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Facing supply disruptions, Boulder County food banks prepare for the future

by Angela K. Evans

Colorado women’s health providers weigh in as conservative governors try to restrict access to abortion care

by Matt Cortina

news:

Advocates call for mass release at the Aurora detention facility due to reports of COVID-19

by Angela K. Evans

boulderganic:

Curing plant blindness during the coronavirus pandemic

by Angela K. Evans

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Outdoor athletes and advocates encourage recreating close to (or at) home

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buzz:

The new normal for life under the new plague

by Ganzeer

O P E N DA I LY 1 1 : 3 0A M – 8 P M

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Local chefs share their favorite recipes

by Matt Cortina

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Stew’s Views: Protecting the most vulnerable among us Letters: Signed, sealed, delivered... your views News: The biggest non-coronavirus stories from the last month News: Coronavirus poses challenges for divorced and separated families Overtones: Zachary Carretín and Mina Gajić bring historical instruments to Schubert sonatas Boulder County Events: What to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do Food/Drink: Food news and what to try this week in Boulder County Astrology: by Rob Brezsny Words: ‘covid 19’ by Dan Fijolek Savage Love: Holding up Cannabis Corner: Pot today: It’s not all about the virus (but a lot is)

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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APRIL 2, 2020

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Publisher, Fran Zankowski Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Editor, Matt Cortina Senior Editor, Angela K. Evans Arts and Culture Editor, Caitlin Rockett Special Editions Editor, Michael J. Casey Adventure Editor, Emma Athena Contributing Writers, Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Paul Danish, Sarah Haas, Jim Hightower, Dave Kirby, John Lehndorff, Rico Moore, Amanda Moutinho, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Josh Schlossberg, Alan Sculley, Ryan Syrek, Christi Turner, Betsy Welch, Tom Winter, Gary Zeidner SALES AND MARKETING Retail Sales Manager, Allen Carmichael Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Sami Wainscott Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Advertising Coordinator, Corey Basciano Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman Graphic Designer, Daisy Bauer CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer Cover, artwork by Ganzeer April 2, 2020 Volume XXVII, Number 33 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.

ANGELA K. EVANS

About the cover

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he recipient of Foreign Policy’s Global Thinker Award, Ganzeer is an artist who operates seamlessly between art, design and storytelling. Ganzeer, a moniker meaning bicycle chain in Arabic, first gained international attention as one of many prominent street artists of the Egyptian Revolution and 2011’s Arab Spring. Since 2014, he’s been living in the U.S. working on a graphic novel, The Solar Grid, as well as other concept pop art. Boulder Weekly profiled him back in 2017; at the time he was living in Denver. As of this writing, he is based out of Houston, Texas.

Find him online at ganzeer.com, where he sells “Resist Dystopia” T-shirts. Check out Buzz on page 20 to find out what he’s thinking about in the midst of self-quarantine and the COVID-19 pandemic.

690 South Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO, 80305 p 303.494.5511 f 303.494.2585 editorial@boulderweekly.com www.boulderweekly.com Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. © 2020 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.

Boulder Weekly

welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@ boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Protecting the most vulnerable among us

by Stewart Sallo

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he abject failure of our leadership in Washington has become increasingly clear as we struggle through the current crisis. While Trump and his co-conspirators have wasted valuable time attempting to assess and minimize the political cost, the number of COVID-19 cases requiring hospitalization has swelled to the point where desperately needed supplies and equipment needed to treat patients and protect caregivers are inadequate to meet the demand. One outcome of our federal government’s negligence in this regard will be the many heart-rending decisions doctors will be forced to make with respect to who will live and who will die.

Most recently, the conversation has turned to comparisons between loss of life and the economic losses that are mounting by the day under the weight of necessary closures of businesses and increasing numbers of stay-at-home orders.

While there is certainly a macabre logic to a medical protocol that prioritizes the lives of the young and healthy, we should be appalled by allusions to acceptable casualties among the elderly, and others at higher risk for infection, that would enable the rest of us to get back to work.

By now there are few among the well-informed who fail to understand that social distancing is our best strategy in the fight against this hidden killer. But with economic and political pressures mounting, Trump and the Conservative Right support a plan to isolate certain groups — both from society and, if necessary, from medical treatment — thereby allowing those who are likely to survive infection to return to a more normal way of life. This smacks of the cruelty that places economic considerations ahead of humane ones, particularly where the elderly are concerned, and we

must stand up to it in the most robust manner possible.

One of the factors that drives this approach is a shameless disregard for the value of the elderly among us, which is symptomatic of something that is horribly broken in our culture. Instead of dividing ourselves into geographic and demographic groups with varying rules about social distancing, we must all join together and commit to protecting the lives of the elderly and

Senior Baseball League) Kickoff Classic tournament, as he does every year. Against my objections that he would be exposed to very few people and that there were only two COVID-19 cases in the entire state of Nevada at that time, he decided to stay home. In a text message to me during the tournament he said, “I am amazed your tournament wasn’t cancelled. What planet are you on? You don’t seem to understand this event.”

My dad was a small child during the Great Depression, and lived through World War II and the Holocaust, the advent of the nuclear age and the Cold War, the polio epidemic (which, by the way, peaked in 1952 with more than 57,000 cases and just over 3,000 deaths), the moon landing, the Vietnam War, Watergate, two oil crises, the fall of the Berlin Wall, 9/11, the Great Recession, and numerous other pivotal moments in history. As a resident of this planet for almost an entire century, his perspective has a certain inherent authority.

When our elders tell us, “you don’t seem to understand this event,” we should listen carefully and take heed of their wisdom and experience. Although they no longer produce or consume at the rate our economically obsessed culture requires, our elders have value that far exceeds their purchasing power, and we should be embracing them (not literally, of course), rather than marginalizing them.

Of course, this approach may delay the appearance of the “resume speed” sign we are all, understandably, impatiently waiting for. And that is certainly a problem, as many businesses are struggling and untold numbers of people have lost their jobs (including some of our staff here at the Weekly). But viewing the most vulnerable among us as possible “collateral damage” is a solution that should be taken off the table as being

Viruses are blind to color,

race, religion, politics, gender and age. Put simply, where the coronavirus is concerned, we’re all the same.

— Stewart Sallo

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all of those whose physical abilities to fend off this viral infection may be compromised. To do otherwise is to miss one of the most obvious realities of this event: Viruses are blind to color, race, religion, politics, gender and age. Put simply, where the coronavirus is concerned, we are all the same. And the lesson we are being called to learn here is that we must treat everyone as having equal value. With respect to the elderly, and all those who are at higher risk, our approach should be to create a protective safety net around them, rather than to isolate them or allow them to perish to protect ourselves financially.

Moreover, in this situation, as in many others, we should be availing ourselves of the guidance of our elders, rather than disregarding them.

My dad turned 90 years old in January and, while in good health, he is among the most vulnerable in our midst. We had made plans for him to drive to Las Vegas from Southern California earlier this month to watch me play in the MSBL (Men’s APRIL 2, 2020

I

unacceptable for a civilized society.

Instead, we should remain united and marshal any and all creative energies we can to develop better solutions.

My dad was right about the coronavirus, and he was right about something that occurred almost three-and-a-half years ago, too. In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, I was trying to put a positive spin on the horrifying result. “We endured eight years of George W. Bush; we survived eight years of Ronald Reagan; we got through the presidency of Richard Nixon. We’ll get through four years of Donald Trump.”

To which my dad replied, “This is different. This guy is dangerous!”

Earlier this month, a piece by Richard Wolff in The Guardian confirmed this sentiment. The article, entitled “The sick joke of Donald Trump’s presidency isn’t funny any more,” makes the irrefutable point that “the coronavirus outbreak has revealed the full stupidity, incompetence and selfishness of the president to deadly effect.”

We must resist Trump’s predisposition to ignore the consensus of medical experts and prematurely lift stay-at-home orders until the evidence is clear that we have gained the upper hand in this battle. Do not be misled by Trump’s most recent political calculation that resulted in an extension of our social distancing protocol through the end of April; the health of the economy and its relationship to his reelection campaign will continue to be his sole priority, and this will be reflected in his policies.

Perhaps more importantly, it is imperative that we recognize and counter the ongoing and transparent “divide and conquer” strategy of the Trump administration with a commitment to unity. Our primary focus needs to be the protection of the most vulnerable among us, beginning with our elderly, and not the economy. The values of 401k plans and stock portfolios can be restored; the lives, experience and wisdom of our senior citizens cannot.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

The China Plague?

“Danish Plan” in the March 2020 issue of Boulder Weekly starts with “The latest China Plague.” Either Paul doesn’t know that coronavirus is a virus, or he doesn’t know that a plague is caused by bacteria. Or maybe he doesn’t know the difference between a virus and a bacteria. More likely he’s trying to mimic Trump by combining “China” and “Plague” into the kind of hurtful phrase you’d hear from an elementary school bully. In the same issue (Cannabis Corner), he has no problem referring to it as the “coronavirus pandemic,” so he obviously knows what the correct term is — and probably understands that his audience for that column is less tolerant of scapegoating entire nations. In any case, it’s childish, unprofessional, not productive, borderline racist, and (most importantly) hurtful. Shame on you, Paul. And shame on you, Boulder Weekly, for continuing to give this crank a mouthpiece.

Chris Malley/Boulder

that we reduce human numbers and reverse our terrible impact on the generative life of this planet.

Would that we as a human species self-contain from using so much fossil fuel for war, for transport, for creating plastic, for over-heating, over-cooling homes and public buildings and replace fossil fuel with a just transition to renewable energy and non-polluting product sources.

Would that we shift our usurious growth-oriented economics into one responsible and accountable for impacts, creating meaningful work in support of Life; and shift from subsidizing mono-crop agriculture to support regenerative agriculture.

Would that over-consumption, hoarding wealth be seen as an immature non-social expression and be replaced by a universal basic income from just taxation to provide for the

basic needs of everyone.

Would that we see into, understand and transform racism, sexism and other “isms” into a just and equitable world for all beings.

Would that humanity learn respect for the life of other species, understand the nature of this beautiful planet, Earth and live in respect for and in a greater harmony with its creative evolution.

Bonnie Sundance/Nederland

Together, We Can Do This!

Spring 2020: Regenerative Vision

As we hunker in our social isolation this spring, may we reflect. What we as an industrialized human species have done to extinguish life of other species and threaten our own future existence, the coronavirus is now doing to threaten our human lives.

Could this time become a wakeup call to change our human behavior from one disconnected from Earth and each other into one acknowledging and acting to protect our interconnectedness, our impacts on others?

As governments seek to help us through policies and measures to protect ourselves, may we awaken to thinking and acting beyond where our modern ways of living have brought us — living outside the staying power of this planet.

Would that as we are called to act for the good of everyone’s health, we enact the value and necessity of universal health care, not for profit.

Would that worldwide policy ask, at this time of census, that humans stop birthing babies, beyond selfreplacement, one for one and more women decide not to bear children so BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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APRIL 2, 2020

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PHOTOS BY ANGELA K. EVANS

Meeting needs

Facing supply disruptions, Boulder County food banks prepare for the future

by Angela K. Evans

W

alking into Community Food Share’s distribution facility in Louisville, the receptionist makes sure everyone is standing six feet apart, directing them toward an automatic hand sanitizer dispenser.

She’s wearing blue disposable gloves, and speaking loudly so that everyone, spread out, can hear. Volunteers take turns signing in on an iPad, after they sanitize of course. Large barrels sit just inside the double doors, which are open, even with snow in the forecast. It’s the new system of dropping off food donations — minimizing interaction of staff, volunteers and donors, ensuring people are touching as few surfaces as possible.

“It’s an adjustment for volunteers and participants,” says volunteer Carol Achatz of Boulder. She’s helped out at the Louisville facility about three times a week for the past eight years, with no sign of slowing down, coronavirus aside. “I’m really impressed by the way this organization has adapted.”

Before the onset of the COVID19 pandemic, 40,000 community members relied on the Community Food Share network, a group of 40 nonprofits throughout Boulder and Broomfield counties. But in the first three weeks of March, participation at its Louisville and mobile pantry programs increased by 37% compared to the same time frame in 2019.

Wednesday, March 18 was recordbreaking for the Louisville facility, as 411 families came through to get food. That’s double the number served on a typical day pre-pandemic, says Julia McGee, director of communications.

At food banks and distribution 8

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programs across Boulder County there has been a significant increase of people in need, as unemployment claims have skyrocketed around the state and thousands of businesses have shuttered.

At the same time, these feeding organizations have seen a decrease in food donations from grocery stores and other partners, as well as a delay in food deliveries.

But that’s not stopping them.

They’re in it for the long haul.

As McGee says, “The recovery in our community, we know, is going to last much longer than the virus itself.”

DISTRIBUTION ISSUES Nearly 90% of the food Community Food Share hands out comes from grocery stores. But, in recent weeks there has been a disruption in that food supply, as stores have scrambled to keep their shelves stocked in the midst of panic-buying by many consumers.

In March, Community Food Share saw a 23% decrease in food donations from grocery stores compared to February. On a week-byweek basis, it may dip as much as 30% or 40%, McGee says.

“We’ve seen a decline of primarily meat, dairy and dry goods, which again, makes sense if you’re personally going to the grocery store and you’re seeing which shelves are empty,” she says.

Hayden Dansky, executive director of Boulder Food Rescue (BFR), says some restaurants have given onetime donations as they close, but BFR has also seen a decline in grocery store donations as that’s where it gets the majority of its food, too.

“It’s not a consistent decline, it’s APRIL 2, 2020

up and down and all over. We sort of suspect it might be sporadic for a while,” Danksy says. “[But] we are still receiving donations from all of our grocery store partners.”

The supply chain is starting to balance itself out, says Will Sorenson, store director at Alfalfa’s Market in Boulder, which gives to BFR and Community Food Share.

“The first couple weeks of this people were panicking and overbuying and there just wasn’t the labor for distributors to supply us with what we needed.”

Alfalfa’s may have ordered 10 cases of a certain product, but only one would be delivered. And then, “The second we would put it on the shelf it was gone,” he says.

Alfalfa’s also closed its culinary service, meaning day-old meals from the prepared food counter are no longer going to food banks either. All of this left very little for the store to donate to its partner food programs.

At the same time, nonprofits have been purchasing more and more food to meet increasing community need, despite weeks-long delivery schedules. Community Food Share, which purchases about 5% of its food normally, bought 166,000 pounds of food in March versus 68,000 pounds in February.

“The problem is that there’s alarming delays in the delivery time,” McGee says. “So we’re hearing from them that we are going to have to wait anywhere from four to eight weeks depending on the vendor.”

Julie Van Domelen, executive director of Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA) in I

Boulder says delivery dates and how much of its order EFAA will actually get are often unclear. “I’ve been told it’s not a food supply issue, it’s really more a distribution, trucking, delivery issue,” she says.

