text:
Conservation In Deed
Saving the environment through ownership
William Tucker | From the May 1983 issue
I would like to propose a redefinition of the problem of environmental degradation. It goes like this: Environmental damage occurs when someone is losing money. Or, alternately, losing money leads to environmental problems.
It's as simple as that. Operating an inefficient, money-losing enterprise causes persistent environmental damage. Making money, on the other hand, protects the environment and conserves resources for the future. A profit-making economy is the best system there is for protecting the natural environment.
Of course, this is directly contrary to the conventional wisdom. Environmental degradation, we have been told over the years, is caused by greedy business enterprises, driven by the "profit motive" in pursuit of the "almighty dollar." Pollution, the destruction of landscapes, and the squandering of sources are all the result of an unfettered business sector that recognizes no other value but dollars and cents. After all, wouldn't business, if left unfettered, be putting a hydroelectric dam in the Grand Canyon to make money?
The answer is no. It wasn't business that wanted to put a dam in the Grand Canyon in the 1960s. It was the government—the Bureau of Reclamation, to be exact. And the government wasn't going to make any money at it, either. It was going to lose money—which is the only way the project was feasible in the first place.
Losing money damages the environment, spoils nature, and exhausts resources. Making money preserves the environment, protects nature, and conserves resources. In this simple lesson lies the way toward renewing the battle for environmental improvement in the hard-pressed 1980s—and returning a sense of individual responsibility to the American people.
How can making money conserve and improve the environment? Why is it that environmental damage is a violation of sensible economics? Understanding the point requires breaking out of the contemporary prison wherein all economic activity is seen as a two-sided conflict between "business" and "the consumer," or "the big interests" and "the people."
If this simplistic formulation is accepted, there are only two possible explanations of environmental destruction. The first says that the people are innocent (a popular enough notion), and big business is at fault. This latter, malicious sector, so the story goes, pollutes and destroys nature as a result of its "relentless pursuit of profits." Thus, the only solution is to "countervail" the power of business with a big government that spins a web of regulation and blocks business owners from doing just about anything. After 15 years of environmental effort, this is approximately where we are: the battle between environmentalists and their adversaries has become nothing more than a tug-of-war over whether to tighten or relax regulatory snares.
The only other possible view—a bit more jaundiced, perhaps—is that people themselves are the problem. There are too many people, it is argued, and only draconian programs for population control or perpetual stagnation (more romantically advocated as "no-growth" or "zero-sum" societies) can save us. People are perceived as being unnatural, out of tune with the harmony of nature. Only by cultivating some kind of mystical oneness with nature or retreating toward a pastoral, preindustrial state can we avoid overrunning our fragile environment.
Neither of these explanations of environmental problems gets to the real heart of the matter. Both miss a third player in the economic game, one who has a specific, personal interest in preserving the environment and protecting its value into the future. This is the landlord, the person who owns the natural resources in question. The environmental crisis has essentially been a problem of the decline of landlords. We no longer have landlords—owners—in place to protect and preserve the resources we are busy degrading. No one has a personal interest in protecting the environment.
Why don't we have contemporary landlords? There are two reasons. First, many of the resources we have begun to abuse are so diffuse that it is difficult to bring them under private ownership. It is difficult to define ownership for the air we breathe, running streams, groundwater aquifers, or whales that roam the far corners of the world the way we do for, say, an acre of land or a steer on the hoof. In all these instances, establishing rules for ownership and enforcing them may require some creativity. European kings once claimed ownership of all the deer in the forest, for example, and labeled anyone who killed one without permission a poacher. Ownership of a resource is necessary in order to prevent it from being treated as a "common pool" and exploited by all.
Far more frequently, however, the situation has worked in the opposite direction. In a wide variety of instances, government itself has insisted on acting as the owner of resources that could just as well be held in private hands. In these instances—the national forests, grazing lands in the West, water supplies, for example—government has insisted on playing the role of the landlord, under the illusory idea that it is best suited both to protect and to develop these resources for the greatest good of all.
Yet government does not make a very good landlord. Its agents, with no personal stake in the matter, do not try to maximize the government's rents, or income, from the resources; they do not employ the resources so that they will have their highest value for both today and tomorrow. Instead, under its common mandate to make everyone happy, government generally subsidizes the use of resources and shovels them onto today's market at far below their potential future value. As a result, these natural resources are abused, overused, and generally treated at far less than their true worth. This is why we have an "environmental crisis."
How did it all begin? Interestingly enough, an overwhelming number of today's environmental problems can be traced back to the first effort to deal with them, during the great conservation era of the early 1900s. It was then that the fateful decision was made to keep the vast majority of the West's resources—two-thirds of the land, for example, west of the Rockies—in the hands of the federal government.
The original logic of the conservation movement, under Theodore Roosevelt's leadership, was perhaps justified. In 1900, there simply weren't enough landlords around to take responsibility for the vast resources available. The country didn't yet have enough people to own them all. It seemed likely that selling them on the market would have meant turning them over to the railroad companies and other corporate baronies, which were already the object of extreme public resentment.
But the mandate with which progressive conservationism took over control of these resources was at best obscure and confusing—political, in other words—and has long outlived its usefulness. The government, strangely enough, was both to conserve resources and to develop them "for the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run," as the prominent conservationist Gifford Pinchot put it. These were lofty terms, but devoid of much practical meaning. To one person, conservation might mean a magnificent new dam backing up miles of running water for irrigation of the desert, while to another person it means preserving the landscape the way it was before human beings ever laid eyed on it.
Most important, the government made no attempt to collect proper rents on these resources. Rents—the income from resources—are the measure of how well they are being employed. Most people, environmentalists included, often believe that the only way people make money on land, for example, is to exploit it as quickly as possible. But this common conception completely misinterprets the economic motivation of the landlord. For the permanent owner of a resource, the best way to maintain high rents on a property is to conserve its value as far into the future as possible.
Landlords are not business operators. Businesses make their money out of current production. But a landlord expects to own a resource far into the future (or to sell it based on its value far into the future). Therefore, he wants to make its value last as long as possible. With renewable resources, this means using them at a pace that gives them plenty of time to regenerate. For a nonrenewable resource, it may mean holding it off the market as long as possible, while similar resources are diminishing, in order to optimize its scarcity value.
Governments, however, do the opposite. Under constant political pressure to please voters and build satisfied constituencies, they throw resources onto the market much more quickly than do private owners, sometimes even subsidizing development out of "their own" pockets—that is, with taxpayers' money. They plunder their own, or "the people's," resources in a way that no private landlord ever would.
Thus, in the end, the old conservation agencies have ended up the biggest environmental offenders of all.
• The Bureau of Land Management's ranchlands in the West are constantly overgrazed, while private landlords have no trouble keeping their own lands in good shape.
• The Bureau of Reclamation, with the ever-ready assistance of the Army Corps of Engineers, regularly drowns huge areas of prime farmland in order to create barely equivalent amounts of marginal farmland through ridiculously subsidized irrigation projects.
• The development of remote, useless federal lands has been promoted to such a degree that environmentalists have been forced to invent the tortured concept of "wilderness" in order to keep these areas from being invaded. The US Forest Service, for example, continues to subsidize expensive logging in remote "roadless" areas, while letting more accessible forest lands go untouched. John Baden, director of the Center for Political Economy and Natural Resources at Montana State University, estimates that the Forest Service, with the richest timber holdings in the world, still manages to lose $500 million a year on its operations. They must be doing something wrong; indeed, they are undervaluing "their" resources.
All this is poignant verification of Garrett Hardin's principle of the "tragedy of the commons"—that when a resource is held in common by a group of people, say by the American people, no individual user bears the full cost of using the resource, which is consequently overexploited.
Is it any wonder, then, that when contemporary environmentalists entered the political fray in the 1960s and '70s, they aimed their first fire at the old conservation agencies themselves—the US Forest Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Reclamation Bureau?
