Drinking Liberally®

Our fabulous server Lizz has been taking great care of us since we made the move to The Coffee Exchange...and now she's moving on to bigger things.

As a token of our appreciation we will be getting Lizz a going away gift to be given to her at our next meeting - Tuesday, October 2nd. If you would like to contribute to her gift, you can do so using the PayPal link below. You choose the amount that you're willing to give.

And, be sure to join us next Tuesday to help give Lizz a proper send-off.

Posted by coloradosprings at 10:27 AM

The change is official and the moving vans are all packed up.

As of our next meeting, Tuesday, February 20th we will be meeting at Coffee Exchange. You can find Coffee Exchange at 526 South Tejon, in between Southside Johnny's and McCabe's (if you're not familiar with McCabe's, you may know it by its former name, The Wayfarer). Here's a map.

Have no fear about Drinking Liberally being at a coffee shop...in addition to your typical coffee shop fare, Coffee Exchange also has draft beer, bottled beer, a fully stocked bar, and an impressive wine selection. Food can also be ordered off of McCabe's menu - they claim to have the best burgers in town, and their chips and curry are outstanding!

See you there.

Posted by JJ at 10:00 AM

In spite of the lack of activity here on the blog - largely due to the authors' lack of down time - we are still meeting regularly. Blog activity is not indicative of meet-up activity.

Posted by JJ at 10:37 AM

Posted by JJ at 10:08 AM | Comments (383)

In many ways it is great to be back in Colorado Springs. In other ways ... well let's just say there was a hint of reluctance. A week in communicado, a week of fishing, fireworks, hiking, no traffic, cold evenings spent catching up on reading and general cabin living several hours from any civilization was good for all of us. Although the old mining town we were in is largely inhabited by Texans during the summer. This means, of course, four wheelers roaring around with no particular place to go, at all hours of the day, oversized vehicles driving either much too slow or much too fast. Apart from that it was incredibly soothing.

Fourth of July was great. Got out on an early morning hike for some fishing with my sons. Both caught their first fish ever! Beautiful trout. They were soooo excited. My daughter caught hers the next day. We were using salmon eggs, if anyone cares. A neighbor dog, a gorgeous chocolate lab, accompanied us for the entire hike there and back. A perfect day. Made me really appreciate our lives in our great nation. It was really nice to not be aware of politics for a short while. No recall, no campaigns, no meetings, no worries. All that is over now. The next month or so will be filled with committments before schools starts up again.

I hope everyone had the chance to relax and reflect on being a citizen of this nation over the holiday. While it was great to get away, I believe that none of the good stuff comes without doing some of the hard work. If we want to keep our state and nation great we must not neglect our duties of citizenship. Now it's time to get back to work.

Posted by Mike S at 08:59 PM | Comments (10)

The latest on the better 65% plan (from Rep. Michael Merrifield, no less) is that it will be called Referendum I, not G. Thank you Michael, for all your hard work on behalf of public education in Colorado.

Follow the money. If one really wants to find out what’s going on in politics, they need only follow the money. In the case of Amendment 39, often referred to as the “65% plan”, the money leads directly to the multi-millionaire CEO of Overstock.com., Patrick Byrne. $1 million has been promised by Mr. Byrne to fund First Class Education, a national organization formed by Byrne and Tim Mooney, a Republican political consultant from Arizona. The organization’s proclaimed agenda is requiring every school district to budget 65% of all expenditures “in the classroom”. This audacious plan is deeply flawed, and wrong for Colorado. How is it that a millionaire outsider, who has no children, feels he knows the needs of our local districts better than their elected boards, and believes we should change our state constitution to interfere in local budget decisions? Let’s evaluate the plan on its merits.

On its face, with little or no examination, the proposal appears well intentioned. However, Amendment 39, a one-size-fits-all plan, violates the state constitutional principle of local control of school districts. The mandate sets vague and unreasonable definitions of classroom expenditures taken from the National Center for Educational Statistics. Items such as transportation, heating, lighting, building maintenance, counseling services, administration, curriculum development, school health services, food service and professional teacher development are not included in “classroom expenditures”. Strangely, athletics are included as classroom expenditures.

A local district could suffer state sanctions for not meeting the mandate. Rural and inner city districts are likely to have the greatest difficulty in meeting this arbitrary mandate. Rural districts require a much larger percentage of their budget to be spent on transportation costs than most other districts. For example District 70 in Pueblo. They are finding it difficult to hire enough bus drivers for the coming year. Under the 65% plan they would not be able to offer a better wage as a hiring incentive. Most large urban districts have student populations that depend upon a vast array of non-classroom services for academic support, health, and academic or vocational guidance needs.