Truckers around the country have been working overtime to deliver supplies but have also been confronted with myriad issues arising from the coronavirus shutdowns. Not only is their health and safety a concern, but many rest stops and truck stops across the country have been closed by state and transportation authorities’ orders, only to be reopened again after pushback from the American Trucking Associations.

“We’re in a constant state of calibration and so the quantities that we can provide might change week by week to both our partner agencies as well as in our programs,” McGee says. “It’s all going to depend on when the food arrives.”

Despite all this, Community Food Share gave all of its partner agencies 20% more food at the beginning of the month, and remains confident it will continue to have enough food to pass out to whoever needs it.

CHANGING THE PROCESS As a way of affirming people’s dignity despite their circumstances, most food distribution programs around Boulder County typically present food to clients in a way that allows them to “shop” for themselves. But concern over the quick and easy spread of COVID-19 makes this model impossible now. Instead, clients are given pre-boxed or bagged items at food banks and distribution BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

programs. Many of the organizations have changed and/or reduced their hours in order to further separate people and avoid spreading the disease.

“We’ve completely revamped how our food bank operates,” Van Domelen says.

“Unfortunately, people don’t have much choice but they have safety.”

Curbside pickup isn’t feasible at EFAA, but at Community Food Share and other places, parking lots have been turned into drive-thru services, with orange cones set out to direct traffic.

“We also had to reroute food,” Dansky says.

Normally, BFR has 28 different grocery program sites within the community. But 10 of those were at child-care centers and schools, which are now closed. (Community Food Share is partnering with BVSD to provide food for families on Tuesday and Thursdays.) BFR’s current 18 grocery program sites are done in partnership with Boulder Housing Partners and Thistle to bring groceries into the low-income and affordable housing complexes, serving seniors, families and individuals who have a hard time accessing food. BFR’s clients face multiple barriers such as irregular working hours, living with disabilities or having to rely on public transportation.

“Especially right now, if people don’t have their own cars, the bus systems are especially a high-risk place to be and a lot of those folks are at higher risk for the coronavirus,” Danksy says.

BFR doesn’t require any sort of paperwork or proof of eligibility for residents to access its groceries, and Community Food Share is currently waiving all documentation and eligibility requirements for its food program. Other food pantries are still asking for some personal information such as date of birth, address or identification.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED… SOMETIMES Historically, all of these nonprofits have relied heavily on volunteers. But that’s changing for a lot of places as well.

EFAA has suspended its volunteer program and now boxes are packed in the morning by volunteers from Team Rubicon, a group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans trained in disaster response.

Afternoon pickup is staffed by a regular group of temporary paid staff.

“We’ve zipped up the building,” Van Domelen says. “We just looked at the numbers and we just think this is the safer way of working.”

Other organizations are still using volunteers, under specific circumstances. Although most relied on volunteers over the age of 65 previous to the coronavirus outbreak, those populations are now being asked to stay home.

As long as people aren’t sick or have reasonable suspicion that they’ve been exposed, they’re welcome at BFR, Danksy says. “We’ve been clearly communicating the risk and letting people make their own decisions,” she says.

Over the last few weeks, the nonprofit has virBOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

B

Here’s where to give

oulder County is the state’s fourth most generous county, according to an analysis of IRS tax returns done by SmartAsset, a personal finance company. When it comes to the number of households that give, as well as the percentage of net income they donate, Boulder County residents are beyond generous.

In that spirit of giving, here is a (partial) list of food programs currently in need of donations. Please check individual websites for specific donation requests.

• Boulder Food Rescue, boulderfoodrescue.org/ give-support-during-covid-19 • Community Food Share, Rapid Response COVID-19 Fund, serving Broomfield and Boulder counties, main location in Louisville, communityfoodshare. org/coronavirus

tually trained 45 new volunteers to help with food pick-up and delivery to grocery sites. But BFR suspended its bike delivery program, and is asking more of its grocery program managers, volunteers who typically live within the community they serve, as they are now in charge of bagging and boxing all food to distribute.

“Communities take care of each other, they are going to look out for each other, and people are willing to take on the extra labor of bagging food and making sure it’s all sanitized and to make sure their community is safe,” Danksy says.

At Community Food Share, volunteer support is dropping. Large groups began cancelling shifts at the beginning of March, even before “social distancing began in earnest,” McGee says, who, like other staff, has been stepping in to help.

In the first three weeks of March, the Food Share saw a 32% drop in volunteers, including a 26% decrease in donated hours. A limited number of individual volunteers are still needed, however, and everyone practices social distancing, wears gloves and sanitizes regularly.

“We need more volunteers in order to continue doing our work,” she says. “Yet we also have to limit the amount of people who are coming into our buildings so that we can maintain all of the recommendations that are coming from the CDC.” NEEDED ITEMS Even if folks are unable to volunteer, food banks are still accepting food donations, with a specific need for staples like peanut butter, tuna, canned fruits and vegetables, and other proteins, Van Domelen says. McGee adds rice and pasta to the list.

But according to most food banks, the real need right now is for monetary donations and industry/corporate sponsors, which allow the organizations to purchase the products they know their I

APRIL 2, 2020

• Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA), Boulder, efaa.org/get-involved/donate • OUR Center Longmont, ourcenter.org/donateitems • Harvest of Hope food pantry, Boulder, hopepantry.org/donate • Lyons Community Food Pantry, leaflyons.org/ food-pantry.html • Nederland Food Pantry, nederlandfoodpantry.org/ wish-list/ • Sister Carmen Community Center, Lafayette, sistercarmen.org/community-notice • The Community Foundation Boulder County has also set up a COVID-19 Response Fund — commfound.org — that has secured $738,425 as of March 24, which is funding a number of these organizations and more.

clients need the most.

Community Food Share encourages people to give to its rapid response fund, which goes toward its purchasing budget. Plus, due to its partnerships with producers and wholesalers, $1 donated provides $5 worth of groceries.

“We want to make sure that we always have certain staples in stock at our warehouse, regardless of coronavirus,” McGee says. “We need to make sure that we have the things that people really need to get by.”

PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE Only one of the Food Share’s community partners — at Front Range Community College Longmont — has closed due to the pandemic, according to McGee. But that doesn’t mean things won’t change in the coming days, weeks and months. According to Sorenson at Alfalfa’s, although the shelves are now stocked, product is moving through the store faster, as more people are cooking from home. Plus, some items recently stocked have a year of shelf-life or more.

“So that will affect what we’ll be able to donate,” he says.

Plus, Colorado hasn’t yet hit the height of the pandemic according to public health officials, and Boulder County’s food pantries are constantly adapting to the evolving situation.

“We’re expected to be challenged a bit more on food distribution models,” Van Domelen says.

BFR is planning for the future as well, innovating different ways to meet the needs of the community, whether that’s possibly sourcing food from local farms or hiring more temporary contract workers.

“We’re planning into the future to address things as they change,” Danksy says, “as far into the future as one can plan right now.”

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Is abortion an ‘essential’ procedure?

Colorado women’s health providers weigh in as conservative governors across the country try to restrict access to abortion care during the coronavirus pandemic

by Matt Cortina

O

n March 19, Colorado become limit abortion access, and I would be one of several states that temsurprised if that happened,” she says. porarily suspended “elective Nina Meltzer of Planned and non-essential surgeries” in Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains order to limit public exposure agrees. to COVID-19 and ration personal “Our doors are open,” she said in protective equipment for frontline an email. “The need for sexual and health care workers. reproductive health care remains even The order is in effect until at least during times of crisis, and we are here April 14 and only allows for any surfor our patients. We are incredibly gery or procedure that can be delayed grateful for our local leaders, who for three months without undue risk recognize that reproductive health to the current or future health of the care is essential heath care — and patient, as determined by a doctor. that includes abortion care.”

Surgeries may proceed if they protect Critical in the interpretation of life or limb, curb the progression of a the mandate in Colorado is the disease or condition, or prevent a clause that dictates procedures can patient’s condition from rapidly deteproceed if “there is a risk of metasriorating. tasis or progression of staging of a So: Does that include abortion? disease or condition if the surgery or And what about other women’s reproprocedure is not performed” — pregWomen’s reproductive ductive care surgeries and procedures? nancy being the “condition,” abortion It’s a question women’s health care the “procedure.” Queries from health has always been a political football.” providers are asking across the country Boulder Weekly to the state confirm as some states, predominantly run by the order will not interfere with —Lisa Radelet, Boulder Valley pro-life governors, choose to classify abortion services.

Women’s Health Center abortion as “elective” or “non-essential.”

Radelet says other services Boulder In Texas and Ohio, women’s health Valley Women’s Health provides are clinics were told to stop providing aborunlikely to be affected by the mandate, tion services until the end of April. In other states, football. Women’s reproductive health has always though she adds that plenty of non-essential governors are threatening action or implementing been a political football.” appointments, like annual exams, are being similar mandates.

Planned Parenthood, with the American Civil rescheduled and some staff members are working In response, federal judges delayed implemenLiberties Union, filed emergency suits to spur from home. tation of the temporary bans in some states, but judicial action, arguing that the orders were Family planning — implanting an intrauteraccess to abortion services still remains murky for unconstitutional. ine device or having contraceptive injections, for many women across the country. Critics of the “We cannot let anti-abortion activists dictate example — falls into a sort of gray area of essenbans and some health care workers say the moves public health policy,” says Alexis McGill, acting tial services. Radelet says the clinic would lean by pro-life governors to restict abortions is politipresident and CEO of Planned Parenthood. “A toward asking women to postpone appointments cally motivated. global pandemic is not an excuse to attack essenfor family planning and contraceptive services.

“Unfortunately, I think it’s completely polititial, time-sensitive medical procedures like abor“This is just a very generalized statement, but I cal,” says Lisa Radelet, communications director tion. ... This is what it’s come down to: court batwould think in this current mood, this is not the for Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center. tles just so doctors and nurses can care for patients time when most people are thinking about starting “Elective surgery is defined as something that during a public health crisis. Anti-abortion activfamilies,” Radelet says. “Most people would want could be postponed for up to three months withists have gone too far.” to wait another month or two. Again, we don’t out any consequence, and obviously abortion care Colorado’s order is similarly worded to those want patients exposed to any potential virus if they doesn’t fall into that category. Abortion care obviof other states’ mandates, leaving the onus on don’t have to if they can wait.” ously is very time sensitive.” individual health care providers and networks to Critical health care like birth control refills But, Radelet adds, it’s just another instance of implement the non-essential surgery ban. Radelet and checkups for UTIs and STIs can be done women’s reproductive rights taking a backseat to says given what she’s heard from Gov. Jared Polis through telehealth services, Radelet adds. And political agendas. and state health agencies, abortion access is the clinic is still able to serve its transgender “Unfortunately, that’s the way it’s always been,” unlikely to be limited in Colorado. patients, many of whom rely on regular adminisshe says. “Abortion has always been a political “Here in Colorado, we have not been told to tration of hormones.

“ABORTION HAS ALWAYS BEEN A POLITICAL FOOTBALL.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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APRIL 2, 2020

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JOEL DYER

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St. John’s - The Rev. Susan W. Springer www.stjohnsboulder.org

St. Mary Magdalene - The Rev. Bruce Swinehart www.smmboulder.org

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APRIL 2, 2019

Reality check

The biggest non-coronavirus stories from the last month

By Boulder Weekly Staff

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mid constant coronavirus coverage in the media, it may seem like nothing else is going one. That is, of course, not the case. We went back and gathered some of the biggest stories you may have missed over the last month.

COLORADO ENDS DEATH PENALTY On Monday, March 23, Colorado became the 22nd state to abolish capital punishment as Gov. Jared Polis signed a repeal bill passed by the state legislature in February. At the same time, Polis commuted the sentences of three men on death row: Nathan Dunlap, Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray, all of whom are now serving life sentences without the possibility of parole instead.

The new law doesn’t go into effect until July 1, 2020, however, and there are several pending and potential death penalty cases still making their way throught the courts.

COURTS RULE IN FAVOR OF STANDING ROCK SIOUX ON DAPL Almost four years after thousands of people joined the Standing Rock Sioux to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) on the North Dakota plains, a federal court ruled I

in favor of the tribe on Wednesday, March 25. The District Court for the District of Columbia struck down the Army Corps of Engineers federal permits for the pipeline, stating that the federal agency failed to comply with the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA).

“After years of commitment to defending our water and earth, we welcome this news of a significant legal win,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Mike Faith said in an Earthjustice press release. “It’s humbling to see how actions we took four years ago to defend our ancestral homeland continue to inspire national conversations about how our choices ultimately affect this planet.”

The judge expressed concerns that the Army Corps of Engineers didn’t give proper consideration to the likelihood of oil spills and their impact, as well as the safety record of Sunoco Logistics, which operates the pipeline. The ruling also requires the Corps to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement, which it failed to do in 2016 before granting permits for the project. Ultimately, the Standing Rock Sioux hope to shut down the pipeline entirely.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

WE ARE BOULDER COUNTY! INDEPENDENT & LOCALLY OWNED SINCE 1993

COLORADO BARS IMMIGRATION ARRESTS AT COURTHOUSES In a major win for immigration activists (which was supported by the Colorado Bar Association), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is no longer allowed to arrest people for civil immigration charges in Colorado courthouses, on courthouse property, or while they are coming to or leaving court. It protects defendants, witnesses and victims of crime, and comes in response to increased arrests at courthouses in the wake of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. If an arresting ICE agent violates the law, they can either be held in contempt of the court by the judge or face civil charges from the attorney general. ICE maintains it arrests people at the courthouse in the interest of public safety. Gov. Polis signed the bill into law on March 23.

EPA SUSPENDS ENFORCEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS The EPA announced on March 26 that it will not enforce environmental laws, citing the hardships companies in various industries are facing with regards to staffing and oversight of their projects. “The consequences of the pandemic may constrain the ability of regulated entities to perform routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training and reporting or certification,” the ruling stated. As a result, the EPA is encouraging companies to “act responsibly” and “identify noncompliance,” but the agency “does not expect to seek penalties for violations.” Though the rule is labeled temporary, there is no end date for the new guidance.

COLORADO PUBLIC HEALTH OPTION INTRODUCED Health care is on the minds of many as COVID-19 sweeps through the community — one thing that would help alleviate some anxiety, though, is access to affordable health insurance. On March 5, the State of Colorado unveiled its public health BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

option, which would substantially limit costs for many Coloradans. The plan as introduced is projected to save Front Range residents 10% or more on premiums, with higher savings for Western Slope residents. Licensed insurance carriers will carry public health option plans in a unique public-private partnership, with plans accessible for individuals initially, and small businesses (those with under 100 employees) ushered in later. The plan will reduce health care costs by requiring insurance carriers to utilize 85% of premium payments for patient care; requiring savings and rebates from drug manufacturers to go to lowering prescription pill costs; and by implementing a hospital-specific reimbursement rate for providers that bases costs on each hospital’s payer base.

