A century ago, folks with money packed up the whole family to summer resorts in cooler-weather seaside, mountain or lake locales. Women and children got a free pass at a time when even upper-class women were seen as the intellectual equals of children, while dads toiled in the city to pay the freight for those lavish resorts. Where guests were expected to change clothes four or more times a day, and families whiled summers away in outfits that didn’t allow much movement and endless rounds of stiffly formal meals.

That was the upper crust. The idea of a vacation with pay was pretty unheard of for most of the rest that took in the servants, domestics and nannies who liberated upper-class women from the drudgery of running a household or even raising their children — all long before preschools, yoga, Pilates and self-actualization seminars.

Things changed right after World War II, which — as many historians and even pop-sociologist Tom Wolfe pointed out — pumped more money into every level of American society than ever before. Suddenly, a single-family house — accessible by Ford or Chevy — was within the reach of more Americans than ever with a $9,000 new home in Levittown possible with no money down under the GI Bill. Vacations? No problem. By the 1960s, post-war vacation aspirations shifted from the Catskill Mountains for New York City-dwellers or the lake in Wisconsin for Midwesterners to glitzier locales like Miami, Hawaii and the Caribbean. Even Europe was now possible.

Sadly, for lots of folks this brave new world of possibilities somehow got diluted to the twin touchstones of disappointment: Vegas and Disneyland, where the total tally can allow a family of four to blow 1,000 bucks a day without breaking a sweat. Blame marketing and imagination-atrophy.

But living in Colorado means you don’t have to buy into those overpriced illusions. In Colorado and the surrounding West, you don’t need the fake because you have the real within easy access. In lieu of casinos buzzing with bells, whistles and neon lights or long Disney lines, you have outdoors — and wilderness: a couple of entities that Europeans have to travel thousands of miles to get to. Here, it’s almost in our backyard.

Aside from the Alps and Norwegian fjords, there’s nothing in Europe comparable to our Grand Canyon in Arizona and Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park or Great Sand Dunes. Not to mention Utah’s Canyonlands and Arches, Zion and Bryce Canyon, also in Utah, California’s Yosemite Valley and redwood trees … the wave-crashing California and Oregon coasts … Montana’s jagged peaks and serene-lake Glacier park north of Yellowstone, with its geysers and hot springs in Wyoming.

Not for nothing is the Bright Angel trail leading down the Grand Canyon to the churning Colorado River filled with young German hikers and called “the Autobahn” because you hear mainly German spoken down and up the trail. Germans and other Europeans also fill Utah’s Canyonlands, with an apparent greater appreciation for the American West than many Americans.

For many of these natural-wonder locales, you don’t even have to fly and endure airline arrogance and TSA security. I prefer driving to Arizona in lieu of flying to catch — depending on my route — canyon and red sandstone vistas, arches or ancient Indian ruins now called “ancestral Pueblo.” Locales like Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) and the Hovenweep ruins (Colorado-Utah border) are spiritual places. And you don’t have to be a Boulder New Ager to sense that spirit.

Notwithstanding what hucksters pimping $500-per-night luxury hotels would have you believe, none of the above needs to cost a bundle. Nor do you need an outfit out of an L.L.Bean catalog. Budget motels abound, and your outfit doesn’t need to impress anyone but you. What you do need is some imagination. The key is to cut out the extraneous bullshit and — as Henry David Thoreau suggested — SIMPLIFY!

Thoreau, after spending two years in a cabin he built by Walden Pond outside Boston, called upon Americans to simplify and to learn how to live from the wilderness in his classic “Walden,” first published in 1849. Thoreau was seriously out of step with an America fast being transformed by the Industrial Revolution. When the notion of embracing and saving wilderness areas seemed absurd. A century and a half before greed-fueled oil spills, Americans mainly saw forests fit only to be cut down and wildlife only to be slaughtered, all for short-term economic benefit in the East. In the West, the post-Civil War burden of expansion fell heaviest on buffalo herds and Native American peoples.

Scottish-born naturalist John Muir also called for learning from the wilderness after Thoreau died of tuberculosis at age 45. At first, few listened to either man. But in 1872 Yellowstone National Park launched the National Park system. Yosemite Park got a top-level boost after U.S. president and wilderness advocate Teddy Roosevelt — an aberrant Republican — camped with Muir in California. In the East, the Adirondacks wilderness preserve set aside nearly a million upstate New York acres in 1885. Despite strong opposition that continues today, the idea of wilderness areas having value apart from private profit was beginning to take hold.

Today, our semi-wilderness parks — national and otherwise — are all out there and within fairly easy reach, even as mounting summer visits and traffic have threatened some with being “loved to death.” But there’s still time. Ours is a grand and magnificent country with natural wonders light years beyond the fakes of Disneyland and Vegas. So savor it while you still can. Summer doesn’t last. And neither do we.

First and foremost, it is important to express that neither The Metropolitan nor I, the editor-in-chief of the publication and author of the article in question, have a bias toward the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer community. In fact, I attend the Metropolitan Community Church of the Rockies, which is mentioned in my article and discussed in the letter, and am a lesbian.

Furthermore, the article is about the protest itself, and both sides are represented: the protesters from the Denver Bible Church and the counter protesters; I went to the protest and spoke to multiple people from both sides. Because some of the views at the protest were extreme I intentionally wrote the article with many quotes so that the people in the story were allowed to tell the story of the event themselves.

The reality of the article is the opinion of two people from an anti-gay church with no scholarly credentials and the opinion of a person wearing shiny mirrors as a distraction from the protesters.

Where is the other side of the story?

A brief mention is made of Metropolitan Community Church of the Rockies, but it is not mentioned that their pastor Jim Burns was the Grand Marshal of the parade, or that Jim Burns has a Doctorate in Theology from the Iliff School of Theology at Denver University (making him Reverend Burns, although he never identifies himself as that) or that he completed seminary at Yale University, or that his extensive studies have revealed teachings in the Bible advocating acceptance for gays and lesbians rather than damnation.

Instead we are given an under-informed opinion of someone who may not have even studied the Bible in an academic setting and is likely regurgitating hatred spewed from the pulpit in a manner that is not in line with the teaching of Christ.

This article is either a sign of incompetence in reporting punctuated by languorous research or it is the expression of a deeply seeded bias against gays and lesbians. Neither has room in a newspaper publication representative of the school that I and many other gays and lesbians attend. A fair portrayal of the issue must be made to right this wrong.

— Will Welch

Check out Editor-in-Chief Ashley Moreland’s response to this letter, “The Metropolitan does not hold anti-gay sentiment”

WTF? JUNE already? That means some of you have already graduated. And I missed it while watching reality TV or some other exercise in idiocy. It also means you’re even less likely to be reading this then while going through the motions of being a student.

Passing through the portals of commencement to what’s supposed to follow, you may or may not have heard the soaring speeches and ringing phrases that used to be the staples of commencement oratory — assuming they STILL do that. I wouldn’t know. In a worst-case scenario, you may have been assured of a limitless future — a future that, of course, is in your hands as the guardians of all the hopes for that touted future.

Maybe the hype has been toned down in recent years as a casualty of diminished expectation, not to mention an anemic job market looming like a miasmic buzzkill. But if you were told — with a straight face — by some commencement dignitary that the sky is still the limit, take it with a few grains of salt. And while we’re at it, why not toss out a few more nuggets, or golden apples, of unsolicited and questionable advice from one who long ago realized there’s no automatic correlation between age and wisdom.

1. You can’t possibly screw things up any worse than predecessor generations have managed — whether in politics, finance, business, government, far away and local, or any other domain. So relax and enjoy the ride for a while. You’ve earned it, and trying to make the world a better place overnight can be bad for digestion.

2. The days of buyers’ job markets — when you could pick and choose among eager suitors based on who offered the most perks — are gone. And, to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen in “My Home Town,” they’re not likely to come back. This should hardly come as news.

3. This may come as a bit of a shock, but nobody OWES you a damn thing. Not even your folks, who may have been picking up your tabs — and your laundry — for years.

4. When checking out possible jobs — especially those that won’t get your hands dirty — check your sense of entitlement, if any remains, at the door. In today’s market, a sense of entitlement, however scaled down, isn’t going to fly far. Leave it for the guys and girls already driving BMWs they can’t afford.

5. Ask not what the job-offer person can do you for, but what you can do for them. And it had better be plenty. Hiring cynicism has spawned a “20-20-20” jibe. Which translates to “hire 20 year-olds, work them 20 hours a day and pay them $20 a week.” What a side-splitter! I’m still rolling on the floor.

6. When you get as far as an actual job interview, guys ought to avoid the rumpled jeans/torn T-shirt/backwards hat look seen at Coors Field and most other venues today. Most interview rooms stopped selling hot dogs and beer a while back. Similarly, women would do well to eschew the maximum-cleavage hooker-looks that are also all the rage just about everywhere you look. Those who spurn this advice can always hook up, dressed accordingly, on any weekend night in LoDo — where, outside the Blake Street bars, they’ll find — and deserve — each other.

7. The odds of landing an immediate vice president spot — even vice president of office intrigues — are slim to none. Most firms already have too many vice presidents. And those who’ve survived the last few rounds of cuts are looking over their shoulders, when not knifing colleagues via e-mails or texts. With a big smile, of course.

8. For those still contemplating careers in what used to be called media, keep the following in mind: For TV news — that some say is a contradiction in terms — appearance always trumps substance. So have great-looking hair. For print, or what’s left of it, present yourself as bland and boring as possible, because that’s how you’ll score points. If you’ve read anything, keep it to yourself. Lots of editors aren’t overly fond of folks they suspect might know more than they do — which isn’t difficult. And once you’re on an editor’s shit list, it’s hard to get off.

Since you don’t want to scare people who tend to be insecure and are frightened by fresh air, think of a metal-detector-like device you have to pass through. It screens out anyone with their own opinions or possessed with independent thinking or not in need of a personality implant. Same goes for a sense of humor. In short, ask yourself before the interview “Am I boring enough to be hired here?”

Ten points of wisdom might make for a nice, round number, but ours is an age of lesser expectations. So eight will have to do. And there you have it — capsuled non-wisdom that nobody asked for in the first place. You may think me hopelessly out of touch with the world you’re about to enter, but I’ve been there — long and not-so-long ago. So I know what part of your pain feels like. Remember also that the sleazebags you’ll unavoidably have to deal with have been around, in different guises, for centuries. Today, they simply use different tools. And the decent people — there are more of them than you may suspect — also remain abidingly decent. Find them.

Good luck. But, at a time when it may take more than luck, you might consider staying in school — programs and opportunities abound — in lieu of the so-called “real world.” The real world can be a bitch. It’s also vastly overrated, much like the notion of “growing up.” Some of us have tried to avoid the latter. You can, too. At least for a while.

When the half-dozen or so of you last looked at this space, we talked about my 50th high school class reunion — a topic that no doubt commands widespread interest. What follows is the second half, for those who may still be awake.

