Boulder Weekly 2.25.21

F r e e E v e r y T h u r s d a y F o r 2 7 Ye a r s / w w w. b o u l d e r w e e k l y. c o m / F e b r u a r y 2 5 - M a r c h 3 , 2 0 2 1

just economics:

Neoliberalism and the maldistribution of wealth

by Ron Forthofer

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news:

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buzz:

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drink:

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feast:

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weed between the lines:

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Fracking begins on site less than 1,000 feet from occupied homes in Erie

by Matt Cortina

Participatory art project Hostile Terrain 94 connects community with U.S. border policies and migrant fatalities

by Angela K. Evans

Boulder’s Brewers Association adds new beer categories in guidelines for brewers and competition committees

by Matt Cortina

Nude Foods Market delivers bulk foods, ugly produce and local, organic groceries by bike

by Matt Cortina

As more states legalize weed, here are a few tips to make it both equitable and sustainable

by Katie Rhodes

departments 8 Letters: Signed, sealed, delivered, your views 17 Events: Black History Month continues and more to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do...

21 Film: Ousamane Sembène’s groundbreaking ‘Mandabi’ gets handsome restoration 22 Astrology: by Rob Brezsny 23 Savage Love: De-kinked 25 Food/Drink: Prosciutto & Brie sandwich @ Caffè Sole BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Publisher, Fran Zankowski Editor, Matt Cortina Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Senior Editor, Angela K. Evans Arts and Culture Editor, Caitlin Rockett Contributing Writers, Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Emma Athena, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Sarah Haas, Jim Hightower, Dave Kirby, John Lehndorff, Rico Moore, Amanda Moutinho, Katie Rhodes, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Alan Sculley, Ryan Syrek, Christi Turner, Betsy Welch, Tom Winter, Gary Zeidner SALES AND MARKETING Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Sami Wainscott Advertising Coordinator, Corey Basciano Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama BUSINESS OFFICE Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer Cover, Courtesy Undocumented Migration Project February 25, 2021 Volume XXVIII, Number 28 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.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Neoliberalism and the maldistribution of wealth

by Ron Forthofer

Welcome to a new monthly column in Boulder Weekly.

Writers of this column are members of the Economic Justice Collective of the Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center, with the goal of informing readers about economic injustice and some steps that can move us toward economic justice.

Wealth chasm Getting started, one major economic injustice is the maldistribution of wealth in the U.S. that has grown dramatically worse over the past 40 years. For example, Inequality.org reported that in 1983 the bottom 90% of the U.S. population owned about 32% of the total U.S. wealth while the top 1% owned about 34% of the wealth, already an enormous wealth gap. By 2016, this situation had gotten much worse. The share owned by the bottom 90% had dropped drastically to slightly over 21% while the top 1% increased its share to almost 40%. Moreover, in 2018 just three white men (Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos) had more wealth than the bottom 50% of the U.S. population (over 160 million people).

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It’s very likely that this obscene imbalance has gotten even worse during the period since 2016 due to several things, especially the lockdowns of the economy this past year, the bailouts of large corporations and the Trump administration’s tax cuts that primarily benefited those at the top of the wealth pyramid. Note that this maldistribution of wealth is more extreme than that found in most nations.

Political interventions Despite the claims by some that this maldistribution results from the hard work and vision of the wealthy, they are ignoring two key factors — the effect of inheritance and the effect of the political/economic approach that the U.S. has been following over the past 40 years. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned us about the dangers of a wealth chasm when he said: “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

This wealth chasm is due in great part to the intervention of politicians who were influenced by campaign contributions and lobbying. For example, when I was growing up, there was a wealth gap, but not anything like the wealth chasm today. Many of the programs from Franklin see JUST ECONOMICS Page 8

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Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal still had an impact. This current horrific situation has come about due to court decisions and the enactment of policies that intentionally weaken protections of the public interest and advance the interests of the wealthy.

Some key policies that have rigged the system to the advantage of the super wealthy are the following: allowing corporations to engage in funding political campaigns; weakening labor unions; enacting tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy; weakening anti-trust laws and their enforcement; bailing out Wall Street and other large corporations; gutting safety net programs; and allowing usurious interest rates.

Measures of well-being One terrible result of this uneven distribution of wealth is the relatively high level of U.S. poverty. For example, according to the measures of poverty used by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the U.S. had the third highest poverty rate and poverty gap in 2019 among the 37 nations in the OECD. The rate of childhood poverty in the U.S. is also shamefully high compared to the other OECD countries, with the U.S. having the fifth worst rate. These are shocking outcomes for a nation that is routinely referred to as the richest nation in the world.

Moreover, the U.S. fares very poorly on measures of mortality, health status and homelessness, and the corporate-controlled media generally downplays these facts. The U.S. public is either unaware or simply accepts these outcomes because that is the way it is. However, the experiences of other nations demonstrate that our extremely bad outcomes are part and parcel of our approach to governance and economics.

Neoliberal economics These devastating outcomes are not at all surprising when one examines what comprises our neoliberal approach of the past 40 years. It includes ideas such as so-called freemarket capitalism, economic liberalization, deregulation, privatization, austerity and corporate-controlled globalization — ideas that libertarians and many mainstream economists have touted for decades.

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A 2016 report called “Neoliberalism: Oversold?” by lead economists at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) admits to shortcomings: “There are aspects of the neoliberal agenda that have not delivered as expected.” When analyzing two fundamental policies of neoliberalism — austerity and removal of restrictions on moving capital — the IMF researchers say they reached “three disquieting conclusions: increased growth seem fairly difficult to establish when looking at a broad group of countries. inequality are prominent. Such costs epitomize the trade-off between the growth and equity effects of some aspects of the neoliberal agenda. hurts the level and sustainability of growth. Even if growth is the sole or main purpose of the neoliberal agenda, advocates of that agenda still need to pay attention to the distributional effects.”

Just economics Imagine what the U.S. would be like today had we, for example, allowed only public funding of political campaigns. Other important steps would be to have had an extremely high wealth tax, a high estate tax, a public banking system, health care for all, an expansion of Social Security benefits, free public education through public university or trade schools, and an adequate supply of quality affordable housing. We could have also done away with the racist drug war, created living wage jobs for rebuilding our physical and social infrastructure, implemented a high carbon tax, funded a military budget for defense instead of for offense that benefits corporate interests, supported public day care, imposed a transaction tax on Wall Street, tightly enforced laws by federal and state regulatory agencies, and imposed prison sentences for CEOs whose companies violated the laws. These are policies that could have been enacted instead of following the badly flawed neoliberal approach that has played a major role in creating our sad situation today.

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

Refuser protection laws needed The majority of American people, coming out of four years of the most corrupt, anti-democratic, nationdestructive presidential administration in our history are desperate for answers, desperate to know how we’re going to return to normal governance and strengthen our ability to resist attacks by perfidious forces within our governments.

Refuser protection laws empower conscientious government employees, oath-taking and otherwise, to do right by refusing to do wrong and thereby helping prevent the fulfillment of dastardly plans. Workers need to know they will be shielded from firing and/ or other punishment if they refuse an unlawful order from a superior.

Existing whistleblower protection laws don’t sufficiently protect the U.S. from damage done when employees follow unlawful orders. Refuser protection laws allow subordinates to powerfully say no to such orders and prevent lawbreaking from occurring.

To restore American citizens’ trust and confidence in our governments — federal, state, county and municipal — refuser protection laws should be enacted at the earliest possible.

The non-partisan organization leading the call for refuser protection in America is based here, in the Boulder-Denver area. Sworn to Refuse, founded in early 2017, is active at the local, state and national levels. We’ve made significant progress toward our goals, but now, when the time is right and the need so I

strong for the whole nation to consider refuser protection law proposals, there’s a great deal of work required to take things to the next level. We’re seeking a wide variety of people with different backgrounds, skills and resources to assist our project.

Eager to hear from fellow citizens who share our commitment to change that will, at this historic moment, help make these United States all we can and must be, we encourage readers to visit our Facebook page, Sworn to Refuse, and contact us at sworntorefuse.info@ gmail.com.

