Ocean dead zones (MP3, 2 min)
Click to play, right-click to download 
 

Sources for this audio

• Huffington Post, July 30, 2010, Peter Hanlon, Wake Up and See the Dead Zones!
• Mongabay.com, August 14, 2008, Jeremy Hance, Marine “dead zones” double every decade
• Mongabay.com, April 3, 2008, Jeremy Hance, Ocean dead zones have nearly quadrupled since 1994
• LA Times, October 9, 2009, Kim Murphy, Pacific Ocean “dead zone” in Northwest may be irreversible
• Science Magazine, August 15, 2008, Robert J. Diaz and Rutger Rosenberg, Review: Spreading Dead Zones and Consequences for Marine Ecosystems
• National Geographic.com, March 5, 2010, James Owen, World’s Largest Dead Zone Suffocating Sea

Planet Warning is created and narrated by local audio activist Judy Lubow and airs over KGNU and other radio stations. You can hear recent episodes on our site here. Previous audios, covering such topics as Monster Banks, the Sixth Mass Extinction, and Ocean Acidification, and sources for all the audios, can be seen and heard on Planet Warning’s website. 
 
 

ALSO…hear Judy Lubow’s longer audio documentary on the fate of horses.

Bill Murray and Robert Duvall in Get Low

h5>GET LOW is a wonderful little film starring Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray that will have you chuckling throughout and wiping away a tear at the end.

It takes place in the 1930s and is based on a true event in which a local recluse wanted to throw a funeral party for himself while he was still alive so he could hear what people had to say about him.

Duvall plays Felix Bush in an outstanding performance that could easily win him an Academy Award nomination in 2011 for Best Actor.

Bush is a local legend who has lived alone in his house out in the woods for 40 years, which causes the kids in town to gather up their courage and go out to throw rocks through a window.

Whenever Bush harnesses his mule to his wagon and goes into town, it causes a sensation, one that doesn’t always end well.

One day Bush goes into town to see the local preacher in his church; he pulls out a wad of money and says to the preacher, “About time for me to get low.”

When the preacher asks what he means by “get low,” Bush explains, “Down to business.”

However, when Bush tells the preacher what he wants, the preacher turns him down.

On the other hand, business has been bad at the funeral home, and when the funeral director, Frank Quinn, played by Murray, hears about Bush’s desire and especially about his wad of money, Quinn is eager to do business with the recluse.

However, Bush has more in mind than just a funeral party and hearing what everyone has to say about him. Bush has a secret that he wants to reveal, and he also wants to sell $5 tickets for a raffle, the winner to get Bush’s house on 300 acres of uncut timber when he does die.

Well, money makes people do funny things, and everything doesn’t go as planned, to say the least.

Spacek plays Mattie, a widow, and as Bush puts it, he once “had a go” with Mattie, but she also figures prominently in Bush’s secret and why he has been a recluse for 40 years.

GET LOW gets down to business as an excellent film that I admired for its story, the acting, and its rewarding conclusion.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”  
 

“Hotshots” is a weekly movie review by Dan Culberson available on KGNU Community Radio (88.5 FM in Boulder and 1390 AM in Denver, on Filmchannel1, and on Boulder Reporter. Culberson has been reviewing films since 1972 for newspapers, magazines, radio and television. 
 
 
 
 
 

Farming in Boulder County (MP3, 7 min)
Click to play, right-click to download 
 

Not only is EAT LOCAL! Week a chance to celebrate and explore, but it is also a chance to discover local food sources, to meet local food growers, to become more active in the local food and farming movement, to experience the joys of fresh delicious food, and to feel what it’s like to be connected to the local food and farming system, rediscovering a deep sense of community.

Here are the remaining events:

* “Flat Iron Chef” Local Food Cook-Off (Thursday, Sept. 2, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m.). “Iron Chef” style, local chefs— Eric Skokan (Black Cat), Matthew Jansen (Radda/Mateo), Ayan Rivera (Chef at Large)—are paired with local farmers to produce a feast to benefit the Boulder County Farmer Cultivation Center, held at Highland City Club, 885 Arapahoe Ave. (sponsored by Slow Food Boulder, Highland City Club, Transition Colorado, and Everybody Eats!). Advance tickets $20 (www.TransitionColorado.org/events.php), $25 at the door.