CLEAN CAR STANDARDS ROLLED BACK The Trump administration issued a final rulemaking that rolls back Obama-era fuel efficiency standards for cars made in the next five years.

Obama’s Clean Car Standards, set in 2012, set average greenhouse gas emission benchmarks and were widely adopted by domestic and foreign auto manufacturers. The old standards would have required automakers to increase average fuel economy gradually from 28 miles per gallon in 2020 to 36 miles per gallon by 2025.

The new regs are expected to cause 1.5 billion metric tons of extra greenhouse gas emissions through 2040, according to the Environmental Protection Network (EPN), a nonprofit comprised of former EPA members.

“The Trump administration’s rollback of President Obama’s historic Clean Car Standards is an environmental and economic disaster,” said EPN member Jeff Alson, who served as a senior engineer and policy advisor in the EPA until 2018, in a statement. “The rule will yield a hotter and more dangerous planet for our children and grandchildren, and will transfer money from the pockets of hard-working Americans to oil companies through higher gasoline costs.”

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Advocates call for mass release at the Aurora detention facility due to reports of COVID-19

by Angela K. Evans

COURTESY OF AFSC

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hen Hilda talked to her husband, Ivan, on Tuesday, March 31, he had been in a quarantine pod for about a week inside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract detention facility in Aurora. Hilda says Ivan and others are held in their cells for 23 hours a day, let out in shifts of small groups to use the shower and make phone calls. Hilda says there have been three days that Ivan was not let out of his cell at all.

“As of last week, they were still putting people fresh off the street into pods with people like my husband who have been detained there for months,” Hilda says. Ivan asked the guards to put the new people in quarantine, apart from others, since he knew how contagious the novel coronavirus is and the fact that people may not present symptoms. But that didn’t happen, Hilda says. The new people had a cough, however, and a few days later came down with a fever, and eventually, “they took those individuals out of the pod in wheelchairs,” Hilda says. Now the whole pod is under lockdown, she says.

Although officials from ICE were unable to confirm this account, the Aurora facility has reported two cases of COVID-19, both ICE employees.

Around the country, there are more than 30 total confirmed cases in ICE personnel, and four confirmed cases of COVID-19 in individuals held in ICE custody, all of which are in New Jersey. Also, public health officials in Guatemala announced that a man who had been deported from the U.S., on a flight with at least 40 others, tested positive for COVID-19 on 14

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March 29. ICE says it screens new detainees, but only isolates those with fever and/or respiratory symptoms.

“It’s really important that people take a closer look at the facility and listen to the people who are actually detained inside and then take action,” Hilda says.

It’s stories like Ivan’s that inspired a week of action March 26-April 4 asking that detainees across the country be released considering the global coronavirus pandemic. Joining a national effort led by Detention Watch Network, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the Colorado People’s Alliance (COPA) are asking people to write and make phone calls to elected officials, detailing the testimonies of those inside and asking they be released, in lieu of protests outside the Aurora facility.

“As soon as the word of the virus spreading in Colorado came, we became very concerned,” says Jennifer Piper, inter-faith director at AFSC in APRIL 2, 2020

Denver. “The facility has a long history of mismanaging quarantine and outbreaks and also using them as a way of being the most restrictive as possible with detainees inside the detention center.”

Piper cites the medical care of an Iranian detainee who died while at the GEO facility in 2017, as well as several infectious disease outbreaks in 2019.

Last year the facility saw outbreaks of scabies, mumps and varicella, or chicken pox, causing local health officials to step in. At one point, 350 detainees had to be quarantined, and the outbreaks drew public criticism from elected officials, who decried both ICE and GEO Group’s, which operates the contract facility, communication and handling of the situation.

“Mumps is a disease that is not new, one for which there is a medical vaccine, and one which the medical community is much better equipped to handle than COVID-19,” says César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a professor at the Sturm I

College of Law in Denver.

“So if ICE is unable to do what is necessary to promote public health under those circumstances, then I’m pretty skeptical of their ability to do so under the exceptional situation we currently find ourselves.”

Several federal courts around the country have already ruled that ICE is “incapable of holding people in safe conditions,” Hernández says. “None have been focused on the Aurora facility, but I think it’s only a matter of time.”

On March 27, a district court in California concluded that “civil detainees must be protected by the Government,” yet the situation at detention facilities hardly provides that when it comes to COVID-19.

Not only are detainees unable to remain six feet apart from each other in the facilities, they are also “forced” to touch the same surfaces as others such as toilets, sinks and showers, according to the judge. What’s more, staff and guards continue to rotate in and out, presenting a high risk of infection for detainees given that COVID-19 is easily spread by asymptomatic individuals. It comes on the heels of other similar rulings elsewhere in New York and Pennsylvania, where a judge ordered the immediate release of 10 individuals due to their heightened risk of contracting the disease due to their age or health.

“If ICE is interested in helping all of us combat this pandemic that is wreaking havoc on the planet, then I think they should be motivated to have as few people living alongside each other as possible,” Hernández says. “And that means releasing a large BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

FROM THE DIVIDE TO YOUR DOOR! number of people.”

The current week of action follows a letter sent to ICE and GEO officials signed by more than 1,000 medical professionals, local elected leaders, advocates and individuals. It asks for immediate humanitarian parole for individuals 50 years or older, those with medical conditions or who are immuno-compromised, and urges them to evaluate humanitarian parole for all detainees given the circumstances. Rep. Jason Crow, who represents Aurora, has also urged ICE to release “all vulnerable individuals with non-violent immigration charges during the coronavirus outbreak” around the country, with support from more than a dozen other members of Congress, including Joe Neguse from Boulder.

But ICE has no official policy directive regarding the release of detainees in response to the coronavirus pandemic. A spokesperson for the ICE facility in Aurora says, “we release people for a variety of reasons,” in an email, and determinations are made on a case-by-case basis.

Individual and public health is not listed as a consideration.

According to ICE’s guidance on COVID-19, the agency “continues to encourage facilities to follow CDC guidelines as well as those of their state and local health departments.”

It says it’s monitoring those who may have been exposed to the virus by separating them in a single cell or in groups “depending on available space.” Those with a fever or respiratory illness are housed in isolation.

But Ivan, and other detainees as well as their families, say that those in ICE custody are not being protected.

Ivan has told Hilda that detainees are responsible to keep the pods and cells clean, but that they haven’t been given the necessary supplies to properly disinfect the area. Plus, they are still being housed several people to each cell, despite the fact that the facility is currently holding less than half of its 1,532 capacity.

“They’re condemning them to die a little bit at a time because they’re not giving them what they need to take care of themselves and maintain social distancing,” Hilda says.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

There have been reports of numerous releases from the Aurora facility over the last week, although ICE has not provided official numbers. According to Casa de Paz, a total of 36 individuals have been released since last Thursday, March 26, with 20 people released on Friday alone. But that’s only people who the nonprofit helped greet and arrange travel to family and homes out of Colorado, says founder Sarah Jackson, and does not necessarily indicate the total number.

“We have been seeing a trickle of releases since the beginning of the COVID emergency, but nothing too atypical,” writes Sarah Plastino, a staff attorney with Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network’s (RMIAN) detention program in an email. “We have not seen any ‘mass releases’ unfortunately.”

RMIAN has provided free legal services for 40 individuals who have been released since a state of emergency was declared on March 13, but Plastino says that only a handful of people are being released each day.

The organization has filed several more humanitarian parole requests for individuals still detained, and distributed a humanitarian parole request template throughout the facility for people to fill out on their own.

“Remember, there are still hundreds of people detained at the facility. They are also still deporting large numbers of people and bringing new people into the facility,” Plastino writes. “So, the fact that a few people are being released daily ... is not an adequate response to protect detained people and facility workers alike.”

Hilda and Ivan fled Mexico in 2012, claiming asylum due to dangerous threats from narco-traffickers and the state, Hilda says. But Ivan was detained seven months ago, which has left Hilda with their four children, 13 and under, at home in Broomfield without a main source of income for the family.

“We don’t want him to come home to us in a box,” she says. “We want him to be released to us alive and well.”

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Split decisions

Coronavirus-caused court backlogs, job losses and health concerns pose challenges for divorced and separated families

by Matt Cortina

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here are two people, let’s call them Tom and Anne. They’re divorced. Tom works in construction, Anne has been furloughed from her office job. Tom still has work, but it’s light, and Anne doesn’t like that Tom isn’t taking basic safety precautions when he’s around other people.

Does Anne have to send their kids to Tom on the weekend? With stay-at-home orders in place, can she?

Tom sees the writing on the drywall for his job — projects (and paychecks) are thin — and wonders: Do I have to send child and spousal support payments to Anne? Can I pay less?

What if they lived in different states? What if one partner was verbally abusive? What if one was physically abusive?

What does life look like for split families when two of their biggest obstacles — childcare and finances — are exacerbated by the coronavirus?

“It’s a big mess,” says Carolyn Witkus of Griffiths Law, which specializes in high-asset, high-conflict family law. “It’s a big mess because it’s no one’s fault. It’s not the courts’ fault, not the governor’s, it’s not the parties’. I’m on my fourth emergency motion in the last week or so around financial issues, and we’re talking about people from all socioeconomic strata in all industries.

Professionals, business owners, CEOs, senior managers... lots of people are seeing significant economic disruption right now.”

There are two issues that complicate matters, Witkus says: First, the courts are not open to inperson hearings except in select emergency cases (where, for instance, domestic violence or child abuse is alleged) and so there’s a lag in hearing cases related to custody and support payments; and secondly, it’s unclear how the courts will rule on such cases given that they’re often left to the dis16

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cretion of individual judges. The coronavirus frankly presents a novel situation for the judicial system to sort out.

Although we’re focusing on the segment of the population that is dealing with separation and divorce, resolving the logjam in the courts is a matter of constitutional rights.

“We have the issue of, can you get a court to hear you? Maybe, sometimes, sort of. I’m sure they’re doing the best they can. They’re caught in a tricky situation,” Witkus says. “Citizens have access to the court as enshrined in the 14th and 15th Amendments, and when you close the courts, you lose that due process access. They’re trying to balance what is a pretty tough set of circumstances.”

And on the question of how judges will rule? It depends, Witkus says.

“There is an inherent uncertainty with any of this stuff,” she says, “and in this circumstance, where there is increased social and economic uncertainty and public health uncertainty, I think judges are going to be more cautious and more thoughtful. On the other hand, everybody knows what the consequences of this pandemic are at this point.”

If people are experiencing financial hardships, or if they are concerned about the welfare of their children when the other parent spends time with them, ultimately the best solution is to negotiate an agreement out of court and to circumvent the problems outlined above, says Todd Burnham, of Burnham Law, which practices family law along the Front Range.

“That [requires] a bit of emotional intelligence to look at the short game versus the long game.

Some parents will say it’s a risk they’re willing to take,” he says. “What we try to do is counsel those parents who are understandably concerned, and rather than using the legal system, which for our APRIL 2, 2020

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purposes is shut down unless it’s an emergency, negotiate in good faith.”

That idea of negotiating in good faith is critical, Witkus says. She says courts are not likely to look kindly on people who try to use COVID-19 as an excuse to pay less in support or otherwise benefit themselves.

“If you have a genuine basis to say I can’t keep doing this, it doesn’t hurt to call court orders to help,” Witkus says. “Don’t just stop paying because of [the coronavirus].”

Because “the alternative is contempt,” Burnham underscores, which has long-lasting effects.

“One of the facets of contempt is the ability to comply, so if you’re laid off and you don’t have any money coming in, you’ve dwindled your resources and presumably you’re paying rent or a mortgage, that is potentially a legitimate defense to that,” he says. “The key is to try to negotiate with that other person that is co-parenting with you.”

But navigating the already sticky situation of co-parenting and divorce is made harder during this pandemic, and it’s forcing families to make tough decisions that could prevent parents from spending quality time with their children.

“You have non-custodial parents, dads that have spring break planned and they want that kid on that flight and what happens is you have a lockdown in, say, Minnesota and we advise our clients: If you send the child it exposes the child to the coronavirus for sure,” Burnham says. “We don’t know what the living situation is there and they could be there a while, it’s quite possible. These are not easy moves.”

Although tough during this pandemic and in family separation issues, Burnham’s last bit of advice is critical: “This is the time when you step up and get rid of the animosity and focus on solutions.”

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Stop and smell the roses

Curing plant blindness during the coronavirus pandemic

by Angela K. Evans

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t’s springtime in Colorado, and as the trees, flowers and other plants around us leaf and bloom, will we take notice? That may be one “slight” silver lining to the coronavirus pandemic and statewide stay-at-home orders: More of us will be outside in our yards and neighborhoods observing the natural world around us, says Dave Kalyan, district manager at Davey Tree in Boulder.

“You’re allowed out into your background, you’re allowed to garden, you’re allowed to even walk the neighborhood [making sure] social distancing is adhered to,” he says.

“What a great opportunity to enjoy spring as it rolls around.”

Kalyan has been an arborist for more than 40 years, helping Boulder County residents and companies keep trees healthy and structurally sound. But most of us are “arboriculturally challenged,” Kalyan says, completely unaware of what species of trees we walk by everyday, whether it’s out in our neighborhoods, throughout the city or in our very own backyards.

“Everyone seems to think every evergreen is a pine; that obviously is not correct at all,” Kalyan says. “The state tree is a Colorado blue spruce, which I’ve heard called a pine from homeowners more than I’d like to admit.”

It’s a phenomenon known as “plant blindness,” a term coined by U.S. botanists Elisabeth Schussler and James Wandersee in the late 1990s to describe people’s inability to recognize or even notice plants in their everyday environments.

Schussler and Wandersee say that plant blindness often starts at a young age. While animals are much more interesting, plants seem to all BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

blend together, as they often don’t move or present any danger.

But plants are an essential part of our balanced ecosystem and humans rely on them for much more than we realize: Not only are they integral in our food and medicinal systems, but also to our health. Author Richard Louv calls our disconnection from the

natural world “nature deficit disorder,” and research has shown it can not only compromise physical and emotional health, but also lead to a lack of ecological literacy and environmental conservation. (Nature deficit disorder is not, however, a clinically recognized medical or mental disorder.)

For example, more than half of the endangered species in the U.S. are plants, and yet they get around 4% of federal conservation funding.

Plus, botany is a declining field of academic study, as many universities around the country have closed down departments or merged them with general biology or zoology.

But one of the best ways to prevent plant blindness and nature deficit disorder is simply to immerse children and adults alike in nature, I

increasing the frequency we see and notice the plants around us.

“A lot of people take for granted the trees of Boulder around them,” Kalyan says. “We tend to just keep going, sunup to sundown, again and again ... and we don’t stop to smell the roses and take the opportunity to learn something.”

There are several apps that help identify plant species by taking a photo of a leaf or flower, some even a twig or a bud.

