• Maintain your mental health BY MICHELE GOLDBERG P. 7
• Know your neighbors and save lives BY NATALIE KERR P. 10
• Make your tech more ethical BY ANDY SAYLER P. 12
• Fight capitalism BY ANDREA STEFFES-TUTTLE P. 13
•
27
Credit: Rowan Kempen
Credit: Lisa Balcom
APRIL 10, 2025
Volume 32, Number 34
PUBLISHER: Stewart Sallo
EDITORIAL
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Shay Castle
ARTS EDITOR: Jezy J. Gray
REPORTERS: Kaylee Harter, Tyler Hickman
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Lisa Balcom, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Justin Criado
Michele Goldberg, Natalie Kerr, John Lehndorff, Dan Savage, Andy Sayler, Andrea Steffes-Tuttle, Toni Tresca
COVER: Chris Sawyer
SALES AND MARKETING
DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING: Kellie Robinson
SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE:
Matthew Fischer
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES:
Chris Allred, Austen Lopp
SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGER: Carter Ferryman
MRS. BOULDER WEEKLY: Mari Nevar
PRODUCTION
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Erik Wogen
GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Chris Sawyer
CIRCULATION
CIRCULATION MANAGER: Cal Winn
CIRCULATION TEAM: Sue Butcher, Ken Rott, Chris Bauer
BUSINESS OFFICE
BOOKKEEPER: Austen Lopp
FOUNDER / CEO: Stewart Sallo
As Boulder County’s only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holds-barred journalism and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county’s most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you’re interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@ boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper. 1495 Canyon Boulevard, Suite CO 1, Boulder, CO 80302
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EDITOR’S NOTE
TRYING TIMES
Don’t panic — organize BY SHAY CASTLE
Welcome to Volume 1 of our firstever Survival Guide for Concerned Citizens. Volume 2 will follow next week.
The issues went through a few names before we settled on Survival Guide: the Resistance Issues and A Local’s Guide to the End of the World were early favorites.
Another idea was the The Community Resilience Issues. That is exactly what these volumes aim to do: give you, dear reader and resident, some practical steps to take your feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness and transform them into actions that strengthen your household and your local community so they can withstand national and global turmoil, be it economic collapse, political upheaval or climate disaster.
Everyone has their own picture of what a strong, connected and resilient community looks like. To us, it’s one where everyone is looking out for one another, we’re keeping our money as local as possible and sharing our abundance with others, whether it’s homegrown zucchini from the backyard garden or ample taxpayer-funded public spaces.
These ideas aren’t inherently political, but they have been politicized. Libraries, harm reduction — hell, even the concept of empathy is a target these days.
We firmly believe that collective action — the cooperation that birthed societies, brought us reasonable working hours and toppled monarchies — is not just the way of the past; it’s the way of the future, whatever it may bring.
The only way out is through, together.
COMING NEXT WEEK IN VOL. 2
• Policies to lobby your local gov’t for
• The case for backyard chickens
• A normie’s guide to mutual aid
• Fight climate change at home
• And more!
Credit: Ryan Forbes
HOW TO STAY HUMAN WHEN THE WORLD IS ON FIRE
BY MICHELE GOLDBERG
FIND YOUR CENTER THERAPY
If you’re feeling heartbroken, helpless or emotionally raw, it doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you. You’re alive and paying attention in a world that often demands numbness.
It’s hard to stay grounded when the world feels like it’s tilting. But resilience doesn’t come from turning off; it comes from allowing yourself to feel, and then acting from that place. Here’s how.
Responding with heart
Resilience isn’t about perfection. It’s about showing up, even when you feel off-kilter. One key practice is learning to identify in advance your strengths while dysregulated. Don’t wait until you feel calm or ideal to contribute. Ask: What can I offer, even like this? Maybe it’s a kind word, a donation or simply presence. The fantasy of a “better version” of yourself can be paralyzing. What’s real is enough. There’s only so much one person can do. Accepting that doesn’t mean giving up. It means acting within your limits rather than being crushed by them. This is where community matters. When we connect locally, we multiply impact. You don’t have to carry everything. Just something.
Don’t confuse ‘responsible for’ with ‘responsive to’
You can’t fix the world. But you can respond with generosity and care. Privilege guilt is useful if it spurs humble service. Beware the quicksand of too much negative narcissism. You may not have (directly) caused others’ circumstances, but systems have placed you in relative power and kept you there. Discuss and challenge these together. There is strength in numbers, only amplified by your access to resources.
Feel your sh*t
We often try to split emotion from logic. We say, My pain doesn’t help anyone. And maybe it doesn’t. But empathy does. Showing up does. Pain softens and sensitizes you. Feeling is not failure: It’s fuel. Let emotions move through you and steer you toward engagement.
You’re allowed to hurt
Pain doesn’t need a permission slip. Don’t silence your suffering because someone else “has it worse.” That only breeds shame and disconnection. Compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and emotional exhaustion are real.
Joy
and pain are not
enemies
They coexist. In times of grief, it might feel wrong to smile. But joy isn’t betrayal — it’s medicine. Lightness helps balance the nervous system and fuel sustainable care. You don’t owe yourself or the world your joy, but you don’t have to banish it either. Denying pleasure in deference to others’ suffering doesn’t reduce pain; it compounds it.
We hold both gratitude and devastation in the same breath. That’s not a glitch in the system. That is the system. We are wired for complexity.
Let go of what you can’t control
The Serenity Prayer isn’t just a cliché. Ask: What can I change? What can’t I?
Focusing only on the enormity of the problem will shut you down. Instead, radi-
cally accept your limitations and take the next indicated step, one at a time. Trying to carry the whole globe is a futile weight. You weren’t built for that.
Hardship is a constant with many faces
There is no escaping the harsh reality of pain, trauma and chaos unfolding across the globe every second. Share your grief and acceptance around this truth. Whether it’s war, disaster or injustice, these crises also vary in origin. A resilient community doesn’t flatten these complexities, but mobilizes in ways that honor the differences. Prioritize what can be done now.
Support your nervous system first
Whether the threat is personal or global, your body responds the same way. To stay present, you need to offer your nervous system alternate experiences. Gentle movement, vagus nerve exercises (humming, long exhales, splashing cold water), mindful touch or orienting to your surroundings can signal safety to the body. So can connecting with people, pets, music or nature. Rather than avoidance, this is resource-building. You can’t pour from an empty well.
Be curious about your reactions
If you find yourself doom-scrolling, snapping or frozen, PAUSE. Not to judge. Just get curious. What changes after five
deep breaths? What if you cry, or stretch or call a friend? There’s no right way to cope. But there’s value in asking, What might help right now? Don’t just ground; use this to learn about yourself and loved ones.
What community resilience really means
Community resilience means creating networks of care that can bend without breaking, spaces where people feel advocated for and seen. It’s built on mutual aid, trust, shared responsibility and the belief that none of us heals alone. Be vulnerable, admit you’re lost or overwhelmed and acknowledge a shared sense of ineffectiveness, numbness or rage. Then, nurture hope.
Check in on neighbors, share food, organize rides, join aid networks or show up consistently at the same place, physically or digitally, where people gather to support each other. Tangible steps matter, but resilience builds when we’re witnessed, not fixed, by others. Small, steady relationships often hold the most power during times of upheaval.
Determine a percentage of your day to offer, then schedule consistent time for contribution. Community resilience grows when we make space and time for each other.
Finally: Accept the helplessness
This might be the hardest part. You can’t do everything. That truth hurts — but if we can stay with that pain without turning away, we build not just personal resilience, but collective strength. That’s how we stay human, together, when the world is on fire.
Write in with your questions: bit.ly/ AskaTherapistBW. We’re in this together. And check our blog for a deeper dive: findyourcentertherapy.com/blog. This column provides general mental health insights and guidance. This advice is for informational/entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional, personalized medical, psychological or therapeutic treatment. While we strive for accuracy and inclusion, our feedback may not account for all competing theories and research in the field.
Courtesy: Michele Goldberg, Find Your Center
COMMUNITY
LIBRARIES AND THE ‘ECONOMY OF SHARING’
An ode to the palace of the people
BY KAYLEE HARTER
David Farnan still remembers taking laundry down the block in his small, rural Missouri town and coming home with a dozen eggs.
“My mother did laundry, one person had chickens and eggs, another person had an apple and a cherry tree, and we all swapped,” he says from his sunny office on the second floor of the Boulder Public Library. “It was just how poor people in a rural setting took care of each other.”
Today, his work as director of the library runs on that same sort of “economy of sharing.”
“The ethos of the public library, really, is to share. We just share everything,” he says. “The community pays for it, but then we as an institution are tasked with the responsibility of sharing it with everyone.”
For Farnan, that free exchange — of
books, of ideas, of space — is “the nexus of building community.” It also makes libraries an anomaly in an increasingly transactional world.
“People ask me all the time, ‘Could you do it? Could you invent the public library today?’” he says. “And I don’t know.”
While the exact origin of the public library is disputed — with Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Carnegie often receiving much of the credit — Farnan says in actuality, it was women of the Progressive Era who championed the cause of public libraries and brought them to fruition.
“They could not vote. They could not own property,” he says. “They’re the ones who came up with this idea about, like, let’s find a way for us to share all of this information with everybody. … Initially, I don’t think it really registered with me how impactful that was that the public library was something invented by people who were disenfranchised.”
Today, the library continues to serve as a beacon of empowerment for the disempowered.
that exists, but to make it stronger and to be resistant to that eroding, which seems to be happening.”
‘A PLACE TO BE’
When Farnan asked his staff to come up with the five things that encapsulate their work, the No. 1 item wasn’t books or technology or children’s story times — it was public space.
“The library is that safe place,” says Jon Solomon, director of the Longmont Public Library. “If you’re feeling attacked, that’s what we’re here for — to help keep the level of community
According to Farnan, an “erosion of public space” has been ongoing for decades.
“There are fewer and fewer things that we think of as public,” he said. “Even 20 years ago, I thought like, there’s a battle for the soul of people, and there is this desire among some elements for us all to just be consumers.”
For Doug Hamilton, president of BPL’s board, libraries are, above all else, a place to be in a space with one another without every interaction being commodified.
“There’s all different types of people,” he says. “It’s an entire cross-section of the community, and you’ll interact with people you may not normally interact with.”
Housed or unhoused, rich or poor, young or old — the library is open to all with well-lit spaces, air conditioning in the summer, heating in the winter and bathrooms that don’t require a purchase to access.