* Local Foodshed Commons & Conference (Friday, Sept. 3, 9:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.), at University of Colorado’s Union Memorial Center, Glenn Miller Ballroom. Free! (see details below)

* EAT LOCAL! Celebration (Friday, Sept. 3, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.) at the Millennium’s Outdoor Pavilion and Gardens and Thyme on the Creek, featuring local food prepared by local chefs, local music with Mojomama, DU4, and Jeff Brinkman, along with original local art. Admission $20 at the door.

* “Tour de Coops” (Saturday, Sept. 4, 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.). Become familiar with chickens and the variety of their dwellings in Boulder, plus visit beekeepers, goatkeepers and cultivators of special culinary gardens. Free!

Local Foodshed Commons & Conference, Sept. 3

As the centerpiece event of Boulder County’s EAT LOCAL! Week, on Sept. 3, Transition Colorado and CU’s Museum of Natural History are hosting a wellspring of community-supported agriculture, gardens and gardeners, urban farming, new farmer development, reskillings, Permaculture, food products, retailers, and farmers markets. The day begins at the spacious Glenn Miller Ballroom (9:00 – 5:30 p.m.) with the Local Foodshed Commons, featuring a variety of exhibits and demonstrations from local restaurants and chefs, local farmers and growers and their markets, local food retailers and distributors, non-profit organizations and community groups, local independently-owned businesses, Boulder-born-and-bred companies, renewable energy solution providers, sustainability services, green builders and developers, and many more! An open-mike farmyard stage will provide opportunities for brief presentations from exhibitors and enthusiasts, with sprinklings of local (acoustic) music.

In the accompanying Conference, several leading experts will share their knowledge and wisdom in special presentations and workshops. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn from and talk with Fred Kirschenmann, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture (author, Cultivating an Ecological Conscience); Vicki Pozzebon, Santa Fe Alliance; Bruce Milne, New Mexico Foodshed Alliance; and Bob McFarland, California State Grange. These will be held 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Sept. 3, at CU’s University Memorial Center.

The day will conclude at Millennium Harvest House’s famous Outdoor Pavilion and Gardens, with an extraordinary harvest-gathering celebration of those who support local organic food, offering culinary pleasure with awareness and sustainabililty. Here you can enjoy samples from Boulder County’s finest chefs, as local musicians offer their creative talents to bring EAT LOCAL! Week to a stunning conclusion. 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

For more information to to Eat Local Week’s website

And brainier metros tend to have happier populations. The correlation between the Brainiest Metros Index and Gallup’s measure of metropolitan happiness and well-being is .566.

And check out where Boulder sits on the accompanying graphic that charts braininess against residents’ professed sense of well-being (red arrow added by me):

Some additional charts in the article show where Boulder ranks on a variety of other measures such as braininess versus income (we don’t do as well on that one). They’re well worth looking at if you’d like to be reassured that there’s major brainpower all around.

Read “Where the Super-Brains Are” in The Atlantic. 
 

It’s time to get ready for Boulder’s first annual Tour de Coops.

With thanks to Betsy Burton for her inspiration, Boulder will have its first annual biking tour of backyard chicken coops, edible gardens and bee hives. Betsy, who runs the Lyons Farmette, launched the first Lyons Tour de Coops last September, featuring 14 backyard coops around town.
[...]

The Tour de Coops Boulder is an open tour that is free to the public, occurring in Boulder County September 4th, 2010, from 2-5 PM. An open tour is one in which there is no specific start or end location. You can find a list of properties on the Tour on the YummyYards website or the Transition Colorado website.