During the 36 years I’ve lived in Denver, I’ve been “home” to Brooklyn and New York City in general dozens of times and to Brooklyn Tech, my high school, on maybe half dozen occasions. Like the Grand Canyon in different light at different hours, it’s always different. I’ve also seen the city evolve though ups and downs — it’s been on an upswing since the early 1990s. But little remains unchanged from the memories of youth — seeming centuries ago when Eisenhower was in the White House, the subway cost 15 cents and the Dodgers still played at Ebbets Field in Flatbush.

The Dodgers and Giants were gone to L.A. and San Francisco at the end of the 1957 season when I was a sophomore at “TECH.” Ebbets Field was demolished my senior year. Entire neighborhoods are now home to ethnic groups different from the Jews, Italians, Irish and Scandinavians who were Brooklyn’s backbone during my high school years.

In one of the neighborhoods I lived in, Bay Ridge — immortalized-in-reverse in the 1978 John Travolta movie “Saturday Night Fever” — Chinese have largely replaced Scandinavians, Irish and Italians. The neighborhood looked improved when I saw it in late April.

Amid all that change, TECH has remained and still rises with 1932 art deco lines eight stories over an entire city block and opposite Fort Green Park. When I went to TECH, the Fort Green area was a Puerto Rican slum. Today, gentrification has made it the domain of well-paid professionals who prefer its leafy streets and ornate sandstone town houses to Manhattan.

The morning of April 23 allowed me to stroll TECH’s long corridors and center lobby with its murals painted in 1939 by WPA artists (working under Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration). Morning ceremonies gave way to lunch at Junior’s restaurant, four blocks from TECH and famous for its cheesecake. But I go there for the pastrami. After lunch, about 20 of us hung out at the corner of DeKalb and Flatbush Avenues, just as we had on neighborhood corners when nobody had cell phones. Across Flatbush Avenue, in what is now Long Island University, once stood the old, ornate-interior Brooklyn Paramount Theater. There, in the spring of 1958 I caught Alan Freed’s live rock ‘n’ roll show with more than a dozen performers, including Jerry Lee Lewis and “Tom and Jerry,” before they became Simon and Garfunkel — all for the princely price of $3. The afternoon was sunny and bright. So I walked from Junior’s down Fulton Street — once Brooklyn’s classiest shopping venue — past Brooklyn Boro Hall, in front of whose Greek columns and stairs I attended a “Keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn” rally in April, 1957, during my freshman year at TECH. By the following October, the Dodgers were gone to California, taking the Giants with them. Past Boro Hall, I strolled the brownstone streets of Brooklyn Heights and its pre-Civil War townhouses that were New York City’s first suburb, decades before the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883. Early in my marriage, we lived there from 1966 to early 68, when the top rent for a brownstone apartment was $125 a month when I was making about $8,000 a year. Today, rent for comparable spaces run at least $2,500 a month.

April 24 at TECH started with schmoozing in the main gym — that seemed to have grown smaller over the years, just as the auditorium seats seemed to have shrunk. Seventy-five guys from my class showed up, some from California, Hawaii and France. I ran into a gentleman who was my assistant editor on the school paper, the TECH Survey. Bob Robins is still an aerospace engineer in Seattle.

Our reunion packets held gold sashes identifying our class as the “golden anniversary” year. We marched into the 3,000-seat auditorium while the organ pealed “Pomp and Circumstances.” I’ve always found that march poignantly bittersweet and was in tears. I expect to always keep that 2010 “Pomp and Circumstance” moment in what Pete Hamill (recalling the Brooklyn Dodgers) called “the treasure house of memory.”

Lunch with classmates in the sprawling 8th-floor cafeteria brought back more memories, not all of them good. For me, afternoon tours of the latest technology labs and shops, where everything is computer-directed, held less interest than talking with old grads.

Lots of us didn’t want the reunion to end that afternoon. It didn’t. Saturday night offered a reception for 1960 alums at the carefully restored (a 20-year job) Park Slope townhouse of Jerry Krase, now a professor of urban sociology at Brooklyn College. Krase used to kick extra points for the TECH football team when kicks were straight-on and not soccer-style. In the Krase’s built-in-1900 home with stained glass and wood craftsmanship long extinct, the smaller-scaled gathering was a perfect coda for a reunion that, for me, had exceeded all expectations at a time when few things do.

There was still a Picasso show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a Cartier-Bresson photo exhibit at the Modern on a rainy Sunday in Manhattan, followed by a drive down to Chesapeake Bay to crack some steamed crabs by the water and an Orioles game at the architectural gem Camden Yards ballpark in Baltimore (the O’s beat the Yankees). Then there was the more memorable architecture (Victorian) at Cape May, New Jersey, and at Princeton University (Gothic), before driving back to New York and LaGuardia Airport. After the TECH reunion, some of it seemed slightly anticlimactic.

So maybe you can try to go home again, notwithstanding Thomas Wolfe, who said you can’t. Just don’t expect anything to be the way you think you remembered it. As San Francisco The Examiner columnist Herb Caen once wrote: “Nostalgia is a nice place to have lived. But you wouldn’t want to visit.”

For the half-dozen or so student readers of this space, “back in the day” may mean 2005 at most. And if any are catching high school class reunions, a fifth-year get-together might be a stretch.

My “back in the day” takes in a longer time span and runs, among other things, to videos that used to air on the MTV channel. When they didn’t feature bad-ass dudes talking trash and surrounded by slutty women called bitches and “ho”s in raps launched with catchy lines like “…hey muthuhfuckah…lissen up…”

One of those MTV videos, nearly 20 years ago, was the backdrop for Billy Joel’s “For the Longest Time” tune. It has a group of middle-aged men re-visiting their high school. They go into the BOYS bathroom for a smoke and come out high-school young again. Near the tune’s end, they return to the BOYS room and re-emerge; middle-aged again. I found that video touching – perhaps because, 20 years ago, I was already middle-aged.

That video ricocheted around my head when I went to New York two weeks ago to attend my high school class’ 50th reunion. That’s right: 50th, and I’m still alive. The notion of a 50th reunion was mind-boggling. It made me think of baseball’s All-Star game, two years ago at Yankee Stadium. When a number of baseball Hall of Famers -guys I’d seen as players back in the 1950s –were introduced before the game. And I wondered how these players, that I’d seen performing in their prime when I was in high school, could have gotten so OLD. Worse, where did that leave ME?

It was with these musings that I arrived at LaGuardia Airport and grabbed a cab to the Marriott in downtown Brooklyn; walking distance from Brooklyn Technical High School, where I was one of 1,075 graduates in the class of June, 1960. The size of our graduating class alone should suggest that “TECH,” as it’s still called, isn’t your typical high school. It never was. As one of New York City’s four “elite” public high schools – Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Performing Arts are the others – TECH’s focus always was engineering while serving the latest generation of children-of-recent immigrants. As with the other three specialty schools, you took an exam to get in – roughly one in ten applicants succeeded – and staying in wasn’t automatic. You could easily flunk out and be banished to your neighborhood high school. Four years of math and four of science were mandatory, along with English, Social Studies and a boatload of technical courses that ran the gamut from the drawing and blueprint stage to finished machine-part product. TECH produced engineers – a field I didn’t go into after finding I wasn’t exactly stellar in math. Neither did lots of other graduates.

The school had 6,000 boys back then – TECH didn’t become co-ed until the mid-1970s – mostly Jewish and Italian with some Irish for atmosphere. Today, the student body of 4,500 is nearly 60 percent Asian, along with black, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Indian sub-continent students with some Anglos for atmosphere. Although everything from drawing to machine shops to labs have all become computerized, the curriculum is tough as ever.

For me, the fall of 1957 – the start of sophomore year at TECH, and I’d just turned 15 – added up to a perfect storm; grade-wise. With no math or physics that semester to pull my average down and over-my-head grades in World History and English, I ranked fifth among sophomores in overall average. But that fall also brought the trauma of the Dodgers and Giants departing for California. To this day, there are still men of my age all over America for whom that betrayal was the biggest trauma of adolescence; and forget broken romances and lost loves. I still see them at Dodgers’ spring training games in Arizona – wearing Brooklyn Dodgers jackets and baseball caps. For them and for me, the Dodgers – more than five decades later – remain a lost love.

That fall, for Mr. Freeman’s sophomore English class, I cranked out “extra-credit” essays on the Dodgers’ departure. One day, he told me “some of the garbage you’ve been giving me is better than some of the garbage I read in the sports pages. So why don’t you try the school paper.” I took his advice and joined the TECH “Survey” staff that spring; starting on sports with early stories on golf and tennis, that I knew next to nothing about.

The grade-euphoria didn’t last. In the spring, I embarked on a chemical engineering course of study with 15 periods per week of qualitative analysis and organic chemistry. My study habits hadn’t quite jelled – truth be known, they never did – and I failed both; big time. Failed trigonometry, too, for good measure, and my overall average went into the toilet. Switching to a College Prep course didn’t excuse having to repeat Trig. As things worked out, I had to finally pass both Solid Geometry and Advanced Algebra in my final semester at TECH. Otherwise, I might still be there.

Engineering obviously wasn’t for me. But becoming an editor of the TECH “Survey” led me to the summer journalism program offered for high school students, at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism near Chicago. There, I saw a larger world outside the neighborhood, won two writing awards despite not being able to type and gained some direction for what I might do in life.

Despite the warnings of some math teachers that I didn’t really belong at TECH, I stayed and graduated. But I didn’t stay in engineering, and what followed was a nice ride; though hardly history. Two weeks ago, I saw some of the other survivors. We didn’t go into the BOYS room and come out aged 17, but it was great to see them after 50 years.

Hello reader. If we haven’t already acquainted ourselves, I’m the digital age of information. I stream, tweet and tag. I give you the quick and dirty, the obsessive-compulsive and follow-this-link news that gives you more information than you needed – assuming your brain can filter through the pop-up and flashing banner advertisements. I’m here to provide for you the neurotic need of checking three news organizations’ websites before you’re satisfied with the end result, and best of all, I’m free.

In 2007, a group of political editors and journalists working for The Washington Post saw this digital-age persona as a friend. While some writers procrastinated their future requirement of creating video or posting additional content in a blog, the journalists who grabbed the new media and slugged it over their shoulders are now working for the web’s most entertaining political website: Politico.

What’s even more surprising to our morbid opinion on the downfall of print journalism is that this news organization is making money – and I bet that’s making some of the still-employed journalists shift uncomfortably in their seat.

Politico likes to call themselves a web-based news organization that just happens to own a paper. On a recent trip to Washington D.C., I saw most of those papers gone by mid-afternoon; you were lucky to get one at all. Their system’s not perfect (i.e. pushing the Obama administration’s goals to the forefront, inexperienced yahoos running around with cameras), but they’ve mastered the one question print newspapers are struggling to answer: What do you want to read?

What do you want, you spoiled brats of constant-update, breaking-news junkies? How do I make you pay attention to the important stuff you need to know? Editors and publishers are sweating at their neck collars trying to figure it out.

As one of those zombie, need-news-now consumers, I would venture to answer your question with a simple request: stop fighting your readers.