Environmentalists are, in a sense, landlords without an estate. They have the "land ethic," as their early prophet Aldo Leopold defined it. They understand the value of natural resources, even if they don't own them outright. They see that we cannot forever pillage our natural inheritance in order to promote immediate consumption. They recognize that undervaluing natural resources leads us into vicious cycles of technological extravagance, where it soon seems that we cannot tolerate even the slightest increase in scarcity without worrying that we are "running out of everything."
What environmentalists have not understood so clearly, however, is that in almost every instance it is government ownership of resources—which is naturally accompanied by government subsidization of consumption through low or nonexistent prices, tax incentives, and other popular measures—that leads to this dilemma. Governments don't mind losing money on resources, since they can always carry the bill back to the taxpayers. In fact, it is often assumed that government is doing something virtuous by losing money in managing resources.
But private landlords know better. Without the opportunity to cover their losses through taxation, they realize that losing money simply means badly managing resources and squandering their value. In the hard-pressed 1980s, protecting the environment is going to mean getting resources out of government hands and into the private sector. Only then can the spontaneous corrections of the marketplace spur owners to maintain the value of resources far into the future.
The problem of government ownership of resources did not begin in our era, nor did the dilemmas of environmental depredation. With these things in mind, let us take a closer look at the idea of landlords as a third force in economic history and see how the present situation has evolved.
Through the long annals of civilization, government ownership and participation in enterprise has been much more the rule than the exception. This is often overlooked by environmentalist interpretations of history. Environmentalists, for example, often cite the denuded hills of Greece, the ruined "breadbasket" of North Africa, or the sheep-stripped countryside of rural Spain as proof that (to try a common paraphrase) "humanity has never learned to be very kind to our natural surroundings."
Yet, in how many of these instances has it been government-subsidized industry, rather than private effort, at work? The point is critical, since private enterprises are subject to the checks of profits and losses, while government enterprises are not.
The Spanish crown, for example, ruined many of Spain's rural areas by establishing a national woolens industry with the money brought back from the New World by the conquistadors. The government appropriated huge amounts of private farmland and set up enclosures for sheep pasturage. The market was soon flooded by wool, of course, but the royal government paid no mind, intensifying its efforts. Eventually, it squandered all the gold of El Dorado and beat to death much of its medieval farmlands at the same time.
This depredation of Spain's countryside, then, is hardly an example of "man's destructive instincts." It is much more an example of the ability of centralized governments to ignore the checks and balances of the market system. Had a variety of individual independent landlords been making decisions to convert Spanish countryside to sheep pasture, the consequences for the wool market would have halted the process, and the countryside would have been far less devastated than by the decision of a single, centralized government.
The free-enterprise system, as we know it, didn't really evolve until after the time of Adam Smith—who didn't win his place in history by describing some free-market Garden of Eden around him but by envisioning what could exist if governments would leave off their mercantile interference in the economy and allow the checks and balances of the market system to operate freely.
Smith argued that there are three players in the economic game—laborers, capitalists, and landlords. Labor contributes its sweat and skills and earns its money through wages. Capitalists own and manage the tools of production and collect their return through profits. Landlords own the natural resources—land, for the most part, in Smith's day—and make their returns through rents.
Smith is chiefly remembered as an apologist for business, even though Wealth of Nations is actually one long political treatise against businesses for getting government to restrict trade on their behalf. Yet in retrospect, it is easy to see why Smith is still considered the "philosopher of big business." He was at least willing to accept the legitimacy of both profits and rents in the economic system. By constantly seeking higher profits, he argued, capitalists ensure that their materials will be put to their highest-valued uses. At the same time, by constantly seeking to optimize their rents, landlords direct natural resources to their highest-valued uses—which includes the possibility of reserving them altogether from present consumption in order to save them for future use.
Later economists doubted the stability of the system. David Ricardo, the outstanding economist of the early 19th century, for example, argued that this model was irrevocably biased in favor of landlords. A successful banker himself, Ricardo said that because the amount of land is fixed, landlords would keep raising their rents, eventually accumulating most of the wealth in the economy.
Like Malthus, his contemporary, Ricardo did not see that the value of land is not economically immutable—that through additional infusions of both capital and labor, less land can produce more goods. Thus, US production has developed to the point where, presently, the contribution of labor is estimated at about 80 percent of the total value, capital at about 12 percent, and natural resources at only about 8 percent. In 1961, economist Robert Heilbroner could write that "the landlord's domination over the economy is a textbook curiosity" and that "the problem of rent has become almost an academic side issue in the modern world." This was before the environmental crisis began to emerge.
While Ricardo suggested that rents are illegitimate, Karl Marx went even further. He argued that both rents and profits—but particularly profits—represent "exploitation" and are actually "stolen" from their rightful owners, the workers. Moreover, he argued, these "excess profits" are so unbalancing that capitalists would end up with all the money. This, in turn, would lead workers to revolt, overthrow the system, and set up a utopian society.
Neither of these criticisms of Smith's basic model has proved very good at predicting history. Neither landlords nor capitalists have become all-powerful, while the lot of the average worker in capitalist countries has steadily improved. Smith's model holds up very well indeed for contemporary society.
Smith's model does suggest, however, where to start looking for consequences if one or more of the three groups succeeds in gaining, not enough wealth, but enough political domination to try to manipulate the system in its favor. If capitalists, for example, manage to artificially hold down wages through legal means—as they often did during the 19th century—then we can expect the lot of laborers to deteriorate, leading perhaps to the sort of consequences that Marx predicted of a pure free-market system. If, on the other hand, capitalists are politically prevented from collecting their profits, then we can expect an abatement of their enterprising efforts and perhaps the sort of "stagflation" that afflicts so many economies today.
And finally, if landlords are politically prevented from collecting their rents, then we can expect the resource base to deteriorate. Thus, the question of rents and landlords is not a "textbook curiosity." On the contrary, when landlords are gradually excluded from their role in the economy, an "environmental crisis" ensues.
What has clearly happened in contemporary economies is a distinct diminution in the ability of landlords to act as stewards of natural resources. This evolution is fairly easy to trace. Landlords have never been very popular in history—perhaps even less popular than business people. Gradually, political pressures have constricted their latitude in exercising control over their own resources. Or, alternately, these same pressures have pushed resources completely out of private hands and into the arms of government. There they become "the people's" resources, "free" for exploitation.
This pattern of pressure against landlords inevitably leads to overexploitation of resources and environmental damage. The "common ruin of all," as Garrett Hardin described it, is the unavoidable consequence. Without landlords, there can be no environmental protection.
Let me illustrate all this with a homely, and perhaps a bit oblique, example—rent control in New York City. Apartment buildings are not a "natural" resource, but as a standing resource they operate very much like one in the market. As with land itself, they are continuously renewable if used properly. The builders of apartments are capitalists, but their long-term owners can be properly called landlords.
These resource-owners have two basic impulses—to collect optimal rents today, given the market supply of and demand for apartments, and to go on collecting them into the future. The owner will one day die, of course, but he can always sell the building first or pass it on to his heirs. At no point does it ever pay a landlord to allow the value of his property to deteriorate. All the damage would be absorbed by the landlord himself, with no compensating benefit. Landlords have a built-in "conservation ethic" that comes with the job.
The politics of New York City, however, does not allow landlords to collect market rents on their apartments. This is accomplished under a variety of political flim-flams, dating back to a "temporary" measure imposed during World War II that has never been removed. Despite all the demagoguery about "greedy landlords" that continually rationalizes rent control, most people recognize that, at bottom, rent control is nothing but an immensely popular political device that allows the city's huge tenant population to exploit a small minority of landlords. (The proof of this is that nothing upsets "tenants' rights" groups so much as the suggestion that they themselves take on the responsibilities of being landlords. Condominium and cooperative conversions are fought with even greater fury than the occasional fuel pass-along or rent increase. Without a captive landlord population, tenants would have no one left to exploit.)
