that do not. Iran suffered about one million casualties in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88. The leaders of Iran might reasonably think that their country would not have been attacked by Iraq if it had nuclear weapons. They might also think, again with good reason, that they would not now stand in danger of attack by the United States or Israel or any other imperialist power if they possessed nuclear weapons. If Iran is indeed trying to develop nuclear weapons, it is almost surely as a defensive shield and not for purposes of aggression.

In my more optimistic moments, I think that all rational and well informed adults must understand how catastrophic an attack upon Iran would be. However, an Israeli journalist writing in The New York Times Magazine of January 29, 2012 concludes a long and detailed analysis of Israeli political leaders by saying that “I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012.” Anyone who cares about world peace and global security must take action to thwart this awful possibility. The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center is starting a campaign to prevent an attack upon Iran. We ask that you join us in this crucial effort. For information please call 303-444-6981 ext. 2

Tom Mayer
Boulder Continue reading →

To the Editor:
Bruce Benson’s defense of the administrative raises coming in the wake of tuition increases reveals again that while his dedication to the University is real, one has to question his commitment to students and faculty (essentially those on the bottom of the food chain) and to the people of Colorado. At the heart of the problem of education funding is that we seem to be losing the concept of education being a societal as much as an individual value. Public education has been under attack for political gain here for decades, to the point that support for public funding seems less each election cycle. For Benson’s administration and the Regents not to enthusiastically support Rollie Heath’s Prop 103 and then propose a 15% in-state tuition increase shows that their vision of CU being an “elite” university is one dependent upon corporate and private endowment and high tuition rates largely exclusive of the hoi polloi of Colorado. This is a highly questionable vision.

Robert Porath
Boulder Continue reading →

I am an Athiest and I find a billboard saying “God is an imaginary friend” both inappropriate and offensive. It’s a personal belief — my regret is that, if it turns out I’m correct, I just won’t be able to say that I told you so.

Tom Houlihan
Boulder Continue reading →

The Inequality and Lacking Balance in Financial Affairs becomes more grossly disproportionate as we undergo our passage in this Life!! I am referring to yesterday’s Daily Camera and the article on the front page: “Tuition Increase Funded CU raises.” (1/29/12) We see photos of top administrative officials with their smiles spread wide. Then we see the photos of students, employed students working at their jobs, earning money for their education. Some of these students have no compensation from parents or guardians and these students are their sole support. These are our upcoming citizens, officials and administrators, scientists, etc., hoping to make this world a more sane place to live.

I am not saying that our administrators and officials don’t deserve higher pay for the requirements of their jobs. Folks….we are in a recession and this is REALITY. It is a crime to take the increased student tuition hikes and fund an official with a $49,000 increase in pay; his total salary being $389,000!!! Something is VERY INCONGRUENT HERE!!! President Benson defended these raises with: “The University’s salaries are still far below those of peer universities.” We are in a lingering recession, Mr. President. THIS IS THE REALITY!!! You don’t take money from the poor students whose tuitions you’ve raised and make it ALRIGHT to increase the salaries of your officials. There needs to be a SENSE OF JUSTICE that takes in one’s GOOD CONSCIENCE!! This situation, this scenario, is CONSCIENCE-LESS.

. . . . . And administrators dare to propose an additional 15.7% tuition increase and a second round of raises!!!! Somehow….may Pure and True Consciousness come to the fore in this sorry state of affairs!!! Otherwise, many students and students’ parents and guardians may have to take their promising artists out of CU, as CU has become unaffordable.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!! We are in a lingering recession. Don’t you folks whose salaries are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars have enough to support your quality of life – or/and might you downsize to make this equation more equatable? Students are suffering . . . can you hear them? . . . And what can you do to make this total situation more equitable?

Carolyn Wegner
Boulder Continue reading →

I would just like to point out to local atheists, in their campaign to convince others that God is imaginary, that there is no way they can prove, through reason or anything else, that God is not real, or prove that someone cannot know that God is real. Their conviction, in other words, is based on faith, and amounts to a belief – in other words, to a religion – whose ideal (whose God in a sense) appears to be Reason-Honesty, an ideal they betray by denying the existence of God, since neither reason nor honesty supports such a rigid conviction.