Matt Nicodemus, co-coordinator, Sworn to Refuse

The time is right for public banking in Colorado The COVID pandemic has turned our economy upside-down, pushing us into another destructive recession. Many things would be helpful in improving our situation, such as government stimulus funds, infrastructure spending and tax reform. Another idea for positive change is not heard of as often but should also produce beneficial results: the creation of local and state public banks in Colorado. A public bank is one that is owned by the government entity that creates and manages it, is the recipient of that entity’s funds, and creates loans for the benefit of the people and businesses who live in that area.

There are many laudable characsee LETTERS Page 9

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teristics of a public bank which could help Colorado’s economy. The government’s money would earn interest at a public bank for the benefit of the people, not the private bank owner that now holds the public money. A public bank can create loans that will further the values of the people in the area, not those dictated by special interests.

Further, a public bank can fund projects that benefit the public good and not be purely based on making profit for a private bank’s stockholders.

Public banks that already exist — such as in North Dakota, Alberta, Canada, and 1,500 city-owned banks in Germany — prove that the concept works and that it promotes prosperity in areas fortunate enough to have these institutions.

It is expected that a bill authorizing the creation of public banks in Colorado will be proposed in the present session of the legislature. If you would like to see the people of Colorado benefit from public banking in the way that folks in North Dakota already do, urge your state representatives and the governor to support public banking.

Judy Lubow/Longmont

Money largely from the oil industry.

Pete Simon/Arvada In his first few months as Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell has given us a preview of how Republicans will behave for the next four years. They will use every tool at their disposal, like the filibuster, to cling to power and stop progress.

They used it to block civil rights legislation in the ’60s. They used it to

block background checks for gun sales in 2013. They used it to get Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett. And they’ll use it to block everything Democrats vote for and won the election 2021.

Republicans have changed the rules to entrench their power. The only reason McConnell hasn’t already gotten rid of the filibuster is because he hasn’t needed to.

He has changed the rules in order

to pack federal courts with judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, declare the ACA unconstitutional and go after our civil rights, at a minimum.

Democrats won the majority.

They promised Americans bold relief on climate change, social and economic justice and many critical issues. Dems should eliminate the procedural hurdle of the filibuster to pass this legislation. It is what the majority voted for and won.

Mike Mills/Boulder

Final Boarding Call Calling All ZCard Frequent Flyers Miles Redemption ends February 28th, 2021

Big freeze and big oil The epitome of big oil money is on full display in Texas; in the everswelling skylines of Houston and Dallas, and on the campuses of the University of Texas and other universities across the state. Over the decades, through national booms and busts, the oil and gas industry has left an indelible mark.

But in the aftermath of the Texas “deep freeze,” will unprotected frozen pipes busting everywhere finally bust the big oil stranglehold on Texas politics? Will voters see through the blame placed on frozen wind turbines, when wind power actually out-performed other sources of energy in the days following power blackouts? Will Texas voters instead tie this colossal catastrophe to state lawmakers, who poo-pooed the idea of winterizing state and local government infrastructure because it was deemed unnecessary or wasteful government spending, in the vein of what Ronald Reagan used to call “big gommint”? Will such short-sighted arrogance finally be the last straw for politicians and a political system that has been the best money can buy?

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A problem with the neighbors

Fracking begins on site less than 1,000 feet from occupied homes in Erie

PHOTOS AND STORY by Matt Cortina

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andra Duggan and her husband moved to the Colliers Hill neighborhood in Erie last year. They were looking for an affordable, newly constructed house in a nice, friendly, safe neighborhood, and they found it just east of Boulder County.

Then fracking began on a parcel of land just north of the neighborhood, outside Erie limits, and in Weld County.

“We were woefully uninformed about the culture of oil and gas and all of that,” Duggan says. “When we got here, it was kind of a shock to the system to learn about all the well pads and well sites sprinkled around our neighborhood.”

North of Colliers Hill is the Mae-J site, run

by Occidental Petroleum. The plan was for the site to be drilled and for active fracking to commence while homes were still being built on the north end of the development. Delays ensued, caused in part by the pandemic, and it wasn’t until February 2021 — after homes had been built a stone’s throw from the site and people had moved in — that operations began.

Walk along the sidewalk of the neighborhood’s northern edge and you’ll see people out running, kids bouncing on a trampoline, someone washing their car; and right across the street, a massive, active fracking operation.

So now, residents in Colliers Hill are decrying the air quality caused by the operations, the noise and light disturbances at night — one resident reported a massive flare that woke her up — and the lack of accountability some feel toward the Erie Board of Trustees to address their concerns.

Duggan says she’s heard residents have endured everything from sore throats to asthma attacks.

A woman named Barb out walking her dog 10

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Town of Erie was this sucks but this is out of control. It’s frustrating.”

She’s not the only one who feels that way.

“This situation has honestly been frustrating for me,” says Mayor Jennifer Carroll. “In my ideal world, we don’t have any oil and gas in Erie.”

Carroll says the town wasn’t given “more than a week’s notice” from Occidental that it would begin fracking at the site, and therefore the Town hadn’t reached out to the company it contracts to do air quality monitoring, CGRS. Carroll says when the Town did get word, the Board asked the town administrator to reach out to CGRS to set up monitoring. But the Board “didn’t hear anything for a week and a half,” Carroll says, adding that she assumed “if we hadn’t heard otherwise, it’s happening.”

Well, you know the saying about assumptions.

The Board checked with the administrator and found that CGRS wasn’t granted access to the well site property.

Pair all that with the fact that the person in Erie who is designated to respond to oil and gas issues left in December and the Town hasn’t replaced them (plans are now in place to fill the position), and here we are.

Duggan says, by and large, the group of concerned residents — who are planning to demonstrate outside the site on Feb. 27 — recognizes it’s unrealistic to shut the well site down at this point.

But they’re asking for air quality monitoring, even this late in the game, so “at least we know when to stay inside,” and they’re asking for “more transparency from the Town of Erie and to be like, ‘Hey, OIL AND GAS operations have commenced just across the street from the Colliers Hill neighborhood in Erie.

one evening put it succinctly: “It stinks. I wish it was farther away.”

It’s a messy situation, with the Town feeling hamstrung to do anything since active fracking will end in a couple weeks and because the site is outside town limits, and residents feeling like the Town should have done more to protect them, or at least notify them of the site’s daily impacts.

Because so many residents expressed concerns about the operation, the Town of Erie held a listening session in early February. Residents, particularly those in Colliers Hill, raised their concerns, but Duggan says many were unsatisfied.

“It’s very easy to say things have been done by the rule of law and this is as far as we can go,” Duggan says, referring to the Town’s point that the site is outside its boundaries. “The town meeting we attended, there were many disgruntled neighbors. The real message we got from the

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this is a toxic place to live during these times.’”

The town is willing to put air quality monitoring devices on private property, Carroll says, and after initial requests for residents to step forward went unheeded, one resident recently offered their property. And Carroll says instruments were scheduled to be placed there on Feb. 24.

Still, some might say it’s too little, too late — indeed, timing seems to be the worst enemy of those who are now dealing with effects of oil and gas development north of Colliers Hill.

Consider, too, that the state Air Quality Control Commission voted last year to require air monitoring at all new well sites, but that doesn’t go into effect until May 1.

The ongoing debate over mitigating impacts of fracking in Erie is likely to continue. Several years ago, the Town annexed land, on which it has plans for development through a public-private partnership and which is adjacent to an Occidental site. The Town has an agreement with the company to annex the land on those sites into Erie so the Town could benefit from the resulting tax revenue, but if it chooses to pursue that arrangement, they might end up in court with Weld County, and residents may think it’s the history of Colliers Hill repeating itself.

Aside from the annexed land, Carroll says the Town effectively banned new fracking operations by BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

requiring oil and gas operations only in heavy industrial zones and then eliminating such zones. But as this case shows, industrial zones can be next to residential zones and, of course, air doesn’t abide by zoning laws or town borders.