Print journalism cannot compete because it has lost its goals. The few who are still surviving serve a special need, whether it’s a hyper-local daily paper in a small town or an alternative weekly the hipsters turn to for band interviews. But how can you expect to be a daily statewide paper trying to serve the same goal when you’ve chopped up your newsroom and continue to play a pity card how your profession is dying? It’s sink or swim, boys, and if you’re not at least making a splash in the water, how do you expect to overcome the waves?

I’ve talked to too-many jaded reporters who see the internet as the apocalypse of news, and what’s even more ironic, is the man who is destroying unbiased information is the one trying to sustain print journalism. Engrossed in swallowing the New York Times and pushing right-wing pundits to celebrity status, Rupert Murdoch has launched the city edition in the Wall Street Journal for New York.

If you’re feeling unemployable lately, come and hang out with the new journalists joining the jungle with some valuable tools.

Oh, and have you met my new friend, multimedia?

While the semester is drawing to a close at Metro, I still have class until the end of June since New Zealand is entering winter now and like the rest of the world, they get summers off.

When I came down here, I’d had hopes of writing a column for The Met as a foreign correspondent; this hasn’t worked out as I’d planned. While there is plenty of news going on in New Zealand, I’m not sure much of it would be of much interest to anyone outside of New Zealand.

So, for this final article for The Met, I am going to put together a few of my observations, a few of the things I’d have liked to write about, but just wasn’t sure how they would have fit in to the Metro’s news pages.

Health care: It is frequently said New Zealand is a working example of socialist health care. This isn’t exactly true. It is true the government does fund the hospitals and you can go to the hospital on the tax payer’s dollar for whatever your illness, but if you are a doctor in a private practice you don’t receive money from government or insurance companies, your transactions are between doctor and patient, end of story.

Also on health care, the public health care was suffering from too many patients and not enough health care so they allowed private hospitals to take care of the problem. The private hospitals accept insurance, and compete with the public health care and flourish. They have little regulation and the insurance companies have even less so they can compete unhindered. From what I’ve seen, while the system does need occasional adjustment, it serves the people of New Zealand well.

New Zealand does have the distinct advantage of having 296 million fewer people than the U.S. which is bound to make running their health care system easier, but similar changes could be made in the States. Removing regulation from insurance companies and removing insurance companies from the majority of health care transactions would be a good first step. A safety net (socialized medicine) for those who fall through the cracks could still be implemented as long as you can buy better health care if you choose to.

New Zealand has a reputation for being green, and it tends to live up to the reputation. New Zealand has had a dispute since the 1980s with the U.S. over allowing war ships to port in their harbour. New Zealand won’t allow nuclear war ships, the U.S. refuses to make it public which war ships are nuclear (though it is public knowledge). Currently, the Obama administration is reviewing this policy and will likely lift the policy, thus allowing U.S. ships back into the ports of New Zealand so long as they are not nuclear, and it is overdue.

New Zealand has supported the U.S. in Afghanistan; they have not supported the U.S. in Iraq. Their special forces (SAS) are serving in Afghanistan and have done an outstanding job according to U.S. general Stanley McChrystal who has recently requested the SAS extend their stay in Afghanistan. It is quite likely they will extend their stay.

New Zealand has a parliamentary government, their current prime minister is John Key. Their conservative party is currently in power, though one thing I have learned is this doesn’t have much meaning in the context of American politics, in many ways New Zealand’s conservatives are more liberal than the U.S. liberals, and in many ways New Zealand’s liberals are more conservative than U.S. conservatives. Politics here are simply different than they are in the States.

On a tangent, New Zealand was the first nation to give women the right to vote and the woman who worked very hard to give women the right to vote is on the $10 note. New Zealand is also the first and so far only country to have women hold every major office simultaneously.

I’ve often heard the water flows backward down here… I still haven’t bothered to look…

New Zealand is friendly and welcoming to Americans, if you have the chance I’d recommend a visit. While I am on my way back to Colorado at the end of July, my stay in America will be the limited one; I will be on my way back to New Zealand as soon as I am able.

For those not in the know:

On April 19, Gawker Media-owned tech blog Gizmodo published startling photos and commentary of a purported ‘iPhone 4G’ prototype they’d obtained.

Apple is rumored to have been working on the latest update to their iPhone line, but to actually see one dissected prior to launch was unheard of.

Gizmodo initially had no way of verifying whether the device was a genuine iPhone prototype or not, but editors suggested efforts had been made to conceal the phone’s new features, because it was apparently encased in a plastic shell made to resemble an older model iPhone.

Now, Gizmodo claims they’d obtained the phone complete with a back-story. Their source described finding it in a bar, fiddling with it and even attempting to contact Apple to return it. Due to Apple’s famously secret operating policies, however, service representatives the source spoke with didn’t believe him, he said. Then he sold the device to Gizmodo for $5,000.

Editors claim the phone was disabled remotely by the time they received it, but they dissected it anyway. Eventually, Apple laid claim to the phone prototype and it was returned.

Fast forward to April 23. A search warrant was served on Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s house while he was out to dinner. Police officers seized several computers and a server, among other tech paraphernalia.

Chen’s Gawker-provided legal counsel is claiming the search was invalid because the blogger is covered under California’s state shield law, a law designed to protect journalists from being forced to reveal sources or unpublished news materials.

So at this point, several burning questions arise: Should Chen be considered a journalist and therefore fall under shield law protections? And what effect will this determination have on journalism as an industry?

Let’s just assume for a moment that Chen is a journalist, a journalist who paid $5,000 for a scoop. Even sleazy journalists are still journalists (see: National Enquirer qualifying to be considered for Pulitzer Prizes).

Under O’Grady v. Superior Court (2006), Chen could be classified as a journalist. The ruling stated: “It seems likely that the legislature intended the phrase ‘periodical publication’ to include all ongoing, recurring news publications while excluding non-recurring publications such as books, pamphlets, flyers and monographs. We decline the implicit invitation to embroil ourselves in questions of what constitutes ‘legitimate journalis[m].’ The Shield Law is intended to protect the gathering and dissemination of news, and that is what [O’Grady] did here.”

Ironically, O’Grady also concerned Apple suing a blogger to reveal a source.

If O’Grady were to be applied to Chen’s case, and the state of California can’t prove the Gizmodo editor knew the phone was stolen rather than abandoned, then he would certainly be covered by the shield law and thusly be protected from civil action by Apple.

The wider implications will fall on the journalism industry as a whole. Ethical guidelines would seem to guard against paying for a scoop, no matter how juicy it might be. But that’s the problem with all of this new media saturating the news cycle. These institutions are not traditionally bound by the same standards journalists are.

I’m not saying news coming out of new media is lacking in substance or content, but I am saying they’re beginning to walk a thin line. If bloggers want to be afforded the same protection as journalists, I would suggest they’d need to agree to be bound by the same rules.

Journalism is about seeking and reporting truth for the public good, but not at the expense of long-held values in gathering that truth.

Along this vein, I think it’s time journalism was qualified as a profession. Any contributor would be welcome, granted they agree to follow a set of ethical rules set out by a national organization such as the Society of Professional Journalists.

I’m sad to report however, ideas of journalistic ethics only seem to see the light of day when somebody doesn’t follow them.

So as the line between opinion and the truth continues to blur, I think it is time for the journalism industry to pull itself up by its proverbial bootstraps and get organized. It’s the only way the truth will prevail.

Currently, the top 1 percent of income earners pay 40 percent of income taxes collected. The top 1 percent of income earners make 22 percent of the wealth in the nation, so the percentage they pay is twice the percentage of what they make.

The top 10 percent of income earners pay 70 percent of income taxes collected. Sure, if you are in the top 10 percent you should be paying more in taxes shouldn’t you? They are rich after all.

However, the cut off for people in the top 10 percent is people making more than $113,000 a year. A person or family making $113,000 a year is not exactly rich. The bottom 50 percent of income earners pay 3 percent of income taxes collected. So yes, the rich don’t pay their fair share, they pay much more than their fair share.

If that doesn’t convince you that a lower tax rate is a good thing, perhaps this will. Prior to the 1981 Reagan tax rate cut, the highest tax rate was 70 percent. After the Reagan tax rate cut the highest tax rate was 28 percent. It has since risen to 35 percent.

In 1981, when the highest tax rate was 70 percent, the top 1 percent paid 17 percent of all income tax revenue collected. In 2008, with a tax rate of 35 percent, the top 1 percent paid 40 percent of all income revenue collected.

In other words, with a lower tax rate, the wealthy pay a higher percentage of tax revenue collected than with a higher tax rate.

This may seem counter intuitive, but when you understand, more money in the private economy increases the overall wealth in the economy, it makes sense that tax revenue will go up as tax rates go down to an extent.

If you still are not convinced, here is one more attempt. According to the Department of Commerce from the Census Bureau, in 1972, 32 percent of the population made less than $35,000 (all numbers adjusted for 2008 numbers), 59 percent of the population made between 35 thousand and $100,000, and 9 percent of the population made more than $100,000.

In 2008 the number of people making less than $35,000 a year fell to 27 percent of the population. People making between $35,000 and $100,000 fell to 47 percent. This means the group of people making more than $100,000 a year has grown to 26 percent of the population. Over a quarter of the people in the U.S. make more than $100,000 a year!

Not only is the idea that the rich don’t pay their fair share wrong, those who feel they should be made to pay more will only succeed in making them pay less by raising taxes rates. It is called a conservative issue, but anyone who understands the math will see you can only raise the level of taxes collected so much. But don’t let logic get in the way of your truth.

We were recently and rudely reminded that we could certainly use such a group when a critical technological crutch we’d become completely dependent on was suddenly kicked away; forcing us — screaming and kicking in withdrawl — to go cold turkey. When campus e-mail and MetroConnect services went down on April 9, the disconnect was like an Old Testament plague. Complete with Biblical weeping and gnashing of teeth. Worse, the modern day plague lasted lots longer than anyone had feared.

Classes couldn’t meet, wily students were able to duck exams they were unprepared for anyway and withdrawl sweats approached those that greeted the Y2K fear that gripped the Millenium’s arrival a decade ago. Then, the computers that run everything were supposed to fail worldwide to throw humankind into chaos.

It never happened. But fears — fanned by the very technology that was supposed to shut down — were a modern-day version of the dominant fears when the previous millennium rolled around. They included a dire comet seen in the skies and the Ottoman Turks menacing Christiandom from the East. All of which demonstrated how far we’d come, panic-wise, on the wings of technology in a thousand years.

Technology! Wonderful when it works. When it doesn’t, we’re collectively screwed, or up a proverbial creek without even a methadone paddle.

Whether in or out of control, technology has long held an honored place deep in the soul of our secret fears. Sometimes, those subterranean fears bubble up like magma to appear in literature. In many of his books, novelist William Burroughs wrote about a netherworld of drug addicts and third-world depravity against a backdrop of technology run amok.

Sometimes, the landscape came with giant centipedes and other fearsome creatures. Burroughs’ bleak visions were often aided by the stock character of Dr. Benway; in locales as close to home as Boulder.

Although he came from a prominent St. Louis family — Burroughs’ grandfather invented the adding machine — Burroughs might have had little to say to the scion of another patrician family, Henry Adams, had their lives ever intersected. A century apart, they didn’t. But Adams also shared a distrust of technology and — like other Victorians looking at an 1890s fin de siècle world — welcomed and feared its coming.

