The Colorado Report

Who Killed Porkchop? A Key West Mystery

2012-01-18T12:36:00.002-07:00

Just launched the Key West Mystery novella, Who Killed Porkchop?, on Amazon.com as a Kindle eBook. To take a look, head for:

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Porkchop-ebook/dp/B006Z1VPIE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326914401&sr=1-1

This is a quick read for Kindle Readers or Kindle for PC/MAC (readers you can download for free to your laptop or desktop).

What's it about? Here is the blurb:

JAMES O'SHEA KELLY was not happy… His knee ached. The coffee stunk. He wanted a beer. His best pal was down in the ER shot full of holes. The mayor of Denver was under guard out at the air base. And he had lost the best butcher in Key West. All because of that darn pig…

Up next: WATER: A Vic Bengston Investigation scheduled for publication as a Kindle eBook Feb. 1, 2012, and as a paperback March 15, 2012.

Check out my author's page at Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B006ZAOV2M

And my fiction writing page at:

http://schneiderfiction.com/

Amazon Prime members can download Who Killed Porkchop? for free! Or you can buy this 16,600-word novella for just 99-cents.

Who Killed Porkchop? will be available in most other eBook bookstores after mid-April 2012.

Good reading..

How to Write

2011-10-20T11:21:00.000-06:00

I learned it from Bill Logan. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News,
covered the legislature for many years and then wrote about trout
fishing.

“You put down one word on paper,” he told me. “Then another, and so on.”

Old guy on a bike

2011-08-29T10:57:00.001-06:00

An old guy on a bike stopped by last night.

Well, he wasn't really on his bike. He had two of them carriered up on the back of his van. He was driving between two legs of an odyssey he began last spring to bike across America, raising money for MS, seeing the country, hooking up with old friends and making new ones.

Frank Briscoe was driving from the west coast legs of the trip, blasting through to his home base in Missouri, and then racing down to Key West where he'll crank his bike up the eastern seaboard for twelve or thirteen hundred miles “self-contained,” meaning all his essentials – clothing, camping gear, food, water, and tools – will be on the bike. He has done some of his legs with “sag” vehicles, where a a volunteer would drive the van along with him as he peddles through the trip of a lifetime. Fellow high school classmates Dale Rau of Oregon and Joyce Bernard of Washington sagged with him out there on the Left Coast. Frank also hooked up with classmate Dennis Harkins in Washington; can't remember if Denny sagged, rode or just hung out with Frank, but they did connect.

Did I say classmate? Yes, Frank and I went to high school together back in the early sixties. We played football together. Crystal Lake, Illinois. Chicago suburb. He was a tough lineman. Now he's a tough cyclist. But he does admit to some stress out there on the road, caused recently by terrible roads in California and Oregon (the shoulders aren't very good) and speeding drivers, especially those who actually try to brush cyclists off the road. They'll get theirs eventually.

Good thing I checked my email last night (that was Sunday Aug. 28). Frank said he'd be in Denver about 10 p.m. I'm in the midst of a move and had just packed up my entire kitchen, leaving only my titanium backpacking mess kit out for mealtimes. I had one glass. I shot back an email and gave him my cell phone number. He called and rolled in an hour early.

So we stayed up until 1:00 a.m. catching up on our lives since high school, both learning a lot about each other we never knew, or even suspected. This was the first time we had spent any time together since those days, but for a few intervening reunions – and you know how reunions are. Half the time when you're on your way home from the reunion, you think about all the people you didn't get to talk to.

So Frank crashed on the couch, my guest bedroom having been packed up and moved a long time ago (it's one of those slow motion downsizing moves). We hit the deck early Monday, went out for breakfast. Then Frank headed out, planning to drive 650 miles that day on his way back home. He'll only be there a day or two. His wife is running the family business while Frank peddles. She deserves a medal for that.

In a week he'll be down in Key West ready for that part of his ride. I promised to send him my Key West contacts for a possible bunk. Riders on such endeavors are in need of places to stay as they brave the elements (i.e., drivers of automobiles) during these dream rides. Frank had been planning this one for years.

Now, I am given to understand that 60 is the new 40. I think that's true, except when it comes to the job market. Ask any sixty-something who is looking for a job. But I digress. Frank has one year on me. He turned 65 in July 2011. I turned 64 the same month.

Frank is journaling on his trip. I asked him if planned to write a book when he was done. He said he'd like to. I encouraged him to. He can pass on tips, dos and don'ts, interesting stories and observations (like his sadness over the crumbling of America's small towns) and provide encouragement to others his age – our age – to get on two wheels and do the same thing. Or, do something else, like build your own retirements house, or – like me – write those mystery novels.

So we talked a little bit about the writing, which was good for me, as I am a writer. Frank has had a few articles published on his cycling trips. We exchanged frustration over “writing tight.” He had to take a long trip journal (like six-digit word length) and boil it down to a 2,000 word article requested by a magazine editor. He said it was tough, but Frank's tough. I told him how I am struggling to write a one-page synopsis of my first novel – 90,000 words. Thus far, I've written a 12,000 word chapter by chapter summary (which turned out to be a good tool for me), a 4,000 word synopsis based on the chapter summery, a 2,000 word synopsis based on the 4,000-word version and, soon I hope, to knock out a one-page synopsis that tells some agent or publisher every single little thing they need to know about my 90,000 word book.

(I confess, I really like the ring of Frank's name – Frank Briscoe. I have a detective in my novel, WATER, who will play a continuing role in the Vic Bengston Investigation Series. See www.schneiderfiction.com for a few more details. I wanted to call him Frank Briscoe. But Law and Order stomped that with Det. Lennie Briscoe. So my detective, who is the fictional chief homicide detective in Denver, is Frank Driscoll. It still has that ring that I like, and plays a homage to my old football colleague.)

I'm not dodging as many cars as Frank is, although I am riding my 21-speed a lot more than I used to. 21 speeds, by the way, means I can ride at the same slow pace no matter what the grade. I expect to get out there one of these days and take a bicycle tour, having been inspired by and thoroughly shamed by Frank. You see, I did a bit of bike touring myself, back in 1964, when nobody knew much about cycling in this country. It was an oddity then. Now it's the norm.

Follow Frank.

All his journal entries and photos can be found on his blog at http://www.oldguyonabicycle.com.

Where do you write?

2011-04-04T18:04:00.000-06:00

I’ve written all over the place, all over the country, really. Oddly enough, one of my favorite places to write is in a noisy coffee shop. Several spots in southeast Denver are on my weekly “route.” I seem to be able to concentrate despite the noise, possibly because of my early years as a journalist working in a noisy wire service bureau, newspaper city room, or capitol press room.