Read the rest of Laura Ruby’s story on The Blue Line

BIO-BIZ BRIEFING: Rep. Jared Polis (center) hears from biotech execs. To his right, in light-blue shirt, is Nobel Prize laureate and CU prof Tom Cech. (Reporter photos)

In a meeting in his Baseline Rd. office Aug. 24, Rep. Jared Polis, was reminded by area biotech officials that Boulder’s still a second-tier biotech center. An ongoing problem is that biotech startups still have a hard time luring top talent here from the industry’s two hotbeds, Silicon Valley and Boston.

The  reason for this difficulty is the high failure rate among biotech startups and the overall thin ranks of biotech firms here. Should a potential employee move his family here, it’s entirely likely his new company and its would-be wonderdrug won’t pan out (most don’t), leaving him jobless. The chance of finding another job locally, often in a highly specialized field of biotech, aren’t all that great, attendees told Polis. Thus, the talented group of “serial entrepreneurs” here may be good at conceiving new drug ideas, but they struggle with funding and staffing.

Cech and Polis share a lighter moment

In attendance were execs of leading biotech R&D firms that included Kestrel Labs, GlobeImmune, SomaLogic, Biodesix, Clovis Oncology, miRagen, OPX Biotechnologies and Apoplogic. Also present were officials of the CU-based Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biology (CIMB), led by director Leslie Leinwand. Another key local figure present was  Kyle Lefkoff, a partner in Boulder Ventures Ltd., a venture-capital firm that is widely acknowledged as the region’s only major funder of biotech startups (he also Board Chairman at Array Biopharma).

There was consensus that what could catapult Boulder County up the ranks of biotech R&D would be a “stable anchor tenant” or two — a firm or firms that could provide a foundation for others the way that IBM and StorageTek did in data storage,  and that ConocoPhillips may  in the “clean tech” arena. It had once seemed that Synergen might play that role, but that company’s fortunes instead faded in the mid-1990s (weakened, it was acquired by industry giant Amgen).

Another issue heavy on the minds of local biotech execs is the flow of federal funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF). There’s decent funding for initial research, but many companies then fail to find adequate funding for the expensive development phase that follows.

The Food & Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval process for new drugs was criticized for fast-tracking drugs in politically charged areas like HIV-AIDS and cancer while being slow to approve drugs in other areas such as cardiovascular disease. A second complaint was that the FDA appraisal process focuses too much on “health outcomes” rather than on championing projects due to their scientific excellence.

Another topic was the shaky quality of science education in our schools along with the related concern of surging competition in biotech R&D from China. There was hand-wringing over how to further enhance the University of Colorado’s role in biotech education.

The meeting concluded with a discussion of policy issues such as the length in years of biotech patents, the tax treatment of R&D firms’ net operating losses, the so-called therapeutic tax credit and future increases in capital gains tax rates.

Through it all, Polis seemed in command of the subject matter and supportive of the local industry. It’s an industry that could easily come to play a larger role in Boulder’s economy — especially with some well-timed help from a sympathetic Congressman.

Rates are now rising sharply from their lows after the Perfesser’s murky address accurately reflected a divided and uncertain Fed, in a reactive state several miles from anticipation and pre-emption. There will be no new QE (quantitative easing, the Fed’s direct injection of invented cash) or any other substantive action until the economy declares itself, double-dip or modest recovery. The job market will be definitive, but this Fed will need to see two or more months of dipping data before moving.

Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal contained the most extraordinary official leak in decades, a revelation of the economic and policy opinion of each Governor and regional-Fed president at the Fed’s meeting two weeks ago. Seven of 17 are dug in: we’ve done too much, or the economy is okay, or there is nothing for us to do, anyway.

Analysts have struggled to quantify the housing “shadow inventory” and its effects ever since the market began to roll over in late 2005. The focus on delinquencies and future rate and amortization re-sets has missed the depth of shadows.

This inventory, in one stage of distress or disquiet or another, looks like Napoleonic infantry advancing slowly through fog, each rank harder to make out, the back invisible, one rank after another gradually coming into view.

The cannon fodder in front is in foreclosure, in the second quarter 4.5% of all mortgages (roughly 2.5 million of the fifty-million total). Right behind, scythed by canister, the 14.4% in delinquency.