Kalyan says Virginia Tech Tree ID is most popular among arborists, but there’s also LeafSnap, Botany Buddy and PlantNet, among others. Or there are good old-fashioned tree and plant key books that can help identify flora.

“Once you learn about trees you never look at them the same,” Kalyan says. “I walk down the sidewalk, and I’m looking up; half the time I’m tripping, but I’m looking at [the trees].”

As we transition from the dormant season of winter into the growing season of spring, now is the time to take notice of the plants in our yards and around our neighborhoods, Kalyan says. It’s the time for garden and plant maintenance, time to prune, plant, spread mulch and fertilize.

And it can be very soothing, he says, as the world changes around us under the reality of a global pandemic.

“It’s a very stressful time that none of us have ever gone through,” he says. “I can tell you that being outside in the sunshine, working in your garden in the soil, looking at the trees in your yard, especially as they start leafing out, I don’t think there’s a better time. We need it, the whole world needs it.”

APRIL 2, 2020

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CHRIST THOMPSON

Curb your turns

Outdoor athletes and advocates encourage recreating close to (or at) home

by Caitlin Rockett

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ou know things have gotten serious when Eric Henderson tells you not to ski.

And he’s not alone.

The former backcountry and heli-ski guide — more often known as “Hende” among those in the skiing world — joins a growing number of outdoor sports athletes and advocates in encouraging people to recreate close to home in order to flatten the curve of COVID-19 infections.

As a press representative for Snowsports Industries America (SIA), Henderson is encouraging skiers to hang up their helmets for the season to protect public health. Using the hashtag #CurbYourTurnsChallenge, SIA hopes to spread the message on social media as snowsports enthusiasts share photos and videos of themselves “skiing” in backyards and “boarding” melting piles of snow.

“SIA has taken a position where they are asking and hoping that people take this selfless act of curbing your turns or skiing at home and having fun with putting skis on in the backyard in the garden,” Henderson says.

“Selflessness is very complicated in today’s word because honestly, we’ve never been asked, maybe with the exception of Vietnam, to do something for the greater good that’s not tangible. You can’t feel this.”

With tourists from all over the globe, ski resorts in Colorado became the hypocenter for COVID-19 infections, with the Denver Post reporting that 1 in 7 cases in Colorado have come from eight mountain counties with ski resorts.

Acting swiftly on advice from Gov. Jared Polis, major ski resorts across the state closed on March 14 — but the trouble didn’t stop there.

“Across Colorado, the sudden shuttering of resorts has spurred a run on uphill ski equipment,” 18

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Jason Blevins reported in The Colorado Sun on March 21. “Forget toilet paper. The hottest commodity in Colorado high-country right now is alpine-touring skis.”

“Bentgate Mountaineering in Golden, and definitely shops on the Western Slope in, like, Cripple Creek, had astronomical days of sales of alpine touring gear,” Henderson confirms. “They sold out of bindings and boots in a couple of days.

“Then what happened is that the trailheads started to become crazy.”

Close to home, Loveland and Berthoud passes were inundated with folks looking to take advantage of the backcountry. Industry insiders such as Casey Day, a professional ski photographer and ski builder, and Tom Winter, a press representative for Freeride World Tour, both confirmed that conditions at both passes were congested in the days after major ski areas closed.

“Loveland Ski Area, as you know, is closed down, so we had a lot of people that were parking in the lower lots, all jumping in cars, driving to the top of Loveland where they could jump in or skin in and skiing down through the backcountry that way,” says Clear Creek County Undersheriff Bruce Snelling. “When it first came to our attention about two weekends ago, we worked with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), Colorado State Patrol (CSP) and Loveland Ski Area, and Loveland did a great job building some snow berms and cutting off some of the parking areas and restricting that access.”

The following weekend, when there was still gathering at the passes, the Clear Creek County Sheriff ’s Office worked with CDOT again to place more no parking signs along Highway 6 leading to Loveland Pass, and worked with CSP to monitor APRIL 2, 2020

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and tow cars when necessary.

“This weekend was remarkably different,” Snelling says. “We had a lot fewer cars, a lot fewer people. Before where we had 50, 60 vehicles parked, we were maybe down to 10.

“I get it that people want to get out there and recreate but really it’s not essential to drive from the metro area or other side of the mountain to Clear Creek and come to congregate and ski,” Snelling adds. “Our problem is, if somebody gets injured, that puts all first responders and our alpine rescue team at risk going into the backcountry.”

Henderson adds that it’s irresponsible to risk injury during a time when our health care system is expected to undergo strain as it deals with serious cases of COVID-19.

“Honestly, if you break it down, the biggest driver of this and the bigger underlying piece is taxing our hospitals, our rescue workers, and just the human code of skiing.

“You and I don’t know each other, but if you fell on backcountry terrain, you’d better believe I’d be helping you,” Henderson says. “That is inherently part of the code of backcountry skiing. And it puts people at risk [for contracting COVID-19] when we have to do that.”

Snelling says that Berthoud Pass is still a “problem area,” and that his office, along with CDOT and CSP, will be taking measures similar to those they took at Loveland Pass to mitigate congregation.

“We would really appreciate voluntary compliance as opposed to issuing a ticket,” Snelling says, adding that a ticket can cost up to $1,000 and one year in jail as a Class 1 misdemeanor for violation of a public health order.

But skiers aren’t the only athletes who are having to refrain from doing what they love. In midMarch, Slate reported that visitors began to swarm BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

SUMMIT COUNTY

Moab, Utah, forcing local law enforcement to shut down campgrounds and hotels to visitors. Popular climbing spots in California and Washington were still hopping as of late March as well.

“Personally, it’s a little difficult because the situation is so dynamic,” admits professional climber Nina Williams. “Three weeks ago I thought climbing in the gym was going to be fine. Then two weeks ago all the gyms shut down and I came out and said at least the local climbing areas are open.

But now we’re at a point where studies are starting to show that the disease can hang out on different surfaces for days, and the health care system is already so overburdened, so if you get hurt it’s just another burden on that.

“I have difficulty saying it right now because the climber in me is so sad and so badly wanting to get outside,” Williams says. “I don’t think people should be climbing outside for the greater good, for that consideration of others.”

“Realistically, no one should be climbing,” Jeremy Park, a member of the Washington Climbers Coalition’s board, told Slate in a March 20 story. Even Park admitted that he’d just come back from a climbing trip in Index, Washington.

“I started reading some articles and comments on local climbing groups about the small communities we impact, and the effect all this traffic has on them, and my opinion evolved,” he said.

Not everyone is abstaining, however, and Williams has noticed the shaming that has become commonplace in the weeks since social distancing was put into place, and she doesn’t think it’s productive.

“I think it’s useful to frame it in a way that turns it into an opportunity for ourselves,” she says. “Instead of pointing fingers and saying ‘you’ statements like, ‘You guys should be social distancing,’ turn it inwards and say, ‘What can I do for myself in these uncertain moments?’”

For Williams this has meant making time for things like meditation, running and even just sitting on the couch and eating cereal, “allowing myself to heal without any guilt.”

Williams has been plagued with guilt over not training as she normally would, and she suspects other athletes are feeling the same thing.

“I’ve had a lot of doubt about my decision to not climb outside because I have a lot of friends who are still climbing outside,” Williams says. “They aren’t posting about it [on social media] and I support their freedom, I support that choice. But then I look at my own choices and wonder am I being really lame by not climbing outside? But to me it’s not even a moral issue, it’s how can I be a leader in this situation and how can I tell people not to climb when I’m going outside?

“We have to give ourselves and people around us breaks because we’re all going to be handling it differently,” she says. “I want to be able to look back on this time five years from now and say, ‘I made that decision [to not climb] and I feel good about it.”

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

COURTESY OF ERIC HENDERSON

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: THE TOP OF LOVELAND PASS on March 21, a week after ski resorts around the state closed.

A SCREEN SHOT of #curbyourturns on Instagram.

THE CURB YOUR TURNS CAMPAIGN urges folks to stay close to home.

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ARTWORK BY GANZEER

The new normal

by Ganzeer

for life under a new plague This essay was originally posted on March 25 at ganzeer.today.

I

was planning on getting a tattoo last week. The appointment was set for Tuesday, but the artist and I both thought it would be better to postpone given everything that was going on.

I don’t scare easily, nor do I panic (I have after all lived through things like revolution, civilian policing, military curfew, and relentless dictatorship — not to mention being separated from friends and family for a good six years now), but I wasn’t about to have my skin poked at with needles in the middle of a mass pandemic. This isn’t paranoia, it’s just rationality; I can live without a tattoo, it’s cool.

MANAGING EXPECTATIONS

From what I’m seeing, it still seems like there are an awful lot of people who assume we’re looking at a two-week high alert situation before things go back to “normal” (thanks in no small part to misleading addresses from the White House). But I think it’s fair to say that it’s 22

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very clear we’re in this for the long haul.

The Washington Post noted that “It took three months to reach 100,000 coronavirus cases worldwide. The second 100,000 took 12 days.”

This thing is sneaky as fuck and really knows how to spread. Out of 285,772 cases so far 11,876 have died. That is a 4.1% death rate (it should be noted though that the rate differs widely per country; 0.97% in South Korea, for example, versus 7.94% in Italy). The estimate right now is that the coronavirus will infect half the global population. What that means is we can expect over 338 million deaths worldwide, at what seems like an unprecedented rate (unless of course strict “social distancing” measures are put in place and kept in practice for the foreseeable future).

There’s very little we can do about this unless a vaccine is developed, and it is close to impossible for such a vaccine to be made available before 18 months, if even.

ADAPT OR DIE

What that means is that we are going I

to have to adapt the way we live to a situation where a deadly, very contagious virus is among us. Not for the coming two weeks, but for the coming years. I briefly touched upon the notion of superusers in my recent newsletter, in that there are superusers for everything. Our species may not have dealt with anything like this, not since the Black Death (a combination of both bubonic and pneumonic plagues) and the Spanish Flu, but among us walks a very specific segment of society comprised of superusers of life-withsubstantial-threat-of-viral-infection, and it is from them we may need to learn a thing or two. Mark Schoofs for Buzzfeed: “How to Survive Yet Another Plague – I Lived Through The Aids Epidemic. Here’s How To Live Through Coronavirus.” Very poignant, very important read.

One of the biggest takeaways from Mark’s essay is the realization that this isn’t something you can just wait out, nor is it something you can rely on the government to solve for you. This is something that we, the potential carriers (which in this particular case is every single human being on the planet, regardless of habits or lifestyle) will have to adapt to.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Essentially, we all need to wear condoms on our hands and faces now.

We also need to constantly disinfect surfaces, wash hands regularly, limit physical interaction with one another as much as possible. This, many of us already know, because it’s all we’ve been getting from various media for the past couple of weeks, isn’t it?

Yet, I’ve seen an awful lot of people not entirely complying. And I’m not talking about the deniers and disbelievers, I’m talking about the ones who think it’s enough to wipe their shopping cart handles at the supermarket, while continuing to share breathing space without need for gloves or face-masks (also, postal workers — at least here in Houston — were not provided with either). I should note that I’m anything but a germaphobe. I’ve eaten off of street carts in Cairo and Hanoi, am used to greeting friends with hugs and kisses, have never shied away from liberally sharing drinking straws, and have never purchased a bottle of hand-sanitizer, not once in my life. However, A VERY DEADLY AND VERY CONTAGIOUS VIRUS LIVES AMONG US NOW! Out of love and compassion for other human lives, taking necessary precautions shouldn’t even be optional.

It’s a necessity. It’s clear that not enough people fully understand how the coronavirus works. And even many who do seem to think that properly dealing with it only requires temporary measures.

While I understand the need for people to believe that for the benefit of one’s own comfort and sanity, but that’s only if you’re frightened by the notion of adaptability, of needing to make lifestyle changes in order to adapt to a new reality. We, as a species, do it all the time though! We’ve even done it within our own lifetime(s) (it should be as clear as day to anyone above 30). That is a reassuring thought, isn’t it? We’re good at adapting. We can do this. The difference this time is that the changes we make are going to have to be relatively drastic and enacted at unprecedented speed.

Luckily, it’s almost as if we’ve been working towards this moment for a very long time now; we have the technology to move many of our interactions to the virtual realm, we can have almost anything we need delivered to our doorsteps, and much of our cultural entertainment is already streamable.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

THE NEW NORMAL OF THE FUTURE

If a vaccine cannot be developed in less than 18 months, then we must envision how life under the coronavirus can be sustained for at least 18 months (if not more). We then must also envision the ripple effects those 18 months will have on the culture at large beyond those 18 months, likely for the entire decade that is the 2020s.

THE NEW WORKPLACE

Home will be the new workplace for most people. A trajectory we were heading towards anyway. Co-working spaces? Definitely done for. Certain jobs that are simply impossible to get done remotely will require specific protective gear, utilizing knowhow gained from industries that deal in hazardous matter.

THE NEW PUBLIC GATHERING

Maintaining a two-meter distance will likely become the new norm, but only in open spaces. You can forget about public gatherings in closed spaces, which will make theaters, restaurants and cafes as we know them completely obsolete. We’ll instead see a proliferation of takeout-based establishments, and maybe even a return of the German-style Automat (which has already made a soft comeback in San Francisco anyway). Establishments designed to accommodate sit-in patrons will have to be entirely rethought with necessary social distancing and sanitation in mind; a very low cap on the number of patrons within, fewer tables, and perhaps a proliferation of booth-style seating. Bartenders, baristas and cooks will all be required to wear the necessary protective gear.

THE NEW WORKFORCE

Protective gear will be required by all on-site jobs that need to be performed by humans. Anything that needn’t be performed by human beings simply will not.

We’ve already witnessed the birth of the RoboVac, the occasional Robot Bartender, and smart warehouses. We can expect an acceleration in the development of robotics and a severe reduction in jobs performed by humans. These will be welcomed by the general public because it will no longer be a matter of maximizing corporate profit and instead be a matter of preserving human life.

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THE NEW TRAVEL

We’ve experienced a good century of unprecedented human travel. This will probably slow down and travel will only be on a need-be basis for most people (which wouldn’t be so bad for the environment). On the short run, airlines may start giving passengers mandatory gloves and face-masks. If however it is proven that that is not enough to keep the coronavirus from spreading between people in tight closed spaces, airplanes will likely be retrofitted with private cabins. This of course will make air-travel very expensive and reserved solely for the elite. Given

WE’RE GOOD AT ADAPTING. THE DIFFERENCE THIS TIME IS THAT THE CHANGES WE MAKE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO BE RELATIVELY DRASTIC AND ENACTED AT UNPRECEDENTED SPEED.

that boats can accommodate more private quarters (not to mention actual fresh air), we may see a surge in sea travel for non-business related purposes. With most people working remotely anyway, this really shouldn’t interfere with employees’ limited time off. If you can do the job from home, you can arguably do it on a Wi-Fi-equipped cruise ship.