At home, I often work in this windowed corner, fighting the sun, but enjoying the space. Tilting the table up a bit (it’s my mother’s old art table) gives me a comfortable angle to plap on the keyboard.

Still I’ve written everywhere: on planes, in trains, on buses, at restaurants, in hotel rooms, at friends’ homes, on the beach, in the mountains, backpacking.

The point is to write every day, even if it’s 100 words. If you can get to 200 words, you’ll have a thin first draft at the end of a year.

If you can think of your book as 200 words every day instead of 100,000 words sometime in the future, you will be surprised how quickly you get there.

Where do your characters shop?

2011-03-21T11:35:00.002-06:00

Where do you shop?

Okay, we all hit the malls, grocery stores, and the occasional chain convenience stores. Some cities have high-end shopping districts, like LA’s Rodeo Drive, Chicago’s North Michigan Avenue and Denver’s Cherry Creek.

But think about other places to shop, places that have a little more texture than white bread America.

The Denver Post recently ran a great business piece on the rise of dollar stores. Originally designed for families with $40,000 or less in annual income, dollar stores are becoming more popular with the more affluent, who also are feeling pressures from the economic downturn.

Your character, for example, might hit the dollar store once a month to buy cheap wine glasses that she then decorates and sells for three bucks to make a few extra dollars a month. Or, a homeless guy in one of your stories might regularly hit a neighborhood dollar store to pickup a can of soup or hash.

These shopping venues add interesting granularity to your writing.

And don’t forget the other non-standard shopping locales: thrift stores, farmers markets, ethnic grocery stores, flea marts, and used furniture stores. All of them offer interesting alternatives to overpriced brand name products nicely displayed in 30,000 square foot chain stores.

RESOURCES:
Buck to the future: Dollar stores revamping to keep business booming - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_17650051#ixzz1HFvlLGc3

Union Busting: a rich area for your stories

2011-02-16T12:37:00.002-07:00

Feb. 16, 2011

Although there has not been much mainstream media coverage (since there hardly is any mainstream media anymore), an interesting story is unfolding in Wisconsin where the newly minted Republican Governor is threatening to turn the national guard on citizens while he tries to strip collective bargaining and union organizing rights from some public workers. Oddly, Milwaukee cops and firemen were exempted from Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to turn the state’s bureaucracy upside down. 

Thousands of teachers and other public employees have been marching on the statehouse in Madison to protest the draconian approach to budget balancing. Ironically, Wisconsin’s budget shortfall is minor in comparison to other states. Because of this, observers conclude the Walker proposal is more about union-busting rather than budget balancing. Another note of irony: Wisconsin is the state most noted for the genesis of the progressive movement. Ideas like the eight-hour workday and worker’s compensation came from there. In fact the largest public employees union, the one Walker really wants to destroy, originated in the Cheese State. 

For writers, regardless of your political beliefs, there is a ton of conflict, history, political intrigue, and personal tragedy, multi-generational union family stories just in this Wisconsin battle alone. If you're looking at a bigger picture, this battle is likely to repeat itself in other states with newly elected Republicans: New Jersey, Ohio, and Florida, to name a few. 

Union-busting has a rich and often violent history in this country. In the early days, the company owners and governments usually attacked the protesting workers with clubs, killing a few, maiming even more. Colorado turned out the state National Guard once to help the Rockefellers fight a coal miners strike and slaughtered women and children. In recent times, President Reagan kicked off another era of union busting, but he did it because he hated communism, a noble albeit misguided motivation. Gov. Walker and his pals seem to be doing it just for sport and to comply with the wishes of their wealthy campaign contributors, still seeking the holy grail of the permanent Republican rule over us all.

For more information on what’s going on in Wisconsin, just Google the Milwaukee Journal and the Wisconsin State Journal. Google the Ludlow Massacre for that little stain on Colorado history.  There is a lot to dig up, including many good stories, both historic and contemporary, as well as pithy back stories for your characters. 

And for those of you who may think I’m picking on Republicans – well, they are the ones who are doing this, aren’t they?

Need a bad guy?

2011-02-14T11:55:00.004-07:00

Fiction Ideas from Real Life

Feb. 14, 2011

Most ideas for fiction come from real life, so writers need to keep their eyes and ears open to what’s going on in the world around them. Here’s a new tidbit:

Need a bad guy for your book or story? Check out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (USCC).

The USCC appears to be engaging in Nixon-style dirty tricks against those who oppose their policies. The U.S. chamber, unlike your local chamber of commerce, essentially lobbies for giant multi-national companies. Thanks to Wikileaks, emails have been unveiled that show the USCC now works with security firms, law firms, and lobbying firms to plant false information in an effort to undermine the incredibility of progressive groups that oppose their internationalist and anti-environment policies. So, the next time you’re looking for a shady character in your writing, just check in with the USCC.

Here are a few more resources:

http://climateprogress.org/2011/02/11/chamber-of-commerce-hackers-smear-opponents/

http://coto2.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/us-chamber-of-commerce-smear-4th-estate/

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/14/chamberleaks-briefed/

Superego VS Really Doing Something to Help the Planet

2009-09-16T13:29:00.006-06:00

Here's how superego conflates with arrogance, stupidity, a waste of money, and the space program. But before TCR describes Man’s next silly folly, consider what $35 million would do to help solve clean water problems in a place like, say, Africa.

TCR knows of an engineer who while observing children playing on an African school playground, which had only a swing and a merry go round, and also observing the children’s mothers increasingly lengthy treks each day (we’re talking miles here) to get drinking and cooking water, put everything together and designed a deep water well and pump system that was driven by the merry go round, so each day before and after school and during recess, the village’s children pumped the water to the surface by expending a near infinite supply of energy bound up inside their little bodies. The mothers could then get the family’s water supply when they picked up their children from school, saving hours per day per family. The system cost about $10,000, so our $35 million would handle water supplies for about 3,500 villages.

Enter Cirque du Soleil (which has recently set up camp in downtown Denver) and its Canadian billionaire founder Guy Laliberte who has paid Russia $35 million to ride on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station.

Why, you ask? Well, you had better sit down, before we tell you.

Laliberte ‘s going to read a statement to the world about the planet's water problems, a message to Planet Earth he calls it.

Let’s see. We’ve got satellite technology and scientists on the ground that probably tells us everything we’re ever going to want or need to know about the planet’s water. We have an internet, radio and television networks, news media publications, and alleged cable news networks – not to mention the U.S. Postal Service – all to spread the word about water.

TCR ponders the value of sending one superego into space (except maybe on a one-way mission to Mars) versus installing 3,500 merry go round/water well pumps in African villages.

What would be a better message to Planet Earth?

