As a reminder, the Colorado State Open Thread is a place for those who have heard of the state of Colorado, who may have an interest in learning more about us, or maybe have a beef with Colorado, to come and share thoughts and ideas about the state and maybe learn a little. Technically, since it’s an open thread, I have never felt bound to even confine myself to topics within the boundaries of our square(ish) state because the folks here are also curious and talking about the world(s) outside of Colorado. So pull up a chair, stool, couch, section of floor, and relax for a few minutes.
I have been considering applying for a volunteer position with Rocky Mountain National Park in the visitor centers on the eastern edge of the park. I went in, spoke with the volunteer coordinator for the visitor centers and she seemed excited for someone with visitor experience who wanted to volunteer. I must admit, I was a bit slow to fill out the applications and this is during the run-up to the busiest time of the year, so she either may be busy getting her earlier volunteers ready to go, or she may think I wasn’t serious enough in my application. To tell the truth, I have also been very busy and maybe the extra time I thought I had for volunteering may not exist.
One thing I thought was very interesting and I’ve been wanting to share with you is her email signature for her official email: Whose Native land are you on? I won’t try showing you a picture of the website, because it is very detailed and a photo wouldn’t do it justice. In fact, you need to use the zoom feature to drill down and see the myriad tribes (this covers not just the US, but the whole world, as best as the site creators have been able to put down). There are multiple views (tribes, languages and treaties) so you can spend a lengthy period of time just exploring (and trying to determine just where these boundaries are compared to modern political divisions).
I do not know if she has some Indigenous blood flowing through her veins (she isn’t blond-haired and blue-eyed), but I think the Park’s Chief of Interpretation is proud to bring his Native American heritage to the fore in the Park’s programs for the public. Unfortunately, my Google Fu wasn’t working this evening and I wasn’t able to verify his name and exact title.
On a similar note, I have been reading a lengthy article in The New Yorker magazine on the Secretary of the Interior and former Congresswoman from New Mexico, Deb Haaland. The first Indigenous person to head that huge agency that has responsibility for a large portion of the United States’ government owned and managed land, as well as the responsibility for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the other agencies that deal specifically with Native Americans, treaties, tragedies and centuries of mistreatment by the United States and other nations that preceded the US.
One of the subjects that dominated the article, and has ties to Colorado, is the Indian Boarding Schools that housed and tried to force the Native American children to leave their heritage behind them after being kidnapped by white people — usually religious-oriented — and forced to grow up “white”. I had not made the connection before, but that policy was reconstructed and reimplemented during the Trump administration when they forcefully separated children from their relatives or guardians at the southern border and then shipped them God-knows-where in the US and didn’t track them so they could eventually be reunited with family when they finally came looking for them legally. Secretary Haaland had many generations of her family subjected to this forced indoctrination. Colorado is (with Department of the Interior help) trying to finally get some closure on these boarding schools, including names and families matched to the children who died alone in a strange country. Yes, many of those schools were run by “Christians”, but there were also Quakers and Unitarians running a few of the schools.
I highly recommend the article, even though it may be uncomfortable to read.
Now, on to the other topic. The Colorado legislature has finished its session for the year, and there are still a couple hundred bills waiting to be signed or vetoed by Governor Polis. For a rundown on some of the latest signings, you can go to ColoradoPolitics.com. The governor made a long trip to sign legislation in areas that symbolized the issues the bills were designed to help solve. Sure there are many issues, but I have long been a vocal supporter of the reintroduction of wolves to the state and now Governor Polis has signed a bill to bring 45 (30 female and 15 male) wolverines to the high country of the state. They’re endangered over most of their range, and Colorado might provide a new home for them as they get pressured in their current range by climate change. One of the reasons I like it is that the mascot for my undergraduate university is the wolverine. Yes, I went to the University of Michigan before coming to Colorado State University for my graduate degree and am now a loyal ram. Wolverines might eat rams. Though the type of ram for CSU is not the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep that is the state animal. So maybe I don’t need to worry about loyalties.
www.cpr.org/… has an article about the Libertarian party in Colorado teaming with the GOP to not run spoiler candidates in US House of Representative races where a Republican has signed a pledge to honor (oh, how funny that is!) a plank of the Libertarians to shrink government, eliminate the Department of Education, significantly downsize the “three letter agencies” including FBI, CIA, NSA, presumably the DOI and other agencies that might have a problem with doing whatever they want whenever the hell they want. Oh, and the Libertarians want to prevent involvement in foreign wars.
Just how the Libertarians might agree with the Republicans seeking to prevent a woman’s right to choose her own health care, the Republican war on drugs or the Christian “Right wing” of Christ being the only religion allowed, I don’t know. They’re particularly focused on the 8th district where Democrat Yadira Caraveo won in the first election in that newly created district by less than the margin if the Republicans were able to add every Libertarian vote. Whether they would get any Libertarian votes if there’s no Libertarian candidate seems to me to be a valid question.
Anyway, Please let us know in the comments what’s going on in your corner of the state, or world, or mind. The floor is yours.