“We’re not going to turn anybody away,” Farnan says. “But then also, more than welcoming them in, they’re included. …We’re free and open to anybody and everybody: angry people, happy people, people of all walks of life.”
Elektra Greer, Nederland Community Library’s director, takes the duty of welcoming seriously. She enthusiastically offers cupcakes and mugs to those signing up for a library card on a spring afternoon and prides herself on the fact that a real human will always answer the library phone — no phone trees or voice assistants.
“Where else can you go where you can sit for hours?” Greer says. “You’re not
expected to spend money. You’re not supposed to do anything.”
For Amaya Sanovia, a recent Ned High graduate, the library was just that.
“It’s got me to have a place to be where I don’t have to spend money,” she says. “I can kind of go and hang out.”
Now, she’s gotten more involved as a youth volunteer and has used it to help her transition to her next phase of life.
“I’m going into college this next fall, and through my library, I’ve been able to connect with a lot of resources for scholarships,” she says. “I’m also Native American … so just being able to be in a library community that’s inclusive has definitely been really helpful and encouraging.”
LIBRARY OF THINGS
Wander into a library and, of course, you’ll see books of all kinds lining the shelves. But look a little closer — or ask a librarian — and you’ll find so much more.
In Nederland, the library has stepped up to be a de facto public information officer in times of natural disaster, according to Greer, with librarians ready to pick up the phone and help distribute information in times of crisis.
“We are part of the instant command structure if there’s emergencies for the community,” she says. “Everyone knows, ‘Oh, the library will be open and has these resources.’” In addition to the Nederland Community Center, the library serves as a potential evacuation site for wildfires or other emergencies.
Ned’s library has also stepped up to fill gaps in the health and human services ecosystem; they’re a hub for dropping off winter coats and serve as a sort of concierge for connecting people to other resources in the community.
They’ve also offered telehealth services since the pandemic and will soon have a soundproof, private pod complete with homecare equipment such as blood pressure cuffs, telehealth equipment with assistive technology for those with hearing or vision loss, and “most importantly, library humans to help our patrons navigate the technology aspects of video conferencing,” Greer wrote in an email in response to follow-up questions.
“Librarians have long nursed the human condition, so telehealth is a great fit!” Today’s libraries also aim to narrow
A mother reads to her son at the Longmont Public Library. Courtesy: Longmont Public Library
David Farnan. Credit: Kaylee Harter
Jon Solomon. Courtesy: Jon Solomon
the digital divide. More than 160,000 households in the state do not have access to adequate internet service, according to 2024 reporting by the Colorado Sun
In addition to the computers and WiFi offered in the space, some libraries including Longmont’s offer hotspots and Chromebooks for checkout.
“It’s hard to imagine what it would feel like to feel so disconnected,” Solomon says. “Just that feeling of being connected and knowing what’s going on and what people are talking about, I think that speaks volumes as far as resiliency and keeping everyone engaged.”
The Lafayette Library offers free tech help to learn to navigate smartphones, the internet and other tech. Beyond the digital, there’s also a host of programs for in-person engagement. Lafayette’s offerings include puzzle competitions, “international tea” and gardening classes.
“It’s kind of a way to get you know community members in the same room working on the same thing,” says Betsey Yadon, a Lafayette enrichment librarian.
They also offer suicide prevention programming and free tax help through AARP.
“We’re supporting our community and giving those types of things to people who might not be able to afford it,” says Zoe Boiarsky, another Lafayette librarian.
Within the “library of things” offered at many libraries, you might find anything from sewing machines to radon detectors to museum passes.
Wander up the stairs at the Longmont Library in the spring and summer and you’ll find a seed library, complete with packets to grow food and flowers in your own backyard. Backpacks at many libraries offer state parks passes through a partnership with the state library.
Visit one of BPL’s makerspaces, a feature that’s become a staple in many libraries, and you can use 3D printers, looms, laser cutters, screen printing equipment and more.
“It’s a collaborative learning environment,” Farnan says. “We’re learning together. If you were to go into the makerspace today and ask, like, ‘I’m thinking about doing this,’ then they would say, ‘I don’t know how to do that, but let’s figure it out.’
“That is inherently resilient.”
He recalls a blind artist who came in with a unique challenge: “She wanted to be able to see her drawings.”
“They worked with her with 3D printers, with the laser cutters and that kind of thing, in order to transfer her drawings into dimensional objects, because they were abstractions, so that she could then see them with her fingers.”
Despite the always expanding array of programming and services, the books themselves — and literacy for all ages — are ever important.
“Read a book, you never know what might happen,” Farnan says. “You might fall in love, you might have an adventure. You might forget all your troubles. You might be terrified. … It’s an amazing thing, for a 500-year-old technology, to still be so instrumental in how we see ourselves and how we can see ourselves change.”
“The act of continual learning is an act of resistance,” Hamilton adds. “Having this strong core of public engagement is what makes the community. We’re only as good as our connections are with each other.”
‘NOT GONNA SIT HERE AND TAKE IT’
Today, libraries and the people who run them have increasingly had to fight back against challenges to their core values.
“[Resistance] is not how public libraries necessarily see ourselves, but it’s been something that’s been foisted upon us,” Farnan says.
Back when he became a librarian, he said the core tenets of libraries — being free and open to all, standing up for the First Amendment and resisting censorship in all its forms — seemed pretty simple.
“All of those things have been made extraordinarily controversial, if not incredibly political,” he says.
In 2022, Colorado made up nearly 10% of book challenges in the U.S., according to CPR reporting on American Library Association data. Longmont’s Rainbow Storytime — which features books by and about LGBTQ+ people faced a petition in 2023.
But Solomon said the answer to calls to end that program, like his answer to requests to remove certain books from the shelves, was simple: It’s staying.
“People do not know that. Librarians have said, ‘Show me the warrant.’”
“We don’t want to know what you checked out,” Solomon says. “We delete the information intentionally so that no one else can know what you checked out.”
That makes libraries more vital than ever, he says.
“It becomes more and more important that we exist so that people can get information without fear that someone is watching them,” Solomon says. “They can read what they want without fear that someone is looking at what you’re reading and making a decision on that.”
SHOW UP
Just last week, the entire 70-person staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the federal agency that funds libraries and museums across the country, was put on leave. The Colorado State Library receives more than $3 million annually from the IMLS — more than 60% of its budget. Although public libraries are primarily funded locally, many receive grants and other support from the state library, as do school and prison libraries.
“I’m not gonna sit here and take it,” he says. “We need to be like, ‘No, we are standing up against these things. We are here. We aggressively support our First Amendment rights.’”
Not only do libraries stand for the First Amendment, they also defend the right to privacy.
“The number one thing in our profession, our North Star, is privacy and confidentiality of patron records,” Greer says.
Sitting on the patio of the Nederland Community Library listening to the songs of springtime birds and the warble of the creek flowing by, Greer likens libraries to pollination or a life-giving stream. To lose libraries, she says, would be to lose the “social and soulful infrastructure” of society.
When it comes to making sure libraries and the community building they do can continue, Hamilton says “show up and be in community, and keep showing up, because we have a duty to each other to preserve what we have and to build on it.”
“Libraries are the last great unbroken promise of a democratic society,” Farnan says. “This is it. This is the last thing we got. We have not changed the promise, like, everybody’s welcome, anybody can get access to anything, and we’re going to stick up for all those things that make us good.”
A patron peruses the Friends of the Longmont Library Bookshop in the public library. Credit: Kaylee Harter
Ezekiel Fitzer, Nederland Community Library Assistant (left) and Elektra Greer, Nederland Community Library Director. Credit: Kaylee Harter
COMMUNITY
STRONGER TOGETHER
Knowing our neighbors could save lives
BY NATALIE KERR
In December 2021, as the winds that blew the flames of the Marshall Fire ripped through south Boulder, causing trees to fall and destroying homes, Isabel Sanchez felt calm.
She ventured out from her home in the Mapleton Mobile Home Park to help a neighbor whose home had been damaged and came across a good friend of hers pacing nervously outside. She wondered aloud how Sanchez could possibly be so calm.
“I told her, ‘I feel very ready,’” Sanchez recalls. “If we have to evacuate, everything’s ready. She said to me, ‘Why don’t you teach a class?’”
Sanchez took the suggestion to heart, and in 2022 she helped found the Community Preparedness Training (CPT) program. CPT helps residents in mobile home communities, low-income communities and senior housing prepare for emergency situations by distributing resources and helping participants make evacuation plans.
“We are our [own] first responders,” Sanchez said. “We have to help our immediates because the emergency
responders can’t get to us in an emergency when they’re being pulled everywhere.”
Across Boulder County, neighborhood leaders are forming groups that can activate if the worst happens — whether that be a natural disaster, a security threat or a global health emergency that causes the world to shut down.
FOSTERING CONNECTION
Dave Peattie swears that the best thing he’s ever done for disaster preparedness is make sangria.
He serves as the board president of The Berkeley Disaster Preparedness Neighborhood Network (BDPNN) in Berkeley, California, and spends significant time figuring out how the fabric of a community is weaved. BDPNN supports neighborhoods that are working to establish or reinvigorate collaboration between neighbors, helping them accomplish key steps in emergency preparation such as learning disaster first aid, creating emergency go kits and making an evacuation plan.
Before a community can establish an emergency network, neighbors need to do the simple but rare act of getting to know each other. Something as fun as a block party can lay the groundwork to eventually save a life during a disaster.
“The number one thing you can do is get to know your neighbors,” Peattie said. “If you care about your neighbors and they care about you, that’s how lives are actually saved.”
That can be easier said than done, Peattie said. People have busy lives filled with jobs, children and long to-do lists. Preparing for a hypothetical emer-
gency can feel low on the priorities list.
That’s why Boulder resident Michael Le Desma decided to start small, creating a “pod” of people who live in direct proximity to each other, rather than attempting to reach the entire Martin Acres community.
“I don’t know the people on the north end of Martin Acres, they’re not my neighbors, in the sense that I see them every day, and I’m interacting with them,” Le Desma said. “My sense was that community building, it can be fairly far in its reach, but the further away it goes, the more diffuse it is.”
His homewwners association didn’t offer a productive environment for neighborhood conversations, often devolving into argument. As far as emergency situations, the messages coming from the HOA could sometimes be dangerously inaccurate, accidentally spreading outdated or incorrect information through its large email listserv.
He started his own neighborhood group, Neighbors United of South Boulder (NUSoBo), which meets in members’ homes to share food, drink and conversation about how to improve their neighborhood.