Is it only landlords that are exploited, however? The answer is no. Unable to collect market rents, the landlords begin to lose money. They can no longer afford to make repairs on their buildings. The apartments begin to deteriorate, which drives down rents (both economically and legally), which in turn makes it even harder to pay for repairs. Landlords then are even more greatly condemned, and rents are pushed down even further. Eventually, many owners simply abandon buildings, even though they may represent a lifetime investment. Without proper rents, no one can play the role of landlord forever.
The deterioration and destruction of New York City's rental housing market is there for all to see. Despite population growth and a continuously high demand for housing, the city now has fewer available rental units than it did in 1942, when rent controls were originally imposed. Whole blocks of apartment buildings now stand in ruins, while privately owned houses only a few blocks away remain in perfect condition.
Obviously, it is not only landlords who suffer when they are not allowed to collect market rents. Sooner or later, the exploiting population will have eaten its way through all the landlords' wealth. People then begin to devour the resource itself that landlords, in their own private interest, originally had set out to protect.
New York City's tenants are a population in the process of destroying its environment. Though it is not a natural environment, the economic principles are the same. When popular pressures prevent landlords from collecting proper rents and playing their legitimate role as conservors and protectors of resources, it is only a matter of time before the resources themselves will be degraded and eventually destroyed.
The contemporary economist who has perceived this dilemma most clearly is, not surprisingly, also generally regarded as the leading theorist of the environmental movement. He is Herman Daly, professor of resource economics at Louisiana State University.
In his 1977 book, Steady-State Economics, Daly identified the economic root of the contemporary environmental crisis as the success of both contemporary labor (which I take to be interchangeable with "consumers") and business in politically exploiting a much-reduced "landlord class."
Landlords were the most powerful social class in feudal times, but in modern capitalism they are the least powerful class, and whatever power they might exert toward raising resource prices is undercut by the government, which is the largest resource owner and which follows a policy of cheap resources in order to benefit and ease the conflict between the two dominant classes, labor and capital.…
Capital and labor are the two social classes that produce and divide up the firm's product. They are in basic conflict but must live together. They minimize conflict by growth and by throwing the growth-induced burden of diminishing returns onto resource productivity. How do they get away with it? In earlier times it might not have worked; a strong landlord class would have had an interest in keeping resource prices from falling too low. But today we have no such class to exert countervailing upward pressure on resource prices.…
Should we, by a kind of reverse land reform, reinstate a landlord class? Landlord rent is unearned income, and we find income based on ownership of that which no one produced to be ethically distasteful. No one loves a landlord…and not many lament the historical demise of the landowning aristocracy. But not all the long-run consequences of this demise are favorable. Rent may be an illegitimate source of income, but it is a totally legitimate and necessary price, without which efficient allocation of scarce resources would be impossible.
Although Daly was writing for the environmental movement, few environmentalists have taken his points to heart. In particular, many still seem fixed on the idea that making money is the root of all environmental problems. This is because they confuse business people with landlords. Businesses do indeed make money by using resources for current production. But landlords make money by limiting the use of scarce resources, by conserving and protecting them for future availability. This is why the profit motive—or, more correctly, the "rent motive"—is the most important tool we have for protecting the environment.
The model of missing landlords makes understandable a whole range of environmental difficulties. Take the following examples:
Question: Why did the Bureau of Reclamation want to build a dam in the Grand Canyon? Answer: Because it is in the business of subsidizing the use of the resources it controls. The underpricing of its land and water leads to an ever-increasing demand for both, which can only be met by building more and bigger projects. If the government charged people market prices—collected proper rents and profits, in other words—then conservation would become economical and the accelerating demand for these resources would quickly vanish.
Question: Why did we develop such an oil-dependent economy before the 1970s? Answer: Because, right from the beginning, the government subsidized oil development, at the behest of both industry and consumers. As early as 1920, oil-depletion allowances reversed the ordinary economics of a finite resource and artificially accelerated its development. Only when US oil resources had been prematurely drawn down by the early 1970s were US suppliers forced to go abroad. Even then, nothing happened until the landlords of world oil supplies—the OPEC nations—began to collect market rents. When these economic realities finally sank in (delayed somewhat by our decade-long romance with oil price controls), technology and consumption habits quickly shifted to a more efficient basis. As a result, the "oil crisis" of the last decade has quickly disappeared.
Question: Why is it necessary to create designated wildernesses to preserve even the most marginal federal lands from development? Answer: Because the development of these lands is being subsidized. Without the government accepting losses on the use of these lands, they would remain just what they are today—wildernesses.
Question: Why is the Army Corps of Engineers such an environmental disaster? Answer: Because it never has to make money.
Question: Why are groundwater supplies in many parts of the nation being rapidly exhausted? Answer: Because forms of ownership of these natural "common pools" have not been defined. Instead, people can draw on them for free. A sensible landlord would charge people for drilling wells into these underground reservoirs. And once market rents were collected on these resources, pricing mechanisms would stimulate the proper conservation practices, and the "groundwater crisis" would disappear.
Question: Why don't we see the development of clean, efficient "alternative" energy technologies? Answer: Because governments everywhere subsidize centralized electricity. Researchers John Baden and Richard Stroup, of Montana State University, have discovered that a private utility, the Jacobs Wind Electric Company, was successfully selling wind-mill-generated electricity to midwestern farmers in the 1920s—a promising start on the technology. The business was wiped out, however, by the Rural Electrification Administration, which brought in subsidized coal power in the 1930s. Early solar water-heating efforts in southern California suffered a similar fate. Even today, the major obstacle to solar systems is the constant subsidized overconsumption of electricity encouraged by state utility commissions, plus federal price controls on natural gas.
And so on and so forth. In each of these instances, it is government intervention in the economy, not the working of the marketplace itself, that leads to the short-changing of environmental values.
Some environmental problems are far more tricky, of course. For instance, it is difficult to define property rights for the air around us. It cannot be parceled out in one-acre lots (although it can be defined in terms of "airsheds"). To prevent pollution, however, there must be some kind of ownership, and people must be charged for using the air as a dumping ground. (We have, instead, clumsy regulations that tell industries where and when to install antipollution equipment, and even what kind of equipment to install. The result is a ham-handed bureaucracy and endless lawsuits, rather than an efficient clean-up.) Problems like toxic chemicals and pesticides, with their long-delayed after-effects, pose unique problems of liability and long-term responsibility that may require new inventions in risk insurance.
But there is not an environmental problem anywhere that cannot be reduced to the fundamental paradigm of resource ownership and the failure to allow landlords to take care of their property. This is because (1) ownership structures, where they are difficult to define, have not been set up; (2) governments, under popular pressures, have prevented private landlords from exercising their rights of ownership; or (3) the government itself has taken control of a resource and makes it available to the public on a subsidized or common-pool basis, without charging adequate rents to optimize its value. In all three cases, the result is the same—degradation of the resource and erosion of the quality of the environment.
Does this mean, as Herman Daly suggests, that we have to "reinstate a landlord class" to solve environmental problems? Not, I believe, in the way Daly implies. (Daly himself shies away from the dilemma and, strangely and paradoxically, calls for even more government control over resources as a solution. He apparently does not recognize that in an industrial society capital and labor are a permanent majority and will always, if given the chance, use government to exploit landlords and natural resources.)
Instead, I would like to suggest a very American solution to the problem. "Reinstating a landlord class" does not have to mean a return to the landholding aristocracies of the Middle Ages. Rather, it should mean that we would all get a chance to become landlords. That would give everyone a piece of the "conservation ethic"—just as the diffusion of industrial wealth throughout the population has given everyone a stake in the economy.