If their campaign is really against organized religions’ many rigid dogmas and often heartless convictions – betrayals, essentially, of the God of love – I can support them that far, but when they deny the reality of PERSONAL religion, the individual’s personal experience with the Source of reality, I have to say “You betray your own ideal of honesty and reason, and common sense, when you say that reality has no Source, or that the Source of reality is not real and cannot live in the mind and heart of the individual, who is also real and a part of a greater reality. Don’t let your legitimate anger at those trying to force you to believe something lead you to deny the existence of the greatest support there is for your true honesty, unselfish courage, and insistence on the freedom of everyone to believe what they choose.”

Stan Hartman
Boulder Continue reading →

Hopefully all of you reading this will have listened to our President Obama this last week expound on how he

understands the relationship between the oil/gas industry and the importance of this industry to this country’s

economy. You didn’t have to listen very closely to quickly recognize the complete disconnect between

this notion and the President’s policies regarding this economic issue. After expounding to the American

public how he recognizes the contributions the oil and gas industry makes to our economy by delivering what

he called, ‘…hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs…’ he turned right around and demonized exactly

the same industry. It should be pointed out this is only one of the few industries that is growing American

jobs and delivering billions of dollars of revenue to the U.S. Treasury, without any handouts of Federal tax

dollars.

In the demonizing portion of his speech, he went into great detail of how the oil and gas industry isn’t

paying its fair share in taxes while later he tried to justify additional billions of American tax payer dollars

going to subsidize alternative energy companies that to date have not nearly added the numbers of jobs the

oil/gas industry has. And why is this subsidy needed? It is because these companies cannot financially

survive without your hard earned tax dollar subsidies. Even with the subsidies, many are failing and we, the

taxpayers, hold the bill for bad political decisions made by President Obama.

This is only one of the many examples as to how our President has pursued failed policies the last three

years. I suggest we should all follow what candidate Barack Obama so eloquently told us three years ago in

speech after speech, “…it is time for a change.” The United States of America cannot afford four more years

of these kinds of misguided, destructive policies.

Greg Rosener
Estes Park Continue reading →

In his Camera letter of Jan.26, “Atheists

are happy people,” Hilary

Reynolds Burton of Nederland obviously wants us

Bible believers , espcially those who believe John

3:16, to know that he, a “lifelong atheist” is not

unhappy but “a very happy person.”

OK, go for it. But it’s only temportal. The

happiness that I have enjoyed is both temporal and

eternal since I, at age fifteen,

on June 29, 1937, believed in Jesus Christ as my Lord and

Saviour (John 3:16). I was born in California,

February 15, 1922. My headstone in the boulder

Green Mountain Cemetery is all set; only the

date of my earthly demise remains to be

engraved. I’ll be living it up—forever; that’s

real happiness.

Charles King
Boulder Continue reading →

Dear Editor,

Bo Sharon made the point in Allicia Wallace’s Business Plus cover story article, “A new entrant (into the Boulder Market) simply could just displace the exiting dollars spent at local grocery stores.” Not mentioned is that Trader Joe’s has a draw larger than local stores. Since there will be only one Trader Joe’s in the Denver Metro Area, I predict people we drive into Boulder from a greater distance than anyone does now to get groceries. This will increase the sales tax revenues for Boulder by the additional sales that occur at Trader Joe’s as well as the other enterprises in the vicinity of 29th Street Mall. My experience has been this will happen because my friends and I would drive 20-25 minutes in my former city of residence to get to our Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s is a destiny store like IKEA. Boulder will be very fortunate to get a Trader Joe’s.

Louisa K. Matthias
Boulder Continue reading →

I applaud the Daily Camera’s choice in running Len Barron’s excellent piece titled “Masters of physics, imagination, and play” (Jan 15, 2012). Articles of this type are very needed because they are reflective upon the values that are necessary for the advancement of humanity. I fear that if we do not learn from the wisdom of our greatest thinkers, and focus upon what is real and truly significant, then we will be neglecting that which is important for the survival of our species. We can play all the games we want; take advantage of human behaviors to become rich. But the most significant thing about those games is that they are huge failures – we must deprecate the zero-sum economic games and dedicate our time and energy to thoughtful enterprise that ultimately will place us well in the natural list of survivors. So, it is imperative that we develop the imagination, thoughtfulness and courage of our people. Once the important tasks are defined by people with these qualities, then significant and practical benefits will accrue. After all, it is the task that creates the jobs – and, just as importantly, well conceived tasks generate a happy future.