For Duggan, and others who moved into the neighborhood recently, there’s a feeling that someone should’ve notified them about the potential for oil and gas impacts so close to their home — she says the Town, at least, didn’t adequately inform her before she and her husband bought their home.

And although this most toxic time during active drilling will end in a couple weeks, Duggan can’t help but think about the future and how the community can be better prepared for oil and gas impacts.

“Now we feel a little trapped. We can’t sell right now for obvious reasons; there’s active fracking going on,” she says. “We just bought the house.

When we first started looking into this, it was very obvious this was very divisive. Coming from the Pacific Northwest, this was very weird.

People were very pro-oil and gas development. The thing we found kind of shocking was this head-inthe-sand mentality of many of our neighbors, until of course they started hearing the noise at night. We’ve had more people speak up. It’s prompted I

former members of the community to say, ‘We knew about this, sensed the apathy from our community and moved out.’ We don’t want to be neighbors who say, ‘This sucks, and we hope you deal with this [but then

move out].”

Carroll says she understands these sentiments. Like Duggan, she came from out-of-state and had to get up to speed on the culture of oil and gas in Colorado.

“I didn’t know anything about oil and gas when I moved here from Ohio,” she says. “I would see something around town; I never would’ve imagined this being in residential neighborhoods. I share that feeling of shock with residents. It almost feels like you’ve been lied to: ‘Here’s this awesome, great community, but here’s this horrible thing and how did I not know about it?’”

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THE OCCIDENTAL SITE is located just outside Erie town limits, but less than 1,000 feet from residents of the Colliers Hill neighborhood.

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BERTHA BERMÚDEZ TAPIA

THE MACHINE OF DEATH CONTINUES TO ROLL ON

Participatory art project Hostile Terrain 94 connects community with U.S. border policies and migrant fatalities

by Angela K. Evans

ABOVE: Bermúdez conducts field research in the Matamoros migrant camp in Mexico just south of Texas.

RIGHT: Participants fill out toe tags as part of the participatory art project ‘Hostile Terrain 94.’

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ALL OTHER PHOTOS COURTESY UNDOCUMENTED MIGRATION PROJECT

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he cold weather is terrible here,” Bertha Bermúdez Tapia says over Zoom from a refugee camp in Matamoros, a city in Mexico just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. “I was supposed to be at home today to have this interview, but I needed to come here because the temperatures are going down and down and we came here to bring some blankets, jackets, hand warmers, et cetera.”

During the bitter winter storm that brought belowfreezing temperatures to the region and rendered most of Texas without power the week of Feb. 14, Bermúdez says the camp, where some 2,000 people have been living in tents close to two years, only has one gas heater in a common area. There are many elderly people living there, she adds, as well as six infants under 8 months old, at least one of whom was born in the makeshift conditions.

Bermúdez, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at CU Boulder, researches the violent effects of U.S. immigration policies, specifically deportations to violent areas and the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, often in dangerous conditions and camps, like the one described above, along the border. President Biden rescinded MPP in mid-February,

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promising to process 25,000 migrants with active claims in the coming weeks, but the future for many migrants remains unclear.

“It is good that these people are not going to be living here anymore, hopefully, but that’s not going to solve the problem,” Bermúdez says. “The problem goes way beyond that. …

This is very intrinsic in the U.S government and goes beyond who is the president of the United States.”

The tragic results of U.S. border policy can be traced back decades at least, she says, back to a Border Patrol strategy from the 1990s — known as “prevention through deterrence” — that has transcended Republican and Democratic administrations and coincided with thousands of migrant fatalities. It’s the deaths of some 3,200 people in the Sonoran Desert since 2000 in particular that are the subject of Hostile Terrain 94, an international participatory art project designed by anthropologist Jason De León and co-facilitated at CU Boulder by Bermúdez and Arielle Milkman, whose Ph.D. work in anthropology focuses on migration and labor.

De León is an anthropologist by training, with his academic home at UCLA, but he’s also a filmmaker, photographer and exhibition artist whose work blurs the boundaries between art and data with the hope of making his social science research more comprehensible to the general public. Data, he says, often lives in spreadsheets hidden in some recess of the internet, without conveying the humanity of the people involved, or the gravity of each life lost.

“For us, the exhibition work really is a way to take this kind of sterile database and have people help us breathe life into it,” he says.

Prior to Hostile Terrain 94, De León created a large vinyl map of migrant deaths in the Sonoran Desert, using an image from Google and red dots, each representing a recovered body since 2000. But it didn’t engage the audience with the reality of the situation or carry the same weight as he had hoped. So, he enlisted students at the University of Michigan to fill out toe tags representing each migrant and pinned them to a 20-by-16-foot map based on the geographic coordinates where they were found.

He piloted the project in several locations in 2019, with plans for rolling exhibitions around the world into 2022, each installation created in local community workshops with partner organizations.

“I figured rather than us constructing a wall map that people can come and gawk at, what if we asked the audience to then commit themselves to making this thing and to being a part of it,” he says. “And that’s really the most crucial part of this whole experience.”

It’s an expression of social practice, an art form where community participation is required, and the colBOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

ANTHROPOLOGIST JASON De León (right) designed Hostile Terrain 94 as a way of engaging the community with the tragic results of U.S. border policies.

laborative process is seen as equally — if not more — important than the finished work.

With roots in the 1970s, social practice is used by artists to raise awareness and start conversations around certain political or societal issues, says Sandra Firmin, director of CU Art Museum, which will be exhibiting Hostile Terrain 94 in Spring 2022.

“And it’s related to political activism, starting with artists that were looking at fair labor practices or artists that were engaged in a feminist-based practice,” she adds. “Often it really is trying to make visible or center people’s lives and experiences that are not part of or are often seen as invisible from the dominant perspective.”

The art exists in each step of the process. With Hostile Terrain 94, it is in the workshop conversations, and the filling out of toe tags, and the discussions between museum staff and volunteers as the work is installed. It’s in the interaction between viewer and each handwritten tag, some with additional notes and personal thoughts on the back, connecting them not only to the migrant who passed, but also to the participant who filled it out. It brings together academics and artists, museum personnel with social justice and activist circles, while also engaging the community more broadly by inviting organizations, companies and other community groups to participate in the workshops with supI

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port from the Boulder Arts Commission.

“It decenters where the art is,” Firmin says. “With a painting, the art is the object on the wall, and it hopefully will illicit some sort of emotional or intellectual response. But here, the art not only exists in what we see, the object, the final product, but also in the conversations and the relationships that develop over time as the installation is made.”

As a partner, CU Boulder joins more than 150 museums and organizations creating similar installations this year across the U.S. and in countries around the world, many of which have their own controversial immigration policies.

There will be Hostile Terrain 94 exhibits circling the Mediterranean Sea — Italy, Greece and Morocco — as well as in Australia, Germany, the U.K. and countries throughout Latin America — Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil — all of whose governments have faced criticism over their handling of the migrant crisis.

“This crisis that we’re living through right now, this migration crisis, is a global phenomenon and it’s not just the U.S.-Mexico border,” De León says. “And this project [is] a way to raise awareness about a particular geographic location, but then by installing it in these other places, it’s a way to connect with what’s happening in those locales to this larger conversation about migration.”

Overall, the partner exhibitions are self-sufficient, with support from De León’s Undocumented Migration Project, which ships a kit of toe tags and instructions to each location. It’s also developed an augmented reality experience through a phone-based app to accompany the final piece.

But it’s up to each partner to decide how best to involve the community and install the exhibit. They also develop their own programming to figure out how to connect their own communities with the effects of national immigration policies.

“Because the Undocumented Migration Project is doing this in this decentralized way,” Milkman says, “we have a chance to have conversations with our communities about what’s happening in migration in our state, in Colorado, for example.”