Let us take, for example, the 170 million acres owned and managed "for the greatest good of the greatest number" by the Bureau of Land Management, a sprawling federal bureaucracy with 5,000 employees operating on an annual budget of well over $1 billion. Selling off whatever lands private owners would be willing to purchase (probably only about 10 percent)—and abolishing the federal mandate to develop the rest at any cost—would alleviate the problems of collective ownership and put resources in the hands of people who would conserve them because it would be in their private interest to do so. It would, incidentally, also pay off at least $200 billion of the national debt, which only illustrates how "land poor" the federal government and its bureaucracies have become. In the early 19th century, the federal government paid off its Revolutionary War debts in the same way. Such a land sale would represent a continuation of the principle of decentralized ownership on which the country was founded.
Federal bureaucrats, of course, will oppose it. So will many environmentalists—who have, unfortunately, grown quite accustomed to exercising their power in the halls of Washington's bureaucracies. They and others will continue to confuse businesses with landlords and will argue that the desire of every private property owner will only be to develop and exploit his resources as fast as possible.
But a true understanding of the historic role of landlords should make us realize that it is the property owner's "land ethic" that ultimately keeps us from destroying our natural heritage. True stewardship and conservation are only nurtured by the experience of individual ownership—in a system where landlords are left free to preserve the value of their property and are protected from the universal political tendency to exploit someone else's resource without paying the costs. Until the impulse to protect the environment is harnessed to the private desires of landlords to care for their own property, environmental problems will never be solved. We are all going to have to learn to become landlords.
William Tucker has written for REASON, Harper's, and many other magazines, and is the author of Progress and Privilege.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline "Conservation In Deed".
NEXT: Murky Medicine
William Tucker


Finding the right inpatient drug rehab is a major, life-changing decision – one that could very well dictate the remainder of your days. While finding a drug rehab that caters to all of your specific needs and preferences is extremely important, it is also essential to keep in mind that even the best treatment will prove relatively futile if not matched with intense dedication, open-mindedness, willingness, and honesty. If you have truly grown sick and tired of the pain and the misery, of the physical, emotional, and mental torment – if you are looking for a complete, authentic, and lasting change and are willing to go to any lengths to get it – then getting sober is a wise and timely decision. Finding an inpatient treatment center is typically one of the initial steps on the lifelong journey of addiction recovery, and is essential to the overall process for several reasons.
Why Is Inpatient Drug Rehab Important?
The majority of men and women suffering from substance dependency concurrently suffer from some co-occurring disorder – and in many cases, they suffer from past emotional, sexual, or physical trauma as well. Inpatient addiction treatment is designed to uncover, address, and treat underlying issues, therapeutically healing clients who have experienced emotionally devastating experiences and rebuilding their self-worth, self-respect, and ability to effectively build and foster healthy relationships with others. Underlying issues can range from PTSD to bipolar disorder to eating disorders. All individual issues are worked through in therapeutic group and one-on-one settings. Because inpatient treatment is so heavily therapeutically oriented, it allows clients the opportunity to work through trauma and other issues that may not be adequately addressed otherwise.
Those who enter into an inpatient treatment program will be instilled with a set of tools and techniques that will prove essential in maintaining prolonged and meaningful sobriety for years to come. These tools are taught through group sessions and practical application, and will be utilized on a regular basis as the recovery process commences.
Addiction is a family disease, and not merely because the entire family is affected by the deep devastation substance dependency causes. Addiction is also often prolonged or exacerbated by dysfunction within the family – from interpersonal abuse to codependency and enabling. Inpatient addiction treatment allows for family therapy on a deep and necessary level.
It has been repeatedly proven that those who attend gender-specific rehab have much more success in sobriety upon graduation from their inpatient programs. This is, in large part, because gender-specific treatment typically allows for a more personal and thorough look at gender-specific issues – such as sexual trauma, childhood abuse, societally implemented (and potentially harmful) gender roles, and gender-dependent concerns and issues (such as PMS, anger issues, and eating disorders).
The rates of drug abuse amongst adolescents have been skyrocketing at unprecedented rates over the course of the past several years. Because of this, the need for adolescent treatment facilities has been climbing, and more centers geared towards the treatment of addiction in youth are available now than ever before. Adolescent drug rehabs teach young adults to live socially and successfully without the use of drugs and alcohol. Many offer educational programs, and therapeutic groups tend to focus more on the development of crucial life skills.
Many addicts and alcoholics concurrently suffer from a dual diagnosis disorder, most commonly depression or anxiety. Dual diagnosis treatment centers focus on treating substance abuse and psychological disorders simultaneously. Such centers will typically have licensed psychiatrists on staff, and will focus on medication and symptom management.
Many addicts and alcoholics suffer from PTSD as a result of past traumatic experience. Treatment centers with a trauma focus will be heavily therapeutic, and will teach clients healthy coping mechanisms to deal with symptoms and triggers.
Executive treatment is specially designed for those working high-profile jobs – those who cannot take an extended vacation from their careers and who are looking for extremely high levels of privacy and confidentiality while in treatment. These facilities provide executives and other businessmen with the opportunity to work and simultaneously undergo the intensive therapy they require.
Many pregnant addicts and alcoholics will avoid seeking treatment for fear of judgment and negative response from peers. Drug rehab specially designed for pregnant women allows for a safe and non-judgmental place for women to heal and learn to cope with drug-free living and early motherhood.
Treatment programs specifically designed for members of the LGBT community focus on sexual orientation-related issues, and specific communal trends in substance abuse (such as meth use amongst gay men). Many addicts and alcoholics who are also gay, lesbian, transgendered, or bisexual will face additional discrimination from misinformed peers and family members.
If you or someone dear to you is lwondering how to choose the best drug & alcohol rehab program, it is important that specific needs and preferences are taken into careful consideration. Addiction is far from a one-size-fits-all disease, and addiction recovery should be equally as distinctive. Make sure you are entering into a program in which you feel safe and comfortable – where you feel you will be able to open up honestly, thoroughly, and entirely.


Standing on the verandah of the pub looking over to the old railway station it is hard to imagine today, that in 1907 over 1000 construction workers were gathered for the building of the Etheridge line. Or, that in 1929, Ernest Atherton, a former Almaden baker and butcher, was appointed to the position of Minister for Mines in the Queensland cabinet. He was the only cabinet minister representing the northern interests of the State.
Atherton and the Tablelands were named after John, of the legendary Atherton Family who, as pastoralists, played an important role in the development of the region. They opened up vast tracts of land, paving the way for the small miners, prospectors, and the entrepreneurs. The Tableland's link with the Cairns Outback is its volcanic geology.
Interestingly, the ghosts of the Atherton area are distinctly oriental. The Hou Wang temple is traditional Chinese on the inside, pioneer Australian on the outside. A glimpse into their past is truly fascinating.
Imagine a mystical landscape. A place created eons ago, when a now outback land was washed by the warm waters of an ancient sea. A coral reef flourished; tall sea lilies swayed with the current, and jawless fish darted in the shallows. Down through the ages, Mother Nature carved a wondrous cave system from the limestone, remnants of that early coral reef.
Violent volcanic eruptions thrust rich ore deposits upwards to the surface, only to refold and thrust them downward, deep into the earth's layers. Slowly, the land surface cooled. The climate changed. Rainforest gave way to open savannah lands. Aboriginal people camped under protected limestone ledges. They hunted the mega fauna, which roamed the vast grasslands.
Discover the beauty of this ancient landscape. View world famous caves and a specialized fossil collection. Be amazed at the myriads of stars in the night sky and at dusk listen to the ghosts at the old State Smelter Reserve.
Dimbulah is the gateway to the Hodgkinson Goldfield, which was settled in1876, and lead to the establishment of Cairns as a port. The township of Dimbulah grew up on the Walsh River in 1900 as a watering place for locomotives on the Chillagoe Line.
In the mid 1890s, famous Australian painter Ellis Rowan visited North Queensland. In her book 'The Flower Hunter', she describes her adventures in a series of letters written to her husband. Included is the Cobb & Co stagecoach trip she undertook from Herberton via Emuford, to Chillagoe… 'Said to be the roughest road in Australia, the coach dropped from one boulder to another, along the steep track.' Little wonder that the passengers opted to walk. Fortunately this is not the case today!
