Corrections: The Oct. 24 special edition Best of Boulder-East County incorrectly identified the address of Soul Tree Studio in Lafayette, the winner for best yoga. The studio’s address is 422 E. Simpson St.
The address for Barbara the Barber, winner of the Hair Salon category in Best of Boulder-East County, should have read 730 Thornwood Way in Longmont.
Still probing JFK’s death
[Re: “It’s time to open the vault on Kennedy,” Commentary, Nov. 7.] This was a very thought-provoking article. There is so much we don’t know about the JFK assassination. At the time the government may have thought it was important to feed the American people pablum in order to quell an uprising they anticipated. Little did they know that 50 years later people would still be trying to connect the dots.
There is an app that gives lots of information from quality sources. A friend pointed me to it. You can find it at http://bit.ly/1aGpSG0.
Take a look and be amazed.
Cathryn L. Hazouri/via Internet
I think it is very important that the truth come out. If it doesn’t on this 50th anniversary, when will it? Please keep up any pressure you can. Thank you for writing this article.
Bernice German/Boulder
CU’s link to global warming
Would the recent flooding have been as extreme if humans had started doing more to fight global warming 20 years ago? The loudest voice for global warming denial in Colorado the last 20 years has been AM talk station KOA, which proudly announces “850 KOA, home of the Buffs and Rush Limbaugh!” Limbaugh was named global warming denier of the year in 2011 by media watchdog Media Matters. Like CU, many of the largest college sports programs in the country rent their mascots to stations that broadcast Limbaugh and other climate change deniers. All of those stations are used to attack climate scientists, slow efforts to reduce carbon emissions, and ridicule green energy. Aside from the well-documented racism, sexism and government shutdown cheerleading from Limbaugh, local KOA talkers also support defunding and privatizing public education and regularly attack teachers and teacher unions. They also weigh in loudly on elections that effect tuition levels, student loans, CU funding, and who CU regents and chancellors will be.
So, what does KOA pay CU every year to put Ralphie the buffalo on their giant anti-science, anti-education soapbox? $5,000? $50,000? When I asked, the only people at CU who knew work for Buffalo Sports Properties, a property of Learfield Sports. They have an office at the CU stadium but keep licensing information confidential. Whatever the amount, it’s time for CU to honor its own mission statement and find nonpartisan broadcasting alternatives for the Buffs.
Paul Ericson/Lyons
A lesson in compromise
I was recently on a tiny plane shuddering through turbulence over vast expanses of Colorado mountains. Why? I was traveling with EcoFlight, a Colorado-based nonprofit, with the goal of examining numerous designations used to protect and manage public lands, from the air and the ground.
Specifically, I wanted to learn about efforts to protect natural systems in the Rocky Mountains. What I got was a firsthand experience in compromise.
For example, I witnessed the frustration of citizens who feel alienated by the environmental community and I gained a deeper appreciation for the ecological and human importance of leaving large swaths of wild land undeveloped. I heard from individuals establishing bipartisan community-based land agreements in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. The popularity of this new age of conservation effort demonstrates that successful initiatives incorporate diverse voices. The Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act near Durango has gained the approval of both the Colorado Snowmobile Association and the Colorado Off-Highway Vehicle Association, two firsts for a bill which includes new wilderness that is off limits to all vehicles.
While federal representatives are mired in ideological stalemates, coalitions such as this provide hope that crucial conservation can be a rare point of unity rather than division. Jason Sewell, a fifth-generation rancher in western Colorado, says, “It’s not that oil and gas drilling shouldn’t happen anywhere. It’s that oil and gas development shouldn’t happen everywhere.” Replace “oil and gas” with any other use of public lands, and you have the paradigm which can guide us towards a more healthy national discourse on energy, recreation and the environment.
In the end, this flight was an eye-opener. As an aspiring mountaineer, I hold steady to the value of protecting public lands, but I also pledge to respect and listen to those who see things differently.
Dylan Warburg/Boulder
Obamacare’s silver lining
Left to their own devices, insurance companies have raised premiums to the breaking point and have diminished benefits to a bare minimum.
Suing insurance companies for benefits promised is commonplace. The genius of Obamacare, even though at the time most of us saw it as a giveaway to the insurance lobby, is only now being appreciated as the open market returns to the insurance business with strong government guidelines to insure that the uninsured, underinsured and the uninsurable must be embraced and never dumped, and the companies must pay at least 80 percent of premiums out in benefits.
This departure from the previous norm is driving big insurance orbital along with their political bedfellows. Yeah!
Tom Lopez/Longmont