Milkman and Bermúdez have already held some virtual workshops with students and faculty at CU, with plans for several more around the community throughout the year. In each, they introduce the project, talk about their own research, and then give participants time to fill out assigned toe tags before coming back together for a closing conversation. Manila tags are see HOSTILE TERRAIN Page 14

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HOSTILE TERRAIN from Page 13

used for identified bodies, and include the person’s name, sex, age, where the body was found, cause of death, the entity that found the body, condition of the body and the GPS coordinates, which determines where the tags are hung on the map.

“Orange tags are devoted for people whose bodies were under certain conditions that nobody could identify the body. So we don’t have the name or the age mostly for these tags,” Bermúdez says.

Even virtually, the workshops are a collective space for people to process the data in personal ways, Milkman adds, as they help create an interactive memorial of migration. It can be emotionally taxing for participants, she says, but most say it’s worth it, asking afterwards how they can get more involved with immigration reform and migrant aid.

“This formulation of memorializing these people really gives us a chance to think about the people beyond these large datasets or numbers that we might hear about in the news,” she says. Whereas Ellis Island commemorates European migration to North America, “We know that millions of people have actually crossed in this area of the desert borderlands. And we don’t have any sort of official reckoning with that.”

While many tags on the wall have very little information on them, some come with extensive backstories.

Whenever De León participates in a workshop, he always chooses one name: Carmita Maricela Zhagui Pulla.

De León described finding her body to Radiolab a few years ago; as he was hiking through the desert with a group of students in 2012, they came upon a woman lying 14

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: De León writes additional information on the back of Zhagui Pulla’s toe tag; The end result is an interactive map viewers can touch, read and experience; Volunteers help install the exhibit in 2019.

face down, with long black hair, wearing running shoes and camouflage, a scrunchy on her wrist. They covered her with a blanket and waited five hours for authorities. De León traced her life from the desert to New York — where she was headed — and back to Ecuador where she’d left, chronicling his conversations with her family in his 2015 book The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. She was a 31-year-old mother, in search of work to feed her children.

“I think about her quite a bit when talking about these exhibitions, when I’m helping to install them, because I know that you can just multiply her story by thousands of times to get a better sense of what the human costs of these border policies actually are,” he says.

Hostile Terrain 94 centers around the lethal effects of Border Patrol’s “prevention through deterrence” strategy, which increased enforcement and resources at

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

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urban points of entry, shifting the geographical flow of migrants into remote areas like the mountains east of San Diego, the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and the South Texas backwoods, in the hopes of slowing migration across the border. It has been the driving force behind border policies since it was instituted in 1994 under President Bill Clinton, with the prediction that “with traditional entry and smuggling routes disrupted, illegal traffic will be deterred, or forced over more hostile terrain” — hence the name of the art project — where migrants can easily find themselves in “mortal danger.”

If successful, the Border Patrol said at the time, the policy would “reshape migration to become more treacherous, more criminalized, more cartel-driven, and more politically fraught,” according to the Tucson-based NGO No More Deaths. By 2001, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the policy had come at a great cost to migrants. “In particular, rather than being deterred from attempting illegal entry, many aliens have instead risked injury and death by trying to cross mountains, deserts and rivers,” the agency reported. Still, Border Patrol has historically refused to claim any responsibility or culpability, blaming the mortality rates on smugglers, and their unrealistic and exploitative promises of safe passage.

“Migrant death at the border is something that has BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

happened on both Democratic and Republican watches,” De León says.“This machine of death continues to roll on, and it’s up to all of us to be aware of this and find ways to push for change.”

Before prevention through deterrence, there were maybe a dozen recorded deaths a year across the border. Now there are hundreds. In 2020, there were 227 documented deaths in the Sonoran Desert alone, a record high since 2013 when the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office, along with human rights group Humane Borders, first started publishing an online database mapping migrant deaths in Southern Arizona. Around the world, Hostile Terrain 94 partners use this public database — and the more than 3,200 names in it — to create the installation. In each location around the world, participants use the same list of names, rewriting the same information on toe tags again and again.

“There’s power in repeating these names, in writing them out, even if it’s the same name over and over again; just to remember that one person who in many ways has been completely ignored and marginalized by federal governments, by America at large,” De León says. “And so this project is a way to kind of reclaim those names. And I hope, in some way, reclaim the lives of those that are still unidentified.”

It’s also a way of remembering those still alive, those still attempting to migrate, those still facing precarious and lifethreatening circumstances, all along the U.S.-Mexican border and national boundaries across the world.

“What’s happening in the Sonoran Desert is not exclusive,” Bermúdez says.

“It’s not that prevention through deterrence is just focusing on one area on the border, but it’s something that has been built up over the years and it’s shifting to different policies that are damaging more and more and more people and putting a lot of people at risk.”

At the camp in Matamoros, there is still a lot of uncertainty around the end of MPP, she says. People have already started packing, but they’ve been given no guidance as to what they can carry with them. Many are nervous they won’t be able to bring what they need and are asking volunteers to take some of their belongings and even medications across the border for them, she says. Still others don’t know if the end of MPP will help them at all, as half of the camp has already been denied asylum under stricter requirements instituted by the Trump administration, or they don’t yet have an open immigration case as a result of Border Patrol’s metering policies, which have created long waitlists to request asylum in the first place.

While many have applauded Biden’s immigration agenda, especially in compariBOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

son to the rhetoric and policy of the Trump administration, both Bermúdez and De León caution against too much optimism.

“I worry that post-Trump, whatever Biden does will never come close to how terrible it was under the Trump administration. And I think in a lot of ways, people might just start to get kind of complacent about this whole thing again,” De León says. “And so [Hostile Terrain 94] is a way to remind folks that this is a very long-standing practice that has killed thousands of people, continues to do it, and we need to hold whoever is in the White House accountable.”

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FEBRUARY 25, 2021

ON THE BILL: If you are interested in having a Hostile Terrain 94 workshop at your class or community organization, please fill out a workshop request form at tinyurl.com/5x94zsvw or email hostileterrain94.cu@gmail. com. Hostile Terrain 94 will be display at the CU Art Museum in Spring 2022.

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FEBRUARY 25, 2021

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PLAN

events

If your organization is planning an event of any kind, please email Caitlin at crockett@boulderweekly.com.

NAACP BC/COMMUNITY CINEMAS PRESENT: ‘BLACK PANTHER’ DRIVE-IN AND TALKBACK.

5:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 26, Heart of Longmont United Methodist Church parking area, 350 11th Ave., Longmont.

Tickets are $31 per car (food included), longmont.cocinemas.org NAACP Boulder County and Community Cinemas will present a drive-in showing of the film Black Panther, with a post-screening talkback panel discussion on screen in honor of Black History Month.

Food and drinks available at the site.

LONGMONT PUBLIC LIBRARY CELEBRATES BLACK HISTORY MONTH.

11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 26 via Webex.

To register: bit.ly/LibStories Librarians Claire and Stephanie will host a special storytime highlighting black authors and illustrators in children’s literature.The librarians will read books and share an additional reading list of books by black creators to read with kids anytime. This storytime is best for preschoolers to first graders, but all are welcome. Registration is required and participants will receive information on joining the Webex meeting in their registration confirmation email.

STONE COTTAGE STUDIOS AND DAVE TAMKIN & CO. PRESENT A LIVESTREAM TO BENEFIT FAMILIES AFFECTED BY WILDFIRES.

7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 27. Tickets are $25-$100, stonecottagestudios.com Dave Tamkin, alongside band members Brad Huffman and Chadzilla, will be raising money for Red Cross Colorado to aid families affected by the recent Colorado wildfires in a livestream hosted by Stone Cottage Studios. In addition to donating to the Red Cross, the group will be working with Emergency RV (emergencyRV.org) to help families displaced by the local fires. It is one of the first live performances for the band since quarantine began. Tamkin and company plan to showcase a few new tunes in an energetic show.

JON ALLEGRETTO

PUBLIC TALK: HIP-HOP AS SACRED MEDICINE?