The next ranks, formation ragged and intermixed with the front: the 11 million households underwater versus mortgage balances, and another 2.4 million with negligible equity (CoreLogic). Many, perhaps most of these households are not even delinquent, but can go to distressed sale or walk away at any time.

Barely visible, the unknown millions holding on but approaching the end of their resources. I think most of the people who bought homes they could not afford, and with suicidal mortgages, are already down on the field. Most owners were and are prudent, prepared for two or three or four tough years — but now many have had five since housing rollover, three since recession began, and see no end. There is no way to measure their resilience.

The rear ranks, invisible, innumerable, include all of those with equity, with jobs, with savings, and even the one-third of households without a mortgage. Some portion, perhaps one-third of the total, live in fortunate places. Values have held, and markets are liquid (the Great Plains, Colorado, Texas, greater DC and San Francisco…).

The other two-thirds, or half, tens of millions, are deeply unsure of their ability to sell their homes at a price consistent with life-plans: tuitions, retirements, and the ability to relocate to a better job. Some fraction is not uncertain about the discount necessary to sell, but fully aware and paralyzed by the thought.

These worried millions are not likely to go to fire sale, and therefore not part of the traditional definition of shadow inventory. However, their concern has caused them to withdraw from any consumption or risk-taking that would help the economy to recover, and their prudent standstill undercuts all of those at greater risk.

At this stage of non-recovery, it is amazing to find so many housing opponents so pleased, so you-got-what-you-deserved (blogger David Rosenberg in the lead). At least as amazing is the done-all-we-can from the Fed and Administration. Shrug and say “new normal.” Long, slow slog. Modest. And near the heart of the matter: cut off new credit to those who need it and qualify because too many who didn’t are defaulting.

I still have high hope that it will occur to the powers that a burst bubble is one thing, and a spiral into liquidation is another. Might do something about that. 

Commentary by Louis S. Barnes on mortgage, credit and business trends will appear periodically in Boulder Reporter. Lou is our credit-market oracle and will offer updates Fridays, written in the voice of a bond trader overdue for his martini. No fluff, no blue-sky predictions, afflicting partisans of all affiliations, real-time right-now news. Learn more about Lou at Premier Mortgage Group. 
 
 
 

The partying was pretty sedate but oh such fun at the Boulder Theatre Thursday, Aug. 26, as a flourishing Boulder Weekly celebrated its 17th Birthday with a roomful of friends.

Boulder Weekly publisher Stewart Sallo

Sallo and White — she was fresh from neck surgery but wouldn’t have missed it — each recounted parts of the tale of how she’d uncovered a hideous scandal wherein pregnant women in jail were being forced to give birth while bound in shackles. The paper’s expose led to a law being passed correcting this weird injustice.

Most of the night was just good Boulder fun — a reunion of friends, lots of great food, music, and a chance to toast a venerable and lively winner in Boulder’s ongoing competition for media eyeballs.

Sarah Joyce, Kristen Dotter, Rachel Joyce and Carly Fineman. The two Joyce sisters are publisher Sallo’s nieces.

Marcie and Steve Young were intent on the show.

Len Barron and Beverly Silva. He portrays Albert Einstein professionally, she’s head of sales and marketing at Hotel Boulderado.

Another Boulder publisher, Ravi Dykema of Nexus magazine.

City Councilman Macon Cowles and Regina Cowles

David Mikelsons and Bethany Siegler. He runs CopyExperts office, she’s web-design and social-media guru.

Julia Sallo, publisher Stewart Sallo’s daughter, with friend David Howard

Boulder Reporter photos

This article is the second in a series
See Part One, Aug 5, 2010: Fixing our ailing City government

For 92 years Boulder’s municipal government has operated under the strong-City Manager, weak-City Council system. I believe it is time to consider alternatives to the current form of our local government.