Adams was the most brilliant in an American family that had already produced two U.S. presidents. But when his turn came, the political center of gravity had shifted from New England to the Heartland. And rail-splitter Abraham Lincoln and Civil War hero Ulysses Grant seized center stage.

Years later, after seeing an electricity-generating dynamo at the Chicago World’s Fair Exposition of 1893, Adams saw in the dynamo the demise of his era and his class, thrown onto the “ash-heap” of history, as he wrote in his 1907 “Education of Henry Adams.” In that same book, his chapter on “the Dynamo and the Virgin” (Mary) shows early feminist sympathies; six decades ahead of his time.

The Virgin — as the ageless opposite of technology — runs heavily through Adams’ earlier writing on the medieval world and its French stained-glass cathedrals in his 1904 “Mont Saint Michel and Chartres.” I thought of Adams when I finally made it to Mont Saint Michel, off the French coast of Brittany, that had eluded me for years on previous trips to France.

It was 1999, shortly before the turn of the millennium, and visiting that thousand-year-old abbey seemed right. There, in jeans and a sweater among soaring spires and stained glass windows of saints and sages, I scribbled in a journal and tried to play Adams. But Henry, a 19th century Boston gentleman wearing wing collars and wool suits, had lots more time, and money, there than I did. Still, I felt for the man; a monumental misfit. He died in 1918, at age 80.

British author and futurist H.G. Wells — best known for his 1895 “The Time Machine” that was the basis of a recent awful Hollywood version — also welcomed technology while warning of its perils. A prophetic seer of the future, Wells wrote more than simple science fiction. Among other foresights, he had laser beams in his 1898 “War of the Worlds,” predicted the First World War 20 years before the fact in his “A Dream of Armageddon” and foresaw multi-lane highways, in the 1890s, in “Parkways to Utopia.”

Still, Wells was wary and advised caution when harnessing the coming cornucopia. Neither did he buy to the Darwinist doctrine of his time that human progress was inevitable. The horrors of the First World War, whose advanced technology of tanks, mustard gas, machine guns and biplanes led to enormous casualties for miniscule gains, proved Wells correct.

Neither Burroughs, Adams or Wells have danced with the stars or appeared on “Who Wants to Be the Biggest Jerk?” to make them less than relevant in our time. But what they have to do with a technology outage that triggered outrage at Metro is maybe this: Technology can deliver unheard-of benefits, so use it. But resist the unsuspecting embrace. Maybe all those dazzling apps that do everything but flush you’re toilet aren’t the unalloyed blessing TV touts them to be. Let the buyer beware.

I called tech support that night after class and after 30 minutes of describing my issue, tech support concluded that my system needed an upgrade to read the “new and improved” MetroConnect!

Turns out I have Internet Explorer 6.0 and you need 7.0 or higher to read the new system. After upgrading my system to 7.0, I now can access my files. Because of Metro’s new Web demands, however, I can no longer access my files through MetroConnect at work or at Englewood Library, both must have older Web browsers.

Any older student or new student with a PC 3-years-old or older will need to upgrade their Web browser to Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher, or use Mozilla Firefox.

Here is my main issue.

It’s a “can of worms” doing a system upgrade in the middle of the semester. It’s a “bucket of snakes” by mandating that the end users, students, need potential upgrades to use the new system. But it’s a Dad-Gum [sic] “DUMPSTER OF ALLIGATORS” by not effectively knowing or communicating to the end users that they may need a potential browser upgrade to use the new and improved system! The IT Department confused thinking the customer was Metro and not Metro students

I understand how mistakes can happen, but the degree of the mistakes vary. There is forgetting to shut the oven off.

Having the system crashed for several weeks and a lack of customer focus is like leaving the oven on. It can’t happen. Well, note to the IT department, ”you left the oven on and the school is catching fire!”

Here is a tiny project management tip. Next time, start with the end user and work backward.

Mike Silli, Metro Accounting Student

“It is good for one thing, though.”

Pausing with my own cigarette, I looked up. This was a few years ago, weeks before the Democratic convention. The idea of journalism had a different paint job on it then, and college wasn’t simply an elusion giving way to an illusion for me yet. It was an answer; I thought it a good one.

Intrigued, I listened.

Now it’s now, and in a month I’ll graduate. And I’m scared shitless. No real plan. No real job. And I’m not even sure I want to pursue what I studied.

“College’ll teach you how much you can bite off and still chew,” he said.

I was interning at a small-town paper up north, and he, Russell, was the veteran reporter, and he looked the part. Gentle, a touch jaded, crow’s feet cupping blue eyes (the result of either smoking or thinking too much).

It would be some time later when I would get an e-mail from a friend informing me Russ had died alone in a car accident on a highway outside of town. Sometimes we keep people in moments, and for me, this is his: this talk, this summer, the taste of cigarettes.

“I don’t remember much of anything from it, but it did teach me how to put my time together. Organization. Understand?”

With a lie and a nod, I told him I did. He stamped his cigarette out and walked away.

Now it’s now, and in a month I’ll graduate. And I’m scared shitless. No real plan. No real job. And I’m not even sure I want to pursue what I studied.

They say before an earthquake, tsunami or whatever natural disaster hits, animals make for the hills. An instinct to avoid peril.

In recessions, I’ve learned, people turn tail for academia. All ages, all races, huddled together to weather the storm.

But I’m going out there to press my luck, and it has me thinking about that conversation years ago. I’m wondering what I will take away from Metro in addition to a piece of paper and a debt load that could cover a low-end Maserati.

Years from now I may forget the Spanish I’ve spent years learning, lord knows I’ve already forgotten the French. Math will assuredly be an afterthought, and Radiolab on NPR will be more helpful with any science questions than any lesson.

In the end old Russ was right. College takes that burning edge and focuses it a little, forcing you to stay up writing papers until dawn. It robs you of every minute of free time until you spend an hour with friends like you’ve got only that one left. It educates you in the art of not-giving-a-damn-this-Sunday-because-I-earned-it-and-I’m-not-taking-any-shit-for-it. College might teach you love; it might teach you passion for a movement; it could teach you a lot of things.

Metro never taught me what I wanted to do — I never took that credit. I’m not sure if I got any real answers, but now I think I know the right questions. And I’ll never forget that.

Most students are bullied at some point in their lives. I remember my peers often bullied me because of my physical, something I had no control over. I learned to deal with it as I grew older, and now the ability to accept myself helps with confidence and proving my abilities. However, some children never get over the fact they are bullied, and will show signs of anti-social behavior or become reclusive. Sometimes the bullying leads to suicide — or in the case of Columbine April 20, 1999 — a tragic school shooting.

The most important question to ask is what schools or parents are doing to help youth understand other people and not bully them, or to understand why they are being bullied. In the case of the Columbine tragedy early reports questioned the motivation behind the shootings. Things like Trench Coat Mafia came up — and were later repealed — but a defining reason was bullying.

Unfortunately, bullying seems to be a part of any child’s life, starting with elementary and middle school. Many researchers have concluded bullying is a pre-cursor for gun violence, whether they are the ones being bullied or bullying others.  Students who show signs of anti-social behavior at a young age often have trouble fitting into social groups at school, and if by high school they are still not accepted they might lash out with gun or other types of lethal violence. Unfortunately gun violence is a problem in the U.S. that can never be fixed.

There are usually two schools of thought when it comes to resolving gun violence in the country, especially in rural towns where lethal violence can be more prevalent.

The first school of thought is to outlaw guns in the country, which assumes no black-market for weapons would exist.

This is one of the worst ways to deter school gun violence. Guns will always be around. Just ask Maryland, who outlawed certain handguns in the early 1990s. The amount of gun violence in the state actually increased after the law to ban small, easily concealed weapons was put into effect. The main reason was an increase in underground trafficking of the guns. Banning guns will not work because everyone knows killing or murder is illegal and immoral — but yet people still commit the crime. If someone was going to commit murder, they would have no problem purchasing illegal weapons.

The other prominent idea and system to reduce school gun violence is to teach youth conflict resolution skills. These are taught in classrooms and auditoriums across the country, from Seattle to Miami.  Programs such as D.A.R.E. have proven to be somewhat ineffective, but new studies have been conducted to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of programs.

The ultimate goal among program coordinators is to teach students they are not alone when they feel bullied, and to offer outlets to express their concerns. This is also true with people who bully others. They will have an outlet to express their feelings or concern or describe their anti-social behavior to someone who can help solve the problem, or at least allow the child to feel less lost and more accepted.

School bullying is always going to be around. Youth are not equipped with the necessary skills to avoid it and don’t understand the full impact bullying can have. Recently a female student in Massachusetts committed suicide because she felt like an outcast and felt there were no other options. If she understood there were outlets for her to have expressed her concerns with how the other students treated her, she may have seen other options besides killing herself.

Thankfully, she did not take out her anger of being bullied like so many have in the past. In Colorado last year there was a man who killed several people at a churches that refused to accept him, or so he thought. The problem is not just among youth in schools — it can carry over into the professional world.

The best way to reduce youth violence and bullying is to educate children about the impact of bullying and that while it’s a natural thing to do; there are other ways of expressing feelings. Bullies often feel that they are not accepted into certain social groups, and will take out their frustration on other people. Bullying at a young age often leads to gun violence or other types or lethal violence, but we can help them at a younger age. While I realize it seems like an easy fix — ban all guns — the problem is deeper than that, and it starts with bullying at a young age.

According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, 20-25 percent of women in college reported attempted or completed rape (2008). However, according to AAUW (formally known as the American Association of University Women), 95 percent of victims in college do not report their abuse.

They are scared and ashamed. They feel like it was their fault and no one will believe them. They feel dirty and don’t want anyone to think the same way about them. They don’t want to admit to themselves, let alone a stranger, it’s true.

I know; I’m one of these women.

On June 9, 2006 — I will never forget the date — I was raped by two men in a hostel in London while on a study abroad trip. I did not report it. I went back to my room, closed my eyes and prayed when I woke up the next morning, it would all turn out to be just a nightmare.

And you know what? It worked. For more than a month I went on with my life, never thinking of the event. Then, reality struck. While having a heart to heart with a good friend, she confided in me and told me she had been raped. Of course my heart went out to her and I tried to comfort her. But, at the same time, I felt myself shatter as that night in London replayed in mind, over and over and over. I had completely repressed that memory; it was like it never happened. Then, all of a sudden, I couldn’t stop reliving it and feeling the pain I felt that night.

I didn’t deal with it right away, and because of that, I robbed myself of the opportunity to seek help and begin the healing process. Because I repressed the memory, I do not remember some of that night. Now, close to four years later, bits and pieces will randomly come to mind, making me relive it all over, yet again.

I know it’s hard; I know it’s painful; I know the shame and fear that fills victims. But I can’t stress enough how important it is to seek support.

And while most victims of sexual assault are women, men can be victims as well. According to the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault, an estimated 92,748 American men are sexually assaulted each year, and according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), 33 percent of men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

It was extremely hard for me to admit what happened to me; with society’s gender roles, I can’t even imagine how hard it would be for a male. But based on my experience hiding from the truth, I think it’s especially important for men to seek support.