LOUISVILLE HISTORICAL MUSEUM PRESENTS: REMEMBERING LUDLOW BUT FORGETTING THE COLUMBINE: THE 1927/1928 COLORADO COAL STRIKE.

7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25. This event is free. Registration required: bit.ly/3dHUuzw The 1920s were a pivotal time for race and labor forces in Louisville.

Join Dr. Leah Campbell-Hale for a live, virtual discussion about labor struggles and strikes in Louisville and greater Colorado.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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6 p.m. Wednesday, March 3.

This event is free, colorado.edu/amrc/hiphop “Hip Hop as Sacred Medicine?: Thoughts on Boujee Natives, Indigenous Rap Music, and NdN Popular Culture,” will explore the pitfalls and possibilities of Indigenous hiphop as a form of NdN (a shortening of “Indian” sometimes used by U.S. Native American groups) popular culture. Using lyrics and videos, and considering the current state of affairs, Kyle Hays (University of California, Los Angeles) will offer thoughts on the state of Indigenous hip-hop and where it might be going in the future. Hays’ talk will kick off “Hip-Hop in Times of Pandemic and Protest,” a series of evening events in March from CU Boulder’s American Music Research Center (AMRC), Laboratory for Race & Popular Culture (RAP Lab) and the College of Music.

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PLAN

LONGMONT MUSEUM PRESENTS: ART & SIP — POLYMER CLAY MARBLED DISH.

events

A UNIQUE JOURNEY TO MARS: THE EMIRATES MARS MISSION (EMM).

SA NA

7 p.m. Wednesday, March 3. This event is free, lasp.colorado.edu In this talk, a panel of Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) engineering and science team members discuss EMM’s project engineering, mission science and the novel and successful space exploration partnership between an Arab nation and U.S. academic research institutions.

YWCA BOULDER COUNTY ANNUAL FUNDRAISING GALA: ‘LIGHTS, CAMERA, TAKE ACTION.’

BOULDER’S STORY SLAM PRESENTS: FAMILY REUNION — STORIES OF RACE BY STRANGERS WHO BECAME FAMILY.

Thursdays 5-7 p.m. March 4-April 22.

Sliding scale fee, bit.ly/2NC6iIG In this workshop — co-led by Johanna Walker, speaker, trainer and host of Boulder’s Story Slam, and Darryl Piggott, a Los Angelesbased educator — participants will gather in a mixed race group of people from all over the U.S. Each participant will explore personal narrative stories about how race has impacted their lives. Groups will dig into these stories through the lens of anti-racism work, and share them at a culminating event open to the public.

Those interested in participating should email Johanna Walker at storyslamboulder@gmail.com. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

SONIA SOBERATS

EAST WINDOW CELEBRATES MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY WITH SONIA SOBERATS.

March 1-31, east window, 4949 Broadway, Unit 102-B, Boulder, eastwindow.org Sonia Soberats’ relationship with photography didn’t begin until she lost her eyesight to glaucoma in the early 1990s. She is a founding member of the New York-based collective for blind photographers, Seeing With Photography. Sonia’s work poses fundamental questions about the notion of visual culture and about the relationship between perception, imagination and artistic creation. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. Three archival pigment prints mounted on aluminum will be on view from east window’s outdoor viewing space, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

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7:30 p.m.

LONGMONT MUSEUM Wednesday, March 3. This event is free, longmontmuseum.org Pour a glass of your favorite beverage and join Longmont Museum Curator of Education Ann Macca online as she demonstrates polymer clay techniques while guiding you in the creation of a beautiful marbled dish. Best of all, you can bake it at home in your oven. Everyone is welcome, regardless of experience. Material lists are online at the museum’s website.

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 9, ywcaboulder.org This year’s YWCA Boulder County fundraising gala, dubbed “Lights, Camera, TAKE ACTION,” will be a virtual, inspirational hour to help fund the organization’s programs and rally around its mission to eliminate racism and empower women. YWCA Boulder County will be celebrating an awards night with women and people of color in the spotlight. Guests will enjoy an awards ceremony, a guest speaker, paddle raiser and an event drawing. Tickets for the event are now on sale. Red carpet tickets cost $100 each, and screening tickets cost $35 each. A red carpet ticket includes a screening link plus a gourmet happy hour nosh and nibbles spread (feeds one-two people) from Cured.

‘THE WHISKEY TASTING,’ PRESENTED BY THE CATAMOUNTS, EXTENDS THROUGH MARCH 14.

See times and ticket prices at thewhiskeytasting.com The Whiskey Tasting was created in the spring of 2019 by director Amanda Berg Wilson and playwright David Jacobi on a commission from DCPA Off-Center. The Catamounts has now adapted it to be an online immersive experience to enjoy from the comfort and safety of your home. The Whiskey Tasting experience can accommodate three screens with up to two audience members per screen, for no more than six audience members at a time. Coordinate with your friends and buy all three screens for a shared evening in, or purchase a single screen and experience the show with strangers from other homes in the Denver/ Boulder area. Both situations are wonderful ways to experience the show — and in either case, you’ll all know one another better by evening’s end. see EVENTS Page 20

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101-WORD FICTION

‘Out of Time’ by Tommy Lorden, Boulder He most definitely knew what hit him. His family and friends would seek solace in the standard untruth that “at least he didn’t feel any pain.” He felt hurried for thoughts, yet couldn’t think of anything in particular from his newfound location on the floor, which was more agreeable than he thought it’d be. No prayer. No flashes of the past. No last words. He hoped there would be time to explain all this before accepting the realization that no one ever wants to truly understand anyway. He’d have to leave the way he came. Alone.

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Natalie Goldberg — ‘Three Simple Lines,’ with Tania Casselle. 5 p.m. Thursday, March 4 via Zoom. Tickets are $5 on Eventbrite, boulderbookstore.net A haiku is three simple lines with the power to, as Allen Ginsberg said, “make the mind leap.”

Natalie Goldberg is a tour guide into the world of haiku. In her new book, Three Simple Lines, Goldberg highlights the history of the form, dating back to the 17th century, showing why masters such as Basho and Issa are so revered, and provides insight into writing and reading haiku. To better understand the art form, Goldberg traveled to Japan to explore the birthplace of haiku. In her book she revels in everything she encountered while there, including food and family, painting and fashion, frogs and ponds.

She allows readers to share in the spontaneous and profound moments of enlightenment and awakening that haiku promises. Goldberg will discuss her book in conversation with writer Tania Casselle in this online event presented by Boulder Book Store.

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FEBRUARY 25, 2021

POETRY

Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Café present: Ernesto Cardenal Memorial Poetry Reading. 7 p.m.

Monday, March 1 via Zoom. Register: bit.ly/3bwivXA Please join Innisfree and collective. aporia on March 1 to celebrate the life and works of Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal on the one-year anniversary of his passing. You will hear a series of readings from poets you know and love, including Anne Waldman, Joe Bryan, Irene Vilar, Joe Richey and more. (Also, check out Boulder Weekly’s interview with Cardenal from Oct. 15, 2015, “A type of prayer.”)

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Voice to the voiceless

Ousmane Sembène’s groundbreaking ‘Mandabi’ gets a handsome restoration

boulderweekly.com

by Michael J. Casey

H

COURTESY JANUS FILMS

as decency become a sin?”

Ibrahima Dieng cries.

On his knees, Ibrahima holds out his empty hands in mock offering. The world has stripped him bare, and now, in an ending fitting of Kafka, Ibrahima offers up the scraps.

So ends 1968’s Mandabi (The Money Order), a postcolonial ON THE BILL: Criterion’s ‘Mandabi,’ on Blu-ray and DVD, features a new 4K restoration of the film; a valuable satire from Senegalese introduction by film scholar Aboubakar Sanogo; a conversafilmmaker Ousmane tion between writer Boubacar Boris Diop and feminist activist Sembène, out now on Marie Angélique Savané; ‘Tauw,’ a 1970 short film by home video from The Sembène; a short documentary about Sembène, ‘Praise Song’; an interview with Sembène; an essay by Tiana Reid; Criterion Collection: and a new translation of Sembène’s 1966 novella, ‘The Money Ibrahima on his knees, Order.’ the world howling through the soundtrack. It’s an ending that’ll haunt you long after the screen’s gone dark.