THE NEW SOCIOCULTURE

Cultural habits can differ from one place to another, but sometimes a trait from one culture can spill over and take root in another. Casual handshakes, hugs and kisses will be no more. Enter the Japanese bow. It may first start with a nod, but time may prove the nod too casual a gesture in front of a senior or someone worthy of a bit more respect.

Also, promiscuity? Too risky. We’ve lived a good era of relative free-love, bar pickups, sex clubs and random Tinder hookups — but we can expect sexual relations to take a turn to the very conservative. This has all happened before; see NEW NORMAL Page 22

APRIL 2, 2020

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NEW NORMAL from Page 21

SPeCiAL COVid 19 ANNOuNCeMeNt

some people forget that before the “Swinging Sixties,” there were the “Roaring Twenties.” The three decades in-between? Quite conservative. The ’80s also saw a return to conservatism. Such sexually conservative cycles almost always coincide with the spread of infectious disease.

We don’t have a marquee, but if we did….

THE NEW ART & CULTURE

WhILe IFS eventS are CanCeLLed untIL Further notICe, We’d LIKe to dIreCt our FanS to onLIne reSourCeS theY Can turn to.

Go to InternatIonaLFILmSerIeS.Com, or IFS on Facebook for active links & updates, as well as opportunities to stream some of our April titles on a pay-per view basis. for all manner of public domain ephemera: https://archive.org/ if you have a library account with the university, or boulder Public Library, go to: Kanopy.com. they hold a lot of titles from the Criterion Collection, as well as many mainstream titles. Signing up is easy, you just need your library card number. Also any Colorado resident can get an ecard at the denver Public Library: dPL: https://www.denverlibrary.org/library-card for classic film fans: Criterion Channel is the Gold Standard of fine films, with a collection of classic and cult titles both domestic and international, and it has a free 14-day trial. for horror film fans: Shudder.com is offering a free trial month of movies! enter the promo code SHutiN once you’re past the sign-in page, and it will change the 7 days trial period to 30 days. for design-nerds: Bydesign Fest is an annual film festival focusing on design, architecture, and the like, and is sponsored by the Northwest film forum. they are offering all of their titles for online streaming on a sliding scale basis, from $0-$25. to find how/where to screen a title you are looking: www.justwatch.com/ for peaceful livecam footage of marine life: www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams for experimental films and video art: https://hyperallergic.

Search: “tired of netflix stream experimental films and video art” for a “yule log” background type video, search: “music Box organ home edition” free on Youtube and recommended to art cinema patrons is a restored digital copy of Bunuel’s somewhat subversive version of tHe AdVeNtuReS Of RObiNSON CRuSOe (1954) in english, in PatheColor, and with Dan O’Herilhy who received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the slave trader who was marooned for 28 years.

Search “adventues of robinson Crusoe 1954” Xfinity customers: More entertainment content is now available for you to watch for free: Xfinity is providing a range of additional free content to keep you entertained while you’re at home. You can find it by saying “free” into your Xfinity Voice Remote. edgar wright’s 100 favorite comedies: letterboxd.com/crew/list/edgar-wrights-100-favorite-comedies/ bonus: a few years ago the ifS screened an entertaining doc on Australian exploitation films and that entire feature can now be seen at this link: vimeo.com/395658733 we would also like to share a link to a short five minute video about COVid 19 that we found especially informative: youtube.com search “CovId 19 Science Insider” Music Box Films is offering a special promo code for movie fans! Sign up for Music box direct, using discount code: Boulder. enjoy an extra month of free movies!

Disclaimer: the site will ask for your credit card (this is a free trial), but Music Box will send you an email reminder a week before your trial ends if you want to opt out. www.musicboxfilms.com/music-box-direct fANtAStiC fuNGi showed at ifS earlier this semester. watch it now online and support the ifS: vimeo.com/ondemand/ifsboulder We’ll meet again Don’t know where Don’t know when But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day

Keep smiling through Just like you always do ‘Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away -- Ross Parker & Hughie Charles

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APRIL 2, 2020

Aside from the importance of health care funding, the coronavirus has also reaffirmed the importance of culture.

With the majority of us forced to stay home, we’re quickly realizing the importance of film, television, music and books as psychologically necessary comforts. This decade should see an uptick in affordable and easily accessible cultural output. Much of it may be virtual/streamable (even museum exhibitions), but too much of the untouchable may see a renewed appreciation for tactile things; subscription-based publications and other printed matter that utilize textured papers and a mixture of printing techniques may be on the upswing.

THE NEW TECH

Given that the touching of surfaces is proving to be potentially lethal, all new tech in the coming decade will be optimized for contactless usability. Voice commands and hand gestures (powered by bluetooth rings) will dominate devices and appliances.

NEW FASHION

Masks will become as mainstream as pants. Air-filtering scarves will become a thing, and we may even see shirts designed with mouth covering parts that you can just pull up when necessary (think of it as an evolved turtleneck).

Gloves will definitely make a fashionable comeback. Tattooing will be seen as an easy harbor of disease and quickly lose the mainstream acceptance it has gained over the past three decades.

THE NEW FOOD SUPPLY

All viruses come from animals. Some viruses that cause the flu come from I

birds and pigs. HIV/AIDS from chimpanzees. COVID-19? Evidence suggests it may have went from a bat to a pangolin before making the jump to a human. It is that jump that results in the kind of hybrid-viruses that are particularly destructive to human immune systems.

(The 1918 Spanish Flu is thought to be a mix of avian and swine flus.)

Thing is, bats and pangolins don’t traditionally mix in nature. It is human interference that brought both species together in a marketplace in Wuhan, China, where a large variety of live animals are kept in tight cages within close proximity to one another; the very same conditions that led to the SARS outbreak of 2003, where a civet cat is thought to be the culprit (or one of a combination of culprits).

(It should be noted though that if you caught SARS, symptoms would show very quickly. COVID-19 symptoms may not reveal themselves for a full 15 days (if at all), during which the carrier could very easily and unknowingly infect others. It’s basically a more clever SARS.) Essentially, nature has sent us the warning signs time and time again, but we seem insistent on carrying on “business as usual.” Westerners inclined to jump on racist bandwagons without ever questioning their own capitalist practices may put the blame entirely on another culture, but really animal cruelty is at the heart of these viral outbreaks, be it Eastern or Western. It is not enough to ban wet markets in China, nor is it enough to ban wildlife trade. No animal should ever be caged, nor should their habitats be destroyed, nor should they ever be forced to mix with other species they wouldn’t naturally mix with. All of that should be strictly criminalized.

We will likely see a rise in veganism, and those who cannot give up their carnivorous ways may be inclined to say goodbye to supermarkets and mass-produced meats and instead source their foods from small local farms they know and trust.

In order to adapt, big brands may start shutting down their industrial facilities and outsourcing their production to BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Boulder Vision Center

ONE PERSON’S ACTIONS ON ONE SIDE OF THE PLANET CAN AFFECT EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE ON THE REST OF THE PLANET. FROM PUBLIC HEATH TO POLITICS TO ENTIRE ECONOMIES.

small farms instead.

Or, they may transform their big industrial facilities into megalabs where meat is grown instead of raised. These will be touted as more hygienic, environmentally safe, and cruelty-free.

THE NEW URBANISM

The rising public-transit movement will die, and preference for the private automobile will be the only thing that makes sense. Suburbs and gated developments will make a comeback as idealic living bubbles, cities and downtowns will lose both funding and investment, relegating them as dirty, dangerous and derelict. A new wave of “white flight” will result in a kind of reverse-gentrification, making city centers affordable to struggling classes again. The discernible diversity of city centers combined with the lethal threat cities harbor as viral cesspools will rekindle false notions in the minds of whites regarding race and disease; and in turn an acute revival of white supremacy in the mainstream.

THE NEW GLOBALISM

One person’s actions on one side of the planet can affect everything and everyone on the rest of the planet. From public health to politics to entire economies. The outbreak of COVID-19 has made this more clear than ever. As such a new kind of globalism will take root wherein the world must function as a global village, with laws, regulations and the systems by which our lives operate being designed with the entire globe in mind. Paradoxically, human interaction is now potentially lethal, so households and human relations more generally will be forced to become increasingly atomized and super-local.

THE NEW CULTURAL DIVIDE

During the Plague, Europeans blamed the “miasma” carried forth by winds coming in from the East and South (Ottoman lands, basically). When an 18th-century American missionary stationed in Egypt witnessed Cairo’s 1781 plague, he concluded that it was brought in by a Jewish merchant and BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

two black female slaves. The spread of disease on a wide scale has always brought about the racist leanings already harbored by human beings.

With the outbreak of the coronavirus and one marketplace in China being pointed to as the source, we can expect the emergence (or reemergence, rather) of a great cultural divide between the greater East and overall West.

Everything “Eastern” (because racism isn’t logical) will be seen by a greater number of Westerners as wholly inferior, the once growing interest in Eastern cuisine, books and cinema will come to a sudden halt (while paradoxically picking up other traits out of necessity; the Japanese bow, bamboo-made disposables and an obsession with robots, for example).

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THE NEW FRONTIER

More interest and funding will be put towards finding and developing a new human habitat away from Earth, be it on Mars or elsewhere; a “Plan(et) B” where the human race (or a particular segment of the human race rather) may live and prosper far from the hundreds of thousands of viruses on Earth threatening to kill us at any moment.

Some say human evolution is cyclical rather than linear. After all, the glory of the Roman Empire was followed by the European Dark Ages. By the time Europeans made it to the Americas, entire Mayan cities had already been abandoned for centuries.

I wonder if human evolution is a combination of both cyclical and linear trajectories though. Given that our very planet revolves around its own access, as well as around the Sun, which itself moves in an eclipse within the Milky Way, which itself speeds through the universe... Why should human existence be any different?

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The recipient of Foreign Policy’s Global Thinker Award, Ganzeer is an artist who operates seamlessly between art, design, and storytelling. As of writing this, he is based out of Houston, Texas. Find him online at ganzeer.com I

APRIL 2, 2020

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‘When things are made too easy, spirituality is lost’ Zachary Carretín and Mina Gajić bring historical instruments to Schubert sonatas on ‘BOUNDLESS’

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ome years ago, pianist Mina Gajić found herself at Maison Erard in Amsterdam, staring at a teal 1835 Erard grand piano.

She was enamored with the French-made instrument, but it wasn’t for sale.

“It was a very long conversation to bring that piano back to the States,” Gajić says.

“Because of its unique appearance, that piano was supposed to be the one [shop owner] Fritz [Janmaat] would keep as a crown jewel of his career,” which, among other notable projects, included restoring a piano played by Franz Listz.

Gajić decided that her time in Amsterdam “would be spent with this piano.”

“No sightseeing, just sitting at this piano and playing, playing, playing,” she says. “Finally [Janmaat] came out of his workshop and said, ‘You and this piano APRIL 2, 2020

belong together.’”

Today, accompanied by her husband, violinist Zachary Carretín, you can hear Gajić play sonatas by Franz Schubert on this rare Erard piano on their new album, BOUNDLESS, released on March 27.

These sonatas (often called sonatinas for their diminutive length), composed specifically for violin and piano, were written between March 1816 and August 1817, when Schubert was only 20 years old, though they wouldn’t be released until several years after his I

death, in 1936. The young composer was a trailblazer of Romantic era music, creating expressive harmonies and melodies that conveyed the joyous intellectual and artistic growth European society was enjoying at the time.

Carretín points out that Lord Byron wrote Manfred — a dramatic exploration of human responsibility — during the same years Schubert composed

these sonatas.

“You find this humanism and selfexploration and looking inward into the nature of consciousness, and this is really the beginning of Romanticism,” Carretín says. “These pieces are so interesting because they’re right at the cusp of the very refined Classical era and the beginning of this raw Romanticism.

“The first sonatina is an homage to classical style. The second is Schubert BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

COURTESY OF ARTISTS

ON THE BILL: ‘BOUNDLESS,’ an album of sonatas for violin and piano, by Zachary Carretín and Mina Gajić. Available on streaming platforms and for down at sonoluminus. com.

exploring Romanticism that he hadn’t explored in instrumentals yet. The third, he finds a way to bring them together; there’s balance, form, proportion of Classical ideas with the storm and stress qualities, the new way of looking at the world that will open up in the world of Romanticism.”

Gajić has built her career around presenting music on historical instruments.

“As pianists we usually go from hall to hall, from studio to a recital hall or concert hall or our home, changing instruments every time we do something professionally,” she says. “I really was a little envious of other instrumentalists, including singers, who always carry their musical voices wherever they go. Violinists will have a voice with both interpretation in how they play and with the instrument itself. I fell in love with the pursuit of finding historical pianos in needing to find a voice in my own instrument, not just my interpretation.”

The Erard she plays on BOUNDLESS was built the year before Schubert’s sonatas were published.

“Shutbert sounds so wonderful on this Erard,” she says. “It’s like a time capsule. ... It gives a historical inkling into what this would have sounded like when these pieces were published. ...

Imagine going to a store, buying this sheet music and then bringing it home, or to the salon, and playing it on a piano from the same era.”

While a modern piano is crossstrung, Gajić’s Erard is parallel-strung, BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

with the dampers beneath the strings as opposed to over them. This gives “personality” to each register, as Gajić says, distinct voices, like listening to a choir.

The keys are shorter, their action quick.

Carretín also plays a historical violin on the album, “a rare find,” built after World War II but set up in the way of an early Romantic era violin with gut strings. He plays it with a pre-modern bow made in London around 1800, just like the kind that were still in favor in Vienna at the time Schubert’s sonatas were composed.

“It’s what you would have found in Mozart’s orchestra or Hyden’s,” Carretín says. “What this bow has that a modern bow doesn’t is natural decay. Each note naturally has a little fade. Because of that decay, from note to note, gesture to gesture in larger phrases, one finds a spoken quality in the music. The bows we use today favor continuity or sustained sound, larger dynamic shapes without dips and ebbs in line. The bow in this recording and the bows that [historically] came before have in them a musicas-speech element.”

Together, these instruments convey the conversational tone of Schubert’s music, a sense that the instruments are speaking to one another.

There can be obstacles, however.

“When the sonatinas become turbulent this bow struggles,” Carretín says. “It can squeak or squeal depending on humidity. Timbre can change in an instant.”

Still, Carretín appreciates the challenge. He quotes one violinist who went I

back to gut strings after metal strings became the standard after WWI: “When things are made too easy spirituality is lost.”

“With these instruments it’s like having different tools, different sized paint brushes,” Gajić adds. “It’s like having a more detailed brush, and with a more detailed brush you can’t paint the whole house. You can really go into the detail and let the instruments and the music teach you more and tell you more through a long process of spending time with instruments and music.”

To fully capture the chamber music experience, Gajić and Carretín recorded in a 75-seat recital hall with a two-story glass wall, wooden floor and side walls, and the remaining wall of stone. They brought in mastering engineer Daniel Shores to work his magic with mics in order to produce a recording that conveys the sense of what it would have been like to have listened to these sonatas in a cozy palace salon.