When I first “came out” about what happened (and frankly, sometimes I still think this way), I tried to downplay what happened by thinking: “It’s no big deal; rape isn’t uncommon,” or “I was drinking; I put myself in danger.”

But it’s important to not think that way. In reality, the fact that it does happen to so many people actually makes it a big deal.

And the effects of sexual assault cannot be ignored either. According to AAUW, college student victims are 13 percent more likely to attempt suicide than those who haven’t been assaulted. Victims may suffer from various emotional and psychological disorders, and according to The National Center for Victims of Crime, nearly one-third of all rape victims develop Rape-related Post-traumatic Stress Disorder sometime during their life.

Other statistics are startling as well. For example, according to Men Against Sexual Violence, only 2 percent of all rapists are convicted and imprisoned.

The issue of sexual assault is too often pushed under the rug, but it’s too important to not address. The first step is for victims to seek help.

Sharing my story like this wasn’t easy, but if I can encourage at least one victim to seek support or at least one person to be an advocate — or even one person to think critically about the issue — it will have been worth it.

Local Resources:

Auraria Campus Sexual Assault Policy

The Phoenix Center at Auraria   Tivoli 257, 303-556-2255                                                                                                                                            

Metro Counseling Center        303-556-3132                                                                                                                                                                                     

UCD Counseling Center           303-556-4372                                                                                                                                                                                        

CCD Counseling Center            303-556-3926                                                                                                                                                                                

Denver Police Department — Victim Assistance Unit           1331 Cherekee St., Denver    720-913-6035                                                                                                                                  

Safehouse Denver              1649 Downing St., Denver     303-830-2660                                                                                                                                                                                            

Project Safeguard (legal assistance)                                                                                                                                                                             815 East 22nd Ave., Denver  — 888-723-3473                                                                                                                                                           15400 East 14th Pl., Aurora, CO‎ — 303- 344-9016‎                                                                                                                                             1100 Judicial Center Dr., Brighton, CO‎ — 303-637-7761

Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault

The Sexual Assault Interagency Council           201 West Colfax Ave., Denver
                                                                                                                                                           

The Denver Center for Crime Victims          24-Hour Hotline Numbers:     303-894-8000 (English)   303-718-8289 (Espanol)                                                                                                 

Further list of sexual assault resources and support in Colorado

E-mail and MetroConnect services have been down since April 9. The sky seems to be falling all over campus and a single e-mail to notify you of the situation has not been sent to calm your turmoil.

But before you light the torch in your hand and head over to the IT Department, put down the pitchfork and take a good long look in the mirror.

Go ahead, walk to the closest mirror and repeat after me, “I am a Metro student and I am addicted to e-mail.”

You have just conquered the first step in battling your addiction to technology — admitting you have a problem.

And before you start shaking in the corner from withdrawl, realize the world, and Metro functioned long before internet was available.

We have been slowly socialized to rely on e-mail for everyday communication, communication that has long been possible in person, via the phone and even the archaic fax machine.

Suddenly our school e-mail accounts were the only way to survive in this scary place we call the world.

Instead of calling the person sitting next to you in class to find out what you missed while sleeping off the night before or cramming for the test in the next class, you could simply send an e-mail.

IT bombarded our inboxes with their plan to deny us our e-mail fix, just for a few days of course. What no one could have planned for, even the most crafty e-mail junkie, was the extended outage.

Metro students have found plenty of ways to blame the outage for their problems.

Suddenly it was impossible to turn in homework as printers had obviously stopped working.

Suddenly classes were optional — when incommunicado, our teachers must be canceling them.

Sure, it was quite an inconvenience not to get messages for a couple days. And yes, important e-mails were missed.

Hopefully no one lost jobs or internships or scholarships because of the outage; but even if they did, would-be bosses will surely be sympathetic.

But let’s be honest folks: we really don’t need to pass the blame on IT. They did what they could with what they were given. We knew about the outage before it happened and should have prepared thusly.

Nothing can be done about the missing days of SGA voting or the lack of communication with our teachers outside of class.

But here’s the rub: if you go to class you and your teachers can complain about e-mail turmoil together. You can even share an admission of your addiction to technology. How novel!

So we were out of the collective loop for a couple days, big deal. Life goes on and e-mails will continue to stack up.

“… what’s the matter with the clothes I’m wearing? Can’t you tell that your tie’s too wide?

… don’t you know about the new fashion honey? All you need are looks and a whole lot of money”

— Billy Joel, “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”

This won’t be about Billy Joel’s music, or even rock ’n’ roll. Rather, it’s about men’s fashion; a big-buck industry whose American products are now made almost entirely overseas. And a topic of only slightly less import in the big-cosmos picture than the upcoming NFL draft that will still rivet untold need-a-lives.

A recent story in The Denver Post’s Lifestyle section was about what has become — in the Post’s pages and elsewhere — a vanishing species: men’s fashion. And it was built around fashion-maven forecasts that men’s baggy shorts will be OUT this year while a snugger-fitting, more “sophisticated” look will be IN. So take note, lest you plan to be on the wrong side of the IN/OUT divide, as I do. Prices, naturally, are up. So we’re talking shorts that sell from $50 to $78; accessorized with $99 flip-flops, $79 to $115 polo shirts and footwear up to $550.

Attention Target shoppers! Forget about it.

In lesser hands, a story like this could have been the usual industry-cheerleader snooze of a read. But Post feature writer Doug Brown deftly wove the requisite industry quotes with his own wry observations on men-trends into a piece that entertained — despite some of the obvious hype from industry spokespeople who tend to be pleasant, but have a job to do. Brown also avoided that damnable excuse for what now passes for journalism: the frothy “Question and Answer” format that maybe should be called Journalism Lite. Still, the underlying message of this “new look” narrative was: be dissatisfied with what you’ve got, because it’s obsoleteand embrace the NEW. As usual, money is no object.

Guess what? For some of us, money IS an object. And we may think twice about paying two or three times what an apparel item is worth — despite being made in Sri Lanka or Thailand — because it sports a designer label.

One fashion arbiter in Brown’s story urges guys to “bring their significant other” with them when shopping. Don’t do it! I’ve seen it happen, and it’s not pretty. Fashion-clueless guys arrive in Macy’s menswear department in Cherry Creek, dragged by girlfriends who know even less. The women think they know what will look good on their guy, who’d rather be watching the Broncos lose. The selections are often a disaster, but the sensitive guy is expected to actually WEAR the chosen ensemble — in front of real people and possibly at work. Aggghhhhh!!!

So where do I come off offering advice like the experts I’m slamming? Oddly, I know a tad about the menswear industry. Unlike women’s wear, where this season’s hot look is next year’s anachronism, menswear moves much more slowly — sans instant obsolescence. U.S. presidential portraits show that — except for collars and the shape of cravats and lapels — your basic men’s business-suit look hasn’t changed that much since Abraham Lincoln’s time.

Franklin Roosevelt made soft collars popular after Herbert Hoover’s that were as stiff as his economic thinking. The Duke of Windsor — deposed from the British throne in 1936 — promoted cuffs and knife-edge creases on men’s trousers. Harry Truman clung to double-breasted suits, but popularized Hawaiian shirts as sportswear. John Kennedy helped kill the men’s hat industry and not even Indiana Jones could revive it.

With “tailored” or business menswear changes moving with glacial speed, sportswear offered faster action. But, even there, many cutting-edge or “fashion-forward” looks fell flat on their asses.

Although you’d never know it from how I choose to dress now, I was men’s fashion editor during my early years at The Denver Post. It wasn’t rocket science and took, as I liked to say, about 20 percent of my time and five percent of my mind. When I mentioned that to a vice president of the Denver Dry Goods department store, he was not amused. When Reagan was president, the “Denver Dry,” as it was known — did more than $1 million a year in print advertising in the Post. So when the exec complained to my bosses, it carried weight.

It was a good run. I did stories on interesting designers (one of the best menswear designers was a woman: Jhane Barnes) and had scored some national awards in a competitive field that included blue-rinse ladies who did menswear full time. I’d do pieces on what a line by Bill Blass meant in terms of Ronald’s Reagan’s America — as in a return to “elegance” (read: snobbery, Republican style) after Jimmy Carter. That was deemed too cerebral when Post management wanted dumbed-down fluff and “how-to” stories.

Fortunately, I was soon after tapped for the Post’s news desk — the domain of “hard news.” There, buddy Tom Graf, also long gone from the Post, greeted me with “welcome to the news side, where deadlines are measured by the clock and not the calendar.” It did, indeed, take some adjusting from the leisurely pace of features to daily deadlines and no excuses at 5:00 p.m.

Men’s fashion was de-emphasized nearly everywhere when the industry itself went into the toilet in the early 1990s. On the women’s side, it took years to acknowledge that the majority of American women were now in the workforce. So the evening-wear-type “fantasy” outfits pushed by store fashion directors remained out of touch. Eventually, they got it.

Now, seldom-seen menswear narratives still catch my eye. But the story on shorts left me wondering why NOT the baggy-ass shorts seen throughout the NCAA hoops tournament. Guys wear them, even on the street. They look like geeks, but it’s a free country. For a real laugh, check out some of the hooker-looks that pass for dressing-to-impress in some ladies’ circles.

But that’s another story.

Two weeks ago I submitted to my editor a racist op-ed about how wrong interracial marriage is. It would have run on April 1 had my editor decided to run it, and the satirical side of the story would have been: my half-Samoan wife helped me write it. My editor chose not to run it, largely because he didn’t want to face the kind of outrage the Advocate and Jef Otte went through with his satirical piece about President Obama’s health care plan. Not wanting to deal with the fallout, I’d say he made the right decision; I personally was looking forward to the fallout.

Luckily for me, the editors at the Advocate had no issues running a racist controversial piece, so now I can make my point from two different perspectives. My first perspective being, I was censored out of fear of backlash by my newspaper, and the other perspective, a view different than the one most people hold, even a satirical one, was met with so much resistance the newspaper had to address an angry mob.

I don’t fault my editor or my newspaper for not running my piece; it is his right and his responsibility to not run pieces he feels are wrong for the newspaper. He also told me he didn’t find the piece all that funny, which I understand; I did work very hard to find arguments that have actually been made, so my piece, unlike Mr. Otte’s, could have been a serious piece.

But the point I wanted to bring up, and Mr. Otte did bring up whether it was his intention or not, was why, at an institution of higher learning where ideas are supposed to flow freely and be respected, did this satire get such a response? My editor is under no obligation to print any op-ed that comes his way, but for anyone to be outraged or offended that the opinion was printed is ridiculous. We are at a center of higher learning to get different perspectives, even some we find reprehensible.

That is not to say if you disagree you should not express your opinion. Expressing disagreement is just as much a part of the exchange of ideas as presenting ideas. The trouble is, when ideas are considered too outrageous to be printed, the forum ceases to be an exchange of ideas. It is difficult to have a discussion if everyone in the room agrees.