In 1918 Boulder joined a growing collection of primarily small cities and towns seeking to “reform” local government. Staunton, Va., was the first town to make the change in 1908, followed by Sumter, S.C., in 1912 and Dayton, Ohio, in 1914. The City Manager movement was primarily initiated by business and civic interests concerned about the growing influence of minorities and immigrants on municipal governments. They sought to take local government out of “undesirable hands” and give to “safer,” more business-oriented officials.

In 1918, Boulder had a population of about 10,500 people, including students at the University of Colorado. Since the City Manager system has been working in Boulder for 92 years why should we change it? I offer three reasons:

• The City Manager system is inherently undemocratic. The city’s government is administered by an unelected City Manager and staff. The manager is supposed to be subservient to the elected City Council but in reality runs the show with little effective supervision.

• The City Manager is not accountable to the public. The City Council appoints the manager, gives her a multi-year employment contract and has minimal control over the actual operations of the City of Boulder. When problems arise with City government it is almost impossible for the citizenry to affect prompt change in the bureaucracy.

• Boulder, along with the rest of the United States, is entering a difficult period that will be characterized by a witch’s brew combination of problems, including peak oil, climate change, economic stagnation and a divisive national political environment. To an unfortunate extent we will be on our own, as the federal government can (or will) no longer assist localities and the state government is handcuffed by the restrictions of the infamous TABOR amendment. As things deteriorate the burden of providing municipal services will fall back to local and regional institutions.

Boulder will, thereof, require imaginative and responsive leadership in our municipal government, and that is not a quality usually found in the bureaucracy of a City Manager form of government.

It is important to stress that the problems with the City Manager form of government in Boulder are not personal but systemic. Boulder has benefited in recent years from having professionals at the helm of the municipal government. Their personal skills are not at issue.

There are several main points to consider when deciding on a new form of government for the City of Boulder:

The Role of the Mayor

Traditionally, in western societies, the Mayor has been the chief executive of the municipality. This tradition dates to medieval times, as with the Lord Mayors of English cities and the Burgermeisters of Germanic ones. Under the City Manager form of government, the functions of the elected Mayor are transferred to an appointed administrator and taken away from the public.

In Boulder’s antiquated City Manager form the Mayor is essentially a figurehead, elected not by the people but by the City Council from among its members. The Mayor presides over City Council meetings, votes on all issues, makes a few appointments to some City boards and commissions and represents the City at some public functions. Otherwise, the Mayor is just a first among equals, and barely that.

The Authority of the City Council

Under the current City Charter, the nine members of City Council are legally responsible for the governance of the municipality, although the actual operations are delegated to the City Manager. Five Council members are elected at-large by the entire electorate every two years and serve for four years, except for the lowest winning vote-getter of the five who gets a two year term. Try explaining the rationale for that convoluted system.

The Council members, and their constituents, are not well treated under the current system. Pay for Council members is low (less than $10,000 per year), hours are long and few tools (such as computers, staff or office space) provided. Being overworked, most Council members simply don’t have the time to properly supervise the City staff. Without that supervision, the staff often creates its own agendas that are not necessarily those of the Council or the public, such as reducing services instead of internal administrative costs.

The Unelected City Manager

The whole idea behind the City Manager system is to remove government as much as possible from the hands of the people. This concept initially was to bring “professionalism” to municipal management at a time when most citizens had limited education and certainly little time with which to be involved in their city’s operations. That certainly is not the case in Boulder.

City management is neither an art nor a science. Any person with good management skills can administer a city government as long as they surround themselves with a good subordinate staff and understand the differences between a business and a municipality. This includes people with experience in business, education or nonprofit organizations. Certainly some functions require expertise in technical fields, such as engineering or planning, but otherwise management is management.

So, does Boulder need to employ a City Manager, unelected and unaccountable, or can the functions of local government be returned to the elected officials and their appointees?

Some Options

Many proponents of the current system raise the specter of “politics” in seeking to limit the role of elected officials (and the public) in the governance of their community. Yet, “politics” is an integral part of democracy. We elect our representatives. We do not acquiesce to the rule of nobility, except when it comes to the City Manager form of government.