“It is very difficult to go into somebody else’s home and be eating their food, be in that space and simultaneously be an asshole,” Le Desma said.
In the pods, NUSoBo members use a consensus model, where they only take action if the entire group agrees on an idea. Once an action has been approved, people are expected to complete it.
“NUSoBo’s goal is to build these connections where we can lean on each other to get things done,” Le Desma said, “whether it’s personal or collective.”
‘WHAT CAN WE DO?’
Even within “official” government disaster agencies, community building is central to prevention.
“Our underlying goal is that resilience piece,” said Brenda Cook Ritenour, neighborhood engagement and services manager for the City of Boulder. “If people know their neighbors and have good relationships with their neighbors, then they’re better positioned to help take care of each other no matter what happens.”
When Ritenour became Boulder’s neighborhood liaison in 2017, she reshaped the role to be more proactive. She worked to find natural neighborhood leaders who could communicate pressing needs to city officials and pass along resources back to their communities.
Emergency Response Connectors operated during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping organize neighborhood testing sites and pop-up clinics, and during the Marshall Fire, when their on-the-ground updates helped the city orchestrate its own response.
The best way for neighbors to start connecting with each other will be different from place to place, but there are resources available to get started, said Boulder’s Neighborhood Services Program Manager, Edgar Chavarria.
“All these opportunities are possible,”
Large plumes of smoke are visible over Superior around 2 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2021, during the Marshall Fire.
Credit: Tristantech, CC BY-SA 4.0
Isabel Sanchez leads Community Preparedness Training in fall 2024. Courtesy: Rebecca Caridad
Chavarria said. “All it really needs is for neighbors to have that creativity and imagination to think about, ‘What can we do to come together?’”
START WITH THE BASICS
When people join Community Preparedness Training — five weeks of three-hour classes — they can feel overwhelmed, Sanchez said. Often, participants have been through a disaster and can be triggered by all the potential threats they need to prepare for.
Boulder Fire Department for guidance.
The city helped them identify inexpensive and simple ways to make their neighborhood less fire prone, like removing highly flammable juniper plants on HOA properties, Riley said. They worked with Monika Weber from ODM to prepare go-lists of items they need to bring in an evacuation — medicines, important documents, sentimental items, etc. — and then conducted an evacuation drill.
Neighbors knew what day the drill would happen, but not what time. When
“Some people have not gone through it, but know someone that has,” Sanchez said. “And now you watch the news, and everywhere there’s tornadoes, fires, floods. We’re in bad shape; our planet is suffering.”
After the test pilot, Sanchez started incorporating calming practices into the program, teaching people to make tinctures for stress relief and lung support following smoke inhalation. Each class also starts with meditation, breathing exercises and a detox to help people feel relaxed and capable.
Emergency preparedness can take years, which can be paralyzing, said Claire Riley, who chairs the Wonderland Hills Fire Mitigation Committee. Unsure where to begin, they contacted the Boulder County Office of Disaster Management (ODM) and the City of
the alert popped up on their phones, they dropped whatever they were doing, set a timer, packed their go-bag, hopped in the car and stopped the timer.
“Some folks were done in five minutes; others came down when we had our little meeting afterwards, it took them 24 minutes,” Weber said. “It was helpful for them, because they were able to [realize] ‘Oh, if we do get all these items, that’s going to take us close to half an hour, and we’re maybe not comfortable with that, so we’re going to adjust things.’”
PREPARING FOR EVERYTHING
Taking time to assess personal risk factors — such as your mobility level or the reliability of your transportation — can feel scary, but having a plan in place means you’re better equipped to respond in a high-stress scenario, Weber said. Having
neighbors involved also makes planning much more approachable. Maybe one neighbor has a vehicle, another has a generator and another has a backup water supply.
“We really encourage folks to talk to your neighbors, talk to your support system — whether that’s someone next door, someone five minutes away — to start to plan and just talk about these things, because we can’t do it individually,” Weber said.
Weber’s top piece of advice is to sign up for BOCO Alerts, which is how the county communicates about emergencies and recommended safety actions. Right now, only about 40% of county residents are signed up.
People should also listen to their instincts and not wait for an evacuation order if they feel unsafe, Weber said.
That’s what Joycelyn Fankhouser did during the 2013 flood.
At 11 p.m. the night of the floods, Fankhouser’s husband started to get nervous about the river near their Lyons home overflowing. They got up and went to check, and found that the water was already cresting above a bridge that crosses the river. They began knocking on neighbors’ houses, including a 90-year-old who lived next door, helping people evacuate.
The official flood sirens didn’t go off until 2 a.m. By that time, people were trapped in their homes, Fankhouser said.
“We were all cut off.”
That experience led her to take time off from her job and begin volunteering with the Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services to help coordinate flood recovery efforts. She helped found Lyons Prepared, a community group working to support each other and prevent another extreme isolation event.
Lyons Prepared doesn’t gear up for disasters like floods, Fankhouser said: They prepare for the outcomes of disasters: evacuation orders, power outages or water shutoffs. Planning for common impacts rather than every hypothetical disaster helps break the process down.
“If you prepare for each of those lifelines,” Fankhouser said, “you are then preparing for everything.”
‘YOU NEED YOUR NEIGHBORS’
It’s important to make disaster preparedness fun and productive, and not instill a “doomsday prepper” fear in people, said Berkeley’s Peattie. Ideally, people are overly prepared for a disaster that never happens.
“I hope on one level, this is just a giant waste of time,” Peattie said. “It’s like insurance: You’re hoping you don’t have to ever use it, but you’re willing to pay into it because you know that the consequences could be huge.”
The work is never wasted, he said, because his quality of life is improving. He and his neighbors are much better acquainted, they know each other’s unique needs and abilities, they care about each other and rely on each other.
“What we’re seeing is neighbors who know each other,” he said. “And when you know each other, you don’t leave them behind.”
Fankhouser’s work with Lyons Prepared reminds her of a speech she heard from political scientist Daniel Aldrich, who found that, during a tsunami in Thailand, it was community connection that saved lives. Not money, not resources, but neighbors helping neighbors.
“In a really big emergency, there are not enough first responders,” Fankhouser said. “You need your neighbors.”
Colorado National Guardsmen respond to the 2013 floods in Boulder County. Credit: Sgt. Joseph K. VonNida, U.S. Department of Defense
Isabel Sanchez hugs a Community Preparedness trainee in fall 2024. Courtesy: Rebecca Caridad
DIGITAL HARM REDUCTION
A guide to (more) ethical technology use
BY ANDY SAYLER
Welcome to 2025! The cars drive themselves (sometimes right into the back of a parked police car)! The AI answers your questions (often peppered with “facts” about events that never occurred)! You can instantly share the first thing that pops into your head with the world (and so can the Nazis)!
So how do you, an upstanding citizen of this brave new world, navigate all that technology has to offer? How do you live a 21st century life without just creating more 21st century tech tycoons? And can you do it without moving to an off-grid cabin in Montana and writing your very own manifesto?
All technology is dual-use, and there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism. But we can take steps to reduce the harms technology can cause while still enjoying its benefits. Whether you’re chronically online or merely tech curious, this guide to digital harm reduction is for you.
MESSAGING/ COMMUNICATION
Technology is great at helping us stay in touch. But SMS (traditional text messaging) is inherently insecure, and lets both the cell companies and the government monitor your messages.
Communication applications like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger improve on SMS by providing “end-toend” encryption that protects your communications from prying eyes. But they’re both owned by Meta — a company best known for forgetting that humans have legs and with a CEO who believes what 2025 needs is more “masculine energy.” If you want secure communications without the billionaire management, applications like Signal (you know, the app the
Secretary of Defense uses to text you war plans) offer the same end-to-end encryption as WhatsApp (in fact, Signal invented the encryption protocol WhatsApp and many others now use), but run by a nonprofit rather than a megacorp.
On that note — if you use it and like it, consider kicking them a dollar or two. Remember, if you’re not paying for a product, you probably are the product. Ad-free tools run by nonprofits are great, but the nonprofit still has to pay the bills.
somewhat difficult to use as a result. Bluesky is simpler to get started with and has a lot of recent momentum, but is currently a more centralized platform. Both offer a rough equivalent to old Twitter without all of the current baggage. Another option is to move away from global social media platforms in favor of smaller communities. Platforms like Discord and Slack offer the means to operate smaller, often semi-private, online communities. While these lack the reach
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media has long been the technology boogeyman. From election disinformation to mental health concerns, there are plenty of well-aired criticisms of the technology. But it is also what allows us to get rapid on-the-ground updates during an emergency or to find communities we’d otherwise miss — be they furries, fanfic or flat earthers. So what are the reasonable social media options?
From the ruins of Twitter, we’ve seen two major social media ecosystems emerge — Mastodon and Bluesky. Both rely on distributed protocols that aim to move away from a world where a single large corporation controls the entire platform — with all the pros and cons that entails. Mastodon started the distribution ecosystem idea and still promotes a perhaps purer version of it, but it can be
of global platforms like Mastodon or Bluesky, they offer a form of digital localism where you can connect on a smaller scale. Some of these communities are invite only, so discoverability is often by word of mouth or through existing acquaintances.
Don’t have anyone to invite you to their cool, private Slack? You can always get a group of like-minded folks together and start your own. Sometimes humans interact better on a scale of hundreds of folks rather than with everyone on planet Earth.
ENTERTAINMENT
Modern television, movie and music consumption is dominated by streaming services. But artists have raised persistent concerns about the sustainability of these services. Some services even add their own “fake” songs to reduce how much
time they have to spend paying actual artists. Streaming also means you don’t actually own any of the media you consume, and your ability to access a given piece of media could vanish on a whim. So what are the alternatives?
If you want to put money directly into an artist’s pocket, sites like Bandcamp offer the ability to buy and download music directly that you can keep playing years from now without being dependent on a streaming service continuing to carry your favorite artist.
You can also just avoid digital music altogether. Defying all odds, vinyl sales continue to increase year over year, making up the second most popular way to consume music after streaming. Not only does it pay artists more, but you can read the liner notes and increase your hipster street cred! Plus, you can shop local — just head over to Paradise Found on Pearl Street to see what they have in store.
The Boulder Public Library District also has numerous free alternatives for your entertainment needs. In addition to their ample physical collection, the library offers numerous digital resources — all supported by your tax dollars. Have an e-reader, but don’t want to just send more money to Amazon? You can check e-books for free via Libby. Want to (legally) stream music or movies without having to pay? See what Hoopla or Kanopy has to offer. Need to read that paywalled news article? Check out free access to the myriad of newspapers the library provides.