I am by no means claiming all ideas are worth presenting. Some ideas, such as the ones I wrote in my piece that wasn’t printed and in Mr. Otte’s piece, are not to be taken seriously. In the cases of our pieces, they were never meant to be taken seriously, thus making them satire. Had either piece been presented to be taken seriously, they may not have been worthy of taking seriously. So don’t take them seriously.

Censoring an opinion because you disagree with it is ignorant and dangerous. If an idea is so dangerous it shouldn’t be spoken or written, it must have something very important to say; perhaps you should look at who has something to lose from the opinion. If an idea is merely offensive, it makes far more sense to recognize it as such and move on. Not all ideas are worth printing, but you should be very wary if someone tells you you’re better off not hearing an opinion.

Welcome to the current climate of American political discourse, disagreement and statecraft.

Time was when a party that lost an election sucked it up, regrouped and came back in the next election with a stronger candidate. No more. Now, they simply vow to oppose and disrupt every proposal and new idea offered by the winner. And they deliver.

No mystery who we’re talking about: the party of NO!!! New ideas? Nil. Candidates for 2012? Palin? Rush? Glenn Beck? What a roster! But it might be interesting to see one of those clowns as the face of the GOP with Tea Party zealots leading the charge with pikes, pitchforks and torches.

Meanwhile, a black man in the White House drives them nuts. Many of them also hate the poor, minorities and anyone not as well off as themselves. But they claim to love Jesus.

Which brings us to the just-concluded Easter season. OMG! I actually said EASTER and not spring break or festival of the Equinox or Druid howling-at-the-moon time or whatever else may be politically correct this month.

Let’s get a few things straight. I’m not a knee-jerk True Believer, although I grew up in a Christian tradition — a standard “mainstream” brand, and not some off-the-wall sub-sect. Nor do I tell Jews, Muslims or Zen Buddhists in Boulder that they’re going straight to Hell. But if Heaven is filled with the kind of people who talk most about it, I might not opt for an eternity with them.

Vatican apologists managed to again ignore a growing crisis of confidence over pedophile priests in official Holy Week pronouncements. But Holy Week, that ended Easter Sunday, is supposed to cause Christians to remember and reflect upon that week’s events that saw Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, fall from favor with fickle crowds in less than a week; betrayal, arrest, crucifixtion and return from the dead on Easter Sunday. Jesus himself was a great teacher, but never published – so forget about tenure – and it fell to four of his followers to set down four versions of his life in narratives done decades after the fact.

No mystery who we’re talking about: the party of NO!!! New ideas? Nil. Candidates for 2012? Palin? Rush? Glenn Beck? What a roster! But it might be interesting to see one of those clowns as the face of the GOP with Tea Party zealots leading the charge with pikes, pitchforks and torches.

While he lived and preached and was said to perform miracles for just three years, Jesus hung out not with social A-List types, but with society’s outcasts: prostitutes, beggers, and “sinners and publicans” according to one version. The latter referred to despised tax collectors; not REpublicans. Jesus preached a love of the poor and powerless — hardly a parallel with today’s Republican worldview — and showed them kindness, compassion and respect.

The poor, he said, had a better shot at the kingdom of heaven than the rich or ruling classes. He praised a poor widow for casting two “mites” – coins worth only a few cents – into the treasury while big-ass Pharisees made a show of donating large sums. “She gave all she had,” said Jesus, who posed an obvious danger to the Pharisee elite (under the yoke of Rome) and had to be eliminated.

Jesus also drove thieving money-changers out of the temple with “… my father’s house should be a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.” Far from the bland, bloodless – and often blond and blue-eyed – personage of popular images, Jesus, if taken at his word, was a dangerous revolutionary.

Were Jesus to return today, he’d be called a “socialist” by folks who wouldn’t know a socialist if one kicked them. In the McCarthy witch-hunt early 1950s, it would have been “Communist.” During America’s “Big Red Scare” after the First World War, the worst tag you could carry was “anarchist” or “Bolshevik.” Same tactics; different labels.

So how might Jesus handle health care in America? For clues, try reading what Jesus preached in the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They lead off the New Testament and you won’t have to spring for a $90 used paperback at the campus book store. But go with the King James version.

Modern-day translations, in “modern” language, not only destroy King James’ language and poetry, but dumb down Jesus’ teachings to vapid-sounding sayings that are perfect for New Age-y digestion.

Now that you’re on a reading roll, don’t stop there. For a hint on how the Party of “NO” got to where it is today — kicking and screaming — scan a bit of American History, starting with the early Republican Party. Its anti-slavery stance and Lincoln’s election in 1860 triggered Southern secession and the Civil War.

Lincoln freed the slaves and pushed the Westward-expansion Homestead Act before 1865, and the Party has had few new ideas since. Lincoln hadn’t been dead a decade when the Party, under President Ulysses Grant, began molting into a tool of big business, railroads and monopoly “trusts.” Two decades later, the GOP established credentials as the mortal foe of organized labor efforts. It solidified into its present shape with the election of William McKinley in 1896. But for a brief blip under Teddy Roosevelt – who supported anti-trust laws and promoted the National Park system – the Party never relinquished its reactionary pedigree.

So try some reading — maybe for a change of pace — and draw your own conclusions. It could even lead to the very dangerous development of critical thinking, which is supposedly why we’re on campus; along with honing job-seeking skills. Far be it for me to suggest how you ought to think. Deep-thinker “celebrities” already hold that job.

“Did I read it? Nah, brah, I’m not even going to open the book.” Insert self-gratifying laughter.

I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. Nearly a month left to graduate and I have this guy at my left like a sidecar to postgraduate hell, brandishing his pride at accomplishing nothing. An anti-accomplishment.

Apathy: a college art, to be sure, and one it seems with more majors enrolled in the craft here at Metro than there are in hospitality. And we’re building them a fucking hotel.

Students not powering into academic life happens at any college; I get that. But it also makes one helluva case for capping enrollment, don’t you think?

I say we seriously consider upping the guidelines for getting into and staying at Metro, so that it’s more affordable for the students who want to be here for an education.

In February, President Stephen Jordan said, “we have to look at the possibility of constraining enrollment until state policymakers see the consequences of not funding us equitably.”

What Jordan was trying to say is that, as far as higher-ed schools in our state go, we’re getting screwed when it comes to funding (the lowest in Colorado at a little more than $2,000 a student, distantly behind CSU-Pueblo who gets almost double that).

Capping enrollment doesn’t tell the community Metro is unwilling to educate students. Rather, capping enrollment shows the community the state is unwilling to pay Metro to educate students.

Apathy: a college art, to be sure, and one it seems with more majors enrolled in the craft here at Metro than there are in hospitality. And we’re building them a fucking hotel.

We either get state funding or we get higher tuition. Easy like a Sunday morning.

Rather than spending money to re-brand Metro and other projects to expand, the administration needs to find out if there’s more to be saved than lost if test scores and prior academic performance were weighed at the door, and if this would be a way to stave off tuition increases.

But then those damn ethical questions have to pop in, don’t they? Since its inception, Metro welcomed any and all. Give me your disinterested, disenchanted huddled masses — so long as they have a line of credit at the financial aid office.

I’m not advocating capping enrollment to turn students away who want to be in college, making higher education a just-out-of-reach luxury. What I’m saying is that college seems to be the answer for everybody who doesn’t have an answer, and it shouldn’t be that way. Data released last year by the ACT test people show most high school grads aren’t ready for college.

With debt levels rising, why make it easier for them to enroll and drop classes they struggle with and don’t want to be in?

I say this from experience. When I graduated high school, my GPA looked more like my age at the time than anything that would get me accepted into college. I wasn’t ready, emotionally or academically. I waited, enrolled at a two-year community college and came to Metro when I was ready.

If success begins with you, I’m wondering whether or not you shouldn’t wait until you feel like walking before you’re expected to run.

The controversy occurs when many Mexican, Chicano and Muslim communities are targeted with extra-normal forms of oppression. ‘Patriot groups’ have organized ‘tea parties against amnesty;’ Tom Tancredo wants to take vehicles away from immigrants; ‘English-only’ demands are being raised; non-citizens are forced to pay non-resident tuition rates even though many have lived in Colorado the bulk of their lives; and families are routinely torn apart by deportations. In short, Jef Otte’s jokes are no laughing matter for many at Auraria. Thus, Solidaridad stands with those outraged with the publication of this article.

Jef Otte and the editors at the UCD Advocate claim the article was satire and all in good fun. Members of Solidaridad ask, satire for whom?

Certainly students who are “illegal Mexicans” and Muslims, as well as their friends and family, found it offensive. It seems the Advocate staff are the only ones who got the joke. Hey guys, some people still think ‘n***** jokes’ are funny. That doesn’t mean they should be published in a student newspaper.

While we’re on the topic of satire, here’s an alternative view of immigration and the state of America today:

About 500 years ago a bunch of conquistadors and settlers came to America (two continents connected by an isthmus); killed, purged and otherwise decimated over 90 percent of the native inhabitants and seized most of the land in North America (including half the territory of the sovereign state of Mexico; Colorado, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, and California all being Spanish words); never bothered to learn the native languages; and instead, set up an imperialist state to criminalize real Americans on their own land and bomb people half-way across the world (five Muslim countries since Obama was elected).

Our solution: get rid of these racists and crypto-racists. Kick them out until they can learn the language and come back through the proper channels. No amnesty for these criminals. Or at the very least they should stay out of the ‘cafeteria.’

Humor aside, Otte’s article exposes a long standing reactionary element in the U.S., recently flaring up in the wake of the Obama presidency. Such views aren’t new. Nor does such ‘satire’ exist in a vacuum.

Those offended by the article, as well as protesting the UCD Advocate for their decision to publish it, should equally if not more vigilantly oppose the racism and oppressive attitudes and ideas expressed with all seriousness in real life. The vile, disgusting perspective expressed in Otte’s satire piece is not far off from that inside the Tea Party Movement, the Minutemen and the Republican Party, is often expressed through offhand remarks in everyday life and in more nuanced ways within academia and even the Democratic Party.

If such racism is to be overcome, it must be overcome in all spheres of life. We have to start somewhere.

Bottom line: the writers and editors of the UCD Advocate are idiots who failed to keep their racism behind closed doors. They should be replaced by people who express empathy with those targeted with extra-normal oppression, not passing humor in their persecutors.

Solidaridad is a MSCD student group dedicated to building student solidarity with those resisting neo-colonialism within the U.S. and around the world.

March 31 and April 1, Auraria students have the opportunity to vote on a referendum to increase our once-a-semester fee for bus passes.

If the tri-institutional referendum fails our student bus passes will be revoked and we will have to pay for each trip we take on RTD’s offered modes of transportation.

If the referendum passes, the fee for passes will increase to $61 from, $46. This 15 dollar increase will be well worth it for all Auraria students.

The bus pass fee allows students to use their school IDs to ride local and regional buses, as well as the light rail in any region of the metro area completely free of charge. There is also a discount for the SkyRide bus to Denver International Airport.

Passing this fee increase may mean a couple extra dollars out of the pockets of Auraria students, but $61 for an entire semester on the bus and Light Rail is well worth the price.

Comparably a monthly regional pass for costs $144 — not including use of the Light Rail. Over the course of a semester students would pay $576 just to ride the bus.