Established in 1880, Herberton is a charming heritage-listed town, with a wonderful climate, and a fair share of ghosts from its tin-mining past. You can sense their presence as you marvel at old pictures on the Photo Post walk, or when visiting the peaceful cemetery, where many pioneers are buried. Herberton boasts the oldest buildings on the Tablelands, museums, picnic spots, and a range of accommodation and services. Since the decline of tin-mining, Herberton has become renowned as a centre for bush walking, mountain-biking and horse riding, and the flora and fauna – including wildflowers and over 100 species of birds – make for a memorable experience. Base yourself in Herberton and explore the extensive walking trails, and the old Army campsites in the area – headquarters of the 6th and 7th Australian divisions during WW11.
Originally set up as a mining camp (1882) Irvinebank was to become the centre of a vast empire. Legendary entrepreneur John Moffat purchased leases and set up his headquarters in the heart of the mining field. John Moffat's homestead was open to his staff, which made up small dance parties, or stood around the grand piano, or browsed among the books in the cedar lined library (G C Bolton). Today, Irvinebank with its old buildings still retains a certain sense of grandeur. A visit to the Loudoun House Museum, historical home of John Moffat, will bring the sense of yesteryear alive in your mind. Irvinebank is famous amongst plant enthusiasts for two species, which are found only in that area a purple flowering wattle and an orange-red flowering grevillea. Free camping is available on the Town Common for bona fide travellers.
Although not included in the Cairns Outback region, Julatten is tucked away in a pocket of rainforest, in the cool mountains just back of Port Douglas. This location offers a milder climate and is central to a diverse range of habitats. It is famous worldwide for its bird life.
Driving from Cairns up the Kuranda Range, Mareeba is the gateway to the Wheelbarrow Way. Founded by pastoralist John Atherton, it was his son William who, in 1888, applied for pastoral leases in the Chillagoe area, with the intent of supplying beef to the spreading mining camps.
Mareeba played an important role during World War 2; the original airstrip was constructed for the defense of Australia. Mareeba was home base to many American servicemen, the RAAF's 100 squadron, which conducted bombing missions, and Australian's first parachute battalion.
Today Mareeba is a big country town, with a multicultural population. In 1958, with the introduction of the irrigation waters from the Tinaroo Dam, a scheme which cost $12,666,000, Mareeba became a prosperous farming community. Some of those farms welcome visitors (see below).
Mutchilba is located just before Dimbulah, here the Savannahlander train stops to gain onwards permission to travel the line by collecting a 'staff' from a railway cabinet. Mutchilba is a small service centre with a Community Hall, Park , Convenience Store and Post Office.
The Cairns Outback's ever changing scenery opens out into a startling vista. The golden hues of the expansive savannah country can only hint at the vastness and the grandeur of the landscape stretching to the tip of Australia. Mt Carbine is the most northerly of the Cairns Outback region, and gateway to Cooktown and Cape York.
Mt Carbine was also a part of the fabled John Moffat empire. In 1906, Moffatt developed the wolfram deposits at Mt Carbine (GK Bolton). Wolfram is used to harden steel. Mt Carbine region is also home to over 290 species of bird life.
Mt Molloy was named to honour teamster Patrick Molloy who, in the mid 1880s, found the copper outcrop whilst searching for stray bullocks. For four years he worked it as a one man show, then amid murmurs of "claim jumping," it changed hands. In 1901 the Irvinebank Company purchased the leases and by 1903, Mt Molloy was one of North Queensland's leading producers. However by Christmas of 1908 production ceased due to a lack of ore.
Mt Molloy too, has its share of ghosts … James Venture Mulligan, discoverer of gold on the Palmer River and on the Hodgkinson field, silver at Silver Valley and tin in several locations, at age 70, embroiled himself in a fight during the construction of the Mt Molloy-Biboohra tramway, received an unlucky blow and died. The Irish explorer's body rests in the Mt Molloy cemetery (GK Bolton).
Today, Mt Molloy's fame is with its bird life. Almost 300 species have been recorded within a 15 km radius of the town. It is also the home of the Great Bowerbird.
Owned by the KuKu Djungan Aboriginal people, Mt Mulligan is a stunning sandstone escarpment 18 km long and 300 m high. Located 54 km north of Dimbulah (25 km from Tyrconnell) on unsealed road, the base of the mountain was once home to the coal mining township of Mt Mulligan. In 1921 a coal dust explosion killed 75 men underground, Australia's third largest mining disaster. The mine reopened and finally closed in 1957. Although little remains in the town, Mt Mulligan makes for a fascinating visit with its poignant cemetery and haunting beauty.
The new Colony of Queensland was proclaimed in December 1859 opening up a new horizon in the settlement of the North. Exploration parties fanned out across unknown territory, blazing tracks through the back-country. In 1864 Ezra Firth, a former stonemason from Yorkshire, established Mount Surprise Station as a sheep property. It marked the northmost frontier of Queensland. Eight years later William Hann and his party of five men set out from the Firt's out-station of Fossilbrook to explore the country further to the north. It was this expedition, which changed dramatically the direction of the history of North Queensland – the discovery of gold on the Palmer River. Today Mount Surpris's special appeal is gem fossicking. Pick up a license and try your luck at Topaz, garnet and other semi-precious stones.
Petford is the home of Living Treasure, Mrs Doreen McGrath. Doreen's home is located close-by the old Petford railway siding. Call in and have a chat.
Petford is also at the junction of the Petford- Chillagoe and Petford-Irvinebank roads (see map).
Ravenshoe, the highest town in Queensland, can usually provide cool weather and a warm welcome. The Visitor's Centre, a Rainforest Interpretive Centre, provides much more information on local history, waterfalls and windfarm.
In the main street good food is provided at the bakery, two hotels and cafes, while the Gallery, craft shops and wine works provide for other interests, Accommodation includes two motels, B&Bs, caravan park with budget units while there is limited space for caravans in the railways yard near our steam train, Capella.
Ravenshoe has many pleasant surprises for the appreciative visitor.


Schonbrun Dental Care – David W. Schonbrun, D.D.S.
Welcome to Schonbrun Dental Care in Virginia Beach! Our office is a solo-dentist practice allowing our team to provide our patients with one-on-one personal service. Dr. David Schonbrun takes the time to listen to your concerns and answer your questions in a calm, caring and non-judgmental environment. Our commitment to our patients is to provide them with the highest standard of clinical care by continually educating ourselves with the most current dental research and procedures. At Schonbrun Dental Care, we strive to help our patients achieve their dental goals and obtain optimal dental health with the most modern and comfortable treatment available. Dr. Schonbrun and his dedicated team look forward to seeing you and your family for all its preventative, cosmetic and restorative needs!


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In battle for 6th District's votes, Coffman, Romanoff target Koreans
Neighbors » Forums » Political News » General Politics
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Article Discussion: In battle for 6th District's votes, Coffman, Romanoff target Koreans
by admin on March 6th, 2014, 6:46 am #3323014
WASHINGTON — Fifty-eight- year-old Alex Choe runs a dry cleaners in Firestone, doesn't feel confident in his English skills and, until shaking GOP Rep. Mike Coffman's hand last year, had never met an elected federal politician. That Choe, who lives in Aurora, has emerged as an attractive person to glad-hand for Coffman and his Democratic challenger, Andrew Romanoff, reveals two ...
Post your comments on the Denver Post article, In battle for 6th District's votes, Coffman, Romanoff target Koreans (click that link to go back and read the article).
Article Discussion: In battle for 6th District's votes, Coff
by Chimborazo on March 6th, 2014, 6:46 am #3323015
Good article. When Mike Coffman first inherited this district from Tom Tancredo (let's face it, the way it was originally drawn up meant anyone with an "R" next to their name would take it) he thought he was set for easy sailing. The redistricting changed things and now Mike must pretend he is more moderate and pro-Immigration reform in order to retain it. If all House district in the country were this close we would have a more moderate house of representatives and not all of the extremists that currently reside there. It is good that Coffman and Romanoff have to really play close attention to every constituent to try to win. Quite frankly it is also good to see two very qualified candidates battling it out.
