The Best Bumpersticker Evah

Yesterday was a positively craptastic day at work. Driving home, I was mulling it all over, when I noticed the car in front of me had a Cheney '08 bumpersticker. I resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to hit the car (I kid, mostly) when I noticed what the bumpersticker actually said.

Way to Go, CU

My alma mater is at it again.

And as many work woes as I've got at the moment, Ward Churchill has more. And today I'm ashamed to be University of Colorado grad .

My view isn't popular. I get that. But hear me out. Ward Churchill was (until yesterday) a tenured faculty member in CU-Boulder's Ethnic Studies department (my degree is from the venerable Denver campus--thankfully, we're the ones without a football team.) I can't track down the exact date/year Ward was given tenure, which is unfortunate because it's relevant to my position. I believe it was in the 1980s. I know that when I was in school in the mid-80s, Ward was a guest lecturer in my PoliSci classes more than once, and that would have been as early as 1985.

Anyway.

The firing of Ward Churchill is shameful. I do not, for one minute, doubt the validity of some of the charges of academic misconduct--Ward never struck me as a scholar. But that, right now, is not the point. The point is this: a colorful and controversial professor that CU willingly granted tenure to said things that made the Regents (and all those donors to the football team) uneasy. And they didn't like that.

This all started with an essay Ward wrote in 2001. He made some unpleasant statements. It's his right to do so. And if we don't allow our own professors (that were granted tenure...) the right to express themselves, who does have that right? If you can't have clear and open freedom of communication on a college campus, is there anywhere left you can have it? As one CU professor put it yesterday, "If you are controversial, even if you have a distinguished career that is respected, if you have somehow annoyed the powers that be, or if the kind of work you're doing is not supportive of major donors to the university, then you're notsafe," said Margaret LeCompte, a professor in the School of Education. (Quote taken from The Denver Post.)

In about 2003, the 2001 essay surfaced and the witch hunt was on. At first, it was definitely about the content of his essay and very clearly a free speech issue. The barking heads on the right had red meat and they went crazy. Then something shifted and allegations of academic misconduct surfaced. Remember the witch scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Yeah, that's what it looked like from the outside.

So, after a long and drawn out process, Professor Churchill was fired yesterday in a vote of 8-1 by the esteemed Regents. He wasn't surprised; I wasn't surprised. I don't think anyone was. It took the Regents two minutes to reach this decision. And it's a chilling decision.

The University of Colorado at Boulder granted Ward Churchill tenure. Tenured professors shouldn't be fired at the drop of a hat, and especially not over unsavory comments. If CU's tenure procedure isn't stringent enough, careful enough, that is a failing of the system--not a single professor. They need to fix their broken system. How many other tenured professors are out there with questionable academic credentials? I'll bet you five dollars he's not the only one, and CU isn't the only university facing the issue--alas, no one is talking about that.

Surely, someone on the tenure committee read his writings and investigated his CV? Right? Was he a star academic before this? Somehow I doubt that. Ward has always been a star rabble-rouser (his longtime friend Russell Means was with him at CU yesterday)--somehow I doubt his early years were spent in the library pouring over legal and scholarly texts.

So, shame on you CU. Fix your problems from the inside. Don't put bandaids on your many problems and then try to show the taxpayers what a great job you're doing. You are chilling free speech and setting a dangerous precedent about what it means to be tenured at your (or any, really) university. Today, Ward is filing suit in Denver District Court seeking legal fees and re-instatement. Go get 'em, Ward.

(And funny, in looking for something else about this story, I noticed that the majority of headlines that come up on Google News are of the "Colorado prof fired after 9-11 remarks" ilk. So, which is it? Academic misconduct or 9/11 comments? The taxpayers want to know.)

Thank You, Come Again!

We have a Kwik-E-Mart!

Eleven--or twelve, depending on who you believe--7-Eleven stores around the country have been magically transformed into Kwik-E-Mart stores in anticipation of the new Simpsons movie. And we have been blessed with one. Oh, happy day!

Ours is less than half a mile from our house so we ran over today to check it out, along with about half of Denver. I've never had a hard time finding a parking space at 7-Eleven before. Weird. And our neighbor, Scott, was in there, looking hugely puzzled about why the store that is never busy was teaming with people. The checkout line was all the way down the chips aisle.

It's a glorious day in our little cow town.

Viva le Tour--Stage 2

This has been a really fun Tour so far. I mean, for me. I'm not riding.

Today we're going to look at some of my favorite--and least favorite--things. This is in no way objective and sometimes there just isn't even any good reason for my answers.

Favorite Tour Riders' Names:
Eddy Mazzoleni
Paolo Savoldelli
Oscar Pereiro
Thor Hushovd (How can you not love this name? Plus, he kicks ass.)
Dave Zabriskie
Yaroslav Popvych (aka "Popov")
Beat Zberg
Iban Mayo

Least Favorite Tour Riders' Names:
Nicholas Jalabert
Fabian Cancellara (He does kick ass and he's now in the yellow jersey, but come on.)
Cadel Evans
Denis Menchov
Juan Antonio Flecha
Axel Merckx (Son of the great, but Axel? Please.)