“The challenge in doing a project like this is modern instruments we hear today are really a product of the recording industry,” Carretín says. “Throughout the history of recording, instruments have become more refined, they don’t break or squeak. There’s an accuracy that the instruments make readily available. That’s really a product of 100 years of recording. To go back to the methods and the equipment of before recorded music and then try to record it opens up challenges. It’s super rewarding for us, but not lost on us that this is such a 21st-century endeavor.”

APRIL 2, 2020

Adam Sloat Broker/Owner

Your Boulder Real Estate Expert and Music Guy

Q&A WITH MY DECORATOR/ STAGER Question: Hi Sally, what’s the best reason to use an interior decorator and home stager like yourself before selling a home?

Answer: Staging a home give the potential buyer a sense of functionality and style as to how they may use the space. It also give an inviting presentation to the home when staged.”

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DAB RECORDS PRESENTS

FOUNDER FIGHTS 5

WHISKEY BLANKET, GRIM&DARLING, JORDAN POLOVINA, AND MORE! FRI. MAY 22

YUNG PINCH FRI. MAY 29 97.3 KBCO PRESENTS

ERIC HUTCHINSON JEREMY MESSERSMITH

MON. JUN 1 CHANNEL 93.3 PRESENTS

REEL BIG FISH + THE AQUABATS! FRI. JUN 19 97.3 KBCO, PARTY GURU PRODUCTIONS & TERRAPIN CARE STATION PRESENT

RJD2

MELODY LINES, FRED FANCY THUR. JUN 25 BUDDHIST ARTS AND FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS

KRISHNA DAS WED. JUL 8

BOULDER LIFESTYLE, GRATEFUL WEB & TERRAPIN CARE STATION PRESENT

PINK TALKING FISH THE DIRE WOLVES SAT. JUL 11 97.3 KBCO & GRATEFUL WEB PRESENT

SAT. MAY 30

THE JERRY DANCE PARTY

BARNS COURTNEY

SUN. JUL 12

WILDERADO, CHAZ CARDIGAN WED. JUN 3

TOWN MOUNTAIN MON. JUN 22 CHANNEL 93.3 PRESENTS

THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT FRI. JUL 17 88.5 KGNU & WESTWORD PRESENT

KIND HEARTED STRANGERS

FAMOUS MEN, THE DEER CREEK SHARP SHOOTERS SAT. AUG 15 ROOSTER, PARTY GURU PRODUCTIONS, TERRAPIN CARE STATION PRESENT

YHETI

FREQUENT, HONEYBEE, THOUGHT PROCESS FRI. SEP 4

AUGUSTUS

THE BEEVES, BOOT GUN, BEN HANNA SAT. SEP 12

NOBIDE + BIROCRATIC TELEMETRY, SUNFEATHR SAT. OCT 24 PARTY GURU PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS: EXIT / REALITY TOUR

MINNESOTA

EASTGHOST, THELEM, THOOK THUR. OCT 29 97.3 KBCO PRESENTS

THE DIRTY KNOBS WITH MIKE CAMPBELL

97.3 KBCO PRESENTS

RACHAEL & VILRAY PATRICK DETHLEFS THUR. AUG 6 105.5 THE COLORADO SOUND PRESENTS

ANDERS OSBORNE + JACKIE GREENE FRI. AUG 7 97.3 KBCO PRESENTS

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM FRI. AUG 21 - SUN. AUG 23

PINEWOOD CONFERENCE SAT. AUG 29

LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER SUN. SEP 13 COMEDY WORKS PRESENTS

DAVID SPADE MON. SEP 14

BEATLES VS STONES - A MUSICAL SHOWDOWN THUR. SEP 24

HEATHER LAND: I AIN’T DOIN IT SAT. SEP 26 97.3 KBCO, BOULDER WEEKLY & GRATEFUL WEB PRESENT

LAWRENCE

JOE HERTLER & THE RAINBOW SEEKERS, SUNSHINE MEDLEY WED. SEP 30

ARLO GUTHRIE

PERFORMS ALICE’S RESTAURANT FOLK UKE

SAT. OCT 24 97.3 KBCO PRESENTS

LOS LOBOS

THE DRUNKEN HEARTS SUN. NOV 1

OLAFUR ARNALDS WED. MAR 31, 2021 THE CELTIC CONNECTION, 88.5 KGNU & BOULDER WEEKLY PRESENT

THE HIGH KINGS

FRI. NOV 20 WESTWORD PRESENTS

SATSANG

JOEY HARKUM, BOMBARGO 26

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2028 14TH STREET NOW FT. MCDEVITT TACO SUPPLY SUPER HEADY TACOS! 303-786-7030 | OPEN DURING EVENTS

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

What to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do...

VIRTUAL EVENTS

BY BOULDER WEEKLY STAFF

If your organization is planning a virtual event of any kind, please email Caitlin at crockett@boulderweekly.com. n ‘WOMEN OF RESOLUTION.’ 2 P.M. SUNDAY, APRIL 5, VIA ZOOM, MOTUSTHEATER.ORG/ EVENTS.

Faced with deportation, Araceli Velasquez, Ingrid Encalada Latorre, Rosa Sabido and Sandra Lopez chose to take sanctuar y in churches across Colorado to fight for justice and stay with their families. Together they authored The People’s Resolution, a legislative solution designed to prevent other Colorado families from being separated. Even in these days of social distancing, Motus Theater wants to elevate these stories and continue to inspire action on what executive director Kirsten Wilson calls “a grave humanitarian crisis” by streaming an upcoming performance of “Women of Resolution” on Zoom.

“We weren’t willing to cancel this event because of the seriousness of what’s happening with immigration in this countr y,” Wilson says. “This allows us, even in isolation, to continue to participate in learning key elements about what is happening to the undocumented community in this countr y so we can be a part of creating a democracy that values all humans.”

From their homes across Colorado, state legislators Leslie Herod, Barbara McLachlan, Serena Lucha Gonzales-Gutierrez and Kerr y Donovan will read the stories of these four Colorado undocumented women who sought sanctuar y. Rosa Sabido and Ingrid Encalada Latorre will join the event from their sanctuar y locations in Mancos and Boulder. In addition to the readings, there will be live music, poetr y and a Q&A session.

“Even though it’s virtual, it’s ver y intimate because you’re

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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in the home of a Colorado state legislator, you’re in the home of a national slam poetr y winner, you’re in the home of a musician, in the church of a woman in sanctuar y,” Wilson says. “There’s an intimacy and connectivity based on the fact that we’re currently all sharing this human challenge around how to connect across physical distance. In that way, the virtual event has an intimacy all its own.”

This event is free. Visit Motus’ website to learn more about the event and how to join the Zoom presentation. —Caitlin Rockett

n 72ND CONFERENCE ON WORLD AFFAIRS. APRIL 6-10, COLORADO.EDU/ CWA/2020/03/29/JOINUS-VIRTUAL-CWA-WEEKAPRIL-6-10.

A mini Conference on World Affairs will be held remotely via Zoom next week, featuring five sessions focused on various aspects of the pandemic, such as humor in hard times and economic impacts. Attendees do not need to have Zoom installed on their device to participate in these sessions; anyone can access the sessions via a computer, smartphone or tablet. Audience members will be allowed to submit questions virtually to be answered by experts on the panel. Each session has a maximum capacity of 500 online attendees, so RSVP for the sessions you would like to attend, and CWA staff will confirm your spot with instructions via email. Sessions will also be shared later on YouTube.

see EVENTS Page 28

APRIL 2, 2020

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VIRTUAL EVENTS

EVENTS from Page 27

n ARISE MUSIC FESTIVAL GOES VIRTUAL. FACEBOOK.COM/RMVIRTUALMUSICFESTIVAL.

n MUSEUM OF BOULDER. ONGOING, MUSEUMOFBOULDER.ORG.

How are you coping with social distancing? Share a photo on social media and tag Museum of Boulder. Or, send a photo of how you’re coping, along with a short explanation, to emma@museumofboulder.org ­— you could be featured in a future pop-up exhibit on COVID-19 at the museum.

Boulder-based ARISE Festival partnered with Rocky Mountain Virtual Music Festival of Denver to create an online festival experience that’ll keep you engaged while keeping you safe. Live streams run from 10 a.m. to 10:15 p.m. MST ever y Friday featuring musicians, bands and artists, as well as workshops, yoga sessions and related educational activities online.

n DAILY ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS WITH JEFF AND PAIGE. THROUGH APRIL 17, JEFFANDPAIGE.ORG.

n THE QUARANTINE CHOIR. THEQUARANTINECHOIR.COM.

Local troubadours Jeff and Paige are creating science- and nature-based music and content for kids ever y day during stay-at-home orders. With support from the City of Boulder Parks and Recreation Department and the Boulder Public Librar y Foundation, all “educational antics” are currently free. Jeff and Paige will send environmental education content directly to your email daily to supplement your time at home with the kids and inspire them to get outdoors and be their best, silly and fascinating selves.

Head to their website and provide your email address to subscribe.

n THE LITTLE YOGA STUDIO. ONGOING, LITTLEYOGASTUDIO.COM.

Ujjayi as loud as you want in the privacy of your own home with online classes from The Little Yoga Studio, $10 a class as always.

HEAVY ROTATION

by Caitlin Rockett “SLOW DOWN” — ART FEYNMAN Here We Go Magic frontman Luke Temple cooks up delicate but savory grooves on his 2017 release ‘Blast Off Through The Wicker,’ including this ditty with its simple but poignant reminder: “Slow down / Don’t crush yourself to make a diamond.”

Singing has always helped Erika Chambers with anxiety, and she thought maybe it could help kids during this confusing time, so she created The Quarantine Choir.

The idea is simple: Adults can help children learn a simple, uplifting song written by Chambers, record it, and send it back to Chambers, who will combine all of the samples into a virtual choir.

“There’s a lot we can’t do, and we can feel really powerless, but we can sing together and we can get our power back by singing and building something beautiful together,” Chambers says. “I would be so honored if people would join me and make something beautiful.”

The song is meant for families and children, but anyone can send in a clip.

“How cool would it be to have kids from all over the world their voices together?” she says. —CR

“TIME” — CHILDISH GAMBINO

“EARTH ANGEL” — ACTIVITY

Donald Glover knows when America needs a pick-me-up. The multi-hyphenate teams up with Ariana Grande for this danceable, ’80s-tinged RnB anthem about making a change before it’s too late.

This song starts off with a shiny hook you could hang your hat on before dissolving into darker discord. Vocalist Travis Johnson claims to have tasted blood during the recording session.

“THEY SINK” — OLAFUR ARNALDS, TOKIMONSTA Listening to the delicate compositions off Olafur Arnalds’ solo albums, you’d never dream he was the drummer of a hardcore metal band called Fighting Shit. He also makes impeccable house music as one half of the duo Kiasmos. It’s hard to improve on this musical polyglots’ work, but LA-based DJ TOKiMONSTA takes this track from Arnalds’ acclaimed album ‘re:member’ to another level with bouncing synths and bubbling beats.

“WHITEOUT” — WARPAINT Theresa Wayman’s seductive vocals were made for Stella Mazgowa’s lithe drumming. Their combination here is a shimmering mirage of love — is it real, or a figment of the imagination?

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

PODCASTS

DISGRACELAND

CODE SWITCH

n IN SEASON ONE of ‘The Dream,’ ‘This American Life’ alum Jane Marie heads back to her hometown in Michigan to investigate how MLMs prey on vulnerable populations, often single mothers — like her own aunt.

Using the language of modern feminism and the gig economy, these thinly veiled pyramid schemes result in lost money for more than 70% of the individuals that participate. Marie, along with her partner and creative collaborator Dann Gallucci, heads back to her current home in LA for season two, where they tease apart the ever-burgeoning wellness industry. Marie and Gallucci provide a funny, deeply researched, conversational takedown of capitalistic exploitation, stitcher.com/podcast/ stitcher/the-dream — CR

n ‘Code Switch’ tackles the inherent biases of the world. Led by a team of journalists of color, the show challenges some deep-seated beliefs, like the notion that empathy is the strongest weapon we have in our arsenal against racism, or that having friends of color makes you immune to racism. The show recently discussed how the coronavirus is just the most recent example of how the United States has long masked xenophobia as concern for public health and wellbeing, npr.org/ podcasts/510312/codeswitch — CR

BOOKS

THE DREAM

n Part true crime series, part musicology course, ‘Disgraceland’ is a bingeable series painstakingly constructed by host Jake Brennan. Brennan is a voracious reader, evidenced by his thorough accounting of the colorful and sometimes murderous misdeeds of musicians. Armed with his Mellotron, Brennan doesn’t just tell stories, he crafts engaging narratives that tap into the cultural mindset of the time, sometimes using voices (like the mild cockney he affects for his episode on Amy Winehouse), and always digging deep to find the details that make even well-known stories come alive. The effect is all-consuming, disgracelandpod.com — CR

DYING FOR SEX n From the production company that brought you ‘The Shrink Next Door’ and ‘Dirty John,’ Wondery now presents the hilarious, raunchy and philosophical show ‘Dying for Sex.’ This six-part miniseries chronicles the sexual escapades of host Nikki Boyer’s best friend, Molly, after she’s diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. When Molly decides to leave her unhappy marriage and embarks on a series of sexual adventures in between chemotherapy stints, she starts to feel alive and encourages us all to embrace life, too. wondery.com/shows/dying-for-sex/ — Emma Athena

WHERE THE CRAWDAD’S SING — DELIA OWENS

LOST CHILDREN’S ARCHIVE — VALERIA LUISELLI

MY ABSOLUTE DARLING — GABRIEL TALLENT

n To watch a young girl grow over the course of six decades through Delia Owens’ storyteller eyes was to observe a lush lifetime of loss and love, trust and truth. Both the novel’s overarching mystery-plot and the day-to-day life on society’s outskirts consume readers’ attention. With innovative and organic pacing, nature is alive in every scene, no matter the place: “Saltwater marsh, some say, can eat a cement block for breakfast, and not even the sheriff’s bunker-style office could keep it at bay. Watermarks, outlined with salt crystals, waved across the lower walls, and black mildew spread like blood vessels toward the ceiling. Tiny dark mushrooms hunkered in the corners.” Over the course of the novel, humans are gradually understood through nature’s eyes, too. — EA

n Valeria Luiselli’s approach to the world is multidimensional, sensualistic and refreshingly new. Rather than root the perspective of her main character in traditional senses (sight, touch, taste), she orients her protagonist in sound. It’s fitting — the narrator being a radio journalist — but more so, it’s disarming. As Luiselli integrates uncomfortable and complex topics (migration, and more specifically child immigration) into the central plot of the book, she does so from the perspective of the ears: what she hears, how things mix and collide and react acoustically, the way things do or do not harmonize.