Colorado should focus energy on analyzing school outputs, not on meddlesome experiments with unproven mandates for inputs. 65% is an arbitrary number. Nearly every district in Colorado will have to make budget cuts to necessary parts of the school community to meet Amendment 39. It is a high risk shell game. No data exists to substantiate that student achievement improves with a change in expenditures as Amendment 39 suggests. In fact, data does exist showing “no significant positive correlation between the percentage of funds that districts spend on instruction and the percentage of students who score proficient or higher on state reading and math tests.” This according to research conducted by Standard and Poor’s in fall, 2005. Thus, a district could channel money away from curriculum development, speech therapy, and transportation, and toward new uniforms and equipment for the athletic teams in order to comply with the 65% mandate. This won’t help any school improve student achievement in the classroom.

Worst of all, it appears that there is partisan politics at play on this requested constitutional change. A memo from First Class Education outlines the political benefits of Amendment 39 to Republicans (see the full memo here). The memo, sent only to Republican legislators, stated that the measure will bring benefits like; distracting unions from candidate races, manufacturing a false sense of corruption in local school board spending, and trying to target segments of voters who oppose privatizing education to “be more greatly predisposed to supporting voucher and charter school proposals” while building Republican credibility on public education issues. Sadly, First Class Education is using public education issues for partisan gain. Improvement in education is only a secondary concern.

The Amendment 39 mandate will rob local districts of control, provide them no additional funds, is proposed by monied outsiders, shows no evidence of being able to improve school performance, creates a permanent change to the state constitution, and is motivated, not by what is good for children and communities, but what is best for the Republican party. While this effort has been adopted in non-binding fashion in a couple of states, there is still time to stop it here.

Our legislature, who better understand education issues in Colorado, proposed Referendum G, which abides by the prima facie intent of Amendment 39, to increase classroom spending to 65%.The definition of what is a classroom expense, however, is broader and includes many items excluded by Amendment 39. Referendum G is focused on student achievement. It takes into consideration that there are many factors important to the success of children in school in and out of the classroom. Referendum G will allow local districts to opt out of budget constraints imposed by the state, while keeping expenditures transparent.

Great harm will be done to our local school districts from Amendment 39. We would be wise to reject the advice of millionaire meddlers and Amendment 39 in November, and instead support education and Referendum G.

Posted by Mike S at 07:04 PM | Comments (694)

A fundamental part of any campaign is monetary resources. We need all the help we can get to elect progressive candidates here in El Paso County and throughout Colorado. Take a moment to go to Mapchangers to vote and give candidates (Jay Fawcett and Bill Winter) a chance to earn a contribution of $5,000 and help from Mark Warner.

Here is how I voted. The selection is nationwide divided into candidates from the East and West. Have fun and let's do what we can to help good candidates get elected for Colorado.

Posted by Mike S at 08:54 AM | Comments (178)

It seems like a post could be made each day about the amazing job that Stephen Colbert is doing...but especially today. Last week he interviewed Georgia Congressman Lynn Westmoreland. Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. He even went so far as to say, "Where better place could you have something like that than in a judicial building?". It appears that Congressman Westmoreland needs to take an elementary school civics class. They may be able to teach him that a "judicial building" is where the judicial branch works not where he works.

Colbert goes on to ask him to name the Ten Commandments. The clown of course couldn't do it...he got three of them.

Congratulations 8th District of Georgia. He's your Congressman!

Posted by JJ at 09:29 AM | Comments (2078)

It wouldn't surprise me if I'm the only one that cares about the World Cup, but over at The New Republic, Franklin Foer has a great article (free subscription required) about which forms of government lead to the most World Cup success.

To begin, we must first reach back into the dustbin of history. Communism, despite its gulags and show trials, produced great players and rock-solid teams. The Hungarian squad of the early '50s has gone down in history as one of the best to never win a championship. A few decades later, in 1982, the Poles finished third in the tournament, drawing with Paolo Rossi's Italy and beating Michel Platini's France en route. These triumphs are reflected in the overall record. In World Cup matches against noncommunist countries, the red hordes bested their capitalist foes more often than not--by my count, 46 wins, 32 draws, 40 losses.

If the above data leads us to conclude that communism does not produce a superior soccer society, fascism has far more to recommend itself. Fascist governments can masterfully manufacture a sense of national purpose and, more than that, national superiority. This ethos, while not so appealing from the perspective of those who worry about individual rights, cultivates the perfect climate for a World Cup. Not only can it produce a healthy confidence, but it can also generate a powerful fear of losing. Who wants to disappoint a nation swept up in this kind of fervor? Or, more to the point, who wants to disappoint a leader who might break your legs and imprison your grandmother? What's more, fascist governments subscribe to a cult of fitness and hygiene that leads them to siphon considerable national resources into sports programs. The fascist record speaks for itself. During the '30s, Il Duce's Italy claimed two trophies; Germany took third in 1934, as did Brazil in 1938. (Under the reign of Getúlio Vargas, Brazil was quasifascist or actually fascist, depending on whom you ask.) Overall, fascism compiled a record of 14-3-3 in that decade.