Our world is not one of absolutes. Technology can cause harm, but it also improves our lives.
As we think about how we consume technology, we can all work to nudge things in the direction of more good than harm. Whether it’s better security, fewer mega crops or a more sustainable economy for creators, think about what you can reasonably do. Then go and do it.
Andy Sayler (andysayler.com) is a Boulder resident, information security expert and a trustee for the Boulder Public Library District. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from CU Boulder. When not writing for the Weekly, he spends his time collecting vinyl records, canning tomatoes and walking his cat, Mack.
Credit: Robin Worrall
POWER SHIFT
Alternative economies for your housing, banking, food and businesses
BY ANDREA STEFFES-TUTTLE
In communities across Boulder County, a quiet revolution is taking shape — one rooted in democratic approaches to economic life that challenge the assumptions of late-stage capitalism. From cooperative housing initiatives to community-supported agriculture and local credit unions, residents are coming together to support systems that prioritize people over profit.
These efforts aren’t just experiments on the fringes: They’re practical, resilient responses to the growing economic instability.
As the federal government divests from community infrastructure and social safety nets, increasing costs and destabilized supply chains will make basic needs increasingly inaccessible.
In Boulder County, people are reimagining how we buy homes, access food and manage our money — all in the name of supporting resilient communities prepared for an uncertain future.
HOUSING
Boulder has a serious affordable housing crisis, with rising property prices and limited funding for affordable housing initiatives. Local groups are addressing the issue with unique approaches that provide affordable and community-oriented living options.
Who’s doing it locally?
Boulder Housing Coalition (BHC) is an organization that creates permanently affordable cooperative housing in Boulder and Denver. BHC owns four cooperative houses in Boulder where groups of people democratically own or manage where they live.
BHC’s funding comes primarily from grants and loans from the City of Boulder, which are used to purchase the properties. Resident rents are then
used to cover ongoing expenses and mortgage payments. To live in a BHC house, residents must qualify based on income and assets.
“Rent starts at $585, so people can experiment with this style of living without making the same kind of investment if you’re trying to buy a house,” said Lily Kapiloff, director of development. “Renters get more autonomy, more say over what’s happening, as if they owned the house.”
Sarah Wells, a real estate agent and co-buying specialist at LiveWork, helps people and groups cooperatively buy property in the Denver metro area. Co-buying allows groups of 2-8 people who already know each other to purchase a property together, often for increased affordability or to build community.
“In 1971, the average first-time home buyer age was 24, and now it’s 37,” Wells said. “What we’re really trying to do is to make it possible for people to do it sooner so that they have a longer runway for building wealth, and they can get on the ladder of equity building sooner in life.”
How you can get involved
If you’re looking to rent, Boulder Housing Coalition has open spots, or you can donate to the organization. If you’re thinking about buying a house, but don’t have the resources to buy on your own, consider co-buying and contact Wells for guidance.
BANKING
The collapse of the financial system in 2008 changed the landscape of banking in the United States. Before the crisis, more than 100 new banks opened each year. Today, starting a new bank has become more difficult, with just six new banks opening nationwide in 2024,
according to NPR’s Planet Money. This shift has made it harder for small, local banks to compete against the dominance of massive institutions like JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America, which collectively control trillions in assets.
Credit unions are an alternative to traditional, for-profit banks. Unlike big banks that prioritize shareholder returns, credit unions are not-forprofit, member-owned cooperatives that reinvest their profits back into the community. They often have lower fees, more flexible loan terms and a range of financial education services.
Who’s
doing it locally?
Elevations Credit Union is one of the most well-recognized credit unions in Boulder County. The institution has over $3 billion in assets and 170,000 members. “We don’t have shareholders, we have members, and we are owned by those members, not shareholders,” said Kathleen Hoxworth, vice president of internal communications. “That helps us make members our first priority, and it makes the members the heart of all of our decisions.”
Other credit unions in Boulder County include Canvas Credit Union and Premier Members Credit Union. Alpine Bank and High Plains Bank, while not credit unions, are Colorado-based and employee-owned.
How you can get involved
Consider opening an account with a local credit union. Moving money to institutions like Elevations, Canvas or Premier Members Credit Union supports the community-centered financial system and ensures that there are alternatives to big corporate financial institutions.
INVESTING IN THE LAND
Investing is a powerful tool for building community wealth and supporting local businesses. Unfortunately, many traditional investment opportunities are only available to accredited investors — those who meet specific income or net worth requirements. These requirements make it challenging for everyday people to support ini-
tiatives that align with their values and directly benefit their communities.
Fortunately, alternative investing approaches are emerging to democratize the process, allowing more people to invest in businesses they believe in. Here are a few examples of how this is happening in Boulder County.
Who’s doing it locally?
“A big thing that kept coming up for us in the agriculture world and the world in general is that people have a pretty damaged relationship to money,” shared Azuraye Wycoff, executive director and operator at Yellow Barn Farms.
The team at the Longmont farm recently launched a StalkMarket program, which allows customers to buy a Soil Share to support regenerative land stewardship. In return, members receive vegetable, meat and egg shares, as well as benefits like access to co-working space, community meals, free classes and events, and participation in The Picky Pig compost and food waste drop-off program.
“You’re truly investing in the soil, and you have a share that gives you dividends,” Wycoff said. “And those dividends are things like the byproducts, which are meat and eggs and produce.”
SOIL Boulder is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing 0% interest loans to local food producers. Suzanne Prendergast, vice president of the executive committee at SOIL Boulder, explained, “The loans are structured flexibly to meet the needs of each farmer, with repayment terms ranging from two to five years.”
Members pay a yearly fee of $250 or more, which contributes to a loan pool,
Courtesy: Elevations Credit Union
Credit: Andrea Steffes-Tuttle
ECONOMY
and receive voting rights to determine which projects receive funding.
Recently, Grama Grass and Livestock received unanimous approval by members for a $50,000 loan to support expansion of their Boulder Countybased regenerative meat company.
Nude Foods is a zero-waste grocery store that opened in Boulder in 2020 and has since expanded to Denver. To fund their continued growth, they are raising money through Wefunder, a crowdfunding investment platform that allows supporters to become investors.
“We wanted to raise more and make it accessible to our community so they can be part of what we’re building,” said Verity Noble, co-founder of Nude Foods.
The current raise aims to address inefficiencies and promote the business more effectively as they plan to open three additional stores.
How to get involved
You can invest directly in Nude Foods through their Wefunder campaign. To get involved with SOIL Boulder, consider becoming a member by paying the yearly fee or attending their pitch events to learn more about the projects they support.
Sign up for the StalkMarket at Yellow Barn Farms or a local CSA like Grama Grass or Growing Gardens. The Boulder County Farmers Markets CSA Guide has a list of CSA options.
If you don’t want to commit to a weekly share — which requires payment upfront — use Boulder Weekly’s annual farm stand guide to source your local produce, honey, eggs and meat: bit.ly/ BWFarmstandGuide.
Find more tips on building a resilient local food system on p. 27.
BUSINESS COOPERATIVES
Business cooperatives offer a more democratic and inclusive approach to business, where members — whether individuals or organizations — share ownership and decision-making responsibilities.
These organizations come in various forms, including consumer co-ops, producer co-ops, worker co-ops and purchasing co-ops.
Who’s doing it locally?
There are several examples of cooperative approaches to business in Boulder County. Two well-known examples are McGuckin Hardware and Namaste Solar.
A beloved fixture in Boulder, McGuckin Hardware is a member of the Ace Hardware purchasing cooperative. Ace Hardware is the world’s largest retailer-owned hardware cooperative, which means that independent owners operate most locations while also holding shares in the organization.
This cooperative model allows McGuckin to maintain local ownership while benefiting from bulk purchasing and shared services, so they can compete with big-box stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s.
Namaste Solar is a prime example of a democratic business. Worker-owners at Namaste follow a one-share, onevote principle, giving each member equal say, regardless of their shareholding. As Jason Sharpe, CEO of Namaste, put it to Boulder Weekly, “You don’t have one or two people making huge profits. You have a lot of people building something that’s more sustainable.”
Explore Boulder Weekly’s ode to organized labor at bit.ly/WorkersIssue.
A Farm Hop tour visits the pigs at Yellow Barn Farm in Longmont. Credit: Devin Wycoff
Charles and Azuraye Wycoff, founders and builders of the Yellow Barn project. Credit: Devin Wycoff
TITLE
Courtesy: Grama Grass
How to get involved
Supporting cooperative businesses is a powerful way to strengthen the local economy. Shop at McGuckin Hardware or seek employment with a worker cooperative like Namaste Solar, or others like it. If you’re in a position to implement a worker co-op at your own company or join a purchasing cooperative, take the leap — it’s a step toward a more democratic and resilient economy. Find purchasing co-ops at bit.ly/ PurchasingCoopsBW.
A powerful way to rethink our economic activities is to find ways to embrace reuse and resource sharing. In Boulder, Buy Nothing Facebook groups create a space where neighbors can give away items they no longer need and find secondhand treasures for free. Beyond simply exchanging goods, these groups foster a sense of connection and generosity that strengthens local ties.
Similarly, tools like Time Banking and Offers and Needs Markets allow community members to trade skills and services rather than money, creating a circular economy where people support one another while minimizing waste.
CHANGE YOUR PERSONAL APPROACH TO THE ECONOMY FOR A STRONGER ONE TO EXIST
Reimagining our economy to be more cooperative and democratic is a necessary response to the challenges of our time. Around the world and right in our community, people are working to build frameworks that shift power, capital and decision-making to everyday people.
One framework is the Just Economy, which supports financial activists who
are shifting the flow of capital to address social and environmental challenges. Similarly, the Solidarity Economy emphasizes cooperation, democracy, social and racial justice, environmental sustainability and mutualism — centering interdependence and respect as fundamental values.
Another transformative model is Doughnut Economics, proposed by economist Kate Raworth, which balances meeting human needs with respecting planetary boundaries. It envisions an economy that provides for all without exceeding ecological limits, charting a course toward a sustainable and just future.
If you’re looking for tangible ways to change how you participate in the economy, check out The Financial Activist Playbook by Jasmine Rashid. It offers practical strategies to creatively engage with your community and rethink how you use your resources.
Right here in Boulder, we have leaders like Nathan Schneider at CU Boulder, who is pioneering new models for democratic ownership and governance through his work at the Media Economies Design Lab. His research explores how technology, democracy and religion intersect, as well as how we can rethink ownership and governance of online platforms and digital spaces.