Re: Article Discussion: In battle for 6th District's votes, Coff
by Frank25 on March 6th, 2014, 7:48 am #3323086
I disagree slightly with other comment. Mike Coffman does not have to pretend to be moderate. I knew of him and his service to Colorado after I retired in 1976 from military and moved back to Aurora home, purchased in 1963 while stationed at Lowry. After 1991, I became very interested in Colorado politics and as volunteer military advocate, served as Secretary to UVC 2001-2005. Mike Coffman attended our meetings and I attended townhouse meetings, supporting him with small donations and votes through the years. Mike has always met with constituents, and lived in Aurora among us. I also know and like Andrew (Andy) Romanoff, but he does not have the State or Federal experience that Mike does. If elected, he would be just another Democrat in Washington, and we need to keep the Republicans (with seniority) and gain more. Until President realizes (or is replaced by one) who know they are supposed to represent ALL CITIZENS IMPARTIALLY, we will continue to have this division of race, religion, culture, economy, and redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the rich. I have nothing against rich, since I never had a job in my 84 years that did not have rich owners. At least much more than I had, coming from farm in Ohio. Born in 1929, I know what work is starting at age 5 and 6 on farm, with my military career spanning Management, Supervising, and Controlling major project, including managing Military Assistance Program (MAP) teaching Greeks and Turks on Avionics F102 Aircraft, the being pioneer working Satellite Communications System when Military first broke into that field in 1970 when I was at Lamar Colorado on TSC 54 terminal. We need to keep Mike in Washington, and Andy needs to return to Denver, and return some sense to State Legislation. He is not ready yet for Washington. Mike was in business, served in Colorado Legislation, was State Treasurer, and Secretary of State-Colorado. He earned his position and Colorado is the better for it. I proudly support Mike Coffman.
Frank's recent comments
by Iceman7 on March 6th, 2014, 9:27 am #3323197
Frank25 wrote: I disagree slightly with other comment. Mike Coffman does not have to pretend to be moderate. I knew of him and his service to Colorado after I retired in 1976 from military and moved back to Aurora home, purchased in 1963 while stationed at Lowry. After 1991, I became very interested in Colorado politics and as volunteer military advocate, served as Secretary to UVC 2001-2005. Mike Coffman attended our meetings and I attended townhouse meetings, supporting him with small donations and votes through the years. Mike has always met with constituents, and lived in Aurora among us. I also know and like Andrew (Andy) Romanoff, but he does not have the State or Federal experience that Mike does. If elected, he would be just another Democrat in Washington, and we need to keep the Republicans (with seniority) and gain more. Until President realizes (or is replaced by one) who know they are supposed to represent ALL CITIZENS IMPARTIALLY, we will continue to have this division of race, religion, culture, economy, and redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class, to the rich. I have nothing against rich, since I never had a job in my 84 years that did not have rich owners. At least much more than I had, coming from farm in Ohio. Born in 1929, I know what work is starting at age 5 and 6 on farm, with my military career spanning Management, Supervising, and Controlling major project, including managing Military Assistance Program (MAP) teaching Greeks and Turks on Avionics F102 Aircraft, the being pioneer working Satellite Communications System when Military first broke into that field in 1970 when I was at Lamar Colorado on TSC 54 terminal. We need to keep Mike in Washington, and Andy needs to return to Denver, and return some sense to State Legislation. He is not ready yet for Washington. Mike was in business, served in Colorado Legislation, was State Treasurer, and Secretary of State-Colorado. He earned his position and Colorado is the better for it. I proudly support Mike Coffman.
Well stated comment Frank. The worst thing that could happen to this country is giving the House of Representatives back to Pelosi.
Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people's freedom and security.
Iceman7
Denver P
Denver's recent comments
by tfiore on March 6th, 2014, 9:38 am #3323210
So you are saying that someone who has been the majority leader in our state legislature doesn't have the requisite experience to be in Congress? That doesn't make any sense.
How about this as a test to show that Coffman has what it takes to represent this constituents, how about he gets his caucus to allow a vote on the bipartisan immigration bill that has passed in the Senate? If he can do that then he will show that he is representing the Korean and other immigrant communities in his district. Otherwise, he is just making noise and glad handing.
tfiore
Joined: March 3rd, 2009, 9:30 am
by Average Voter on March 6th, 2014, 9:55 am #3323227
Not to be outmatched, Romanoff has recently embarked on his own introductions...
It seems that Andy Romanoff is trying to copy everything Mike Coffman does on the campaign trail. That is understandable, since he is a Denver politician, who only moved into the 6th CD last year to run for this seat. It makes one question his true commitment to Aurora and the rest of the district.
Why does the Democratic Party think they have to keep importing Denver politicians to run in Aurora and the northeast and southern suburbs? Is this simply a power grab to get a second congressional district for the City and County of Denver?
We went through this last election cycle, when Denver State Rep. Miklosi moved to Aurora less than a year before the election, lost, then moved back to Denver. Does anyone think Romanoff will continue living in Aurora, should he lose in November?
It's hard to see what Romanoff brings to the table. At best, he would be a freshman in the minority party. (No one believes the Democrats can gain control of the U.S. House this year.) That is not a position that will reap much benefit for the 6th CD. I seriously doubt members of either political party will be interested in listening to his lectures on how he ran things when he was the speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives.
Coffman has risen to become the chair of the House Veteran Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. He has positioned himself where he can actually hold the VA accountable for its shabby treatment of our nation's veterans and pressure them regarding the delays and cost overruns associated with the VA hospitals under construction.
With just under 20% of the current Congress being veterans and a president and vice president with no military experience, keeping Coffman on the House Armed Services Committee makes sense with everything going on in the world today. Frankly, we need more veterans in Congress... not another lawyer like Romanoff is.
This might be a close election, but it really should not be. Romanoff is a good man, but Coffman is clearly the better choice for the district and the country.
Average Voter
David's recent comments
by moeski on March 6th, 2014, 11:39 am #3323354
Note to headline writer..since Koreans can't vote legally in our elections, it would seem to me the candidates are courting Americans
moeski
Greg K
Greg's recent comments
Joined: July 22nd, 2009, 8:34 am
by tunaman65 on March 6th, 2014, 1:44 pm #3323493
New immigrants should take notice of the effect that Democratic policies have had upon minority groups in the United States. 60 years of these policies have destroyed the black family and are in the process of doing the same to Hispanics. Buyer beware when Romanoff shows up at your door.
tunaman65
Cesar C
Cesar's recent comments
by Jimo on March 6th, 2014, 1:47 pm #3323496
Average Voter wrote:
With just under 20% of the current Congress being veterans and a president and vice president with no military experience, keeping Coffman on the House Armed Services Committee makes sense with everything going on in the world today.
Would that be Coffman, the Republican? The same Republican Party that not one week ago killed a bill to improve access to health and dental care for veterans, allow the VA to open over 2 dozen new clinics and medical facilities, expand educational opportunities, reauthorize previous provisions under the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, including job training for veterans, and restore cost of living adjustments to military pensions? The bill supported by EVERY veterans' group in the country? Those Republicans?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/ ... 6O20140227
Coffman -- the REPUBLICAN -- should be kept in office ......... for the BENEFIT of veterans? ROFL
Good God in Heaven, sir! That's insane. Look, you can be pro-veteran and not vote for anything and everything veterans might want but you CANNOT vote against everything veterans ask for and still claim to be pro-veteran. There may be reasons why voters should keep Coffman but the idea that voters interested in HELPING veterans would vote for Coffman is ridiculous!!