Colorado Drivers Hot Over New License Fees

2009-07-01T09:55:00.002-06:00

Colorado starts its new automobile registration fee structure on July 1, and with average increases of $40, no one is happy about it, except the asphalt companies that will get all the road maintenance contracts. Colorado drivers already are steaming over a new late registration penalty fees that took effect June 1.

In the old days (up to May 31, 2009), if you were late getting your new car tags, you might get a slap on the wrist with a $10 penalty, and this was usually waived by the county office that issues your plate tags, because you were always charged for every month you drove your car on public roads. Now late registrants are getting whacked with penalties up to $100, and no waivers, all thanks to a new mandate from the Democrats who control the state legislature and Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter. (In contrast, the GOP would just let the roads crumble and then hire some Italian company to build toll roads across the state that no one uses.)

Hot letters, emails and phone calls are already pouring into legislative offices. This reaction was predictable. Everyone's pinching pennies these days. Even TCR senior staffers now pick up every Lincoln Penney, heads up or tails up, shiny or dull. While we need funds to just maintain our roads, the fee surcharges and the exorbitant late fees simply convey to the public that government has become little more than a money grubber using the coercive power of the state to extract every last penny from taxpayers' pockets. It makes moderate Democrats cringe.

Look for the the legislature to change the penalties, and possibly the fees, as their constituents rightly beat them over the head with their complaints. But that won't happen until next year, unless Gov. Ritter calls a special session to deal with Colorado's rapidly vanishing budget.

TCR is not interested in seeing more unemployed people on the street competing for the ever shrinking numbers of jobs, but realistically, government has to do what every family and nearly every company has done -- slash 20-50 per cent out of their operating budgets.

That means start all over, not raise fees and penalties.

This is not good!

2009-06-23T09:23:00.009-06:00

Montgomery Burns contemplating releasing his hounds.

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter explaining why the senior property tax credit is being suspended to pay for state government operations, rather than simply laying off state workers.

Both Political Camps Aim to Scare the P Out of Us All

2009-06-04T13:46:00.002-06:00

The Righties and the Corporate Media always get the big rap because they hustle so-called negative news -- the fear-mongering, blood and gore (B & G) stuff that permeates our hyper mediated culture. There's a lot to complain about in this regard. Former Veep Dick Cheney's out on a nationwide toot ranting about Obama, saying he'd order the same interrogation techniques if he had to do it over again, and predicting another terrorist hit within our borders. The feds' accidental posting of the entire country's nuclear resource locations didn't help, even though Department of Energy chief Steven Chu said no big deal. (Say "Chief Chu" three times fast with your grandkid; he or she will get a kick out of it, and you'll be a hero.) The local TV newsinfopromoadvertainment package leads with bleeders like the latest car crash, starved horses or suicide bombing. The Denver Post, what's left of daily print journalism in the Mile High City, likes to highlight B & G on its website. You get the picture.

But fear-mongering rises to new heights in Leftie media. Take The Discovery Channel's Treehugger.com, (a rather sophomoric moniker) newsinfopromoadvertainment website that robo-sends endless emails on the latest green-clean-alternate energy uber alles-buy a forty thousand electric car or else-death to oil-I'm OK you're OK missives.

TCR received word this very day from Treehugger.com that your bedroom is trying to kill you. Yes, Virginia, anthropomorphizing inanimate objects is no longer limited to the likes of Disney, Warner Brothers, Pixar and South Park Studios. Now, thanks to The Discovery Channel and Treehugger.com, that safe haven you crawl into each night as a respite from all the fear-mongering and B & G shot at you all day long has been brought to life as a three-dimensional killing machine that holds you within its grasp at least eight hours a day, ready to kill you at any moment.

Treehugger.com doesn't tell us just what might trigger a sudden death convulsion like the lethal snap of the Venus fly trap, but gives us five things to be afraid of: the oil-based foams, flame retardants, or dust mites in your pillows; the fire- and bug- resistant chemicals in your mattress; the glues in all your bedroom furniture; glues and other volatile organize compounds used to make or install rugs and carpets; and all the chemicals used to make or apply paint and wallpaper to your walls. That's basically everything, except maybe the stuffed elephant from your childhood. Each little death-trap explanation contains a convenient link to "green" products that can replace your deadly ones, how to buy them, pay for them with credit, and get them shipped to your home, should you survive long enough to place an order.

No matter what your political persuasion, fear rules.

Netbooks: Misnamed, But Another Great Innovation

2009-06-01T10:44:00.001-06:00

Josh Quittner (Netbooks,Time Magazine, May 25, 2009) missed the point altogether when he claimed to be “mystified” over the popularity of netbooks. The term “netbook” is a marketing icon aimed at convincing consumers they need to subscribe to extremely overpriced wireless network services to use the handy computers. The popular devices are more aptly named mini-computers, and they will serve typical consumer needs far better than Quittner implies. It won't be through the use of wireless data plans either.

These devices are, in fact, full fledged portable computers. Mine, for example has a 1.6G processor and a 120 GB hard drive on board, along with a sound car, 3 USB ports, two SD card ports, an ethernet port, a VGA monitor port and built-in wireless, which I use at home or with any one of the free access points I am near during the day. Consumers, 99.9 per cent of whom need only the basic functions of a computer, will trump the “netbook” concept and use these devices simply as small lightweight computers, storing their documents on an internal hard drive, a USB thumb drive or an SD card, depending on the model they buy. Accessing a wireless network, at a minimum cost of $600 per year, is only for those so inclined; it is not pivotal to the function of these tiny computers.

TCR senior staffers have been writing professionally for 40 years now, and the key technological advances that have really helped the profession have included the IBM Selectric typewriter, the mag-card machine, terminal based word processing systems, desktop computers, “transportable” computers like the Kaypro, the Tandy Model 100 (about the size of a small phone book), the basic laptop, the Apple 12-inch Powerbook, and, now, the 2-pound mini computer (smaller than a best-selling hardback book). Just toss it in your bag and go. The point of the mini's popularity should be obvious.

Boyles' April 1st KHOW Show Was A Tour de Force

2009-04-02T09:16:00.000-06:00

Boyles came out of his corner swinging on April Fools' Day, swinging at Romer, and in so doing showed Denver what the old KHOW was like.

Now, that's Peter Boyles, morning drive-time yakker for what's left of KHOW, the one-time Denver radio and news powerhouse, now merely another Clear Channel pipeline for syndicated gasbags and a few local personalities. And that wasn't former Governor Roy Romer who took the brunt of Boyles' wrath. It was Romer's kid, Chris, who hunkers down in the state senate eyeing daddy's old chief executive chair on the first floor of the Colorado Statehouse.