How Sembène gets there is a stroke of genius: Ibrahima (Makuredia Guey) has two wives, seven children and has been out of work for five years. One day, a money order arrives via mail carrier. Your nephew in Paris has sent 25,000 francs, the mail carrier explains, handing over the document. But Ibrahima is illiterate and cannot read the money order. So, he goes to a reader (Sembène in a cameo), who tells him the money order says what the mail carrier already told Ibrahima. The difference: The mail carrier did it for free while the reader must be paid. And Ibrahima has no money.

So Ibrahima goes to collect the money from the bank, but the bank will not give it to him without proof of identification. Ibrahima has no ID card. So he goes to another government building to acquire an ID. Certainly, the clerk tells him, I just need your birth certificate. As you can probably guess, Ibrahima has no such document. When were you born, the clerk asks. Around 1900 is the best Ibrahima can do. And if this wasn’t hard enough, half of these conversations take place via translators. The government officials speak French, Ibrahima can only communicate in Wolof.

Wolof is Senegal’s native tongue, and Mandabi marks the first feature film made in the African language. Sembène’s first two films were made in French — the language of colonialism — but he decided that his third, an adaptation of his novella, should be in his people’s language. It’s worth noting that when Sembène published The Money Order, it was in French: Le mandat. Sembène started as a novelist and would have likely remained one if not for the audience he wanted to reach. Like Ibrahima, they were largely illiterate. So Sembène turned to films and found success.

Images articulate where words fall short, and Sembène’s work shows how the French occupation scarred the land and transformed the daily structures of Senegalese life, from tiny indignities to sweeping bureaucratic changes no one asked for. An entire culture has been left behind: Ibrahima’s culture. And if the replacement is anything like the middle-class Sembène offers in the movie, Senegal’s future does not look bright. Has decency become a sin? It sure looks like it.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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We Recycle We accept blister packs, top foils and even used contact lenses for recycling through Bausch and Lomb’s One by One Recycling Program.

Dr. Terri Oneby 303-443-4545

For more information, visit BauschRecycles.com or stop by our office.

bouldervisioncenter.com FEBRUARY 25, 2021

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ity, de La Tour enjoyed conversing with trees. In accordance with the astrological omens, I propose that we make him your patron saint for now. I hope you’ll be inspired to tap into your inner Quentin de la Tour.

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MARCH 21-APRIL 19: I invite you to think about one or

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APRIL 20-MAY 20: Poet Billy Collins describes “standing

on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you.” I have high hopes that your entire life will be like that in the coming weeks: that you’ll feel as if the world is alive with special messages just for you; that every situation you’re in will feel like you belong there; that every intuition welling up from your subconscious mind into your conscious awareness will be specifically what you need at the moment it arrives.

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: You’re entering a potentially

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heroic phase of your astrological cycle. The coming weeks will be a time when I hope you will be motivated to raise your integrity and impeccability to record levels. To inspire you, I’ve grabbed a few affirmations from a moral code reputed to be written by a 14th-century Samurai warrior. Try saying them, and see if they rouse you to make your good character even better. 1) “I have no divine power; I make honesty my divine power.” 2) “I have no miracles; I make right action my miracle.” 3) “I have no enemy; I make carelessness my enemy.” 4) “I have no designs; I make ‘seizing opportunity’ my design.” 5) “I have no magic secrets; I make character my magic secret.” 6) “I have no armor; I make benevolence and righteousness my armor.”

SCORPIO

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: “Love commands a vast army of

moods,” writes author Diane Ackerman. “Frantic and serene, vigilant and calm, wrung-out and fortified, explosive and sedate.” This fact of life will be prominently featured in your life during the coming weeks.

Now is a fertile time to expand your understanding of how eros and romance work when they’re at their best — and to expand your repertoire of responses to love’s rich challenges. Don’t think of it as a tough test; imagine it as an interesting research project.

SAGITTARIUS

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: Sagittarian poet and visual artist

William Blake (1757–1827) cultivated a close relationship with lofty thoughts and mystical visions. He lived with his wife Catherine for the last 45 years of his life, but there were times when he was so preoccupied with his amazing creations that he neglected his bond with her. Catherine once said, “I have very little of Mr. Blake’s company. He is always in Paradise.” I hope that you won’t be like that in the coming weeks.

Practical matters and intimate alliances need more of your attention than usual. Consider the possibility, at least for now, of spending less time in paradise and more on earth.

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: Poet Robert Graves regarded the

LEO

AQUARIUS

JULY 23-AUG. 22: The coming weeks will be a poignant

and healing time for you to remember the people in your life who have died — as well as ancestors whom you never met or didn’t know well. They have clues to offer you, rich feelings to nourish you with, course corrections to suggest. Get in touch with them through your dreams, meditations and reminiscences.

Now read this inspiration from poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “They, who passed away long ago, still exist in us, as predisposition, as burden upon our fate, as murmuring blood, and as gesture that rises up from the depths of time.” (Translation from the German by Stephen Mitchell.)

ambiguity of poetry as a virtue, not a problem. In his view, poetry’s inscrutability reflects life’s true nature.

As we read its enigmatic ideas and feelings, we may be inspired to understand that experience is too complex to be reduced to simplistic descriptions and overgeneralized beliefs. In fact, it’s quite possible that if we invite poetry to retrain our perceptions, we will develop a more tolerant and inclusive perspective toward everything. I’m telling you this, Capricorn, because whether or not you read a lot of poetry in the coming weeks, it will be wise and healthy for you to celebrate, not just tolerate, how paradoxical and mysterious the world is.

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: The coming weeks will be a favorable

time to shed old habits that waste your energy, and create constructive new habits that will serve you well for months and years to come. To inspire and guide your efforts, I offer these thoughts from author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau: “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

PISCES

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: Piscean author Anais Nin

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: I’m fond of 18th-century Virgo painter Quentin de La Tour. Why? 1) He specialized in creating portraits that brought out his subjects’ charm and intelligence. 2) As he grew wealthier, he became a philanthropist who specialized in helping poor women and artists with disabilities. 3) While most painters of his era did self-portraits that were solemn, even ponderous, de La Tour’s self-portraits showed him smiling and good-humored. 4) Later in his life, when being entirely reasonable was no longer a top prior-

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

with your overall health, Libra. In fact, I expect it’s probably quite adequate. But from an astrological point of view, now is the right time to schedule an appointment for a consultation with your favorite healer, even if just by Zoom. In addition, I urge you to consult a soul doctor for a complete metaphysical check-up. Chances are that your mental health is in fair shape, too. But right now it’s not enough for your body and soul to be merely adequate; they need to receive intense doses of well-wrought love and nurturing. So I urge you to ask for omens and signs and dreams about what precisely you can do to treat yourself with exquisite care.

JUNE 21-JULY 22: “The only way to live is by accept-

ing each minute as an unrepeatable miracle,” writes Cancerian author and Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield. I disagree with him. There are many other modes of awareness that can be useful as we navigate our labyrinthine path through this crazy world.

Regarding each minute as an opportunity to learn something new, for instance: That’s an excellent way to live. Or, for another example, treating each minute as another chance to creatively express our love.

But I do acknowledge that Kornfield’s approach is sublime and appealing. And I think it will be especially apropos for you during the coming weeks.