Now we've examined two of the most ubiquitous forms of command economy. That leaves a third: the good, old-fashioned military junta. You can't find too many of these in the world today. But military juntas are historically superb at winning World Cups. The Brazilian and Argentine juntas presided over the most glorious victories in the tournament's history in the '70s and early '80s. It makes sense that juntas would excel at this. They are collective efforts, where even the strongmen are part of a broader apparatus. A good soccer team is, in a sense, a junta.

Social democracy delivers more championships than the juntas--six in all. And even the worst social democratic teams--Belgium, Finland--win more consistently than their authoritarian peers. To understand this success, one must understand the essence of the social democratic economy. Social democracies take root in heavily industrialized societies, and this is a great blessing. No country has won the World Cup without having a substantial industrial base. This base supplies a vast urban proletariat, which in turn supplies players for a team. Industrial economies also produce great wealth, which funds competitive domestic leagues that improve social democratic players by subjecting them to day-to-day competition of the highest quality. And, while the junta mindset nicely transposes itself to the pitch, the social democratic ethos is a far neater match. Social democracy celebrates individualism, while relentlessly patting itself on the back for its sense of solidarity--a coherent team with room for stars.

Posted by JJ at 11:42 AM | Comments (70)

Tonight a large group of concerned citizens will meet to address the effort to recall School District 11 board members Eric Christen and Sandy Shakes. As a D11 parent I am concerned on a couple of levels. First, and foremost, I don't want the recall effort to siphon off money, volunteers and focus from the important races for the governor's office and state legislature. Second, I am tired of Christen and others trying to advance their extreme agenda to have public tax dollars fund turning public schools into religious training facilities, and/or the corporatization of school districts. They are wasting vast amounts of our money, and diverting focus from real reform efforts, in their attempt to hijack the system. While it is clear this effort will not wane anytime soon, thanks to the deep pockets of folks like Steve Schuck, I believe the timing of the recall is troubling and reason enough to question supporting it.

The recall effort has a daunting task ahead of it. They will be required to gather 15,000 signatures in the next 60 days for each candidate they wish to recall. Thus their decision to recall only 2 instead of 4 members. That means, at a minimum, petitioners will need to gather 250 signatures every single day for the next 60 days. In reality, they will need many more than that. To guard against the number of signatures that will be invalidated for whatever reasons, they will have to target a number closer to about 300 per day, per recall candidate. The number of volunteers to achieve this mark will have to be something like 8-10 on average everyday. Daunting indeed. The volunteer base will have to come from parents and activists committed to improving our community. Many of whom are already working toward that end.

Realistically, they will have to raise money to hire people to stand in front of grocery stores, on street corners, and at the mall in order to get the needed number of signatures. Best case scenario they achieve the goal and then establish who will run in their place. The cost of the campaign will be immense. Between the cost of collecting signatures and then developing candidates who are palatable, the total will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The money needed will have to be raised from committed individuals or businesses who have the desire to make our city a better place to live. The fund pool is shallow. Draining that pool, now being used to advance the heavily targeted raises for House district 18, Senate district 11, the Governor race, and domestic partnerships, as well as to kill Amendment 39 (65% deception), can only mean making progressive victories that much harder to achieve.

It should not be lost on advocates of quality education, that maintaining the Democratic majority in the House and Senate is paramount. Adding the Governorship would mean the ability to govern effectively for all people of Colorado. The defeat of Amendment 39 and the assurance of equal rights through domestic partnership law is just as important. Granted that the recall would immediately impact our world locally, however, there are huge issues at stake this year that could be set back if we take our eyes off the ball. In addition, we must think about long term strategy.

Let's consider the best case scenario. The signature total is achieved. The candidates to replace Christen and Shakes are brought in on a successful recall vote in November. They will then be required to run for re-election in 2007, when Christen and Shakes will be up for re-election. If volunteers, money and focus could be conserved for a single year, it would be possible to clean house in 2007! Imagine for just a minute, two, three or even, be still my heart, all four of the radical branch are ousted in 2007. The interim superindentent (King or Schuck), is replaced with a superintendent that has a reasonable vision for real reform, not a reckless political agenda and has a board that is ready to get back to work for the kids in our district! Wow, we could be set up for a future sans acrimony and agendas.

I believe Christen, Cox, Breazell, and Shakes to be deeply committed to their political agendas. They are dangerous to our community, our district and our children's future. I cannot wait to be rid of their negative presence in our decent community. We can accomplish much more without them than with them. They have proven themselves to be anit-public education, fiscally reckless, mean spirited, and focused on the privatization of the public enterprise our great nation was built on. Yet, the recall timing is bad. We may need to suck up one more year of nonsense from our board in order to achieve real, long term change locally, and state wide. It is for these reasons that I cannot support the D11 board recall effort at this time.

Posted by Mike S at 10:54 AM | Comments (109)