But Boyles' anger over Romer's slick (some say slimy) political move to bust a controversial bill out of the Senate Appropriations Committee turned the radio station into the KHOW of old, albeit only for an hour or two. Boyles ranted, as he has been for some time, over Romer's Senate Bill 170 that would grant in-state tuition to children of illegal immigrants provided they've completed three years of high school in Colorado.

Boyles', no doubt educated by his buddy Tiger Tom Tancredo, a former Colorado congressman, has joined the anti illegal immigrant crowd that believes any help for any of these people for any reason is an outrage against the United States of America. He's not alone in his viewpoint.

It doesn't matter how you feel about the specific bill, which would provide some help for a few hundred kids who were dragged here years ago by their parents who, at the urging of U.S. employers and the hope for a better life, chose to ignore our laws and settle here illegally. The kids had no say in the matter. Any listener to KHOW on the day in question, Wednesday, April 1 (no joke!), got an earful of what radio news or whatever you want to call the incessant gasbag programs could actually do.

Boyles and company put out the word to listeners and encouraged them to head for the state capitol and jam the committee hearing room with people who opposed the bill. And a bunch of them did it! He also had a few callers "live" at the scene via cellphone, reporting to the station in real time what was going on.

Then, Boyles' producer, Greg Hollenback, piped in a live feed of the Appropriations Committee meeting, giving listeners a blow-by-blow account of the ruminations over the bill, Romer's somewhat scattered explanations of it (he called it an education bill, a jobs bill, and finally a bill to prevent teen pregnancy), Republican committee members' ill-fated attempts to amend the bill and then the final 5-4 vote that sent the measure to the full Senate for floor debate. The show was a tour de force in Denver radio, opening a window into the often baffling world of legislative politics to Boyles' listeners.

Indeed, what happened with SB 170 was a classic case of deft political moves by the party in power, in this case Democrats. With a single Democrat on the committee opposed to the measure, Sen. Moe Keller of Wheat Ridge, the bill was stuck in committee because the vote for it's approval worked out at 5-5, had the entire committee membership been present. A tie vote would send the bill nowhere. But one Republican committee member, Sen. Ted Harvey of Highlands Ranch, was called out of state for a serious family medical emergency. He is an opponent of the measure. As his plane was leaving DIA the afternoon before, Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Abel Tapia of Pueblo announced the committee would consider the bill early the following morning, on April Fools' Day.

Romer, as the bill's sponsor, was the committee's only witness. He pitched his bill, which if enacted into law is certain to toss Colorado into costly litigation as well as spur a statewide petition movement to have it repealed, glibly cast aside Republican arguments against it, and then sat back as the committee voted 5-4 to approve the measure and send it on for full Senate debate.

By this time, Boyles' and Hollenback had gotten Sen. Harvey on the phone. Harvey was in Florida, unable to vote, and could only listen to the live committee feed as the lawmakers approved the bill he would have voted against. He told Boyles' listeners that when he left town the day before he thought the bill was scheduled for a hearing on Friday, after he returned with his Alzheimer's stricken father-in-law.

And fans of Boyles' morning show heard it all -- live.

Generally, talk-radio gasbags do little more than generate heat when it comes to important public policy issues. With the loss of about half of the city's working journalists in the past year or so, it was uplifting to see a Denver radio station jump in, even though it was somewhat on a whim, to provide revealing live coverage of what our elected officials really do down at the statehouse. KHOW, for a change, generated light.

For those interested, audio feeds for the Colorado House and the Colorado Senate, full sessions and committee meetings, have been streamed live for many years over the internet. You can also watch the full the House of Representatives via the net. Just head for http://www.leg.state.co.us/ and click on: "Video/Audio Broadcasts of Current Proceedings."

-TCR-

Colorado, Going Broke, Thinks About 2018 Winter Olympics

2009-03-26T14:12:00.001-06:00

Gov. Bill Ritter is making rumblings about mounting a bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics. He'll probably get bucked off.

It's de'ja vous all over again.

Currently, the State of Colorado is broke, and scrambling to trim a billion or two from the state budget over the next couple of years.

The collapse of Colorado's ill-fated attempt to host the 1976 winter games (the state actually was awarded the bid) was all about money. Questions arose when the behind-the-door planners could not really say how the event was going to be financed.

More than a few people were PO'd when the Denver organizing committee chose to build all new facilities (again, who was footing the bill?) instead of using the existing facilities in the state.

Then there were incidents like the airbrushed snow on the Mt. Sniktau photos showing where the downhill events would have been held. Snow probably would have to have been trucked in. And what about Vail or Aspen, the sites of many international skiing events? Fagettaboutit! The downtown Denver boys had a plan to build a new ski area, whether snow actually fell on it or not. Again, no one knew who was going to pay the tab.

Or, how about DU law professor Vance Dittman, who woke up one morning to find out the bobsled run was going to slice right through his backyard in Evergreen? He promptly formed Protect Our Mountain Environment (POME) to actively work against the shoddy Olympic planning and vague funding schemes.

Eventually, at the behest of organizations like POME and future Gov. Dick Lamm, Colorado voters simply passed a constitutional amendment that forbid the spending of state tax dollars on the event.

Poof! The winter games were sent packing, and rightly so. The organizers had no financing lined up and expected the taxpayers to pick up the difference. How is that going to change in 2018?

Gov. Ritter's new faux bid for the 2018 winter games is, in all likelihood, even less thought out than the secret plans for Colorado's lame attempt in 1976. It's questionable whether taxpayers, weary from funding the impoverished millionaires and billionaires involved in Denver's professional sports cartel, are going to want to take on the winter games.

Just look at the hand wringing to the northwest where sister city Vancouver, BC, host of the 2010 Winter Olympics, is reeling over the mounting costs, and praying just to break even. The city has already put up $81 million and borrowed another $366 million to bail out the waterfront luxury pads built to serve as the athlete's village, the private developer having dropped the ball a long time ago.

The security costs have ballooned from $143 million to $814 million, and the media center has doubled in cost to $140 million plus. The provincial government (equivalent to our state government) has set aside nearly $500 million for even more security and infrastructure, a budget expected to swell many times over by the time the games open next year.

Experts say the cost of the Vancouver winter games could tap out at nearly $5 billion, some $2 billion over the estimated return through ticket sales, TV rights, trolley fares, and Cuban cigar sales.

Colorado taxpayers won't put up with this -- again.

Denver, more "manly" than Chicago?

2009-03-05T17:25:00.001-07:00

A new "study" conducted by Sperling’s BestPlaces, ranks Denver the 5th "manliest" cities in the country. Chicago was ranked 46th.