And that doesn’t take into account RTD’s planned fare increase for the fall.

Last year, more than 3,000 Auraria students voted in favor of the increase, with 202 students voting against.

The RTD passes students receive are paid for through student fees, and are classified as the only non-permanent fee for students, which means it can be removed if students don’t approve the new plan.

But thousands of students and teachers take advantage of the cheap bus rates, and this opportunity needs to remain available.

Even students that may not regularly utilize RTD’s services should approve this referendum; by taking the bus just twice a week during the semester would pay for the pass.

According to a press release from the Student Advisory Committee to the Auraria Board, Auraria students took almost 3.8 million rides last year.

Cast your ballot

7 a.m. to 7 p.m. March 31 and April 1

CCD students — South Classroom

Metro students — Central Classroom

UCD students — North Classroom

An emergency town hall meeting at Auraria was called March 10 to address the seemingly growing number of attacks on campus. The meeting was meant to inform students of what the campus is doing to protect them, and allowed students to voice their opinion.

There are an estimated 35,000 — 40,000 students, professors and other individuals on campus Monday-Thursday.

It was estimated about 100 people attended the town hall meeting co-hosted by the Auraria Police and the Student Government Association.

I wonder how many students actually knew about the event. No one was really talking about it in my classes, but when I talked to students around campus, most knew about the attacks. Few, if any, knew about the meeting.

The lack of participation leads me to believe there is a lack of communication among students, police officers and Metro officials. I understand most students on campus are usually in a hurry and many were simply too busy to attend the event, but there should have been more than 100 people. SGA President Andrew Bateman proposed solutions, but it seems Metro and the police are reacting to the violence on campus and fail to understand the larger problem.

People I have talked to around campus explained to me several incidents that prove a lack of police presence. There are several pockets on campus where students freely smoke weed, drink beer and who knows what else. Why are there places on campus that students feel confident enough to smoke and drink, without worry of consequences?

The area between North Classroom and the Tivoli seems to be very well patrolled, and I have seen cops pull over cars who illegally turned into the circle where busses idle.  However, when I walk to the Light Rail station on Colfax the story is completely different. If I see a cop or RTD security guard I notice his presence — it’s unusual to see them around there.

The biggest question I have is about the reaction by school and police officials if there were a shooting on campus. What procedure is in place to contain the situation, when Colfax Avenue and Speer Boulevard are wide-open to public use?

Auraria’s urban setting may really be the problem. There are areas on the campus where anybody can walk around unnoticed and do what they please. Pedestrian traffic is heavy around Colfax and Speer, and cops have to deal with students, workers and homeless people.

Metro or the Auraria police needs to address the problems on campus in a pro-active approach to build a sense of safety of campus. If students are not safe on campus, parents will discourage them from attending our school and we will build a poor reputation.

After the January special election in Massachusetts, I thought we’d seen the last of the current health care monstrosity.

I figured the Democrats would see passing health care would lose their majorities in the House and Senate, and possibly even sink their great communicator himself in 2012.

I thought they might try again with a new bill and try and bring some Republicans along with them. I didn’t think they’d dare try to push this beast through.

And yet, here we are, midway through March, and Nancy Pelosi is casting voodoo spells to try to resuscitate the bill while Harry Reid is in talks with the Devil himself.

And the President? He’s still confident he can convince the bill to rise from the dead with his oratory abilities. All three seem, well, quite happy to lose their majority and the Presidency in 2012.

What gives? Why the suicidal hell bent push to pass a bill that Americans dislike nearly two to one on a good day. Why give up control of the country for this one bill?

I know it is a big bill; the Democrats have dreamed about a public health care system since FDR. But why not go back to the drawing board and see if a bill can’t be crafted that the public at least kind of likes, and can at least drag along a few Republican votes — maybe even those senators from Maine.

But that isn’t going to happen; the Democrats have their hearts set on this bill. Not because it is a great bill, it isn’t the Republicans that are blocking it.

The Democrats have majorities in both the House and the Senate. If the bill had the full support of the Democrats they wouldn’t need any Republican votes, they could pass it today. It is Democrats that are blocking the bill.

Why does it have to be this bill? Why are the Democrats willing to lose control of Washington for this bill? Because it would move the U.S. from a center right country to a center left country.

The leadership in the House and the Senate aren’t trying to sell the bill because they believe in it, they are trying to sell the bill because losing Washington, but moving the nation as a whole to the left will benefit them in the long run.

The health care bill would make thousands of jobs currently in the private sector into public sector jobs. It would also increase government bureaucracy to look over and regulate the health care system. People who are in government jobs tend to vote for the party that doesn’t want to shrink the size of government. It would increase the size of government, and it would increase the size of government unions.

I don’t know how concerned the leadership in Washington really is about health care. Maybe they really do believe this bill would improve the system despite all of its many flaws, but I don’t think so.

If that were the case, why not start over and come up with a bill the public approves of? This is the Democrats chance to move America to the left. Losing elections in 2010 and 2012 won’t be an issue if it guarantees Democrat control for the next century.

At the moment, the Democrats are struggling to get the votes they need in the house, and Pelosi will make any deal necessary to get this bill through.

While Republicans celebrate the Democrats lack of foresight that will cost them the next election, the Democrats watch on, knowing it is the Republicans who don’t see the big picture.

There’s still time to go someplace during geek week — aka spring break, that has been in full swing elsewhere for most of March. But where?

Most of the hype that now passes for travel writing would have you believe the itineries they pimp are perfect for your budget and suggest something like: Wake up in your $600-a-night hotel, enjoy your $90 power breakfast and step into the $200-per-hour spa. Now, out of the hotel, you’re ready to start spending REAL money. And that’s just for starters.

But if your spring break budget runs more to Commerce City than Cancun and more Aurora than Aruba, you may not buy into these fantasies. I sure as hell don’t. For me, spring break means baseball. Specifically: spring training games in Arizona’s Cactus League.

There, as in Florida’s counterpart Grapefruit League, spring training offers lots more than pre-season games with veterans sprinkled among the rookies, newly-traded prospects, wannabes and has-beens all fighting for a final-cut spot on the Opening Day roster. Aside from warm sun most of the time, palm trees and cacti beyond the outfield fences, spring training in Arizona is time suspended. It’s Le Sacre du Printemps — the Rites of Spring — when all things are still possible.

As on Opening Day, every team and every player starts with the same clean slate. Any team can, in theory, make it to the World Series,and every batter can hit .350 or better. It’s about watching leisurely baseball in the sun while Northern cities like Boston, New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee and Denver can look forward to possible snow on ever-earlier Opening Days.

Unless you’re an introvert who’s more comfortable texting on a Blackberry than talking with real people, spring training is also about talking with other fans. Being, on average, a bit older than America’s 18-to-34 demographic darlings, some have long baseball memories and great stories to tell, if you’ll ask and listen. So you talk, enjoy the games and drink beer: Anchor Steam at Giants’ games; Old Style at the Cubs and Coors Light (redundant?) if you’re desperate at a Rockies game. You don’t get quite the same ambiance during the regular season, where everything – especially distance from the players – is on a bigger, big-league, scale.

Baseball iconoclast Bill Veeck — who once owned the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox said, maybe a half-century ago, that fans’ knowledge of and enjoyment of baseball is inversely proportional to the price of their ticket. In an age of luxury boxes and ”club” sections, Veeck’s axiom is more true today than ever.

Veeck integrated the American League by bringing Larry Doby to the Cleveland Indians in 1947, shortly after Jackie Robinson started for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He also brought up Satchel Paige as a 42-year-old rookie (Robinson was 28) to his pennant-winning Cleveland club a year later. Veeck also launched what would become Arizona’s Cactus League. With little patience for completely-segregated Florida in 1948,Veeck relocated the Indians’ spring training to more open Arizona. Some clubs followed but, for years, the Cactus League’s survival was in serious doubt.

The Cactus League no longer has that problem and has 15 spring training teams in Arizona; the same total as Florida. Last year, the Dodgers moved to Phoenix from their long-standing facility in Vero Beach, Florida, to share a facility with the Chicago White Sox. The Dodgers’ new and multi-million stadium is pretty, but surprisingly sterile. Other than manager Joe Torre and overpaid prima donna Manny Ramirez, the Dodgers themselves seem sterile.

Next year, the Rockies and Arizona Diamondback will move from Tucson to Phoenix and into a new, $100 million complex East of Scottsdale. Somehow, the two teams conned the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community into building the complex on their land – with an assist from the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, whose funds are now tapped out.Which brings us to the Chicago Cubs.

The loveable-losers Cubs, who haven’t won a World Series in 102 years and haven’t been IN a Series since 1945, still enjoy the Cactus League’s largest and most loyal fan following. Last year, a record 203,105 fans caught Cubs games at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, to swell last year’s total Cactus League attendance to a record 1.58 million, despite the economy. The Cubs’ park also has a human feel and a certain patina that’s lacking elsewhere. Naturally, plans are afoot to screw that up.

Ego and money, the twin serpents in any Eden, are at work here. The Cubs’ new and multi-zillionaire owners, Ameritrade, aren’t happy with fan-friendly Hohokam and want a bigger, better and $84 million facility. As usual, taxpayers are expected to pick up the tab, and Cubs’ managements threatens to move — to Florida — if they don’t get what they want. Sound familiar? Any number of teams have pulled the same scam and got away with it — including the Broncos, who threatened to move in the mid-1990s unless they got a new playpen with mostly public money. Compliant voters complied and Pat Bowlen was home free — even if the Broncos’ future on-field fortunes weren’t.

To remain in Arizona for spring training, the Cubs are demanding that the state pay $59 million of the $84 million with new taxes. The plan, in theory, is supposed to spread some of that money among the 14 other teams. In practice, it’s a bad joke that’s fooling nobody.

Despite the snakes in the Garden, you can do lots worse than savoring spring training – when all things are still possible. Reality will return soon enough. It always does.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament will soon begin and 65 teams have a chance to end the season at the top of the college basketball world. The tournament will hopefully feature some great matchups; perhaps even a Laettner-esque shot.

The Kansas Jayhawks of the Big 12 conference have been in the top five for the entire season, and will likely be looked at as the favorite heading into the tournament. While I think Kansas will win the tournament, the fun is picking the upsets and Cinderella teams.

Here are a few of the teams I think will make an impact in the tournament; and my pre-bracket Final Four picks.

Expect Michigan St. to make a run at the Final Four under Head Coach Tom Izzo.

The Spartans made a great run in 2009, but came up short in their home state. MSU is always a good bet, and the 2010 team is no different. The Big Ten has been very strong this season, and they should have at least five teams in the tournament. Purdue University was looking like a favorite to be the best in the conference, but the Robbie Hummel injury will likely affect the Boilermakers.

Led by junior Evan Turner, Ohio State can make some noise in the tournament. As I said before PU is not going to play as well without Hummel, which leaves the Big Ten open. Wisconsin has been at the top of the Big Ten conference most of the season, and had an early season victory over Duke.

The Blue Devils are a top-five team, and under coach Mike Krzyzewski should make a run at the finals.