Coffman is part of the same cabal that is always willing to borrow immense sums to fight wars of choice with everyone (look at the Putin Lust this week from Republicans) but plead poverty when it comes time to foot the bill for the veterans of those wars. The GOP supports the troops ..... just so long as the definition of "support" doesn't include money.
Jimo
Jim S
Jim's recent comments
by Sans Flangi on March 6th, 2014, 2:06 pm #3323516
Average Voter wrote: Why does the Democratic Party think they have to keep importing Denver politicians to run in Aurora and the northeast and southern suburbs?
You don't think the Republicans would do the same thing? Maybe you need to take a long stroll down Get Real Avenue.
Crime has decreased since retail marijuana was legalized, but the Denver Post won't tell you because it interferes with their prohibitionist propaganda.
by Frank25 on March 6th, 2014, 8:55 pm #3323803
tfiore wrote:
Since you challenged me after I said I was well aware of Andy Romanoff abilities and like him, that is exactly what I am saying in comparison. Andy is extremely well qualified in Denver politics, but just how qualified are either of our Senators in working for Veterans and Seniors? What wonder full things can I and other Seniors look forward to, with continuing same policies of past years. And as for immigration, we need to secure the borders first, and identify just who we are talking about. I had the experience of having between 5-13 20 to 30 year old fellows, living as bachelors for 8 months in 2007. In that time they trashed house appraised at $186,000, bypassed the electric meter and water meter, parked 13 cars on back lawn, in garage, long driveway and in front of the house. Then they had friends coming and going at all times of day and night, with squealing tires. That house sold in 2008 as fixer-upper for $89,000 (location) and same happened to other houses. None of them intended to become U.S. citizens, and they did not work in fruit or agriculture. Never knew what they worked at, other then one working on cars. I have Spanish speaking friends who also speak English, with green cards, or are citizens now. So I am not opposed to immigration, but our borders and immigration policies need serious rework, take the lawyers out of fleecing them, and let them earn citizenship the right way. Amnesty, and having a child, so they will not be deported, is not the right way. Change amendment 17 and get serious - both parties. We don't need more bodies while giving out welfare-food-stamps-and other benefits. Mike and prior incumbents did heavy lifting to get new VAMC, but delays and problems since 2009 should not have happened. Another point: Too many schools now with graduates holding certifications, baloney, MS, and PhD degrees, with no jobs available. Family member has $29,000 student loan, certificate, but no one hiring for dental assistant until they see what ACA -Medicare really costs. No we don't need more Democrats in Washington, until we make Harry Reid quit "blocking the senate doors to discussions and voting on bills". And I only became partisan in last 4 years. Does that answer your question, and for others to?
In my post at 9:55 in reply to Tom, I see Denver Post software has it right. When speaking of college degrees such as bachelor (baloney becomes baloney) which is just about what that degree will buy for recent graduates. I used that abbreviation while writing of bachelor, master, and doctorate degrees. Has happened before, so it has to be a software change.
And those young fellows varied in numbers, lived next door to my house. When that house dropped in appraisal to $89,000 after sold as fixer-upper, other houses on my block all dropped. Mine went from $186,000 with similar 2 car garage 22 x 24, to $92,000. Just got back to $106,500, with new roof, new doors and windows, new furnace, and other work. Makes no difference since appraisals are judged by neighborhood. Those and their peers in 7 other houses on my block in 2006-2007 drug whole neighborhood down. And how much did our utility bills go up by their non payment in houses they occupied. I want to see the empty office areas and other stores occupied again, with working people paying taxes and utilities. And I don't see continuing same policies doing that.
by Average Voter on March 6th, 2014, 10:11 pm #3323842
Jim S. wrote:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/%20...%206O20140227
Coffman -- the REPUBLICAN -- should be kept in office ......... for the BENEFIT of veterans?
It seems the article link you provided was all about actions Republicans took in the U.S. Senate. It had absolutely nothing to do with Coffman in the U.S. House.
But in 2013, Mike Coffman tied for 1st (with Hal Rogers R-KY and Delegate Eleanor Norton D-DC) for getting his legislation through the GOP controlled House, the Democratic controlled Senate, and signed into law by the president. Two of his bills that became law directly helped veterans: H.R. 1402 and H.R. 1412 and one that benefited active duty military: H.R. 3210.
By the way, that first place finish was over all others in both the House and the Senate. That is the mark of a truly effective legislator. Coffman is a work horse, not a show horse. He also had the best attendance record for votes amongst the Colorado House delegation.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/mike_coffman/412271/report-card/2013
Andy Romanoff would be destined to join Diana DeGette, Jared Polis, Ed Perlmutter, Michael Bennet, and Mark Udall who could not get even one piece of legislation passed in 2013, but they sure gave a lot of speeches.
Yes, Mike Coffman should definitely be kept in office for the benefit of veterans and our active duty military personnel. He has demonstrated he can actually do something for them.
Sans Flangi on Today, 2:06 pm #3323516
Average Voter wrote:Why does the Democratic Party think they have to keep importing Denver politicians to run in Aurora and the northeast and southern suburbs?
Well, Sans Flangi, I took a long stroll down Get Real Avenue and here's what I found.
In May of 2012, Denver State Representative Joe Miklosi rented an apartment in Aurora, lost to Coffman, and moved back to Denver.
In January 2013, former Denver State Representative Andrew Romanoff moved from Cherry Creek to a rented apartment in Aurora to challenge Coffman. Want to bet if he loses the general election, he doesn't stay in Aurora?
What is it with the Colorado Democratic Party? Don't they think there is a qualified Democrat, with some real roots in Aurora, Brighton, Greenwood Village, Centennial, Littleton, or Highlands Ranch who can be their standard bearer in the 6th CD? There's a word for what they are doing: carpetbagger. This definitely looks like a power grab to get a second congressional seat for the City and County of Denver.
Now, if you have some examples of Republicans doing the same thing, in the past two election cycles, this would be the time to tell us what they are.
Return to General Politics

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Airport Love – Is It Possible?
Flying (and airports) seem to me to be at the bottom of my list of "fun things to do." Is it just me or is just about everyone anxious and impatient when flying? Then there is always the hassle of finding the right seat, and hoping for a good neighbor. I tend to get the people who don't want to talk, or who lean over there seat into my space so I have even less room then the barely-infant-sized "car-seats" you're already allotted.
And for the holidays I'd expect to see more love in the air, but so far this is lacking as well. Even lovers seem to have little patience for one another when it comes to waiting during their three hour layover. I've thought about writing down the various uneasy narratives that unfold before my eyes, but then thought better of it. Then in my sophisticated, theological way I wondered, "what does it mean to live as though the Kingdom of God WAS RIGHT NOW, here in this airplane (or substitute for airport)?" And to be honest, I have no answer, especially not one that would reveal the amount of years I spent thinking about such questions.
I guess I am left to looking for even the slightest eye contact, so I can offer a wink or smile. I'll even chance a conversation, at least until we are allowed to turn on our "portable electronic devices." But even more than that I think I will keep to myself, be quite, and try to not create anymore problems for the flight attendants than they already have.
I have loved some of the conversations I have had with people in airports, but I guess this time of the year can add a lot of stress to the whole thing. The worst is when you have someone sitting next to you at the window that gets ups four or five times to go to the bathroom.
Free wireless is the best thing to happen to airports ever, except for magazine stands. I actually blogged from Biloxi airport after last summer's American Library conference in New Orleans. It made a believer in me out of the cheapness of wireless–Biloxi's airport was probably smaller than most small airports and they just gave it away! It definitely made the trip easier to take.
As for fussy travelers and airports, it can truly be the kingdom of God you are experiencing. I often mull over where the common spaces of today are, where most people meet one another in our divided world of class, race, and religion, and the airport has become one. Sometimes you see the effects of our culture's segregation when having to come together in a common third-space (places where people share a common area or service which everyone needs or uses but cannot privately own). This is also a time to witness grace–where people can rise above the fray to take care of one another, such as when we tolerate a crying child or help someone with their bags rather than accept the alienation often found there among our fellow man. If you've seen the scenes in Meet The Parents where Ben Stiller deals with the airport, you know the alienation I'm talking about.