Huh? Chicago? Less manly than Denver? To illustrate the stupidity of Sperling's BestPlaces rankings, consider this:

Chicago....Denver

Bears....Broncos
Bulls ....Nuggets
Blackhawks....The Avalanche (ooooo, scary)
Cubs, White Sox....Rockies
Mayor Daley....Mayor Hickenlooper
Soldier Field....Invesco Field at Mile High
University of Chicago (where the nuke was invented)....University of Denver (where Conde Rice matriculated)
Al Capone....the Smaldones
Stacker of Wheat, City of Big Shoulders....Home of the "creative" class, Queen City of the Plains
The Chicago River....The South Platte
Chicago Cops...The Denver Police Department
LODO....Rush Street
The South Side....The West Side
O'Hare....DIA
Sears Tower (108 stories, 1,451 feet)....Republic Plaza (56 stories, 714 feet)
Lake Michigan (14,272,000 acres; shoreline: 1,600 miles; maximum depth: 925 feet....City Park Lake (25 acres; shoreline: 0.8 mile; maximum depth: 8 feet)

Should be more like:

Chi-town.....Cow-town.

That's Sperling's BestPlaces, folks. Pass it by when you see it on the newsstand. They don't have a clue.

Socialism is on the rise: in speech and in reality

2009-03-02T13:27:00.003-07:00

You are going to be hearing more and more use of the term “socialism” as the talk radio and cable "news" network gasbags rev up their listeners and viewers in opposition to the new administration and as the directionless Republican Party continues to search for its behind with both hands. Eventually, the GOP will recover from its drubbings in the 2006 and 2008 elections. But the word of the day is definitely "socialism."

Here is one representative definition of "socialism" from a generic on-line dictionary. Most of the dictionary definitions of the term are similar.

Socialism:

1. a theory or system of social organization advocating placing the ownership and control of capital, land, and means of production in the community as a whole.

2. the procedures and practices based upon this theory.

3. Marxist theory. the first stage in the transition from capitalism to communism, marked by imperfect realizations of collectivist principles.

On paper, we're almost there. Vast tracts of land have been under community ownership for a very long time. Some of the nation's largest financial institutions are all but owned by U.S. Taxpayers. All the federal government has to do is up its stake in the manufacturing sector – and the camel's nose is under the tent.

Now, we say the nose is just under the tent, because that is the true situation. By far, the majority of business, land and finance is in private hands, but the Feds are worming their way in all over the place, not necessarily by choice either. In fairness to the federal government – your government, by the way, not some abstract enemy force from the planet Xenon – most of these industries have begged for taxpayer financial intervention.

But many of you out there in TV Land fear the creation of a U.S. socialistic state. For you, there are a number of primary safeguards that will prevent that from ever happening on a permanent scale:

1) the good will of those in Washington who are using our money to "buy" into financial and manufacturing enterprises, but who say they will cash out when the economy and the enterprises stabilize. Don't laugh. That's their promise. If they fail to keep the promise, then vote them out of office. (See safeguard No. 4.);

2) the strength of the free enterprise, capitalistic system that underlies our economy;

3) the First Amendment, which enables the public to openly express disagreement with government policies and guarantees the right to petition to government to redress grievances. (You would be surprised how important this amendment is. Few countries other than ours guarantee these rights.);

4) the ability to campaign for and elect (without government reprisal) representatives who will cash out government ownership in the private enterprises;

5) the ability of the federal government to print or borrow only so much money. Unless Congress votes to nationalize industries (which it won't do), the government must actually pay (and in some cases, overpay) cash for its stake in these enterprises.

TCR knows these safeguards won't assuage the truly paranoid among you, because there is little more stimulating than a good conspiracy theory about the takeover of our economic system. Well, the Superbowl might beat the latest conspiracy theory, but worrying about the end to life as we know it is still right up near the top.

For what it's worth, there aren't many successful states practicing pure socialism. There may be none, for that matter. Many point to Cuba as a “successful” example, but TCR senior staffers doubt whether a $30 per month salary for everyone (except the murderous rulers) will go far toward those monthly Lexus or mortgage payments.

Usually it's a combination of socialistic and private institutions, as are found in Europe or Canada. But even in those locales, the government-owned parts of the economies are still fairly limited. Even so, TCR questions whether the U.S. populace will put up with much more movement toward socialism. Even the most recent converts to Democratic politics might put up a fuss if they had to buy their iTunes from the U.S. Department of Commerce rather than Steve Jobs' Apple Corporation. Unless they get those tunes free, of course.

Did the Constitution Anticipate Our Current Bailouts?

2008-12-22T10:53:00.001-07:00

In its extensive efforts at keeping readers marginally informed, TCR staffers constantly monitor the chatter often masquerading as news or information on the nation's airwaves. In recent weeks, many chatterboxes have contended that the U.S. Constitution does not require or even specifically authorize the bailout of the U.S. auto industry.

This narrow view of the constitution is not only erroneous, it's extremely dangerous, and limits our ability to respond to rapidly changing conditions. Our constitution contains language that seems to cover the bailout, under the General Welfare Clause.

Article I: Section 8 reads as follows: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"

In examining the "insufficiency of the present confederation to the preservation of the Union," Alexander Hamilton (writing as Publius in The Federalist Papers) raises many questions that the proposed constitution would answer. Many of these deal with land (and indirectly all property) values, how to respond to unexpected conditions (such as our financial meltdown), and the relative values of both public and private credit. Hamilton wrote in Federalist 15:

"Is public credit an indispensable resource in time of public danger? We seem to have abandoned its cause as desperate and irretrievable. Is commerce of importance to national wealth? Ours is at the lowest point of declension . . . Is a violent and unnatural decrease in the value of land a symptom of national distress? The price of improved land in most parts of the country is much lower than can be accounted for by the quantity of waste land at market, and can only be fully explained by that want of private and public confidence, which are so alarmingly prevalent among all ranks and which have a direct tendency to depreciate property of every kind.

“Is private credit the friend and patron of industry? That most useful kind which relates to borrowing and lending is reduced within the narrowest limits, and this still more from an opinion of insecurity than from the scarcity of money. To shorten an enumeration of particulars which can afford neither pleasure nor instruction it may in general be demanded, what indication is there of national disorder, poverty and insignificance that could befall a community so peculiarly blessed with natural advantages as we are, which does not form a part of the dark catalogue of our public misfortunes?"

Hamilton seems to be arguing here that at times of critical public danger, the use of public credit seems appropriate. The pubic danger we are awash in today seems to be pushing us all toward a cliff. A few more feet, and we might just topple into an abyss, never to recover. Unfortunately, the cautionary approach to protect what’s left of our public economy is to print and dump hundreds of billions of dollars into it, hoping we can right this listing ship. The right-wing libertarian crowd would rather let it all collapse, which could lead us to an anarchical state similar to the one we were in during the early years of the Great Depression.