They have had no troubles with the weak ACC conference, and should be a number one seed in the tournament. Coach-K will have no problems with the ACC tournament should win the conference tournament.

Some smaller schools will have the opportunity to win three or more games in the tournament. Tickets have already been punched, and teams such as Butler and Cornell are preparing to make a run.

The Butler Bulldogs have made a name playing well in the NCAA tournament, and should continue to surprise teams in 2010. The Bulldogs defeated Ohio State on December 12 and played well against a very good Georgetown team just four days before.

Butler should feel confident playing any team after facing two top-20 teams back-to-back.

Despite playing in the Ivy-League Cornell has played against some tough competition this season. The Big Red lost early in the Season the Syracuse, and played competitively, but were defeated, by Kansas in the beginning of January. Cornell played well against some tough opponents, and if they can learn from their mistakes may make a great run.

Do not be surprised if Cornell upsets someone early in the tournament, and makes a run at the Elite Eight.

I did like Purdue to make a run at the championship until Robbie Hummel went down with a season-ending injury. They still have a great team and will win at least two games.

My Final Four picks are Kansas, Syracuse, Kentucky and Wisconsin.

‘Nova is led by senior Scottie Reynolds, who is averaging 19 points and three assists per game. The Wildcats have played great this year in the Big East, which is probably the toughest conference in the country. They are another team I could see running the table if the matchups are right. Kentucky is piloted by first-year sensation John Wall, but like the Memphis teams of past under Coach Calipari, I believe a freshman-led team will fall short.

Unlike the John Calipari Memphis and Kentucky teams, Kansas develops players over a period of two or three years.

Senior point guard Sherron Collins has been part of a national championship team already, and his experience will likely impact several games. Standout center Cole Aldrich played few minutes his freshman year, but has come on strong in the last two years.

Freshman guard Xavier Henry and his brother C.J. Henry signed at Kansas to play under Head Coach Bill Self after Calipari left Memphis for Kentucky. The freshman’s presence has been felt and he has averaged almost 14 points per game. The Jayhawks have built a strong team, and the core group of players should grab Kansas a NCAA championship in 2010.

If the state gets what it wants, in 15 years half of Colorado students graduating from four-year institutions could be graduating with $80,000 in debt on average.

That might be best-case scenario, too, because if colleges and universities get what they want, going to school could be even more expensive.

Welcome to the party, my name’s James.

March 5, the Higher Education Strategic Planning Steering Committee, the guys the governor charged with finding a solution for higher ed. (you think your job sucks?) gave their recommendation to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.

Colleges and universities could only raise tuition 9 percent a year. But if they wanted to go beyond that, they would have to go back to the CCHE (i.e. the state of Colorado) to make their case why they need the cash.

Consider it the last wall of defense. Your very own American Gladiator, keeping higher ed. institutions from arbitrarily raising tuition whenever they feel the whim to construct a new building.

Ritter’s already authorized a 9 percent increase for next year.

But those in attendance representing higher ed. said they should have the remote when it comes to raising tuition for students. They need that to ensure their future.

Let’s look at your future a minute.

You’re a freshman at Metro this year? Congratulations, we’re happy for you. But I’d make sure you get your credits quick because if you stick around until 2013, the cost of around $1,800 a semester of tuition and fees now as a full-time student could go up to more than $2,500 if tuition climbs 9 percent and fees keep pace (over the last five years they’ve increased 30 percent).

Got kids? Nine percent over the next 15 years means that Metro will then be $7,000 a semester. Almost quadruple what it is now.

Comparatively speaking, Metro will still be a bargain compared to other schools.

And consider the consequences. Higher cost of schools means more loans. And more loans mean more debt. Right now, half of Colorado students leave four-year institutions with around $18,000 of debt, according to The Project on Student Debt.

If that trend continues (as it has in years past), 9 percent in 2012 means most students in Colorado will graduate with more than $25,000 in debt.

Students in 2025—$79,287

Is that the future we’re talking about?

Nine may not seem like a lot, but from where I’m standing nine is just fine for me, and then some. It should be more than enough for higher ed.

Now, the CCHE has not yet made a decision and no bill is on the floor. But let’s hope more sensible ideas come to the table before then and both sides consider what the future could really mean for students struggling to pay for college, saddled with debt.

In 2004, universities and colleges were trying to limp away from the state.

Because of a lack of independence, Betsy Hoffman, the president of the University of Colorado at the time, said by the end of the decade institutions would be “facing the downfall of public higher education in Colorado.”

By the end of this decade, their independence could mean the downfall for students.

Celebrities!

What would be do without ‘em? They’re everywhere … giving us advice, cues on how to act, dress and even serving as our moral compass.

Are we nearing celebrity saturation? We already have celebrity chefs, “apprentices,” DJs, pawn shop operators and bounty hunters. Now, TV is giving us celebrity “marriage refs” to rate our marriages after doing so well with their own.

Can celebrity jerkoffs be far behind? Or have they been with us all along?

When breathless media outlets need comments on whether Tiger Woods’ public apology for serial affairs was sincere, they go to celebrities of the moment. Julia Mancuso looked great on the slopes, but does winning Olympic silver qualify you to pass judgment on Woods’ private life?

Forget being qualified, or knowing anything. Simply being a celebrity now confers instant certitude, and a platform of authority. Nor does it matter if the celebrity can’t manage less than 20 “you know”s in a 40-second exchange. When you’re a celeb, your comments carry gravitas; no matter how inane.

We’ve already forgotten the “balloon boy” and White House party crashers — whose ultimate goal in both cases was to land a “reality” TV show. But maybe if more of us HAD some semblance of a life, the appeal of that absurdity might lessen — along with those survivor-style obnoxious bastards we’re supposed to CARE about.

The democratization of dumbed-down expectations and blurring the line between “mainstream” and “tabloid” news have made it much easier to bask in the wan glow of what now passes for celebrity. Even if only for 15 minutes, as Andy Warhol predicted years ago. Some of us of a certain age can recall a time when we had heroes. And genuine stars. Now, we have celebrities — and they’re hardly the same, even when we can’t tell the difference.

Those even older than I (if that’s possible) may remember when Walter Winchell was the undisputed king of gossip — both reliable and spurious — in America. Winchell was syndicated in hundreds of U.S. newspapers and said to be a confidante of several U.S. presidents. Mention in a Winchell column — good or bad — could make or break celebrities overnight. Today, there’s no need for a Winchell — or even newspapers, for that matter — at a time when anyone with a cell phone camera can play “citizen journalist” and even enjoy brief celebrity in a limited arena. Meanwhile, forget about bothersome details like accuracy, oversight or fact-checking. If it’s out there on a blog or posted somewhere else, it must be true, right?

What remains of “mainstream” print media now has local gossip wags — desperate for any celebrity-link, no matter how tenuous — telling us what celebrity (never local) was “spotted” dining at what LoDo restaurant. Fascinating fare.

Movies, then shown in opulent dream-like theaters and not cineplex shoeboxes, were never so popular as during the Depression 1930s. With 15 million out of work in a much smaller workforce, people needed to forget their travails and dream – if only for a couple of hours – of the glamorous lives of movie stars. On-screen, they lived in towers high above Manhattan or were closer to the ground in Hollywood. Either way, they wore formal evening clothes all day and imbibed impossible amounts of alcohol.

Today, movies only feed a fraction of a 24/7 information/entertainment (same thing?) maw whose appetite is insatiable. But, aided by an array of electronic toys, we can follow the fascinating lives of celebrities on a 24/7 basis. And if we find this week’s hero is next week’s fallen idol with a drug problem or the old screwing-around standby, so much the better. If they’re not so good, maybe our own lives aren’t so dull and we can feel better about ourselves. Also vicariously.

Entertainment hucksters long ago learned that, when winning the hearts and minds of mass audiences, crap trumps quality every time. American TV has run with this formula for years and that effort has enjoyed quantum leaps since then-president Kennedy’s Federal Communications Commission chairman, Newton Minnow, declared TV “a vast wasteland” in 1962. Minnow, like Ed Murrow before him, sounded a warning and called for improvements that never happened.

Today’s TV pimps role models that aren’t pretty. At risk of sounding elitist, what I’d call a celebration of “white trash culture” was underway before Rosanne Barr, “Married With Children” and its imitators. Now, the genre remains in full force. Usually, offerings come complete with the stock character of Dad-as-anus; a loveable buffoon who’s the butt (no pun) of jokes everyone is in on but him.

TV celebs typically enjoy shorter shelf lives than those elsewhere. But dress up a show – no matter how idiotic – with a real or bogus “celebrity”, and you’re home free. Or at least until shows are scrubbed at mid-season.

What would be do without celebrities? It might force the bleak prospect of getting an actual life. But that may be asking a bit much.

For the last few months, college presidents and legislators have been discussing the notion of “higher education flexibility.” And many claim they are doing so in the interest of students and with their support.

The Associated Students of Colorado is the representative organization for over 200,000 Colorado college students, and we have a different story to tell.

We support the general concept of flexibility in higher education. We support freeing institutions from state fiscal and IT rules.

We support the creation of a “matrix of core classes” and improving the transfer of credits between institutions.

We support allowing institutions to raise money on their own to purchase or renovate buildings without having to get permission from the state. We support most, but not all of the ideas included in the “flexibility” discussion.

But while we strive to make policies flexible, we need to make sure we don’t make them flimsy.  For instance, we do not support giving institutions the ability for unlimited tuition hikes. Gov. Ritter was right when he threatened to veto this measure last year, and we are disappointed that he has softened his position.

Our Representatives should not defer the responsibility of affordable education. For the last 140 years, we have had an open system for tuition increases that has allowed for public scrutiny and input. The temporary situation should not require us to permanently change the process.

If a college needs higher tuition, they should draft a proposal and legislators should seriously consider and evaluate that request with public input. If legislators are afraid of the politics of raising tuition, then they should find a better option.

Taking the issue out of the spotlight and freeing institutions to charge whatever they want goes beyond flexibility. It is a first step toward privatizing higher education.

Tuition flexibility lets the legislature off the hook and allows them to escape the responsibility of keeping tuition in Colorado low. Make no mistake about it, if institutions are given the ability to raise tuition, they will do it.

The only thing that would make tuition flexibility worse would be simultaneously cutting financial aid. Unfortunately, section four of the current version of the bill does just that by removing the requirement of institutions to set aside a portion of tuition increases for need-based financial aid.

We hope that when the bill is redrafted in the next few weeks, that this provision, as well as tuition flexibility, is left out.

There is nothing more intrinsically tied to liberty and opportunity than education. Education is about opportunity, and we cannot and will not allow that opportunity to be auctioned off to pay the bills.

We hope that our legislators keep in mind the important role that public colleges play in bettering Colorado’s economy and its citizens. But we’ll go further and say that we hope they keep in mind that our colleges aren’t public simply because we say they are.

For public education to remain public, it needs to be properly funded and properly regulated by our elected representatives. That’s what makes it public.

We at ASC will continue to fight to keep our public colleges in Colorado accessible, to keep them affordable, and to keep them public.

Andrew Bateman is the president of the Student Government Assembly at Metro State and the Chair of the Associated Students of Colorado.