We have the tools and resources to build a better future. Let’s organize our communities, our money and our lives around principles that prioritize equity, democracy and sustainability.
Andrea Steffes-Tuttle is a cultural anthropologist, writer and the founder and lead researcher at the Worker Equity Lab, where she studies shared ownership and its economic impact.
WEEKLY EVENTS
NEWSLETTER
Concerts, dinners, performances, happy hours, festivals and so much more!
a fundraiser like no other in celebration of the arts
thursday, april 24, 2025 5:30pm at the Dairy Arts Center
STORIES AND STRINGS
Musical collab invites empathy for immigrants
BY TONI TRESCA
What does it mean to truly empathize with someone who fears your very existence? For Cristian Solano-Córdova, it’s not just a rhetorical question — it’s his reality.
As a DACA recipient and the director of communications, outreach and development for Boulder’s Motus Theater, he’s shared his story countless times in an effort to humanize the lived experience of immigrants.
But even he admits this moment feels heavier. The second Trump administration has already begun, bringing with it a resurgence of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy proposals aimed at dismantling what little protection undocumented communities have left. And yet, instead of retreating into despair, Solano-Córdova offers something unexpected: understanding.
“This moment in our history is really all about fear,” Solano-Córdova says. “It’s not just our fear, because we’re scared, and it kind of hurts to even admit that. But I empathize a lot with all this fear that a lot of anti-immigrant people feel because they’ve heard this banging of the drums in the media of misleading narratives around immigration. I empathize because the commonality is fear, but we shouldn’t be fearing each other.”
That radical compassion is the beating heart of Stories of Migration & Music, a collaborative performance by Motus Theater and the Boulder Philharmonic’s String Quartet on April 26 at Boulder Valley UU Fellowship in Lafayette.
Co-presented with Being Better Neighbors, the night of storytelling and music features autobiographical monologues by Motus artists Laura Peniche, Alejandro Fuentes-Mena and SolanoCórdova, all of whom have firsthand experience with immigration policy. Each
monologue is underscored by violinist Anthony Salvo and followed by a musical response from the Boulder Phil String Quartet, with pieces curated by pianist and Phil education director Dr. Fernanda Nieto.
“I wanted the pieces to reflect not just the tumultuous experiences immigrants have gone through but also the hope, courage and sense of belonging that immigrants develop as they go through these journeys of migration,” says Nieto, who migrated to the U.S. from Mendoza, Argentina. “There is a strength that comes through that is clearly exposed in the stories, and I wanted the music to reflect the power.”
MUSICAL MIGRATION
The idea for this performance was sparked by Bob Braudes of Being Better Neighbors, a local nonprofit whose mission is to foster an inclusive community in East Boulder County through events and cross-cultural engagement.
“Some folks will come for the music, some for the stories,” he says. “But the goal is to increase visibility into what’s going on. We want people to realize immigrants aren’t political issues — they’re people.”
Solano-Córdova’s story opens the night after the 2016 election, with his younger sister, who was only eight years old, curled up and crying, terrified of deportation.
“She didn’t understand the subtleties of the immigration system, but she’s a citizen who was born here, so I had to explain to her that she wouldn’t be deported,” Solano-Córdova says. “I end the story by telling my sister how I crossed the border with our mom when we were toddlers, how it was terrifying, but I had faith. I trusted my mother and knew she was doing everything she could to keep us safe and get us a place we could call home. It’s about keeping courage alive.”
Another story, Peniche’s, is framed as an open letter to her fellow Christians, recounting her father’s journey across the border with his children, guided by faith and the hope of a safer life. A third monologue by Fuentes-Mena discusses economic exploitation faced by immigrants and his family’s lifelong struggle with wage theft.
“Sharing a story is better than just trying to convince somebody through arguments,” Fuentes-Mena says. “Too many people get caught up in this idea of what is right versus what is wrong, and everybody has their own perspective about that. But when you share a personal story, there is no right or wrong. There’s just a lived experience, and are you willing to accept it or not?”
‘WE’RE NOT STEPPING BACK’
Founded in Boulder in 2011 following a series of local hate crimes, Motus was built on the belief that personal storytelling can spark civic change. Now, as national policies shift and funding for the arts
grows uncertain, Motus leaders say they’re not going anywhere.
“A lot of other organizations, like universities and law firms, are bending over backward to change their language to appease Trump,” Solano-Córdova says. “That’s preemptively giving away our power. Self-censoring ourselves isn’t going to help anyone. It only helps people in power, and I’m not going to sit silently while my community gets attacked. As an organization, we’re not stepping back from our work because these are human stories from our community.”
That defiance also applies to federal funding. While Motus has received support from the NEA in the past — and continues to apply — they’re not banking on it.
“NEA contributions to Motus’s budget are probably around five percent,” SolanoCórdova says. “It would be great to not have to raise an extra five percent but we’re going to keep pushing forward because these stories are important. We’re not hinging our work on political forces above our heads.”
This includes projects like TRANSformative Stories, which is touring this month to CU Denver on April 15 and the CU Colorado Springs on April 23, as well as new monologue series Youth Behind and Beyond Bars and What Love Requires, both of which will premiere later this year. But for now, all eyes are on the Boulder Valley UU Fellowship, where strings and stories will intertwine.
“I’m hoping that people who think immigrants are taking advantage of the country will show up,” Nieto says. “There’s something profound about hearing somebody’s story and understanding there’s a fundamental connection we all share as humans. This isn’t about making people cry. It’s about offering a moment to reflect, connect and let someone else’s experience get in your heart.”
ON STAGE: Stories of Migration & Music with Motus Theater and the Boulder Philharmonic String Quartet. 4 p.m. Saturday, April 26, Boulder Valley UU Fellowship, 1241 Ceres Drive, Lafayette. Free
Motus Theater monologist Cristian SolanoCórdova performs at the Netroots National Conference in 2024. Courtesy: Motus Theater
Alejandro Fuentes-Mena performing at the Dairy Arts Center in 2024. Credit: NJK Photography
Laura Peniche will share her family’s migration story alongside Solano-Córdova and Alejandro Fuentes-Mena in Lafayette on April 26. Credit: Rick Villarreal
MUSIC
‘GIVE US THE MICROPHONE!’
Boulder punks Diva Cup build queer-femme community
BY JUSTIN CRIADO
Diva Cup sucks. This tongue-in-cheek motto emblazoned on merch of the Boulder-based femme punk band named after a period product doesn’t fail to cause confusion, but the audacious quartet owns it.
“I remember one of our earliest shows, this 40ish-year-old gay man came up and was like, ‘I had roommates in college who swore by the DivaCup, what happened? Why does it suck? Why do we not like it?’” vocalist Polly Torian, 20, recalls. “We were like, ‘No, that’s our band, and we suck. It’s not that deep.’”
The sentiment is only becoming more and more ironic, as Torian, bassist Addy Harrison, guitarist Maxx Goodman and drummer Maggie Kempen kick down the door of convention with a thumb-in-theeye ethos that’s refreshing and righteous.
Diva Cup took the CU and greater Boulder scene by the throat a little over a year ago after emerging from the college radio station’s basement — where Torian, Goodman and Kempen initially met as students — to light up the DIY campus circuit with their rowdy brand of no-frills rock ’n’ roll.
“We immediately had a house show that was booked, then we had to have a set and our name on the posters,” Goodman, 23, says. “That kickstarted us.”
THREE CHORDS AND THE TRUTH
Coming up with a band name is one of the hardest things to figure out, but after narrowing a list of potential monikers, Diva Cup emerged victorious — even if not everyone was sold on it right away.
“Personally, I was like, ‘Diva Cup is cheesy. I don’t like this. It’s kind of corny. It’s not it,’” Kempen, 20, admits.
“I remember pushing real hard for Diva Cup,” Torian recalls.
“Yeah, I think Diva Cup is perfect for our whole vibe now,” Kempen adds. “I’ve had mostly women in their 40s and 50s come up to me and be like, ‘That name’s awesome.’ If I get no other validation from this band except for gorgeous women being like, ‘Your band name is sick,’ that’s all I want in my life and I could die happy.”
But the fiery four-piece is far from all flash and no substance. Inspired by the three-chord blueprint of bedrock bands like The Ramones and Black Flag, Diva Cup conjures up quick-hitting heaters with the fervor and fearlessness of ’90s Riot Grrrl queens Bikini Kill and feminist flagbearers Hole.
“It’s like, ‘They just play three chords and down strum, why should we do anything else?’” Torian says.
‘MILLENNIAL DUDES … GET OVER IT’
SASSY, the group’s debut EP released in December via Boys Who Scissor Records, is loaded with setlist staples. Since first being introduced in living rooms and warehouses throughout Boulder, these eight tracks have become rallying cries of arrival as Diva Cup has graduated to more legit venues and big-
ger opening slots, like gigging with hometown heroes The Velveteers at Frisco’s 10 Mile Music Hall or kicking off the upcoming FoCoMX music festival in Fort Collins.
Songs like “Public Venmo Porn Girls” — referencing Republican politician and former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz’s alleged affinity for sex workers — and “Man with a Microphone” are searing political statements and proud middle fingers. The latter’s chorus of “Give us the microphone! We want the microphone!” suggests men should just shut up and let women make the important decisions for themselves.
“It’s hard as women in music to feel content with your playing ability. You always feel like people are doing more and it sometimes feels like you’re not held to the same standard,” Goodman says. “Punk is whatever. We can play what we want, and if it sounds good, it sounds good. It doesn’t need to be it, or the most technically savvy thing.”
And if it makes anyone uncomfortable, that’s on them, as Torian sees it.
“Millennial dudes everywhere are walking around with tattoos of the Black Flag logo — it’s like, ‘Get over it,’” the art student adds. “Just because punk is mostly played by angry men, doesn’t mean they’re better.”
Punk is inherently political, a place where fringe factions can find comfort in shared ideals and shouting in oppo-
sition. Given the rightward lurch of the federal government in recent months, Diva Cup is doing its part locally.
“With the current administration and everything going to shit all the time, for me, after the election, I had a moment of like, ‘Holy shit, we’re four women making music in spaces that might not be superwelcoming for us, but we’re building this awesome queer and femme community,’” Torian says.
“It’s so important that we don’t lose that,” she adds. “We’re still making music. It’s still awesome. It’s still fun. It’s still silly, but we’re also doing something important. It’s important to talk about things going on and try to create, as corny as it sounds, safe spaces where you can.”