Steven L. Speidel
Boulder Continue reading →

To The Editor,

ABC television recently aired a report on how beef prices are skyrocketing, and typical of our Washington establishment supporting media they mentioned all the causes of food price inflation except the biggest, Barack Obama’s biofuel scheme.

Cattle eat corn and soybeans, and we are currently wasting over 41% of our corn crop and mountains of soybeans making biofuels instead of feeding it to our farm animals which give us meat, eggs, and dairy products. This does nothing to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels because we have to use huge amounts of fossil fuels to produce energy inefficient biofuels. Additionally, biofuel farming increases water pollution and greenhouse gas release. Global biofuel production has pushed up the cost of farmland, fertilizer, and food all over the world, which automatically kills off more poor people in Third World countries who survive on less than a dollar a day.

We are not just putting more Americans on food stamps with this deadly fiasco, we are eroding our topsoil at a rate so fast that most of it will be gone in less than 100 years. What will we eat then?

Christopher Calder
Eugene, Ore. Continue reading →

Recently I heard House Majority Leader Eric Cantor say on the radio that “Republicans must not let Obama get the upper hand on the health care issue.” This was no surprise but it made me wonder when was the last time I heard a Republican say anything positive about anything the President has done or proposed? I drew a complete blank; to my knowledge it has not happened once in the three years Obama has been in office.

It’s natural for opposing parties to frequently disagree with one another. But Americans are smart enough to know that no two people can be 100% opposed on every single issue. It seems as though Republicans think that they harm President Obama by disagreeing on every single issue, whether or not it has merit. What they are really showing is their disingenuousness and, more importantly, their disregard for the American people. For sadly, it is the American people who pay for this obstructionism as it keeps us stuck in our economic malaise longer than need be.

In their heart of hearts, most Republicans know that sometimes even President Obama has good ideas which would help heal the country and move it forward. When they reject every single thing he says or proposes, regardless of its public merit, they only hurt themselves. To them I say, “Keep it up; voters will be the final arbiters of this strategy come November.”

John Penberthy
Boulder Continue reading →

Dear Daily Camera/Letters to the Editor:

Most “centers of higher learning” exist primarily as enormous money-sucking behemoths, and are only secondarily the romanticized beacons of knowledge that we believe
them to be. The University of Colorado is proving this point ad nauseum with the recent, and now ubiquitous annual tuition increases. Kudos to the Daily Camera for the
extensive Jan. 28th article addressing how these tuition increases are funding raises for the CU top brass. If the regents truly believed in the integrity of their work- the
recession weary students would come first, and the rotating cadre of administrators would be recognized for what they are- infinitely replaceable. A few years back I had the
pleasure of giving a presentation to underclassmen of my alma matter on what to expect after graduation in our field. My former CU professor winced as I shared resolutely
how the greatest lessons I learned at my hometown university are the codified nature of class warfare in America, and how not to pay people to waste my time. “The truth will
set you free. But first, it will piss you off.” – Gloria Steinem

Danice Crawford
Boulder Continue reading →

Right before our very eyes in the past decade a “new” new economy has sprung, and I suggest that young adults had better consider getting a job within its vast, thickly layered structure. The field of which I speak is university administration, a world where six-figure salaries are provided for jobs with titles that require three newspaper columns to list (as per the D.C. on 1-29-12). Clearly, the role of universities has now changed. Where once the objective was focused admirably upon providing higher education opportunities for our youth, it is now equally (or more) aimed at growing and sustaining layers of “professional” jobs, with universities competing with each other to match or beat each other’s salaries. This all, of course, has happened amidst an epic down-turn in the real world economy.

Face it, kids: if you hope to pay off the massive student loans you are accumulating, your only hope may be to land a job as Vice President of Health Affairs and Executive Vice chancellor at the Anshutz Medical Campus ($527,750/this year), or CU-Boulder Provost ($271,700/this year). There is nothing like the higher education sector when it comes to inhaling vast amounts of money and funneling it to it’s rich and seemingly self-serving “professional” club.

Mike De Fries
Boulder Continue reading →

Every semester, we write the tuition check to CU with our eyes getting bigger and bigger at the huge increases each time. What can we do? Write the regents and complain? The increases are obscene. 15% way outstrips inflation. What nerve. Now we hear last year’s 9% increase went towards huge ($10,000 in my neck of the woods is HUGE) salary increases for the upper echelon. My apologies to the day to day professors. We were hoping you would get more of a cut. My last raise, like theirs, was a few extra cents an hour, whoopee. . . CU Boulder plans to build an outdoor pool on campus. Excuse me, this is Colorado. Outdoor pools here close on Labor Day, just as the students are arriving and open on Memorial Day after they are long gone. Or, let me guess, it will be a heated pool year round? Can you say “Conspicuous Consumption”? There seems to be a huge disconnect from reality here.