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SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: I’m not saying there’s anything wrong

CAPRICORN

CANCER

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LIBRA

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was a maestro of metamorphosis, a virtuoso of variation, an adept at alteration. She regarded her ceaseless evolution as a privilege and luxury, not an oppressive inconvenience. “I take pleasure in my transformations,” she wrote. “I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.” Her approach is a healthy model for most of you Pisceans — and will be especially worth adopting in the coming weeks. I invite you to be a Change Specialist whose nickname is Flux Mojo.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

BY DAN SAVAGE Dear Dan: I know you and other sexthings you want to do with another conperts say that kinks are ingrained and not senting adult is acceptable simply something you can get rid of, but mine because it’s hot and sexy and fun.” have all vanished! Ever since I started on OK, TMK, back to your question: antidepressants my relationship with my Antidepressants — one little pill that can body and how it reacts to pain, both phys- relieve mental anguish and disappear a ical and mental, has completely changed. libido at the same time — can’t cure kinks I used to love getting bitten and spanked but they can suppress them. I mean, think and beat black and blue, but now all that about it... if you’re not horny right now just hurts. I used to love getting humiliated because of the antidepressants... you’re and spit on, commanded to do dirty not going to be horny for the things that things, but none of that holds much get you off when you are horny... because appeal anywhere. So what you’re not horny... because ROMAN ROBINSON gives? Were these even the antidepressants. If you kinks in the first place if miss your libido — and if they could vanish so easily you miss all the hot and with one little pill? Or were sexy and fun and fucked-up these coping mechanisms things you used to enjoy for emotional problems I no with other consenting adults longer have? I know my libi— work with your doctor to do is suppressed due to the find a different med that meds. Did my kinks just folrelieves your depression low my libido out the door? without tanking your libido, —The Missing Kink TMK, or a different dosage of the med you’re currently Dear TMK: on that provides you with Antidepressants showed emotional benefits without your kinks the door at the same time they depriving you of your libido and the kinks showed your libido the door. that come bundled with it.

Zooming out for a second: While some people find that consensual BDSM Dear Dan: I read this in a recent colhelps them cope with trauma and/or proumn of yours: “…if your parents are still cess their emotional problems — or work fucking each other that means your parthrough the kind of traumas that create ents still like each other.” Not always, emotional problems — many people into Dan. My father fucked my mother daily BDSM have no significant history of sexu- while he was having an affair with anothal trauma, TMK, or whatever trauma(s) er woman. As soon as the other woman’s they may have suffered, sexual or otherhusband died of cancer, my father left my wise, didn’t create or shape their kinks. mother. Affair aside, he didn’t much like And while consensual BDSM can provide my mother, which was evident from the therapeutic benefits to a person who 1) way he treated her and not just from the has a history of trauma and 2) has an affair. Maybe he wanted to keep her in interest in kink — by making them feel in place until he could leave, maybe he had control of their own bodies (even if they’re a monstrous sex drive, I don’t know. But temporarily ceding that control) — not he didn’t like her. everyone who’s kinky can point to a trau—My Asshole Dad matic event at the root of their kinks.

And kinky people shouldn’t have to Dear MAD: Thank you for writing in, cite trauma to justify the pleasure they MAD, and you’re absolutely right: a lot of find in getting bit, spanked, beaten, people — and not just married people — bruised, bound, etc. fuck people they don’t like. And some “It’s become an oft-repeated narrative people are only nice to their spouses of many a wellness think piece that when they want sex and resume neglectBDSM and freaky fetishes are actually ing their spouses and/or treating them like OK because they help people deal with shit immediately after they get sex. I obvitheir traumatic past,” as the writer, comeously needed to qualify that statement, dian, and self-described “Leatherdyke MAD, and if I had it to do over again I’d Muppet” Chingy Nea wrote in a recent go with this: “If your parents are still fuckessay about the creeping pathologizing of ing each other that’s a pretty good sign kink. “What gets you off is not inherently they might still like each other.” born of trauma or sign of dysfunction, nor does it require suffering to validate it.

Send questions to mail@savagelove.net, Being turned on by weird, fucked-up follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage.

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FEBRUARY 25, 2021

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CAFFÈ SOLE. 637R S. Broadway, Boulder, 303-499-2985, caffesole.com

Try this week: Prosciutto & Brie Sandwich @ Caffè Sole

THE KITCHEN STAFF at Caffè Sole have been hard at work throughout the pandemic, preparing more than 6,000 meals for Sister Carmen Community Center in Lafayette to help the agency feed those in need. The Caffè staff is back making food for customers as well, and this week we tried the prosciutto and brie sandwich. Piles of cured, dried and thinly sliced ham make up the bulk of this meal, but the brie cheese brings a certain zest to each bite, while the date jam (spread on both sides of the Italian bun) brings sweetness and the caramelized onions add a little crunch. Just knowing that Caffè is committed to continuing its Sister Carmen food drive as long as food insecurity remains an issue in Boulder County makes the food that much more satisfying.

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1 300 Suns seventh anniversary celebration CELEBRATE 300 SUNS Brewing’s seventh anniversary this weekend, Feb. 25-28, with small-batch releases and giveaways. The brewery (located at 335 First Ave., Unit C, Longmont) will drop Blueberry Jelly Donut Milkshake IPA on Thursday, Pineapple Wheat on Friday, Cheeseburger Pale Ale on Saturday (can’t wait to try that one) and Oatmeal Honey Porter on Sunday.

Twenty patrons will receive 300 Suns crowler koozies. The brewery’s open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. (9 p.m. on Thursday and 8 p.m. on Sunday), so head over anytime during the day to celebrate and taste these interesting brews inspired and created by the 300 Suns brew team. More info at 300sunsbrewing.com.

BOULDER WEEKLY

McDevitt turns to wings MCDEVITT TACO SUPPLY, purveyors of unique, flavor-forward tacos, is now launching The Wing Supply, offering chicken and cauliflower wings in a variety of styles developed by Chef Scott “Skittles” Seller. There are spicy favorites like classic buffalo, jerk and Nashville hot, along with milder options like teriyaki and barbecue. Venture off into some creative concoctions like the Knoxville dry rub, orange serrano and pineapple habanero options.

Wings come with a house-made ranch dressing, and are $8.50 for five, $16 for a dozen. Wings are available for takeout (from the Baseline location) or delivery; visit mcdevitttacosupply.com to see the full menu and order.

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FEBRUARY 25, 2021

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FEBRUARY 25, 2021

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

New beers, officially

Boulder’s Brewers Association releases new guidelines for brewers and competition committees, with new beer categories added

by Matt Cortina

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aybe you’re at a local craft brewery and you come across something wacky — say a cotton candy stout or a corn saison or a sweet potato ale. As wild as these brews are, chances are these beers already fit into a category determined by the Boulder-based Brewers Association (BA), a nonprofit trade group supporting the craft beer industry.

These categories, announced annually, help brewers classify their beers and provide competition committees a reference point for classifying beer. It’s a deep-in-the-weeds aspect of the brewing world that dates back decades.

In 1979, the BA started providing annual beer style descriptions, and much of that work was based on the contributions of the famed food and drink writer Michael Jackson. Over time, the guidelines were expanded and edited, then with the help of Charlie Papazian, the craft beer pioneer who, among many other contributions, started the Great American Beer Festival.

Today, the BA uses sources from the commercial brewing industry, beer analyses and consultations with beer industry experts and beer enthusiasts to determine what makes a beer style a beer style.

On Feb. 23, the BA released its 2021 guidelines

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

after “hundreds of revisions, edits, format changes and additions,” according to the group. It updated some existing beer styles and created several more, including the Kentucky Common Beer, the New Zealandstyle Pale Ale (and India Pale Ale) and the Belgianstyle Session Ale. Beer styles in the guidelines are separated into ale, lager and mixed/hybrid categories, and then further delineated by origin (North America, England, Germany, Ireland, Belgium and France, and other).

The BA notes that not every style makes the cut: “Availability of commercial examples plays a large role in whether a beer style ‘makes the list.’ It is important to consider that not every historical or commercial beer style can be included, nor is every commercial beer representative of the historical tradition (i.e., a brewery labeling a brand as a particular style does not always indicate a fair representation of that style).”

“Craft brewers in the U.S. and around the world continue to push the boundaries of beer by reviving long-lost styles and by innovating in new beer flavor spaces,” says Chris Swersey, the BA’s competition manager. The guidelines, he adds, “reflect many exciting trends in brewing with numerous additions and updates for accuracy.”