Now, in defense of these guys, it may just be the way Phil, Paul, Bob, and Al on Versus say their names--and usually they butcher them. Bob Roll of the "Tour Day Frants" fame is notorious.

Favorite Names of Guys Who Were Supposed to be in the Tour but Aren't:
Bobby Julich
Alessandro Petacchi
Ivan Basso

Favorite Kit:
Astana
Euskaltel-Euskadi
Discovery (I like the new "green" look. What can I say?)
Francaise des Jeux
Gerolsteiner

Team That Makes Me Giggle:
Astana, because they are from the Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I almost expect to see Borat's grinning gob when I go to their website.

Team Name I Really Like Saying:
Euskaltel-Euskadi

Least Favorite Team:
T-Mobile. This isn't at all fair, but I disliked Jan Ullrich, their former leader, so much that it cast a pall on the entire team for me. They are the Slitherin of cycling to me.

Favorite Team Names:
Euskaltel-Euskadi
Credit Agricole
Cofidis
AG2R Prevoyance (I like how they almost got the word "annoyance" in there.)

Least Favorite Team Names:
Discovery Channel (boooring)
Liquigas (Need I say more?)
Barloworld

Favorite Overall Riders So Far:
Tom Boonen (Though he's not having an impressive ride, I have to say....)
Robbie McEwen (If you haven't seen it, look for his Stage 1 win--it was truly magnificent)

Favorite Team So Far:
Though my heart belongs to Quick Step (and Discovery), CSC is having a pretty darn good Tour so far. They've got the yellow jersey (not after today, most likely) and they're having a good run.

Now the fun in the mountains is getting ready to start so the sprinters will take a back seat to the climbers.

Oh, one last category. Company who should become the new team sponsor after Discovery drops out after this year:

Kwiki-Mart. I'm rather pleased with myself for coming up with that one. See, what's funny about this (yeah, it's bad when you have to explain your own joke) is that back in the day, 7-Eleven used to have a kick ass cycling team. Ha ha. Wouldn't it be funny to have a Kwiki-Mart team? Oh, nevermind.

My friend Rich thinks Wal-Mart should sponsor the team and then buy them really crappy bikes that are made in China and fall apart.

Well, that's all the fun for today. Enjoy my cycling ramblings! And, uh, how come a Google Image search of "Tour de France 2007" brings up pictures of Floyd Landis?

Viva le Tour--the 2007 Edition

My favorite sporting event--the Tour de France--begins today.

Hey wait a minute, that's not France. That's London. What a wonderful day for Anglophile cycling fans everywhere. For the first time in years, the Tour's opening stages are in England, with half a million people due to come watch today's Prologue stage. It's a big day in London--there's the Live Earth concert and some little tennis thing.

I should go back and read what I wrote last year before the start of the Tour but I'm guessing it's not much different than what I'll write today. Team Discovery (aka Disco) is still trying to find its way in the cycling world post-Armstrong. Their new team leader is Levi Leipheimer, who used ride for the team with the best kit, Gerolsteiner.


Now he's the team leader for Disco, in light of the fact that Floyd Landis is suspended on doping allegations, along with about half the rest of the field.

I don't think Levi will win yellow, or even make the podium this year. I suspect yellow will go to Alexander Vinokourov of Team Astana.


(Americans get the bigger pictures, doncha know? Ha ha.)

Vino is the favorite right now, in light of the fact that all of the other favorites are out on suspension--Ivan Basso (it was his to lose this year....), Floyd Landis, and a host of others. It was rumored earlier this week that Team Astana was going to be pulled from the Tour because two of their riders have suspended, thus putting the whole team in jeopardy.

I expressed my thoughts on doping about this time last year in the post Doping and the Dopey Dopeheads who Dope. Nothing has changed. I still love this sport though I'd like to see everyone get their shit together on this doping issue. While I'd love to see it remain illegal, if everyone is doing it... ? Eh, it's 5am. I'm not awake yet.

Anyway. My favorite rider in this year's tour is the sprinter Tom Boonen.


He's Belgian and from Team Quickstep. Yes, a flooring company sponsors a cycling team. He kicks ass and while he's not a favorite to win this year's green jersey (there are several "games within the game" titles up for grab, including the green jersey for sprinting) he might have the fire this year he was lacking last year. He was interviewed recently that he trained too hard last year, so let's see what happens in 2007. I hope he fights long and hard. ::cough::

So, even if you're not a cycling fan, at least you got to see some hot guys in cycling kit today. Viva le Tour! Viva le England!

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Hurrah for a day off in the middle of the week! After sleeping in until 6:45 (six forty-five! Can you believe it?) and watching two episodes of I Love Lucy that I've never seen before (can you believe it?), we spent our day at an anti-war demonstration called Operation First Casualty, put on by Iraq Veterans Against the War.