Barney Frank is Right

2008-12-22T10:51:00.001-07:00

Barney Frank is right. Actually Barney Frank is very much to the left.

Barney is U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, where being a Republican is a class four misdemeanor.

Rep. Frank is now one of the more powerful members of the U.S. House of Representatives, chairing the muscular House Financial Services Committee. He works like a dog—day and night. And he is overseeing this unprecedented bailout of the nation’s financial industry—at least unprecedented in TCR senior staffers’ lifetimes.

When Rep. Frank read the Associated Press report that the so-called “best and brightest” people (mostly guys) that ran these floundering financial institutions were paid a hefty $1.6 billion in pay and perks during 2007—while their companies were hemorrhaging money and profits—he called the payment schemes “bribes” designed to get these jokers to do the jobs for which they were already handsomely paid.

As Frank observed, when most of us get hired to do a job, “we do them the best we can.”

No truer words were ever spoken. Since our economy and job markets began sliding into the abyss years ago (yes, Virginia, this began a long long time ago), TCR staffers have noted that anyone doing a job in America usually performed that job to the best of his or her ability, and with the highest level of integrity. So the guy who lost his retirement when his former employer “restated” its earnings (read: admitted to swindling investors by lying about the balance sheets) and is now forced to be the greeter at Wal Mart, still does a top-notch job at the front door.

Apparently, however, this isn’t the case at the highest levels of corporate America, at least at the highest level of our financial companies. A million or two in annual salary doesn’t seem to be quite enough motivation to perform at the same competency level as your typical Wal Mart door-greeter. These guys that run the financial companies seem to need even millions more in bonuses, benefits and perks to be motivated to do a good job. Otherwise, stuck only with their meager base salary of a couple million, they tend to become slackers.

TCR staffers have always wondered just who these titans are that rise to the top of the Goldman Sachs of the world. Well, one of them is our ncurrent Treasury Secretary, a man who has “earned” billions in the private sector fondling other peoples’ money. Now he’s running around Washington like a bald-headed Chicken Little.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense simply has to stand back and see that the more the executives are paid, the less likely they are to be competent.

Look at the financial institutions that are not in trouble: small, community banks and credit unions—companies that use tried and true, traditional methods for determining loan eligibility and investment strategies. They don’t rely on the whiz-bang theories of incompetents that led the top financial institutions to invest heavily in packages of loans that any idiot could see would never be repaid.

So Rep. Frank is right when he says almost everyone in American gives their all to their job, even if it’s the door greeter at Wal Mart. But these financial executives are the exception. “We’re told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different,” Frank told the AP. “They need extra money to be motivated.”

TCR staffers know where to find people who don’t need such lavish excess to encourage them to perform competently and honestly. With a little bit of coaxing, and a dash of coaching, that Wal Mart door greeter might just be talked out of that retirement. He or she could probably do just a good a job running some of these big financial outfits as the fellas we’re paying billions to in salaries, benefits and perks.

Fire Nancy Pelosi's Writers

2008-12-08T22:01:00.002-07:00

Who writes this stuff for Nancy Pelosi?

She's probably writing it herself. It stinks.

"Haircuts?"

That was the metaphor she used today (12/08/08) when she talked about deal-cutting in Washington DC between Congress and the flailing U.S. auto industry.

Everyone needs to get a haircut, Nancy says: the Big Three management, the workers, etc.

No, Nancy. Everyone needs to get a paycut, or more appropriate, their throats cut. Maybe they need to get their hopes cut. But not a haircut. What's that? Shave and a haircut, two bits? In today's dollars, fourteen bucks at a fast cut joint.

What does everyine needs to get a "haircut" mean? What does it communicate? Nothing. It's weak -- similar to her leardership.

Fire your writers, Nancy. Better still, stop writing your own stuff. It smells.

60 Minutes Nails TCR's Electronics Recycler!

2008-11-13T09:33:00.005-07:00

TCR sadly reports that its corporate recycling firm, the Denver-based Executive Recycling (ER), was nailed by 60 Minutes for illegally shipping a container full of lead-filled CRT's to Hong Kong's unmentionable and mob/government-run electronic wasteland where children are being killed by lead poisoning, birth defects are sky high, and people work in terrible industrial conditions. In case you don't know, a typical CRT – TV tube – contains several pounds of lead.

TCR has, in the past, heartily recommended this company for recycling electronic waste. TCR staffers have delivered electronic waste several times to ER's Denver facility and to the ER truck set up at the Earth Day Fair in Spring 2008 at the First Universalist Church at Colorado Blvd and Hampden. ER has local facilities in Denver, Arvada, Fort Collins and Carbondale.

TCR recommends that until ER gets a clean bill of health you do not take your electronic waste to them.

If you want to be totally secure in your thoughts about what happens to these toxic materials once they leave your possession TCR recommends using the Boulder County Eco-Cycle Program.

TCR has suspended all dealings with Executive Recycling.

ER's spokesman played dumb during the TV interview, but heck, 60 Minutes videoed the container right at ER's loading dock in Denver and followed it all the way to Hong Kong – and to the illegal heckhole where this stuff is stockpiled and then dismantled under horrible working conditions. The 60 Minutes crew was even attacked and beaten up by the thugs who run this place. Another well-deserved black mark on China – and, I'm sad to say, humanity.

ER is scrambling to save its image and has a statement on the story posted on its website. The company is taking the "hapless victim" approach. Here is an excerpt from their statement:

"Sadly, Executive Recycling appears now to be the victim of others who have obtained electronic and computer products from our company and then acted irresponsibly. These buyers apparently sought to hide their own misconduct by leaving the impression that their shipment was the responsibility of our company. We have discovered that forged documents (provided by the port authorities) were used to improperly shift blame to us when ER sold the tested working units to a Canadian wholesale buyer. We are currently seeking legal actions against this one wholesale buyer in regards to this report."

Remember – 60 Minutes shot video of the container in ER's loading dock.

Does ER deserve the benefit of the doubt? Not at all.

They know they deal with highly toxic materials, and because they do they need to take triple — no, quadruple — care to make sure the materials leaving their facilities are going to reputable, secure, environmentally-sound and worker-safe facilities for further processing.

The red-faced Executive Recycling can be found at this website: http://www.executiverecycle.com/index.php

A chortling Eco-Cycle can be found at this website: http://www.ecocycle.org/

And for an interesting look at electronics recycling, check out this recent piece in the New York Times:

For the Digitally Deceased, a Profitable Graveyard
By JOHN HANC
Published: November 12, 2008

HARD DRIVES, printers, fax machines and cellphones move along a conveyor belt at the rate of six tons an hour into the gaping maw of a 16-foot-tall, 60-foot-long shredder at e-Scrap Destruction, in Islandia, N.Y.