The four members nod in agreement.
“If they don’t execute Diva Cup by firing squad,” Kempen says, “then we will hopefully make really good music for the next four years.”
ON THE BILL:
Diva Cup with the Velveteers and Stereo Transmission. 8 p.m. Friday, April 11, 10 Mile Music Hall, 710 Main Street, Frisco. $30 | Diva Cup with Clementine and Jane Rhoads. 1 p.m. Saturday, April 12, Collective Vintage, 1228 West Elizabeth St., Fort Collins. Free
Diva Cup is doing punk right. Credit: LK Cisco
Credit: Captured by Chlo
DISTRESS FLARES
Cinematic survival guide, Vol. I
BY MICHAEL J. CASEY
We’ve been here before. Sure, it seems worse, and some of the problems we’re facing are novel, but you don’t have to look hard to find analogs and parallels from the past. As Mark Twain put it: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
But then why do we keep ignoring the story, forgetting the message? That’s more a question for philosophers and psychiatrists. But for this film critic, it seems like the answers have always been right under our noses, lying in wait in one of our most popular art forms.
It’s just that some people — OK, a lot of people — get hung up on what they want from their two hours or so in the dark. More often than not, that’s entertainment: pleasurable diversions to leave your troubles behind and fantasize about someone or something else. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s worth pointing out that overlooking the kernels of truth within entertainment has been the undoing of more than one nation throughout history.
Film historian Eddie Muller calls those movies “distress flares,” and it’s time to stop overlooking them. If we are going to make it, it’s going to take attention as well as action.
XENOPHOBIA 101
Zootopia (2016)
Available on home video, for rent and streaming on Disney+.
Released just nine months before Trump’s first electoral victory, Zootopia tells the tale of a utopian society populated by civilized animals living side-by-side in harmony. Then, a low-level government official sowing the seeds of fear disrupts the harmony by othering half of Zootopia’s population.
Back in 2016, the far right’s Islamophobia and fear that then-President Obama would enact Sharia Law fit Zootopia wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing villain like a glove. Seen in 2025, the rise of antiLGBTQ sentiment shifts the target but holds the conviction that no matter what the reason, it’s too easy to drive us against ourselves.
Isle of Dogs (2018)
Available on home video, for rent and streaming on Disney+.
Isle of Dogs tackles fascism, xenophobia and the waste pollution crisis while also presaging an animal pandemic (here, canine flu) that prompts the Japanese government to deport all dogs to Trash Island, even if they have papers. It’s funny and sweet, but the strength of Wes Anderson’s stop-motion movie lies in how thin the allegory is. It’s one of those stories that feels timeless and timely simply because the topics it tackles will always be with us.
Separated (2024)
Available on DVD from Kino Lorber.
Directed by Errol Morris and based on the investigative reporting of Jacob Soboroff, Separated examines the cruelty conducted under the first Trump administration as migrant families were split up at the U.S.Mexico border. The emails Soboroff and Morris uncover are the smoking gun that doesn’t just point to the carelessness of those conducting the separation and incarceration; they exemplify what Hannah Arendt meant when she coined the phrase “the banality of evil.”
IT’S THE END
OF
THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
River (2021)
Available to rent or stream on Amazon Prime.
“We must ask ourselves,” River’s narrator Willem Dafoe intones over stunning images of nature devastated by human interference, “Are we being good ancestors?”
As Jennifer Peedom’s impressionistic and moving documentary suggests: No.
Then again, maybe River will energize audiences to save what’s left the same way a late-night fast food commercial triggers our hunger despite how full we are.
Scored by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, River is an engaging and moving 74-minute documentary that will make you want to go out and pick up those discarded bottles floating in the gutter — and maybe even pay attention a little more when a proposed dam shows up on your ballot.
Food, Inc. 2 (2023)
Available on home video, to rent and streaming on Hulu.
A conventional approach in the call-toaction doc category, Food, Inc. 2 is a valiant attempt to cover the intersectionality of the food-slash-climate crisis in 94 minutes. It’ll rattle and enrage you and, hopefully, make you give a damn and do something about it. Picket signs are easy. So is eating less meat. The problems may feel overwhelming, but every bit helps.
TOPPLE THE PATRIARCHY
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
Available on home video, to rent and on a variety of streaming services.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024)
Screens at the International Film Series on April 13.
Two of the best movies to come out in 2024, Furiosa and The Seed of the Sacred Fig, deal with the oppression of women by men in power. In Furiosa, it’s a couple of warlords who capture and imprison women. In Sacred Fig, it’s a father who demands the fidelity of his daughters and wife, in body and mind. In both, the women have grown tired of playing by his rules and change the game through defiance.
IT’S ALWAYS DARKEST BEFORE THE DAWN
A Face in the Crowd (1957) Available on home video and on demand.
Cinema doesn’t always have answers. But it still needs to show us how the game is played and why we’re losing the war.
Take the ending of Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd. In it, Lonesome Rhodes, a faux-populist media sensation turned political player, has publically humiliated himself and torn down his own bloated image. He’s distraught, destroyed, a shell of a man. Don’t worry, the cynical reporter following him says, “You’ll be back.” After a cooling off period, the suits in charge will “try him again. But in a cheaper format.”
The writer doesn’t say this to reassure the broken man or to massage his battered ego. He says it because it’s a fact, one that the people in the audience must do everything they can to disrupt. We swore we’d never go back. Yet, here we are. The movies were right all along.
Who killed the world? Anya-Taylor Joy in Furiosa Courtesy: Warner Bros
FLATIRONS PHOTO CLUB
7-9 p.m. Thursday, April 10, Frasier Retirement Community Movie Theater, 350 Ponca Place, Boulder. Free
Calling all shutterbugs! Grow your craft and connect with neighbors at the Flatirons Photo Club. Meeting on the second Thursday of the month, each session includes guidance on a different topic led by an experienced professional photographer, followed by a slideshow and image critique by club members.
11 –
12
MODERN JAZZ & SOUL FEST
6-11 p.m. Friday, April 11 and Saturday, April 12, Roots Music Project, 4747 Pearl St. Suite V3A, Boulder. $32.50-$50
Ya like jazz? Then get ready for Roots Music Project’s inaugural, two-day Modern Jazz & Soul Fest, packed with a lineup of innovative artists with names you won’t forget — Wellington Bullings, Chantil Dukart, Dechen Hawk & The Lit Squad to name a few — the moment you hear those trumpets croon. Tickets: bit.ly/JazzSoulBW
12
THORNE SPRING FEST 2025
10 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 12, Lafayette Nature Center, 300 Old Laramie Trail E. Free
Is it safe to say spring is finally here? The folks at Thorne Nature Experience think so. Join the team of nature educators for their first Spring Fest at the new Lafayette Nature Center. Meet and greet native Colorado wildlife and stick around for presentations in English and Spanish on the animals of the Front Range.
Wanna get lucky? One more time, we’re gonna celebrate at the Fiske Planetarium during the return of this aerodynamic laser show set to the music of French robot electronic duo Daft Punk. With a playlist featuring mega hits on a 360-degree wraparound screen, you’re guaranteed to leave feeling harder, better, faster, stronger.
12
LEARN TO KNIT
10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, April 12, pARTiculars Art Gallery and Teaching Studio, 401 S. Public Road, Lafayette. $75
Head to pARTiculars Art Gallery and Teaching Studio in Lafayette for a hands-on workshop that will leave you in stitches. Instructor Tara Jon Manning leads this 2.5-hour workshop walking you through the ins and outs of relaxing and meditative fiber art. Yarn and knitting needles included.
12
ART + SCIENCE SCENIC BIKE TOUR
10 a.m. to noon, Saturday, April 12, Valmont Bike Park, 3160 Airport Road, Boulder. $25 adults; $10 kids
Pedal your way to environmentally themed works of art on this 9-mile tour led by docents from Street Wise Arts and City of Boulder officials. Along the way, learn about local water issues like preservation and storm surges. Registration required: streetwisearts.org/ tours
Selasee & Fafa family with yak attack
Cönaxx, Knuckleball and Curb Surfer
12
FULL MOON PARTY
7 p.m. Saturday, April 12, Colorado Mountain Kava, 615 Ken Pratt Blvd. Longmont. Free
Don’t let the rich tourists on White Lotus have all the fun. Pretend you’re one of the 1% at this full moon party. Shop local vendors, get a glimpse into your future with a psychic reading or shuck stress with some reiki. DJ 3R$T performs at 9 p.m. Request a Season 3 Thai banger to deepen the experience.
12 –
13
WILDERNESS FIRST AID
8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Saturday, April 12 and Sunday, April 13, Teens, Inc., 151 East St. Nederland. Cost offered on sliding scale: $90-$200 (students) $105-$250 (adults)
Keep you and yours safe in the great outdoors by learning how to treat common illness and injuries using easily totable supplies. This hands-on class is family friendly and open to ages 11 and up. Students can earn certification in Wilderness First Aid, CPR/AED and epipen administration. Register: bit.ly/ FirstAidBW
12 – 13
COLORADO TARTAN DAY FESTIVAL
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 12 and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 13, Boulder County Fairgrounds, 9595 Nelson Road, Longmont. Free
On Saturdays, we wear Tartan. Or at least we do at the Colorado Tartan Day Festival. Iron your kilts and practice your jigs for this yearly celebration of Highland heritage, featuring historical reenactments, celtic music and, of course, enough beer, whiskey and Gaelic eats fit for Scottish royalty.
13
BOTANICAL PLANT INK WORKSHOP
11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, April 13, The New Local Annex, 713 Pearl St., Boulder. $100
Learn how tannins (naturally occurring plant compounds often found in wine and tea) can be mixed with iron to create fabric ink. Let Leah Rich guide you through the creation of your own flag or medicine bag. All supplies provided. (Fun fact: Did you know Boulder Weekly is printed with soy ink?)
13
WOMEN’S ADVENTURE FILM TOUR
3 p.m. Sunday, April 13, Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St. $22-$29
Returning for its ninth season, the Women’s Adventure Film Tour is back with a slate of exhilarating short films. From one athlete’s multi-year cycling trek to portraits of Olympian Lea Davison and Egyptian kiteboarder Sarah Sadek, this showcase highlights “the inspiring journeys of remarkable women who fearlessly pursue adventure.”
13
CRAFT YOGA
11:15 a.m. Sunday, April 13, Left Hand Brewing, 1265 Boston Ave., Longmont. Free
“Come for the poses, stay for the pints.” This free, 45-minute yoga session led by instructor Brie Michalik features an alllevels flow in the Left Hand tasting room that will have you feeling centered and sudsy. Class is free, but gratuities are welcome.