I'm a pretty jaded and cynical activist who goes back a few years. I cut my teeth at the 1983 encirclement of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, I was an active participant at my university's Shantytown protesting South African apartheid in the late 80s, and was a planner and participant in demonstrations and civil disobedience during the first Gulf War.

I'm one of those that believes that the left has to get its shit together because how we demonstrate negatively impacts our effectiveness. People tune us out the second they hear Give Peace a Chance or If I Had a Hammer at yet another one of our rallies. Little has changed since the 1960s in terms of how we conceptualize our presence and how we communicate our message. As a result, I haven't been terribly involved in the protest movement for this Gulf War but I am proud to say I've spoken out loudly against it since before it was started, and before poll numbers indicated that 70% of us thought it might actually be a bad idea.

But today was different. IVAW put the word out that today's event was focused on guerrilla theater and I confess that I rolled my eyes. I've seen some good guerrilla theater in my time and some really bad guerrilla theater. This one was great.

A group of Iraq vets, in desert fatigues, served as the soldiers (duh) and another group, identified by their white t-shirts, were the Iraqi civilians. They started near the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Civic Center Park, with the soldiers re-enacting foot patrols coming upon Iraqi citizens. Even with the backdrop of a gorgeous, sunny Denver day, it was startling to see uniformed soldiers throwing people to the ground, binding their hands, and covering their heads.


This scene was repeated throughout downtown Denver for about 90 minutes with the civilians heading off ahead of and on a different route from the soldiers. The civilians would gather in a public area (in one case, right in front of a lot of conventioneers eating outside at Corner Bakery...) and the soldiers would approach and attack. Following our group, were people handing out postcards explaining what was happening and why. (Super smart.) People on the street were actually reading the cards, watching the action, and asking questions of the vets about their time in Iraq. One man who did so actually joined the group.


The culmination was a press conference held on the front steps of the downtown recruiting office. The heartfelt speeches were short and to the point. The goal of IVAW is to return soldiers home from Iraq safely and swiftly, to take care of them when they return, and to help the people of Iraq rebuild what has been destroyed. The three Iraq war vets who spoke are clearly distressed about where we're at today. They were all proud to join the military and serve their nation, as so many before them, but they now feel betrayed by an administration of lies and they want to affect change.




While I suspect many of our political beliefs are different, I applaud these young men who are working so hard to get the word out about the lies and deceptions. Their action today was so well executed and I'm proud to have been a part of it. To me, this is what Independence Day is all about.

This Makes Me Jolly Cross, Part 1

Yes, I'm talking about Scooter Libby.

I don't have the time, or frankly, the energy, to write about the travesty of justice that took place yesterday, but I'm hoping Nigel will fill in as guess guest blogger to provide my Dear Readers with a little rant. The above line came from him. I'll let him explain--if it's really necessary.

In the simplest of terms, if Paris Hilton and Martha Stewart had to serve their time, why not Scooter? Why?

I know the answers. I do. But it still disgusts and infuriates me.

Local is the New Organic

Another thing keeping me sane right now: the mere fact that it's summer. This morning we got out on our bikes and rode to the farmers market to see what is available. Add a bunch of celery to that picture, and that's what we came home with.

Right now there is a new movement afoot and it's starting to gain ground (so to speak) in the mainstream media, and that is the local foods movement.

For years, organics have been the rage, but there are some problems with "going organic":

1. Price. Most average households can't afford it, plain and simple. It remains a luxury for the average family. When an organics conference held recently in Boulder charges $1400 for 3 days worth of seminars, something is still out-of-whack.

2. Footprint. Unless you're lucky enough to live in Oregon, Vermont, or California, most organic produce is shipped to your state. It's great to have California organic strawberries available (see above) but the monetary and environmental costs are great.

3. Changes in organic standards. Early this month, the USDA (boo hiss) decided to approve 38 non-organic ingredients to be allowed in products that bear the "USDA Organic" seal. Hunh? For example (this is taken straight from the Organic Consumers Association website):

-Anheuser Busch will be allowed to sell its "Organic Wild Hops Beer" without using any organic hops at all.

-Sausages, brats, and breakfast links labeled as "USDA Organic" are now allowed to contain intestines from factory farmed animals raised on chemically grown feed, synthetic hormones, and antibiotics.

-Products labeled as "USDA Organic" and containing fish oil may contain toxins such as PCBs and mercury (note: nonorganic fishoil products have this same risk, but despite the USDA ruling, it is against the National Organic Standards to allow such toxins in organic foods).

Crazy.

So, trying to do the right thing for your family, your body, the environment, by buying organic isn't always what it seems. And the "buy local" movement is gaining lots of ground. Not that I want pesticides in my food, and not that local and organic are mutually exclusive, but more and more--and mostly because I really don't trust the USDA label--locally-produced, in season food is where it's at for us. Sure, it's great to have pineapple in December or oranges in July, but striving to be more mindful of what's in season and where it's coming from is of huge interest for me right now, and it's making me look at our nightly menus with fresh eyes.

On tonight's menu? Heirloom tomatoes (above), Haystack Mountain goat cheese (from Northern Colorado), and basil from my garden. Does it really get any better than this?