FOR MORE ON THIS STORY GO TO: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/business/smallbusiness/13SCRAP.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Respect Our Authority!

2008-08-25T21:39:00.003-06:00

Aug. 25 - Denver police squads cordon off DNC protesters in downtown Denver. (Denver Post Photo)

Here's a letter to the editor of The Denver Post from an angry Denver taxpayer:

Editor:

The definition of a police state is one which is governed through force and intimidation. This week downtown Denver has been turned into a police state. We have mounted cossacks on horses with shields over their eyes. We have flying squads hanging off SUVs as they dash through the streets. Sirens wail as convoys race to their destinations. We have black uniformed storm troopers marching our sidewalks in patrols of ten. Coveys of bicycles carrying officers with utility belts full of deadly devices slowly circle around us. We have police on every corner and reinforcements with automatic weapons secreted in every possible location. Undoubtedly, there are more and more heavily armed troops in Denver this week than in Baghdad.

No threat of demonstrations could warrant this infringement on civil society. No specter of terrorism could justify this totalitarian presence. There is nothing democratic about Denver this week with either a small "d" or a large "D". It functions at the discretion of its security forces. It is obscene in every sense of that word.

Shame on you John Hickenlooper! You have given over our beautiful city to the grotesque nightmares and secret fantasies of the most militaristic elements in our country. The only image of Denver we are presenting is one of jackboots and riot batons.You have ceased to be Mayor and simply become Collaborator. Shame on you!

Thad Tecza/Denver

-TCR

DNC Week: One Homeless Perspective

2008-08-23T15:37:00.002-06:00

DENVER - Aug 23 - Here's a wrinkle the DNC probably didn't think of when they rolled into Denver like a plague of locusts. With not one room available in town, the homeless were shoved out onto the streets. By Saturday before the convention Motel 6 was fully occupied - no room at the inn, baby.

And that was the dilemma facing one couple outside the McDonald's near Hampden and Monaco in southeast Denver where I had stopped for a cheap senior meal and a little time for writing.

"Excuse me, sir," said the guy, a nice-looking tan fellow, fortyish, short, tight, dark hair, like he was Italian, but with the gray starting to work its way in. "Can you spare anything?"

"I don't have any cash," I said. "Can you handle a double cheeseburger?" Both he and his girlfriend, who was confined to a wheelchair, nodded.

The McDonald's double cheeseburger was a way to shove 440 calories, not all of them good but life-sustaining nevertheless, into your system for a buck. This was a boon for both seniors and the homeless.

With a fifty-cent senior drink, baby boomers can eat a meal for a buck and a half, two and a half bucks if you add a salad. The younger homeless can't get a senior drink so they need a dollar for small fountain drink instead of the half buck for those over fifty-five.

"Yeah, we were just trying to get enough together to eat," the homeless guy said.

"That would be great," his girlfriend said. She was younger, maybe in her early thirties. Some of her front teeth were missing. Her face, as did his, bore the signs of exposure, that reddish brownish tinge and shiny surface that people get when they spend most of their lives outside in the sun, rain and wind.

"I've just got plastic," I said. "Give me a minute."

I went inside, passed the Redbox DVD rental machine where one woman was trying to force open the DVD return slot, and then to the counter where the fast food distribution business had ground to a halt as all the available order takers were huddled over the shoulder of the new girl who was struggling to ring up some family's lunch order.

As I waited, the homeless guy appeared next to me. He had a friendly face and an easy manner. Spoke with an eastern accent.

"I got a couple of bucks," he said. "She likes French fries."

"I'll still get you the cheeseburgers," I said, "and a couple of drinks."

"We really appreciate this," he said.

When you talked with homeless people, the first thing they usually do is explain their predicament. Then they usually turn out to be pretty much just like you.

"We can't get our room back at Motel 6," he said. "They have an arrangement with MDA. My girlfriend has muscular dystrophy."

"What's the problem," I asked.

"All the rooms are booked for the next nine days," he said. "Every room in town. The shelters too. They're all full."

It was two guys standing in line at McDonald's shooting the breeze. We could have just come from Kennedy Gold Course after playing eighteen.

Hope for no rain, I thought. Fat chance. The monsoon season finally started in the Denver area. We'll get thundershowers every afternoon for the duration of the convention.

"I see a lot of homeless were pushed out of downtown even though the city said it wasn't going to do that," I said.

"There's so many people here for the convention, everything's just filled up," he said. "We were thinking about going down to Colorado Springs but I got to get the money together to do that."

I said, "You know how to get down there, on the bus?"

He nodded, and said "On the T-rex, yeah." Apparently we had both scoped it out already.

A some point I had researched how I could "walk" to downtown Colorado Springs by walking from my home near Yale and I-25 to the light-rail station, taking a train down to Arapahoe Road and then catching a daily commuter bus down to the Springs. I thought that was a rather cool set-up. This guy saw it as a way for putting a roof over his and his girlfriend's head. I look at the trip to the Springs as interesting. He's looking at it in terms of survival.

"I don't have any cash with me," I said. But with the plastic, I had ordered three double cheeseburgers and three small drinks. We were at the fountain filling our cups.

"We appreciate the food," he said.

"It's no problem," I said. It wasn't, even though I was in a time in my life when finances were coming up short. And I remembered when it was that way in my younger days when I was still with my wife and the children were young and the writing didn't always cover the monthly bills. I remembered meeting Father Woody one night downtown outside of his church and he pressed a hundred dollar bill into my hand. I didn't call him. My wife did. I remembered passing on that hundred-dollar bill a year later to a friend who needed some help. I know she gave it to someone else when she got back up on her feet. I wondered where that hundred dollars was today.

In later years, when business was going well, I found myself getting increasingly angry with the beggars who occupied street corners along Denver's key commuting routes. Then I encountered a professor at the University of Colorado Denver who set me straight.

"These people, these homeless people or people essentially begging for money, are put on our streets for a reason," Political Science senior instructor Thad Tecza argued during a graduate seminar on state and local government. "They are there to let you know just how good you really have it."

Tecza, just a few years older than me, made the point that there will always be the poor and the homeless, and that we need to take care of them. Plain and simple. "You should be thankful that these people are standing on the corner asking for money," he said.

Tecza will be out on the streets somewhere during the Democratic National Convention. Protesting no doubt, or marching with some protest group. Like me, he witnessed first hand what happened on the streets of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, where he grew up on the west side and I grew up in the northern suburbs. Both of us are curious to see what the 2008 convention -- the street side version -- will be like.