Few large cities use the City Manager system any longer. Of the 50 largest cities in the United States, only Charlotte and Phoenix cling to the system, and discussions in Charlotte about strengthening the power of the elected Mayor are being heard across that city’s political spectrum. Now that Boulder has surpassed the 100,000 mark in population, it’s logical to question whether the City Manager form of government retains relevancy.

There are, of course, gradients of possible reform. We do not need to entirely jettison the City Manager system by electing a Denver-style strong Mayor, although I personally prefer that option. A hybrid system might work best for Boulder. In that context, here are some suggestions:

• Elect the Mayor and give that chief executive more authority. In particular, the Mayor should receive a suitable salary, have an office and a small staff, and appoint the City Manager, with the advice and consent of the City Council. This system is utilized in Santa Fe, for example. The term of office should be four years.

• The Mayor should appoint at least some members of the City of Boulder’s boards and commissions, also with advice and consent of Council.

• The City Manager would implement the policies and priorities of the Mayor and City Council. Department heads would be appointed by the City Manager with the approval of the Mayor. The City Manager would serve at the pleasure of the Mayor.

• The City Council would have eight members, four elected from single member districts and four at large. Two of the at-large members would be elected every two years, with four-year terms. District members would have two-year terms. The Mayor would serve as president of Council but vote only in the case of a tie, and not on any of his or her appointments.

• City Council members would earn a reasonable salary for their services, with at-large Councilors receiving a higher salary. All members would have access to office space, a Council administrator and necessary tools to perform their duties, such as computers and cellphones.

Having an elected Mayor with executive powers would restore democracy and accountability to Boulder’s government. No system of government is perfect, since each rests on the character, abilities and ethics of the elected and appointed officials. The mayoral system, however, offers a more effective alternative to the City Manager system.

Allowing voters to once again choose both their Mayor and City Council members would create a balance in local government, especially if some form of district representation for Council was included.

The Mayor and at-large members of City Council would, especially with four-year terms, have the best perspectives on overall community issues. The district members, serving only two-year terms, would have the best perspectives from Boulder’s individual neighborhoods. The combination would enhance accountability, make it easier for more people to seek local elected office and broaden diversity in municipal government.

The Next Steps

I am usually loath to recommend the appointment of study commissions, since those frequently are the places where good ideas go to die. However, I believe City Council needs to appoint a broadly-based Citizens Charter Commission to consider options for reforming (or retaining) our local government, which changes would then be submitted to the voters for their consideration.

I have experience with such a process. In 1970, recently out of the University of Kentucky and a new citizen of Lexington, I was appointed to a commission to draft a charter for the proposed merger of the City of Lexington and the County of Fayette. Lexington at the time was a fast-growing college town of about 100,000 people. Its governing structure was that of a weak City Commission and a strong City Manager.

Local government in Lexington was controlled then by conservative, business-oriented southern Democrats, and many parts of the community — especially young people, suburbanites, liberals, Republicans, university people and African Americans — were frozen out of the process. A broadly-based citizens’ petition movement forced the merger onto the ballot, where it passed with 70 percent of the vote. The charter commission had to consider ever aspect of local government, not just governmental structure. It was an educational process for the people of Lexington, and helped bring them closer to their government. Lexington, by the way, dumped the City Manager system and operates under the Mayor-Council form.

In 2003, a petition drive successfully placed an initiative on the Boulder ballot that would have created district elections for members of Council. The voters rejected that single-issue effort. I too voted against it, concerned about the motives of the business and development interests backing the initiative. In considering changes to the City Charter now, we should include the entire community in the process and not just some special interests seeking to control City government.

I hope that the Boulder City Council will create the charter commission to bring our community’s government into the 21st Century. We no longer live in a small town. It’s time to “return to the future” by re-instituting a more democratic and accountable system of municipal government with an executive Mayor and an effective City Council.

Columnist and investigative reporter Eric Karnes is a Boulder-based commercial real estate research consultant who advises several national clients. He is a long-time participant in local debates about planning issues.