LIVE MUSIC
THURSDAY, APRIL 10
KATE FARMER DUO WITH JONATHAN SADLER. 6 p.m. Bricks on Main, 471 Main St., Longmont. Free
ELECTROGONG WITH LIGHT TECHNICS 6 p.m. Trident Cafe, 940 Pearl St., Boulder. Free
TYLER HAMLIN QUARTET. 7 p.m.
Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette. $20
REDD AND THE PAPER FLOWERS WITH ANGEL CORSI. 7 p.m. The Times Collaborative, 338 Main St., Longmont. $18
REMI WOLF WITH ALICE PHOEBE LOU AND DANA AND ALDEN. 6:30 p.m., Thursday, April 10, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, 18300 W. Alameda Pkwy., Morrison. $75 BW PICK OF THE WEEK
TUMBLEDOWN SHACK. 7:30 p.m.
Nissi’s, 1455 Coal Creek Drive, Unit T, Lafayette. $10
SELASEE & THE FAFA FAMILY WITH YAK ATTACK. 8 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. $19
FRIDAY, APRIL 11
DEREK DAMES OHL. 5 p.m. Left Hand Brewing, 1265 Boston Ave., Longmont. Free
Shapeshifting alt-pop purveyor Remi Wolf kicks off the spring season at Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre with support from Alice Phoebe Lou on April 10. The L.A.-based singer and producer performs on the heels of her sophomore album Big Ideas, which BW reporter Tyler Hickman calls “a jam-in-your-car, scream-in-yourroom, stare-at-the-wall-and-contemplate-all-your-mistakes vibe all rolled into one unskippable record.” Scan the QR code for a feature on opener Phoebe Lou before you go. See listing for details
THE NU WAVE WITH HEY LADY!
7:30 p.m. Nissi’s, 1455 Coal Creek Drive, Unit T, Lafayette. $15
RITMO CASCABEL WITH D’VERZO ANDINO, LOS REYES DEL HUEPA AND DJ MOVETE CHIQUITA 8 p.m. Hi-Dive, 7 S. Broadway, Denver. $20
THE COPPER CHILDREN WITH FREEDOM MOVEMENT AND MIKE WIRD. 8 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. $19
Want more Boulder County events? Check out the complete listings online by scanning this QR code.
ASTROLOGY
BY ROB BREZSNY
ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 19): Life is asking you to be a source of generosity and strength for the people and animals in your sphere. I hope you will exude maximum amounts of your natural charisma as you bestow maximum blessings. Soak up the admiration and affection you deserve, too, as you convey admiration and affection to others. Here’s a secret: The more you share your resources, help and intelligence, the more of that good stuff will flow back your way.
TAURUS (APRIL 20-MAY 20): Ceramicist Jun Hamada says that trying to force harmony into her art leads to sterile work. “The most beautiful pieces come from the moments I stop trying to make them beautiful,” she notes. “They emerge from embracing the clay’s natural tendencies, even when they seem to fight against my intentions.” I recommend her approach to you in the coming weeks. Your best results may emerge as you allow supposed flaws and glitches to play an unexpected part in the process. Alliances might benefit, even deepen, through honest friction rather than imposed peace. What will happen when you loosen your attachment to enforced harmony and let life’s natural tensions gyrate?
GEMINI (MAY 21-JUNE 20): Gemini-born Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) was a prolific architect who orchestrated many daring designs. Among his most audacious experiments was a project to build a house over a waterfall in Pennsylvania. “It can’t be done!” experts said. But he did it. Before he was ready to accomplish the impossible, though, he had to spend months studying the site’s natural patterns. I bring this to your attention, Gemini, because I believe you are ready to consider your own equivalent of constructing a house over a waterfall. Prepare well! Do your homework!
CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 22): In the early phase of his illustrious career as a photographer, Edward Weston (1886–1958) cultivated a softfocus, romantic style. But he ultimately converted to stark, uncompromising realism. “The camera,” he said, “should be used for recording life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself.” If there is anything about you that prefers warm, fuzzy illusions over objective, detailed truth, I suggest you switch emphasis for a while. If you like, you can return to the soft-focus approach in June. But for now, a gritty, unsentimental attitude will be essential to your wellbeing.
LEO (JULY 23-AUG. 22): Here’s my mini-manifesto about change, just in time for a phase when change is most necessary and possible for you.
1. Real change is often a slow and subtle process. There may be rare dramatic shifts, but mostly the process is gradual and incremental. 2. Instead of pushing hard for a short time, you’re more likely to change things by persistently pushing with modest strength for a sustained time. 3. Rather than trying to confront and wrestle with a big problem exactly as it is, it’s often more effective to break the seemingly insurmountable challenge into small, manageable pieces that can be solved one at a time through simple efforts.
VIRGO (AUG. 23-SEPT. 22): Textile artist Mei Zhang wondered if the synthetic dyes she used on her fabrics were limited. Might there be a wider variety of colors she could use in her creations? She discovered that her grandmother, using age-old techniques, had produced hues that modern dyes couldn’t replicate. “The most sustainable path forward,” Zhang concluded, “often involves rediscovering what we’ve forgotten rather than inventing something entirely new.” I recommend that counsel to you, Virgo. The solution to a current challenge might come from looking back instead of pushing forward. Consider what old approaches or traditional wisdom you might call on to generate novelty. Weave together fresh applications with timeless principles.
LIBRA (SEPT. 23-OCT. 22): The moon rises about 50 minutes later every day, and always at a slightly different place on the horizon. The amount of light it shows us is also constantly in flux. And yet where and how it will appear tomorrow or 10 years from today is completely predictable. Its ever-changing nature follows a rhythmic pattern. I believe the same is true about our emotions and feelings, which in astrology are ruled by the moon. They are forever shifting, and yet if we survey the big picture of how they arise, we will see their overall flow has distinct patterns. Now would be a good time for you to get to know your flow better. See if you can detect recurring motifs. Try to develop more objectivity about how your precious emotions and feelings really work. If you do this correctly, you will deepen and enhance the guiding power of your precious emotions and feelings.
SCORPIO (OCT. 23-NOV. 21): Research reveals that interludes of productive uncertainty may strengthen our brain’s neural pathways — even more so than if we consistently leap to immediate comprehension. The key modifier to this fortifying uncertainty is “productive.” We must be willing to dwell with poise in our puzzlement, even welcome and enjoy the fertile mystery it invokes in us. Neurobiologist Aiden Chen says, “Confusion, when properly supported, isn’t an obstacle to learning but a catalyst for understanding.” These ideas will be good medicine in the coming weeks, dear Scorpio.
SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22-DEC. 21): Persian American author Haleh Liza Gafori translates the poetry of 13th-century Sufi mystic Rumi. One of their joint books is titled Gold. She writes, “Rumi’s gold is not the precious metal, but a feeling-state arrived at through the alchemical process of burning through layers of self, greed, pettiness, calculation, doctrine — all of it. The prayer of Sufism is ‘teach me to love more deeply.’ Gold is the deepest love.” That’s the gold I hope you aspire to embody in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. You are in a resplendently golden phase when you have more power than usual to create, find and commune with Rumi’s type of gold.
CAPRICORN (DEC. 22-JAN. 19): The coming weeks will be an excellent time to reframe the meaning of “emptiness” in your life. To launch your quest, I will remind you that quiet interludes and gaps in your schedule can be rejuvenating. Sitting still and doing nothing in particular may be a good way to recharge your spiritual batteries. Relieving yourself of the pressure to be endlessly active could be just what you need to open up space for fresh possibilities.
AQUARIUS (JAN. 20-FEB. 18): There was a time, many years ago, when I consulted a divinatory oracle every day of my life. Sometimes it was the Tarot or the I Ching. I threw the Norse runes, did automatic writing, used a pendulum or tried bibliomancy. Astrology was always in the mix, too, of course. Looking back on those days, I am amused at my obsession with scrying the future and uncovering subconscious currents. But employing these aids had a wonderful result: It helped me develop and fine-tune my intuition and psychic powers — which, after all, are the ultimate divination strategy. I bring this to your attention, Aquarius, because I believe you now have an enhanced power to cultivate and strengthen your intuition and psychic powers.
PISCES (FEB. 19-MARCH 20): The fovea is the part of the eye that enables sharp vision. Humans have just one kind of fovea, which gives them the ability to see clearly straight ahead. Eagles have both a central and peripheral fovea. The latter gives them an amazing visual acuity for things at a distance. This extra asset also attunes them to accurately detect very slow movements. I suspect you will have a metaphorical semblance of the eagle’s perceptual capacity in the coming weeks, Pisces. You will be able to see things you wouldn’t normally see and things that other people can’t see. Take full advantage of this superpower! Find what you didn’t even know you were looking for.
SAVAGE LOVE
BY DAN SAVAGE
I am a proud kinkster in a city with a vibrant kink community, but I am worried that my community doesn’t know how quickly it could find itself at risk. I see friends grandstanding online about crackdowns on poppers, while ignoring broader attacks by the Trump administration on fundamental rights.
I understand the former makes for a better social media post, but with the government deporting legal residents who were not accused of crimes, performing armed takeovers of private entities and scapegoating trans people, we have more to worry about than poppers. How long before Folsom attendees face legal jeopardy for public indecency?
Democrats can barely stand up for Social Security. What makes us think they’ll go to bat for kinksters? Am I wrong in thinking queer and kink organizations need to be sounding the alarm? — Rights Under More Pressure
Both houses of Congress, private universities, powerful law firms, professional baseball — the list of groups that have caved to Trump grows longer every day.
So, I don’t think the organizers of gay fetish events like Folsom or Darklands (or straight ones like DomCon or RopeCraft for that matter) have the power to stop Trump. If there’s a silver lining here, RUMP, it may be the huge numbers of kinky people who didn’t feel like they needed to hide over the last couple of decades. If you can’t hide, you have to fight… and with the receipts already out there — social media posts, personal ads, gear purchases — there’s no hiding now.
Here’s the single most important thing organizers of kink events can do: Keep
organizing great events that bring even more people out. Events help create community — which is a good thing unto itself — but they also create opportunities for activists to inform, organize and activate people they might not be able to reach otherwise, which is absolutely crucial at a moment like this. (A tip for activists: DO NOT treat people having fun at fetish events or parties like they’re doing something wrong. If you want people to show up at your demonstration — or call their members of Congress or raise money for abortion funds or defend their undocumented neighbors — don’t tell them they have to pick between the party where you found them and demo where you want them. Scolds drive people away from movements, they don’t bring them in.)