@ Kevin, I should definitely try to have more conversations with people at the airport I think that could help things.
@ I like the perspective you offer, thinking of airports as one of those commons spaces where people meet, and can often "rise above the fray." This makes me wonder how the people trapped in the CO airports are doing right now. I hope they are not only just surviving but learning something about the strength and love deep within the human person.


i think the cormorant on the left is a Neotropic, its smaller than the double crested and has a longer tail.
Tami Jo, I was snooping and noticed you had a facebook page. Very good work, I also liked your page. You really have a passion for photography and animals. I have seen a lot of your work here, just haven't seen it to that extent. Great work.
You're good ! Nice work.
03:16 PM - Call_me_Tom quoted Tami Jo in post Re: Voting for Jan. 16 - 23 Weekly Challenge: "Round and/or Unique, Unusual Door"


In my many years on both sides of the negotiating table in the business of football, I always referred to this time of year as "me time" in the NFL. With only a five-month season, more than half of the league's calendar year is consumed with matters off the field. Once removed from the "we time" of the season, players often revert to a natural default setting of "doing what's best for me and my family" rather than doing what's best for the team. Often encouraged by a "whisper crew" of various advisors and sycophants, this is the time of year for various levels of player discontent to emerge, often financially related.
Players exhibit various degrees of "me time" from the relatively harmless skipping of voluntary team activities to higher levels of disobedience by missing mandatory minicamps or even training camp. Their goal, one that is usually unsuccessful, is to create enough of a level of angst from the team to draw a reaction. Most teams, however, simply do not engage.
One player who has been using his "me time" in an interesting way this offseason is 49ers tight end Vernon Davis. He has been visible in various roles, including this week as a guest columnist for he MMQB, while in his self-described role as "CEO" of his own brand. Davis is admirably and keenly aware of a time in the not-so-distant future "when football inevitably dumps me" and he is taking steps to prepare for that inevitability.
We are at an interesting time in self-expression, especially for professional athletes in team sports. Their individual brands may be more followed, though they may not always align with their team brands.
Davis is certainly a part of the 49ers brand—he says he "bleeds red and gold"—but that is not the brand he is promoting this offseason. He has chosen to skip the team's offseason workouts, forfeiting a $200,000 workout bonus by refusing to accept team perceptions that "voluntary" actually means "mandatory." Davis raised the stakes with the team's (truly) mandatory minicamp this week by holding out. Despite earlier comments that his actions were not necessarily about his contract, it appears his refusal to attend is about, well, his contract. And as readers of this space know, it's always about the money.
Juxtaposed against Davis's absence were Colin Kaepernick's recent comments upon signing his extension; he left money on the table so the 49ers could sign other players. Whether sincere or not, Kaepernick presented a team-first mentality (on a team friendly contract) while Davis exhibits a low rumble of NFL player civil disobedience.
In the first month of the offering, Fantex sold 421,000 shares of "Fantex Vernon Davis" at $10 per share, and recently announced its first dividend payment (70 cents per share) to be made on August 18, which, according to a Fantex press release, is "the first time Vernon Davis is anticipated to take the field in the 49ers' inaugural pre-season game at the new Levi's Stadium." Two comments about that sentence: 1) there are a lot of brands mentioned there: the 49ers, Levi's and, of course, Davis; and 2) the language that Davis "is anticipated" to play in the preseason is interesting and indicates the conversation about holding out was part of the Fantex discussions.
Many have asked for my thoughts about Fantex. Having spent nine years in Green Bay's front office, I compare the investment to buying Packer stock that, at $250 per share, has no transferrable value or potential dividend (like Fantex, the Packers provide several disclaimers). While some question, or even mock the investment, countless Packer "owners" consider it their most prized possession.
Beyond prospectuses, disclaimers and legalese, Fantex is selling emotion to "fan investors" who find it cool and fun if not cautious and prudent.
While the Fantex transaction is questionable for shareholders, it is prudent for Davis, who has received his third "bonus" in his career—two from the 49ers and one from Fantex.
After getting a lucrative rookie contract as the sixth pick in the 2006 draft in the old rookie compensation system, Davis received his "big contract" in 2010—a six-year deal worth $37 million, with $23 million guaranteed. That contract now has reached its later years, with 1) the guarantees having expired and 2) Davis now in his 30s.
Davis will likely receive another contract in his career, but it is hard to forecast continued top-tier earnings. The 49ers are as aggressive as any team in the NFL in amassing draft picks and developing a pipeline of young ascending players to take on future starting roles. It would be naïve to think that, despite his talent, the team is not preparing for Davis' eventual ouster. And although publicly supportive, the 49ers' management may be privately shaking their heads at Davis's "brand" not exactly running on a parallel track with the 49ers' brand.
Meanwhile, whether knowing this or not, Davis has made a constructive hedge against the possibility of reduced football earnings. Fantex presented a "bonus" that, while it is less than players in their prime receive on second contracts, it is still more than what most players receive on third contracts (if there even is a third one).
With a $40 million valuation on future earnings, Davis had to make that deal. There will be income opportunities for Davis outside of football, but those are speculative without quarterback-level brand recognition, even with his admirable brand building this offseason. Davis and his representatives know this, thus the hedge with Fantex.
In the NFL labor equation, the leverage always shifts to the team following the expiration of a player's short-term guarantees. It happens to even the best players, including the talented Davis, who is now taking steps to elicit a financial response from the 49ers—a response that I do not see coming.
The business of football always wins. There is no stronger brand out there.


AGMs are renowned for being boring, but ours was brief, and no-one actually went to sleep. Committee members gave the usual reports and we learned that our paid-up membership has now increased to 39 plus many visitors, mainly thanks to the Gazette, who are very good to us and include our activity reports and photographs on a regular basis. The same old faithfuls were re-elected yet again.
The AGM was followed by a talk from member Peter Gibson about some archaeological dowsing research he had recently done for the Simon de Montfort Society in Evesham. They were keen to find indications of a chapel and a spring thought to have healing properties, on the famous site of the Battle of Evesham, which took place in 1265.
There being no physical evidence remaining, dowsing was their best hope. Accompanied by Barry Goldring, Peter Golding and Rex Brice, Peter had visited the site and met with gratifying success.
The whole area had at one time belonged to the Abbey, and there is still an Abbey Farm nearby. They quickly located a well with a font not far away, and then a sacred area with an altar or shrine beside the main path.
Continuing their investigations, they found indications of a chapel but the dates were not right. This was something of a red herring, probably a pagan religious building because the altar was on the north side. They later found indications of another chapel and on asking for the dates, their dowsing reactions suggested this was the right one, particularly as there was a leyline running through it, suggestive of a religious building. There were four leylines crossing the sight, connecting it with the Abbey itself, some distance away.
On a second visit, bearing in mind that a battle would have produced a significant number of bodies, Peter searched for and found indications of a large mass grave. This was substantiated by the fact that there was no grass in that area, simply broadleaf weeds. The energy there was not good, with several negative spirals. Evesham folk confessed they did not like to go there, especially the man responsible for cutting the grass!
Further dowsing around the chapel discovered a grave before the altar. Peter wondered if it might be that of Simon de Montfort himself, but Barry's dowsing rods told him it was the remains of a child. Physical artefacts from the 13th Century were now at some 3 metres below the current ground level, so a dig would be a major undertaking.
The Simon de Montfort Society had also invested in a Geophysical company to do depth soundings and resistivity tests. When Peter showed their plotted results compared to his own, there were many consistencies and matching areas. "We look for walls and they look for rubble," said Peter. Both had obtained similar results although dowsing was more detailed - and cost nothing but a flask of coffee and a pleasant day out.


are discussed in the context of existing research.
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