This invites a new, not-so-intimidating way to consider the troublesome fate of children migrating to the U.S. The novel is sly and gymnastic — provocative all the same. — EA

n There is no modern heroine like the young Turtle Alveston. In this harrowing story, she lives a life of isolation, wandering the North California wooded coastline but closed off from the rest of the world. It’s not for the faint of heart, as the novel is rife with sickening scenes of abuse, but Turtle’s unfathomable resilience keeps the reader enthralled as she becomes her own hero. Despite the subject matter, Tallent’s wistful and gripping prose make this book impossible to put down. — Angela K. Evans

PARABLE OF THE SOWER — OCTAVIA E. BUTLER

FOR SMALL CREATURES SUCH AS WE — SASHA SAGAN

n If ever there was a time for sanguine dystopian literature, it’s now. Octavia E. Butler is perhaps best known for her work ‘Kindred’ — a time-traveling story about the Antebellum South. But her vision of the U.S. in the 2020s in ‘Parable of the Sower’ is eerily prescient. Written in 1993, it’s a story of tribalism in its worst forms, as society has totally collapsed under the weight of climate change, wealth inequality, racism and corporate greed.

The reader follows protagonist Lauren Oya Olamina as she journeys into the unknown in search of humanity with a hopeful new vision of the future. It’s also a reminder that things could be a lot worse. — AKE

n In this soothing, quick read, Sasha Sagan explores all the ways we can enjoy the rituals of religion without the theology. Sagan mixes biographical information with earth science and theological history to explore the earthly roots of ritual (like the changing of the seasons, for instance). For Sagan, faith in science — that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that the moon creates tides — is all the faith you need to engage with even the most religious of holidays.

She advocates for creating new rituals and celebrating even the most frustrating of nature’s miracles, like menstruation. — CR

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESS We’re all in this together.

Save 20-50% off Gift Cards for Boulder County retail, dining and wellness to use now or at a later date. No expiration.

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BOULDER WEEKLY

COURTESY BLACKBELLY

ROTISSERIE CHICKEN DINNER, $40. Blackbelly, 1606 Conestoga St., Boulder, blackbelly.com

TRY THIS WEEK:

Family-style rotisserie chicken dinner @ Blackbelly

Blackbelly is serving family-style meals with main dishes,

sides and desserts, fit for 2-4 people. Take, for instance, the rotisserie chicken option: a whole bird with herb butter, field greens salad with sherry vinaigrette, crispy fingerling potatoes and two brownies with chocolate drizzle for only $40. Or, sink your teeth into the 7X Wagyu chuck roast with brown butter balsamic served with roasted veggies, mac and cheese and chocolate chip cookies. Get wine, beer and/or cocktails to-go (carry-out only), or order sundry meats and other goods from Blackbelly’s carry-out butcher shop and provisions menu. And view BW’s full list of restaurants offering takeout/delivery at boulderweekly.com/cuisine/restaurant-listings.

2

1 n Boulder County Farmers Markets launches virtual market

ASHLEY RAY HANSEN

n Restaurants feed health care workers

BOULDER COUNTY Farmers Markets (BCFM) is launching a virtual market starting the week of April 19, which will allow people to order local produce and foodstuffs from its member farms online for pickup at the Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont, starting April 24. “Our goal for the season is to continue to be the community’s largest access point to the local food system, and ensure the maximum amount of food is flowing between producers and the community in the safest way possible,” said BCFM Executive Director Brian Coppom in a press release.

BCFM has also created a list of offerings from its 30 member farms, with info on when produce is available and how to safely obtain it (visit: tinyurl.com/FindYourFarmer). One last bit of good news from BCFM: it will distribute 1,000 food access bags for those who qualify for and utilize WIC, SNAP and Fruit & Veg Boulder benefits.

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GOOD NEWS: A mutually beneficial partnership at a time when both health care organizations and restaurants are facing different but similarly unprecedented challenges. Feed the Frontlines Boulder launched March 20 and allows the community to “donate” meals from local restaurants to be delivered to frontline health care workers. Go to bch.org/feedthefrontlines to donate a meal. The initial phase of the program has already raised $200,000, with an additional $200,000 requested. First meals will go to Boulder Community Health, with more health care providers to follow, and the initial list of supporting restaurants includes The Big Red F Restaurant Group, Blackbelly/Santo, Community Table Kitchen, Japango, Next Door from The Kitchen Restaurant Group and Salt.

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BOULDER WEEKLY

BIG RED F

Local chefs share their favorite recipes

By Matt Cortina

S

o, we’re all stuck at home.

Hopefully, you’ve checked out our list of the Boulder County restaurants offering delivery/takeout during the coronavirus shutdown (boulderweekly.com/cuisine/restaurantlistings), but if you are finding yourself with some time on your hands — and we know you are — try one of these cherished recipes from our local chefs.

Doug Query’s Chili Recipe

A family favorite courtesy of Dave Query, founder and chef of Big Red F Restaurant Group. Buy a gift card or order takeout/delivery at select Big Red F restaurants at bigredf.com/our-restaurants.

Big batch — Make this on the weekend and feed off of it all week like a family of lions working a water buffalo in the Serengeti. My Pops used to serve it with a side of spaghetti, like they do at Skyline Chili in Cincinnati.

1.5 lbs course ground beef 6 hot Italian sausage links, cut into 10 pieces each 8 cloves fresh garlic, minced 2 large onions (any type except red), small rough dice 1 large green pepper, small rough dice 2 jalapeños, chopped fine (seeds OK; the more seeds, the hotter the chili) 2 medium cans chopped tomatoes 2 medium cans pureed/crushed tomato 1 small can tomato paste 1 can pinto beans 1 can kidney beans 1 can garbanzo beans 1 can sweet white corn

1 can good beer (minus 2-3 ounces) 2 tbsp. ground cumin 1 tbsp. hot chile powder 1 tbsp. black pepper 1 tbsp. your favorite salt 1 tbsp. dried oregano 1 tbsp. smoked paprika 2 bay leaves water In a big ole pot with a little bit of oil, sauté ground beef and sausage roughly 6-8 minutes. Meat should be browned on the outside and still pink in the middle.

At this point, add the garlic, onion, green pepper and jalapeños. Cover and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently until vegetables are tender. Add all spices.

Turn heat to low and cook, stirring constantly so that the bottom of the pot doesn’t burn, for 5 minutes. This will give the spices time to toast and release all of their

lovely and fragrant oils. But don’t let them burn, that’s not lovely. Give it a big whiff — it should smell like chili.

Deglaze the pot with one can of good beer at this point. Don’t use all the beer; save enough to take a good pull off of it.

Hopefully you’re making this early in the morning. A good pull off a good beer early in the morning is a good thing. Simmer for 3 minutes.

Add all canned tomatoes, corn, beans (add the liquid from the cans), and tomato paste. Take one of the chopped tomato cans, fill with cold water twice and add to chili and stir. Chili should have the consistency of finished chili. If it is still too thick for your tastes, add another can of water, but it will reduce. If it gets too thick after cooking, add some more water. The canned products are high in salt, but maybe not enough for your mouth. Check seasonings and make it right for your mouth.

Cook low and slow on a simmer for at least 2 hours, but it’s better if you go for 3.

Serve with chopped onions, sour cream, your favorite cheese and crackers.

Both my mom and dad’s fathers were from near Milan, landing in the U.S. in the ’30s. We ate a lot of good food. Simple food, but made with a lot of love and passion, leaving an impression. This chili is one of those memories. Enjoy! — Dave Query

Verde take-andmake fajitas

For a quick kitchen exercies, check out Verde’s take-and-make fajita kits. The proteins and veggies come factory-sealed and you can add whatever spice and accompaniments you have on-hand. Just add oil to a skillet, cook the protein and veggies and be on your way. And if that is too much, just order out from Verde: Boulder at verdeboulder.com and Louisville at verdeeatdrink.com. see FEAST Page 35

High end quality meats Catering also available

2426 Arapahoe Ave. Boulder 303-443-0596 www.kalitagrill.com BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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DINE IN • TAKE OUT 1085 S Public Rd. Lafayette (303) 665-0666 Hours: Tues. Weds. Thurs. Sun 11am - 9pm Fri. Sat 11am - 9:30pm Closed Monday

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BOULDER WEEKLY

n FEAST FEAST from Page 33

Cafe Aion’s Paella Order takeout/delivery from Cafe Aion at cafeaion.com.

P

aella is one of those dishes that benefits from imperfections. To me, those endearing burnt edges and crunches make a dish so much more soulful and singular than a perfectly sousvide piece of protein. (Not to worry, though, I don’t believe anyone is trying to sous-vide paella right now.) The Spanish even have a word for the coveted burnt crust which forms on the bottom of the paella pan: Socarrat. A socarrat is to a chef as the red cape is to a matador — very, very important; without it you’ve just got soggy rice in a pan, or a horn ornament on a bull.

It might seem counterintuitive to work for 30 minutes to achieve a layer of burnt rice.

After all, your grandmother did it with Uncle Ben’s on Sunday, right, so what’s the big deal?

Well, we’re not talking about “throw it all in, crank the burner to high, and blacken it. It’s more about finding a Zen place with your rice and adding in just the right amount of stock over just the right heat to slowly achieve the perfectly crispy, crunchy, deeply caramelized crust of rice, onions, tomatoes and saffron.

The very best paellas are made outside over a wood fire, where consistency and a controlled environment are not your friend, so let loose, use your instinct, and enjoy the paella process. And remember, if you burn the shit out of it you can always try pulling the socarrat explanation on your dining companions

— Chef/Owner Dakota Soifer Paella pan (14”) 1 large link of fresh chorizo or other spicy, smoky sausage you really like 1 lb mixed chicken pieces on the bone 1 small red onion, julienned 6 cloves of garlic, sliced 8oz. canned tomato Saffron — a nice, three-finger pinch 1/4 cup white wine 3/4 cup Spanish paella rice or similar short-grain white rice 1 1/2 qt. chicken stock 1/2 lb. mussels fresno chili, minced

flat leaf parsley, chopped lemon wedges This will take a little bit, don’t rush it.

Make sure everyone, including yourself, has nibbles (lomo, chorizo, hummus, manchego, olives...) and wine to hold them over for the next hour. The nice thing about this dish is that you don’t need to stand over it the whole time —

it’s not risotto. Actually, you never really want to stir the paella once your stock is in, just don’t totally forget about it.

Over a medium high flame, heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Once the oil has reached its smoking point, add in the chicken and sausage, turning every now and then to achieve a nice sear on each side. Add in the onions and garlic, keeping an eye on the heat as you don’t want them to burn, but with too low a heat, it will go limp and sad. Once the onions have caramelized, add in the rice. Stir, allowing the rice to toast to golden brown. In go the tomatoes (squeeze them through your fingers into the pan to break them up) and the saffron. Turn up the heat a bit and let it all reduce to a thick consistency.

This is when you hit the rice with a liberal splash of wine, being careful of any possible flare-up. Give the pan a little shake to even out the distriCAFE AION bution of rice. This will be the last real movement of the rice; let it be to develop the socarrat for the duration of the cooking. Ladle stock around the edge of the pan until the liquid level is just that of the rice’s. Reduce the heat to achieve a slow bubbling on the pan and let the magic unfold. You may have to add a bit more stock at times. If you do, use that moment to taste for seasoning as if it is needed; the salt will be better distributed if it is introduced with a flush of liquid.

When the rice is just al dente and the liquid has just about evaporated and absorbed, it is time to add the mussels. Arrange them standing on their hinge just set in the rice.

Ensuring that there is a touch of liquid left to steam open the mussels will be very helpful for having them cook and open in a timely manner. Once they all pop open, it is pretty much time to eat. Pull the paella off the heat, top with chopped parsley,

fresno chili and a generous drizzle of great olive oil. Salud! — Chef/Owner Dakota Soifer

Gastronauts Cripsy Broccoli with Sriracha Aioli This crispy broccoli with sriracha aioli is a fan favorite at Gastronauts, the walkup restaurant inside Gravity Brewing in Louisville that serves unique, innovate fare that shatters one’s perception of “pub grub.” Order takeout and delivery during the shutdown at thegravitybrewing.com/ gastronauts/.

CRISPY BROCCOLI

1 lb bite size broccoli florets 2 cups rice flour 2 cups water

Heat canola oil in a deep fry pan (cast-iron works well) to 350 degrees. Mix rice flour and water to make a slurry. This should be the consistency of crepe batter, thinner than pancake batter. Adjust water as needed to make a thin slurry. Toss the florets in slurry until lightly coated. Fry small batches in hot oil for 3 minutes, turning once or twice during frying.

Remove from oil and drain. Fry remaining broccoli in batches. Serve with sriracha aioli.

SRIRACHA AIOLI

2 cups high quality mayonnaise 1/4 cup sriracha Juice of 1/2 lime 1/4 cup light brown sugar 1 tbsp. garlic purée 1/2 tsp. pepper 1/2 tsp. salt

Blend all ingredients to a smooth consistency. Serve on top of broccoli or on the side for dipping.

A MODERN SHRINE TO REGIONAL MEXICAN CUISINE

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had hoped, I trust you will dedicate yourself to playing catch-up in the weeks between now and your birthday. You may be amazed at how much ground you can cover.

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: “If all the world’s a stage, where the

hell is the teleprompter,” asks aphorist Sami Feiring. In my astrological opinion, you Aries are the least likely of all the signs to identify with that perspective. While everyone else might wish they could be better prepared for the nonstop improvisational tests of everyday life, most of you tend to prefer what I call the “naked spontaneity” approach. If you were indeed given the chance to use a teleprompter, you’d probably ignore it.

Everything I just said is especially and intensely true for you right now.

TAURUS

APRIL 20-MAY 20: When Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian

author Knut Hamsun was 25 years old, a doctor told him that the tuberculosis he had contracted would kill him within three months. But in fact, Hamsun lived 67 more years, till the age of 92. I suspect there’s an equally erroneous prophecy or unwarranted expectation impacting your life right now. A certain process or phenomenon that seems to be nearing an end may in fact reinvent or resurrect itself, going on to last for quite some time. I suggest you clear away any misapprehensions you or others might have about it.

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: I invite you to remember what you were

thinking and feeling around your birthday in 2019. Were there specific goals you hoped to accomplish between then and your birthday in 2020? Were there bad old habits you aimed to dissolve and good new habits you proposed to instigate? Was there a lingering wound you aspired to heal or a debilitating memory you longed to conquer? The coming weeks will be an excellent time to take inventory of your progress in projects like those.

And if you find that you have achieved less than you

CAPRICORN

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: I suggest you make room in your life

most important relationships? How might your life change for the better if you gave them your most potent resourcefulness and panache? The next eight weeks will be a favorable time for you to attend to these matters, Libra. During this fertile time, you will have unprecedented power to reinvigorate togetherness with imaginative innovations. I propose you undertake the following task: Treat your intimate alliances as creative art projects that warrant your supreme ingenuity.

for a time of sacred rejuvenation. Here are activities you might try: Recall your favorite events of the past.