B. Engelking
Longmont Continue reading →

In the United States each state requires mandatory motor vehicle insurance.
However there is no mandatory private aircraft insurance requirement.

There is much on the internet regarding this topic. Only a few states require
mandatory insurance. The United States still does not have an all encompassing
federal requirement that aircraft operators have minimum insurance. The FAA, a
federal agency, controlling air traffic does not require this type of insurance.

What happens should an accident occur causing injury, death or property damage
and the private aircraft pilot has no insurance. Would the city of Longmont, as the
owner of Vance Brand Airport, be liable?

As a licensed owner of a motor vehicle I consider it very important to be insured
with liability coverage. As parents of teenagers who obtain a drivers license and
began driving, insurance rates are higher. Consider the fact that a teen after 40
hours of flight instruction and taking written and verbal tests may become a
licensed pilot.

Aircraft liability insurance is expensive. If parents can afford liability insurance that
is great. But the fact of the matter is that not every pilot carries insurance.

You may research the internet under AOPA and Slack and Davis, L.L.P. This is an
interesting and in my opinion a crucial matter. Congress needs to address this issue.
My concern is for our citizens who could be injured, killed or have their property
destroyed.

Diane Wood
Longmont Continue reading →

Coloradans should support CO ASSET. At no extra cost to taxpayers, it improves schools, communities, increases our pool of talented human resources, and gives universities, businesses, and our economy a needed boost. It brings innocent immigrant kids hope, and a chance for a brighter future. As a teacher I see both students who have amazing strength, character, and hope from their families and religion, regardless of what their future may bring, and those who so desperately need the hope and encouragement that access to college, citizenship, and jobs could provide them. Without that hope, students can get very discouraged, and we can lose their tremendous gifts. Every year I see exceedingly bright students who dream of going to college, and who work harder than any of their native born peers. But right now costs are prohibitive for most of these students. Because this bill does not give immigrants in-state subsidies, students who moved to Colorado from California during high school will still get lower tuition than immigrants whose families have lived and paid taxes here throughout their k-12 careers. This bill doesn’t cost a dime to taxpayers; it provides a new revenue stream to universities which could help them expand employment; it improves secondary schools’ effectiveness, because the goal of college will become real; and it will provide more qualified future employees who can help get our economy back on track. Please support CO ASSET so that, without taking anything away from others, we can look our students in the eye and tell them that their talents will not be wasted, that they can get a higher education and go into whatever field they choose, and we will hold a place to value their talents and work in our society. And at the same time, we can improve our universities, society, and economy.
Beth Eldridge
Louisville Continue reading →

In an article in last Sunday’s paper a 20 year-old woman claimed she was attacked at knife point by a “black male, approximately 24 years old, about 200 pounds, with short hair…. a zip-up sweatshirt.” The article also included information about how to contact Police or Crime Stoppers (Crime Stoppers has a cash reward of up to $1,000) with any tips. And so the hunt was on for the knife-wielding black man.

The very few Black men who live on the hill are already at risk for being victims of hate crimes, and subjects of racial profiling. Now the buzz was to look out for a generic young black male attacker.

Thanks to the Boulder Police Department, by Monday it was apparent that the woman’s report was false. It ostensibly had something to do with gaining the attention of her ex-boyfriend, and she was issued a ticket.

While I don’t know why the woman chose this lie; what the lie set in motion is historically familiar.

This False report put young black men on University Hill in a vulnerable position. Now they were subject to possible interrogation by the police and suspicion from the community. And it irritated the deep scar of historical trauma – As recently as fifty years ago, the rumor of attempted assault by a black male on a white woman would have evoked the threat of lynching. Parents of black sons at CU worried about their child’s safety.

In terms of women, it fed the myth that women tend to falsify assaults. It is just the opposite: The real numbers of assaults are not reported because women are reluctant to file.

Learning about our history (good and bad), and the racial and gender myths that harm us is crucial to our community.

Kirsten Wilson
Project Director,
One Action-One Boulder/Niwot’s Arrow
Boulder Continue reading →