No doubt somewhere buried in its platform document, the Democratic Party will pledge to end homelessness, which, if it actually happened, would be a first for humanity. Then the DNC will go on to anoint Barack Obama and Joe BIden to lead the charge for the White House this fall.

In the meantime, I'll continue to encounter the homeless, just like the homeless couple I had met at Mcdonald's. They seemed no different than me.

But there was one difference. I had a home. Even back when I met Father Woody on that downtown Denver street corner, I had a wife, children and a home to return to.

-30-

Schaffer to blast Udall for not exploiting the state's resources

2008-06-20T02:49:00.002-06:00

Republican Bob Schaffer's U.S. Senate campaign seems to be gearing up to attack Democratic frontrunner Mark Udall for not overexploiting the state's natural resources for private gain.

Sources tell TCR that Schaffer's political operatives have been shopping around for a Colorado production company to shoot an anti-Mark Udall spot blaming Democrats and environmentalists for not exploiting the heck out of the state's natural resources.

Apparently the spot will feature a firefighter complaining that there aren't enough roads in the forests, making fighting forest fires more difficult. Another element of the spot is said to include a student who can't get an adequate college education in the state because Colorado isn't drilling enough oil and gas wells.

Shaffer's campaign operatives are looking for shooting locations on the Roan Plateau where energy companies are trying to drastically expand natural gas drilling, and in the region southwest of Denver where some of our larger forest fires have occurred in recent years.

All the concepts in the spot - if it's ever made - are quite a reach. But this political intelligence at least gives TCR staffers some insight into what Big Oil Bob might do as a U.S. Senator.

It appears Schaffer' is calling for unbridled energy development throughout the state, regardless of the impact on the water, air, recreation, agriculture, tourism and wildlife resources of Colorado.

He also seems to be strongly advocating cross-crossing state's national forests with expensive and environmentally damaging roads for firefighting, and what else? Logging? Motorcycles? All-Terrain Vehicles? Ah, GOP scout camps, maybe.

With friends like Bob, who needs enemies?

Douglas Bruce Knows No Shame

2008-05-01T13:31:00.001-06:00

El Paso County GOP State Rep. Douglas Bruce's May 1 comment on the House floor regarding what the May First - May Day - commemoration stands for was so erroneous it truly showed either an absolute disdain for the truth or his simple ignorance of history.

While his fellow lawmakers were horsing around with House Minority Leader Mike May -- Mike May, May 1st, get it? -- Bruce found it necessary to interject his totally irrelevant and incorrect comments saying that May First only stands for communism.

May Day celebrations have little to do with the Communist Party. They date far back into Pre-Christian Europe as an approximate time (remember, no Gregorian calendar as yet) to signify the start of summer. With the Christianization of Europe came the banning of such pagan rites, although European culture embraced May 1 as a time to signify the fertility of the Earth - the May Pole dance, for example, celebrating the Queen of the May. Also, do not forget May 1, 1707, when the Kingdom of Great Britain was officially formed by joining England with Scotland. That was 111 years before Karl Marx was born.

Bruce seems to be confusing May 1 celebrations for good crops and the international labor movement with the Russian Revolution.

In truth, the association of May 1 and international labor occurred in the wake of the 1886 Haymarket worker riots in Chicago, which led to widespread international support for workers' rights.

What may be further confusing the El Paso County Republican is the heavy-handed hijacking of the May 1 holiday by the Soviet Union to celebrate its phony commitment to international labor, a move that promoted the United States to designate May 1 as Loyalty Day during the height of the Cold War, which is over, in case Mr. Bruce has forgotten some of his more recent history.

I'm sure the United State's traditional fall Labor Day holiday confuses the GOP lawmaker even more. Our early September holiday dates back into the 19th century, still well in advance of the formation of the Soviet Union. The rest of the world honors the social and economic achievements of the labor movement on May 1.

To denigrate May 1, as Bruce did on the floor of the Colorado House of Representatives, by claiming -- erroneously -- that it just stands for communism, is to denigrate the advances the international labor movement has made on behalf of workers - such things as ending child labor, increasing work place safety, improving wages and and other work conditions - things that make toiling on assembly lines, in factories, on new homes and even emptying the trash in apartment buildings just a little more bearable for those who have to perform the tasks.

His flawed comments also denigrate the memories of workers who have perished in mines, on job sites, on railroads and in sweatshop fires.

Bruce simply knows no shame and seems incapable of restraining his impulses to denigrate fellow human beings, not to mention the voters of his El Paso County district, with self-serving remarks that only generate useless heat and shed absolutely no light on anything.

Nicholson Spot: Fiction as Political "Reality"

2008-03-03T19:44:00.001-07:00

As of this writing, Merriam-Webster's online dictionary still defines fiction as "an invented story." However, more and more political candidates, pundits, teachers, writers, actors and even our friends seem to be using fiction to define reality, advance a political agenda or make some weighty point of argument.

It's one thing to quote from a work of non-fiction, an essay, a scholarly work, a government decision, actual legislation, or a speech to advance your political argument, and quite another to use something spun from the imagination of a fiction writer to make any meaningful point in real life. Yet it seems as though today's culture is so mesmerized by movies and the celebrity cult that almost anything emanating from these industries of fiction is taken as reality.

Case in point: a new campaign commercial for Hillary Clinton stringing together a series of memorable movie clips featuring Jack Nicholson, eyebrows and all (www.youtube.com). All the movies from which the clips were lifted for the political spot were works of fiction. Fake. It's doubtful that Nicholson actually pulled the clips from his films for the political ad. More likely, this task was left to some Clinton political operative.

The commercial infers a series of Clinton positives from the Nicholson clips using words uttered by the ACTOR under the direction of Tim Burton, Rob Reiner, Bob Rafelson, Roman Polanski and Stanley Kubrick, all Hollywood directors who, at the time, were crafting works of fiction, not works of political polemic. The words Nicholson uttered were written not by him, not by the Clinton campaign, but by writers of fiction: Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren (Batman), Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men), Carole Eastman and Bob Rafelson (Five Easy Pieces), Robert Towne (Chinatown), and Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson (The Shining).

All the words uttered by Nicholson in the commercial, with one exception, were originally written for completely fictional contexts, wholly unrelated to the Clinton political campaign. The words from the films had absolutely nothing to do with the Clinton campaign, nor with the words displayed on the screen during the political ad between each movie clip. The exception: when Nicholson tells the viewer "I'm Jack Nicholson and I approved this message."

But did the fiction writers who actually crafted nearly all the words spoken in the political ad approve the message? Kubrick, for one, couldn't have. He died in 1999.