Reconnect with your roots. Research your genetic heritage. Send prayers to your ancestors, and ask them to converse with you in your dreams. Have fun feeling what it must have been like when you were in your mother’s womb. Get a phone consultation with a past life regression therapist who can help you recover scenes from your previous incarnations. Feel reverence and gratitude for traditions that are still meaningful to you. Reaffirm your core values — the principles that serve as your lodestar. And here’s the number one task I recommend: Find a place of refuge in your imagination and memories; use your power of visualization to create an inner sanctuary.

LEO

SCORPIO

AQUARIUS

author who ever lived? French philosopher Voltaire didn’t think so, calling him “an amiable barbarian.”

Russian superstar author Leo Tolstoy claimed The Bard had “a complete absence of aesthetic feeling.”

England’s first Poet Laureate John Dryden called Shakespeare’s language “scarcely intelligible.” T. E. Lawrence, a.k.a Lawrence of Arabia, declared The Bard had a second-rate mind. Lord Byron said, “Shakespeare’s name stands too absurdly high and will go down.” His contemporary, the poet and playwright Ben Johnson, asserted that he “never had six lines together without a fault.” I offer these cheeky views to encourage you Leos to enjoy your own idol-toppling and authority-questioning activities in the coming weeks. You have license to be an irrepressible iconoclast.

Kerr. “I’ll be the second to admit it.” She was making a joke, contrasting her tepid sense of responsibility with the humbler and more common version of the idiom, which is “I make mistakes; I’ll be the first to admit it.” In the coming weeks, I’ll be fine if you merely match her mild level of apology — just as long as you do indeed acknowledge some culpability in what has gone amiss or awry or off-kilter. One way or another, you need to be involved in atonement and correction — for your own sake.

BY ROB BREZSNY ARIES

observers have suggested that’s too much — especially if you labor 12 hours a day, six days a week, as Jack Ma prefers — but it may not be excessive for you Virgos. The coming months could be a very erotic time.

But please practice safe sex in every way imaginable.

CANCER

JUNE 21-JULY 22: I can’t swim. Why? There was

a good reason when I was a kid: I’m allergic to chlorine, and my mom wouldn’t let me take swimming lessons at the local chlorine-treated pool. Since then, the failure to learn is inexcusable, and I’m embarrassed about it. Is there an equivalent phenomenon in your life, my fellow Cancerian? The coming weeks might be an excellent time to meditate on how to correct the problem. Now excuse me while I head out to my solo self-administered swim lesson at Bass Lake, buoyed by the instructions I got from a Youtube video.

JULY 23-AUG. 22: Is William Shakespeare the greatest

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: Virgo-born Jack Ma is China’s

richest person and one of the world’s most powerful businessmen. He co-founded Alibaba, the Chinese version of Amazon.com. He likes his employees to work hard, but also thinks they should cultivate a healthy balance between work and life. In his opinion, they should have sex six times a week, or 312 times a year. Some

LIBRA

SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: How hard are you willing to work on your

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: “I make mistakes,” confessed author Jean

SAGITTARIUS

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: If you have been thinking of adopting a

child or getting pregnant with a new child, the coming weeks will be a favorable time to enter a new phase of rumination about that possibility. If you’ve been dreaming off and on about a big project that could activate your dormant creative powers and captivate your imagination for a long time to come, now would be a perfect moment to get more practical about it. If you have fantasized about finding a new role that would allow you to express even more of your beauty and intelligence, you have arrived at a fertile phase to move to the next stage of that fantasy.

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: Are we just being poetic and fanci-

ful when we say that wonder is a survival skill? Not according to the editors who assembled the collection of essays gathered in a book called Wonder and Other Survival Skills. They propose that a capacity to feel awe and reverence can help us to be vital and vigorous; that an appreciation for marvelous things makes us smart and resilient; that it’s in our selfish interests to develop a humble longing for sublime beauty and an attraction to sacred experiences. The coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to dive deep into these healing pleasures, dear Aquarius.

PISCES

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: For decades, the city of Sacramento,

California, suffered from severe floods when the Sacramento and American Rivers overflowed their banks. Residents authorized a series of measures to prevent these disasters, culminating in the construction of a 59,000-acre floodplain that solved the problem.

According to my analysis, the coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to plan an equally systematic transformation. It could address a big ongoing problem like Sacramento’s floods, or it could be a strategy for reorganizing and recreating your life so as to gloriously serve your long-term dreams.

WALKING THE DOG BY EDWIN G LUCAS

covid 19

our failed system we force on others all over the world lies traumatized like a rape victim naked and afraid made to feel guilty because our skirt was too short blaming us for not being successful enough to purchase a test like celebrities for $3400 quarantined in castles equalized in their rose baths

by Dan Fijolek the sounds of new home construction hammering nails into dystopian rhythms waveforms like ring droplets on still water spreading through our quiet neighborhood like a virus coming off one sidewalk onto another waiting for my turn to slip into the next car length space of pedestrians as we all walk keeping our social distance overly conscious of our spatial relation to each other terrified of accidental exposure the real walking dead now walking dogs told to stay home as the virus looms stalking the people we love waiting for them to slip up and touch their own faces everyone forgetting to exhale as the anxiety overwhelms BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

tired of pulling ourselves up like some facebook challenge we should all use our bootstraps to choke the throats of corporations and their politicians preying on us like alter boys they pay no taxes like churches

whats left of our delicate social fabric this isolation is advanced darkness disconnecting us further from one another finishing the job started by social media so many little tribes divided and conquered the collective unconscious sick with amnesia we are hypnotized by corporate propaganda dropped like a reverse atom bomb imploding our fears and collapsing them like stars creating blackholes in the war torn flag that is the american dream

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APRIL 2, 2020

from which these safety nets could be woven because they have stocks to buy back instead of jobs to create they suck blood from our necks lowering our credit scores demanding we sacrifice the elders for the good of the stock market and our illusionary economy built on everyone’s debt Dan Fijolek is a writer and a poet.

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BY DAN SAVAGE Dear Dan: My husband and I got married in August 2019 and we were together for over five years before getting married. I’m very happy and love him with all my heart. I want to have his kids and support his entrepreneurial efforts as he supports mine. We don’t fight, we just have some tiffs here and there. The kicker is that I have a tough time feeling him during sex and he doesn’t last as long as I would like him to. We’re adventurous enough to try different things, i.e. toys and different positions, but I find myself sexually unfulfilled. He also isn’t very willing/ interested in going down on me, in fact he has not once gone down on me. I’m also finding myself attracted to and fantasizing about other men. In addition to being honest with my husband, I don’t know what the solution is. I’m not opposed to opening up a marriage but I worry that I’m just being selfish and that it’s too soon to try or even discuss it at any length. I did bring up a crush I have on a coworker and my husband said, “There’s nothing wrong with having a snack.” What did he mean by that? Do you have any other insights or suggestions on what to do?

—Married Not Dead Dear MND: I shared your letter with Tristan Taormino, author of Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. Through her books, lectures and podcasts (Sex Out Loud Radio), Taormino has helped countless couples navigate the transition from monogamy to non-monogamy. But before we dive into the specifics of your situation, MND, there’s something Taormino and I want to make clear to all.

“In this time of a global pandemic, thinking and talking about non-monogamy is all you can do right now,” said Taormino. “This goes for everyone: no

new sex partners until pubour advice about opening up your marlic health experts say we riage — won’t be fully actionable until can go back to standing after COVID-19 is brought under control. closer than six feet apart.

“I’m glad MND is being honest with Even then, we’re going to her husband about her desires, but let’s have to proceed with cautake that further with even more specific tion.” Listen up, people: the woman who talk about what’s missing in her sex life,” literally wrote the book on open relationsaid Taormino. “In her letter, I heard: ships says open and poly relationships pussyeating, intense enough sensation are cancelled for the time from intercourse, and lonROMAN ROBINSON being. “Yup, cancelled,” ger sex sessions. I’ll transsaid Taormino, “unless late that: she’s missing every one of your partners pleasure, reciprocation, and lives with you.” orgasms for her. She is While COVID-19 isn’t NOT being selfish for wantclassified as a sexually ing these things. They are transmitted infection (STI), pretty fundamental aspects having sex with someone of a sexual relationship, who has coronavirus would and she needs to address almost certainly result in them with her husband transmission. And since first.” people who get infected Backing way the hell typically don’t show sympup: assuming you knew toms for up to two weeks, the fact that about my column five years ago, MND, it’s someone appears to be healthy doesn’t telling you didn’t ask for my advice back mean they are corona-free. Someone can when you realized your new boyfriend look and feel great and be both infected was never going to eat your pussy. and infectious. So for the time being we (Spoiler: I would’ve told you to dump him.) should only be having sex with a sex part- Since you chose not to break up with your ner we live with. If you have more than boyfriend over the lack cunnilingus back one sex partner and you’re all staying in then and you don’t want to divorce your the same place, great! Poly isn’t cancelled husband over it now, MND, it would seem for you and your partners. But we that going without oral — at least going shouldn’t be hooking up with new partners without at home — is the price of admisin person or going to see established part- sion you’re willing to pay to be with this ners we don’t live with. That goes double guy. for meeting up with non-cohabitating partAs for your other issues about your ners who have other partners and whose sex life with your husband — you don’t other partners have other partners of their “feel him” during penis-in-vagina (PIV) own. But the good news is that sext mesintercourse and it’s over too quickly — sages and dirty video chats are both the right toys could certainly help. But if allowed and encouraged, kids, so we can your husband ruled out penetration toys get off online with new people as well as that were bigger than his cock, MND, or established partners who live on the other if you didn’t order any that were bigger side of town or the other side of the world. than his cock to avoid hurting his feelHell, get the whole polycule together on ings, you’re gonna have to broach the Zoom — just don’t actually get together subject of buying some larger toys, (or get under) anyone you don’t live with.

MND, ones you can really feel. And OK! With that out of the way, MND, since experimenting with new positions we’re going to answer your question. But didn’t help your husband last longer, you bear in mind that some of our advice — should try alternating between toys and

his cock during PIV, which will make both the sex (and the husband) last longer.

“If MND’s husband is really in this relationship, he should be open and willing to give most anything a try,” said Taormino. “MND really needs to see that he’s as interested in her pleasure and satisfaction as he is in his own. And if there’s something she wants to try or something that really turns her on and gets her off that her husband doesn’t know about, now is the time to share the juicy details.”

As for opening up the relationship, MND, I wouldn’t advise most people to initiate that convo at this moment. Because if the conversation goes badly — and they often do at first — that could mean sheltering in place with an angry person. But based on your husband’s reaction when you confessed having a crush on a coworker, MND, I think you could risk discussing opening up while you’re locked down. Your husband didn’t say there was nothing wrong with fantasizing about a snack, MND, he said there’s nothing wrong with having a snack. Make no mistake: that’s not a green light to immediately outsource getting your pussy eaten. But his calm, matter-of-fact reaction when you confided in him about your crush is good sign.

But first things first: you need to work with your husband on improving your sex life at home and you should have a convo about that — and a convo about ordering some new sex toys — before you make plans to open up the relationship and start getting your pussy eaten elsewhere.

“Exploring non-monogamy is one way to address sexual incompatibilities and expand our capacity for love and intimacy,” said Taormino. “But the stuff between the two of them needs to gets talked about first. Otherwise, you’re glossing over the issues with something new and shiny.”

Listen to the Savage Lovecast every week at www.savagelovecast.com.

Follow Tristan Taormino on Twitter @ TristanTaormino.

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APRIL 2, 2020

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Pot today: It’s not all about the virus (but a lot is)

by Paul Danish

M

arijuana reform comes to the National Football League — well, sort of.

The league’s new contract with the NFL Players Association, which was narrowly approved by the players recently, changes the league’s penalties for using marijuana.

According to a report at Green Entrepreneur, the league will no longer suspend players for using ganja.

But it will fine them if they get caught inhaling or ingesting. The fines can be as much as one-half to three weeks’ pay, depending on previous pot violations.

The contract contains some other reforms.

Now, drug testing can only take place during a two-week window in the first two weeks of training camp. Under the old contract, drug tests could be conducted at any time between April and August, and the NFL could suspend a player after four failed tests for pot. Also, the minimum level of THC necessary for a positive test was raised from 35 nanograms to 150 nanograms. The old limit was so low that one could test positive from second-hand smoke.

• • • • The National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML) has launched an online guide to show how federal and state officials have voted on marijuana reform issues — and documented what they’ve had to say. NORML is also inviting people to contribute to the database by reporting on what candidates in their states and districts say and do when it comes to marijuana.

Especially what they say and do in unguarded moments might be particularly useful. The database is called “Smoke the Vote.”

• • • • Being able to cast informed votes on candidates will be particularly important this election cycle,

40

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because opportunities to vote on legalization initiatives are rapidly succumbing to the coronavirus epidemic.

A legalization initiative in Missouri is in jeopardy because of the inability to petition due to stay-athome orders and the likely unwillingness of people to approach petitioners even if they could seek names.

A medical marijuana legalization initiative is running into similar problems in Nebraska.

A California initiative to revise the California constitutional amendment that legalized recreational marijuana by making it more libertarian is also stalled by the state’s stay-at-home directives, as is a separate California initiative to legalize psilocybin mushrooms.

Oregon initiative drives to legalize psilocybin and to decriminalize all drug possession are similarly paralyzed.

Ditto for a Washington, D.C., measure to decrimi-

APRIL 2, 2020

I

nalize psychedelics.

Activists behind these measures are pleading with state governments to allow them to collect signatures online. Since marijuana and drug legalization petitions are not the only subjects of initiative drives around the country, there may be pressure from other interest groups as well, so getting emergency approval of online signature gathering may not be mission impossible.

• • • • Still, all is not lost. Legalization initiatives for both recreational and medical marijuana have qualified for the South Dakota ballot. Activists in Arizona say they have enough signatures to put a recreational initiative on the November ballot, but haven’t turned in their petitions yet. Activists in Mississippi have petitioned a medical marijuana issue onto the ballot, but the state legislature put its own, more restrictive measure on the ballot as well. And New Jersey voters will consider a measure to legalize recreational pot that was put on the ballot by the state’s legislators after it couldn’t muster the courage and the votes to pass it themselves last year.

• • • • And in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s attempt to legalize recreational pot as part of the state’s budget bill, which had to be passed by April 1, fell apart (again). There just didn’t seem like there was much interest on the part of lawmakers in taking up marijuana legalization at a time when New York City is the epicenter of the epidemic, and the national conversation is all-coronavirus-all-thetime. A separate legalization bill has been introduced in the legislature, but it seems unlikely to get much traction. At last report, the legislature was taking steps to allow remote voting on the budget bill so members don’t have to stay in Albany.

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