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FEBRUARY 25, 2021

That said, additions or amendments to the guidelines are not taken lightly — which brings us to the new styles.

You may have seen a few local craft brewers dip into New Zealand-style ales. In its guide, the BA asserts that a New Zealand-style ale has straw to medium amber color, very low to medium malt aroma and flavor, and exhibits the flavors of “tropical fruit, passion fruit, and/or stone-fruit, cut grass and diesel.”

Seemingly contrary to that note on literal truck fuel, the BA notes the style should make for “well-integrated easy drinking.”

The Belgian style was significantly revised this year after plenty of comments from judges and Belgian beer experts — as a result, the beer formerly known as Belgian-Style Pale Ale was renamed Belgian-style Speciale Belge. The guidelines for a new Belgian beer style — Belgian-style session ale — note it is distinguished by its low alcohol content and balanced flavor.

The new beer guideline will take effect before the 2021 Great American Beer Festival.

Find the new beer style guidelines at bewersassociation.org/edu/brewers-association-beer-style-guidelines.

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BOULDER WEEKLY

COURTESY NUDE FOODS MARKET

Bulking up

Nude Foods Market delivers bulk foods, ugly produce and local, organic groceries by bike by Matt Cortina

W

hen Verity Noble moved from London to Boulder eight years ago or so, she was surprised to learn the city, so in-tune as it is with natural foods and sustainability, didn’t have a market dedicated to bulk foods. Sure, there were the bulk aisles at some grocery stores, but she says she found herself “schlepping” up to Simply Bulk Market in Longmont to get her fix, and then questioned the overall eco-benefit of buying natural food in bulk if it meant driving so far.

So Noble, and a team of three other cofounders, created Nude Foods Market, which launched in July 2020 and delivers curated boxes, ugly produce, bulk staples, prepared goods, local packaged products and more, by bicycle. People can buy an item once or subscribe to regular deliveries for a discount. One can order, say, day-old challah bread for $2, pasture-raised eggs for $7 a dozen or, for $25, a box of “rescued” produce — too misshapen, discolored or damaged for the regular stores, but still fine to eat — which rotates with the season and is sourced from local farms during the summer, and local hydroponic farms and other suppliers in the winter. The prepared goods are made in-house and rotate based on ingredients and season (try sweet potato chili or the organic lemony lentil soup, to start).

From the chaos that was 2020, some businesses found opportunities where others saw challenges. Nude Foods fits in the former category. The original plan was to have customers come in to shop, but the team decided to shift to an online model, and Noble says that several months of everyone ordering everything online helped eliminate any hesitation to order food in such a manner.

“I think the pandemic really helped us, which is unusual,” she says. “People got used to ordering online. We have a lot of older cli-

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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ents before the pandemic who would’ve been like, ‘What? Ordering online? No,’ whereas now they’re much more used to it.”

Plus, she says, the glass jars food comes in are easy to wipe down and, of course, assert Boulder’s focus on sustainability.

The small leadership team of Nude Foods is uniquely suited to launch such a business, with skills culled from the food, business and startup worlds — for instance, one of the founders owns commissary kitchens in town and works with food producers to source their food and put it in the glass jars, which are then sold through Nude Foods.

“It’s definitely a joint effort.

Everyone’s got different skill sets.

Everyone is really good at what they do,” Noble says.

Noble came to Boulder after being headhunted to work at an incubator of sorts for impact companies. She figured it’d be a fun foray into the U.S., but like so many others, once she got to Boulder, she realized, “Oh I love it, it’s amazing.”

So she called her husband and they decided to make a go of it in Colorado. If that sounds like a big move, Noble says it’s in her blood to build things and move boldly: “My parents were both entrepreneurs. This is in my blood.”

Nude Foods has been a hit with the community, Noble says, validating her hunch that there was an appetite for such a business in the city. Sales have grown about 10% every week since the launch last year, and so now the company is looking to find a bigger location and add an extra delivery day (right now, deliveries are made on Wednesdays).

After such a positive response, the bulk store itself is bulking up.

Visit nudefoodsmarket.com to order and find more information.

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

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Lessons from Colorado

black and Latino people from participating in the legal cannabis industry and continued to punish them for something that was no longer a crime. Last year, Gov. Jared Polis signed into law a bill that offered mass pardons for cannabis felons in an effort to level the playing field. Today, 87% of cannabis businesses in the U.S. are still owned by white people, with 5.7% Latino-owned and only 4.3% black-owned.

As of Jan. 1, 2021 the delivery of recreational marijuana was legalized in Colorado. Municipalities still need to vote to approve this service, with Aurora leading the pack and approving licenses for delivery exclusively to social equity applicants for the first three years — these are folks who live in low-income areas or communities that have been the most impacted by the war on drugs. More social equity bills seem to be on the horizon as activists continue working with lawmakers to give these communities a fair chance to enter the legal cannabis industry.

When it comes to growing marijuana, questions of sustainability are vast and often complex. The cannabis industry is pollutive and resource-intensive, impacting soil and land use, water, energy generation and consumption and air quality, with waste disposal presenting further challenges. The National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) released a report of the best environmental management practices in October 2020, working to understand how growers can invest in sustainable systems and encouraging governments to work

As more states legalize weed, here are a few tips to make it both equitable and sustainable

by Katie Rhodes

N

ew Jersey recently joined the growing ranks of states legalizing cannabis, with Gov. Phil Murphy signing legal recreational marijuana into law on Feb. 22. As with all states that have been through this process in the last few years, questions of equity and sustainability within the industry are likely to start surfacing as New Jersey moves forward.

Colorado, by comparison, is well-seasoned when it comes to navigating challenges associated with the legal cannabis industry — and we’re still learning: How can we be more inclusive of communities of color within the cannabis industry? What are we doing to ensure sustainable growing practices? States new to legalization are going to face these questions for the first time, so here are a few lessons they can learn from Colorado.

It was identified fairly quickly that one of the major barriers excluding people of color from the legal cannabis industry was Colorado’s failure to pardon cannabisrelated crimes or expunge the criminal records of those incarcerated for felonies like possession or intent to sell post-legalization. This, however, was only the first snafu — legally, anyone with a felony was barred from entering Colorado’s cannabis industry for a whopping 10 years. Combined, these legal stipulations kept countless

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on creating cannabis policies that incentivize and promote sustainability throughout the industry. The report explains that sustainable best practices actually present a way for growers to save money in the long run through proper land use, water conversation, air quality control, energy efficiency and waste reduction. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is currently working with Colorado’s cannabis industry to implement some of these systems for growing, packaging, distributing and selling cannabis.

The Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) also set exemptions for biomass disposal and package recycling tactics in 2020, which has helped improve sustainability within Colorado’s cannabis industry; producers can now compost their leftover stalks, trimmings, roots and unusable leaves and nuggets, uprooting the previous system where growers were legally required to dilute their biomass waste with an equal amount of other garbage material such as sand, glass, bleach or shredded plastics. This practice intended to render the biomass “unusable and unrecognizable,” but ultimately doubled the waste coming out of grow houses, with half of it being non-compostable. Through the newly available composting practices, biomass, now unpolluted with other materials, can now be used in fertilizer.

Anaerobic digestion is another waste sustainability practice now available to Colorado pot growers.

Marijuana waste is stored in a box, allowing gases (in the form of methane and carbon dioxide) to accumulate and later be recovered as another commodity to store and sell, increasing and broadening revenue streams.

Waste can be compounded into biochar, a component that, when added to soil, allows plants to consume and convert more CO2 to oxygen as well. There’s also biomass gasification, which converts cannabis waste into hydrogen or other gasses without using pollutive combustion. All of these alternative routes for leftover biomass promise sustainable ways to deal with the waste of the industry, generating more clean resources and decreasing land, water and soil pollution.

While Colorado certainly has more work to do when it comes to creating a sustainable, equitable cannabis industry, the work being done maps a forward-thinking blueprint on how to navigate the new challenges that legalization presents.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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