Speaking of protests: The protests at Tesla dealerships have been fun, effective and cathartic — as Tesla’s cratering stock price and Trump’s pathetic Tesla infomercial at the White House both demonstrate. But please don’t vandalize Teslas. Trump’s DOJ is throwing the book at people who vandalize Teslas — and it turns out Elon Musk’s shitty cars are self-vandalizing, as we learned when every single Tesla Cybertruck ever sold was recalled after pieces of them kept falling off.
So, there’s no need to risk being sent to a prison in El Salvador when you see Incel Caminos parked on your block. Give Elon’s shitty cars a minute, and they’ll fall apart on their own.
Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan. Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love
A ta ste of Japan in the heart of Colorado
cock tails
RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
Five high-impact ways to build food resilience
BY LISA BALCOM
When we talk about resilience, food is often overlooked. But it shouldn’t be. Food touches every part of our lives — our health, our economy, our environment and our communities. In times of political uncertainty and climate disruption, how we grow, source and prepare our food matters more than ever.
At Slow Food Boulder County, we believe a good, clean and fair food system is possible — and that it starts right where we are. You don’t need land, wealth or culinary training to contribute to a stronger local food web. Here are five accessible, high-impact actions you can take right now to help build food resilience in your home and community.
1. COOK AT HOME WITH SEASONAL INGREDIENTS
Cooking at home isn’t just a budgetfriendly option — it’s a way to reclaim agency over your food choices. By using seasonal ingredients grown in your region, you support local farmers, reduce your carbon footprint and get more flavorful, nutritious meals on your plate. If you’re unsure how to begin, farmers
markets and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs are great ways to explore what’s in season. Seasonal cooking can feel limiting at first, but with the right approach, it becomes an opportunity for creativity and connection.
Check out Slow Food Boulder County’s growing library of seasonal recipes (slowfoodboulder.org/recipes) for inspiration, and don’t hesitate to swap ideas with neighbors, friends or even the farmers themselves.
Resources:
• Learn how to cook seasonal food: Farow At Home
2. SPEND SMARTER, NOT MORE
You don’t need to overhaul your budget to support the local food economy. Instead, shift your spending toward a few key staples where quality and sourcing make a big difference — things like dairy, eggs, bread and meat. Here on Colorado’s Front Range, we’re lucky to have an abundance of local producers: small dairies that deliver to your door, freshly milled grains from nearby millers and bakers and eggs from pasture-raised hens just miles away. Even choosing one or two items to source locally can support a producer in your community and help keep small farms viable.
If you’re able, consider joining a CSA. While there’s an upfront cost, the return over a season is immense — in both quantity and quality. You’ll eat what’s freshest and most nutritious, often for less than what you’d spend at the grocery store over time.
Resources:
• Local grains and fresh-milled flours: Moxie Bread Co.
• Grass-fed and pasture-raised heritage beef, pork and lamb: Buckner Ranch
• Dairy delivery: Longmont Dairy
• Grain education: Colorado Grain Chain
• Child education, CSAs: Sunflower farm
• Boulder Weekly’s list of local farm stands (updated each July): bit.ly/ BWFarmstandGuide
3. GROW WHAT YOU CAN
You don’t need a backyard to grow food. A sunny windowsill can host a few pots of herbs. A patio or balcony can grow lettuces, tomatoes and peppers in containers. If you do have space, consider starting a garden with a few high-yield crops like zucchini, kale or green beans. Growing your own food connects you to the seasons and the work that goes into feeding ourselves. It also builds resilience — herbs can be dried and stored for winter, produce can be preserved or shared, and gardening knowledge can be passed along or exchanged with neighbors.
Resources:
• Cooking classes and gardening education: Growing Gardens
An aerial view of Speedwell Farms in Longmont, pictured in June 2024. Credit: Lisa Balcom
FOOD
4. SHARE AND SUPPORT THE COMMONS
Food becomes more resilient when it’s shared. That might mean splitting a CSA share with a friend, organizing a neighborhood produce swap or simply offering your surplus tomatoes to someone who could use them.
Get involved with local organizations doing food justice work, seed libraries or tool-sharing collectives. These are more than resources — they’re networks of mutual aid that help our community thrive, especially in hard times.
Supporting local food policies that remove barriers to growing or distributing food — like backyard chickens, cottage food laws or urban agriculture initiatives — is another way to advocate for broader access and resilience.
Resources:
• Local seed bank: Masa Seed Foundation (masaseedfoundation. org)
5. REDUCE WASTE; COMPOST WHAT YOU CAN
Up to 40% of food in the U.S. goes to waste — much of it at the household level. Reducing waste is one of the easiest and most impactful things we can do.
Plan meals, store food properly and get creative with leftovers. And when food scraps are unavoidable, composting turns them into something useful. Whether you use Boulder’s curbside compost service or start your own bin, composting returns nutrients to the soil and keeps organic waste out of landfills.
Resources:
• Tree care, food waste reduction and CSA: Community Fruit Rescue (fruitrescue.org)
Lisa Balcom is the owner of Farow at Home and a board member of Slow Food Boulder County, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting local, sustainable and organic food.
BOULDER COUNTY FOOD BANKS NEED HELP
Boulder County’s already stressed agencies and organizations helping neighbors suffering food insecurity suffered a major blow in March when the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut funding that paid farmers to grow food for schools and also delayed deliveries of already scheduled emergency food. We generally focus on hunger later in the year, but consider volunteering, donating food or cash to — or organizing a drive for — the organizations below.
The largest local hunger agency, Community Food Share, is holding a food donation drive all day April 12 at King Soopers stores in Gunbarrel, Louisville and Broomfield.
Emergency Family Assistance Association: efaa.org
Sister Carmen Community Center: sistercarmen.org
Boulder Food Rescue: boulderfoodrescue.org
Longmont Food Rescue: longmontfoodrescue.org
Harvest of Hope Pantry: hopepantry.org
Community Food Share: communityfoodshare.org
Nederland Food Pantry: nederlandfoodpantry.org
OUR Center: ourcenter.org
Grow a Row: Boulder County gardeners can join Community Food Share’s Grow a Row program and plan to harvest for the food agency, or simply donate excess produces this summer. Details: communityfoodshare.org/community-roots.
— John Lehndorff
ON DRUGS
HARM REDUCTION 101
What it is, why it works and how you can help
BY SHAY CASTLE
“For me,” says Jose Martinez, “harm reduction means opportunity.”
The opportunity to see a doctor, to get a job, to get information and non-judgemental support. The opportunity to stay alive.
Today, Martinez is the capacity building and Hepatitis C coordinator for the National Harm Reduction Coalition, but his first encounter with harm reduction was as an addict living on the streets of New York City at a drop-in center.
“You could just hang there all day,” he says. “That’s what I did. Somebody found something in me, and from there, my life changed.”
Martinez eventually got sober, but that’s not necessarily the goal, according to Madeleine Evanoff, a harm reduction specialist with Boulder County Public Health.
“The essence of harm reduction is radical acceptance,” Evanoff says. “You should be able to decide what you do and don’t put in your body. You should have all of the tools you need at your fingertips to keep you safer when you choose to do that.
“We’re about building people up to live
the best life possible for someone, and if that includes somebody continuing to use drugs, that’s OK.”
REALISTIC VS. IDEALISTIC
Harm reduction is a “pragmatic” response to the overdose crisis, Evanoff says, one that recognizes “we will never live in a world without substance use.”
“The reality that substance use has been around for thousands of years, used for a myriad of different reasons, and not all of those are harmful.”
Harm reduction can still lead to sobriety, Evanoff says. But it takes time. “We are most often the first people someone approaches when they are wanting recovery.”
“You have to build trust and rapport,” Martinez adds. “What we do say is always be prepared with information, because just giving the information will help, period, whether they come back to you or not.
“Let’s help you stay alive so if you do have a future not using, you have that there.”
THE WORKS
Harm reduction practices are common outside of the drug sphere. As Denverbased Harm Reduction Action Center points out on its website, interventions such as seatbelts and parachutes make potentially dangerous or deadly activities (driving, skydiving) safer for those who choose to engage in them.
When it comes to drugs, harm reduction involves lessening the impacts of substance use and the government’s response to it. That means curbing over-
dose deaths and the spread of disease and death, yes, but also the over-incarceration of marginalized communities and the criminalization of substance use, poverty and mental illness.
A 2006 review of more than 650 scientific articles found that harm reduction policies such as syringe programs lower the rate of HIV and other infectious diseases. Portugal, which decriminalized all drugs in 2001, saw a 90% reduction in HIV infections among drug users.
Boulder County’s harm reduction program, The Works, was established in 1989 in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It is the third-oldest harm reduction program in the country, according to Evanoff.
Today, The Works hands out sterile supplies for drug use; administers rapid testing for HIV and other communicable diseases; provides access to overdose-reserving naloxone; educates the community with free trainings and presentations; provides street outreach in Boulder, Longmont, East County and mountain communities and operates three 24-hour dropboxes for used syringes.
To Martinez, the most important piece of harm reduction is the emphasis on outreach — bringing services and supplies to where people need them — and peer support and leadership.
“It’s so privileged and really out of touch to create a service without consulting with the community, and then go to the community and say, ‘This is what we’ve got to offer.’”
An on-the-ground presence also keeps the response as fluid as the ever-chang-
REDUCE YOUR RISK
If you’re using drugs or substances, Boulder County Public Health shares these tips for staying safe(r):
• Don’t use alone (If you are, call the Never Use Alone hotline at 800.484.3731)
• When with others, take turns using
• If you haven’t used in a while, your tolerance will be lower. Use less.
• If combining drugs, use the opioid first
• Don’t mix with alcohol or other downers
• If injecting, start with a tester shot
• Smoke or snort instead of injecting (it lowers the risk of disease, infection and overdose)
• Use fentanyl test trips on all drugs
• Carry Narcan/naloxone
ing drug scene. Although fentanyl is dominating the news cycle, conditions on the street have moved on to other substances, Evanoff and Martinez report.
“We are really just creating the scenario where as soon as one substance becomes criminalized enough, another substance is going to take its place,” Evanoff says. “Fentanyl is not going to be the last substance we encounter that causes an immense amount of unneeded death.
“The best practices with harm reduction that really, truly keep people alive — drug checking, overdose prevention centers — these are things we really need to rally around, because ultimately those are the things that are going to create the impact we need.”
