Colorado Children's Campaign, poverty, rural

Colorado Children’s Campaign

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Today the Colorado Children’s Campaign was in town and talking to political and educational leaders today. For those not familiar with the organization, a visit to Colorado Children’s Campaign is informative. They are part of a national organization that looks at ways to improve the lot of children and lobbies on children’s issues. Their research suggests that one of the strongest correlations for the abscense of a bright future is to grow up under the poverty line. Poverty is correlated with higher assault and crime rates, lower IQ, lower academic performance, emotion problems, etc. The number of children growing up in poverty is a pressing issue in Colorado because the number of children living in poverty has been rising for the last several years. This bucks the national trend which has remained at a constant percentage of all children. Colorado still has a lower overall percentage than the national average, but that difference is in danger of disappearing in the new few years if the current trends continue. In fact, Colorado has the fastest rate of increase in the number of children living in poverty in the United States.

So with that background, the organization has been visiting rural areas with a two fold purpose: make people aware of the problems of children that are generally associated with poverty and to find out why rural areas buck the trends of poverty as a determinant. In particular, rural areas tend have the same or higher percentages of children living at or under the poverty level, but don’t have the negative outcomes associated in other areas with poverty. I.e., the kids may be poor, but they are doing well on standardized tests, graduating high school at high rates, not exhibiting the crime and violence issues found in other areas, etc. Early prenatal care and other measures of poverty buck the trends out here in the northeastern plains as well – some counties here having 100% early prenatal care of poverty level mothers as opposed to the 20-30% in urban areas.
The reason this is interesting to the Colorado Children’s Campaign is that they hope to find out what is different in areas where poverty is not the detriment it is in other areas. I.e. to find out what progams can be effective in battling the curse of poverty. This is a very real recognition on the organizations part that they are not going to be able to eliminate poverty any time soon, so what can they and we do so that it hurts the future the least. Other states have tackled the poverty issue in various ways, but the question is what will work here. The program is just beginning to do the research, but I am encouraged by the fact they are looking for the other factors. They have already done an appreciable amount of work in showing the poverty problem is not due to issues like immigration and migration, etc. It is encouraging to see a social issue organization that is non-partisan and pursuses real research into the best measures to ameliorate the problem. I only wish there were more like them.
boom, bust, video

Boom and Bust

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Here Comes Another Bubble lyrics sent by guest




I just had to put this in here after a colleague from Sun sent me a pointer to it. Sort of sums up the boom/bust cycle in the software industry and the implicit ageism in much of the industry.


Take a look and listen and see if you don’t find it on point. And if you don’t laugh, you too must be involved in the software industry (or else you were in oil in the 80’s or …)

drear, seasons, weather

Seasonal Drear

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Today is one of those dreary late fall days when the weather can’t decide if it wants to be winter or fall. The sun was hidden and the breeze was just enough to make it feel cool. The lonely retreating feeling of the world at this time of year coupled with the change back to standard time makes the days feel miserable and short. At least I have the honor of knowing that I m not alone in feeling this way. Molly and I saw no one out walking when we went to the park late in the afternoon. Most days we see an assortment of people when we mosey out for our trek. I guess they were all buried inside bemoaning the drear of the day.

Having lived where there were minimal or no seasons (hot and not-so-hot or sunny/rainy don’t count as seasons), I prefer the seasonal change of Colorado. There is something about the renewal of spring with its explosion of green, the days of summer when daylight lasts forever and the nights are warm, the crystalline beauty of winter when the imperfections of the earth are periodically buried in white, and even the early part of fall when the leaves are changing and the harvest is ending. However, I could live without parts of all those seasons. I don’t like the mud season of April when the rains come and the mud sits, I don’t care for the drear days of November and early December when fall is kicking its last. I could happily avoid the couple of weeks in January or February when temperatures fall below zero and stay there for days at a time. And I could happily miss the days of late August when the temperature can hit 110+ during the day. But overall, I’ll live with the parts I don’t like to enjoy the parts I love.

I guess I’ll just have to hope it is a sunny day tomorrow and make the most of it. Time to curl up with a good book for the evening and escape to a different world.

college, Ives, theater, trotsky

On the Other Hand

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I had to appear early this morning for a teleconference about some emergency preparation stuff and had a chance to visit with the local community college president while we waited for the conference to start. He was also in attendance at the play last night. Given my quasi-review of David Ives ‘ All in the Timing of yesterday, I thought some of you might be interested in his reaction to the production.

He was able to give a different prospective since he had his grade/middle school aged son and daughter with him last night. His first comment was that although he was sure a lot of the literary, scientific, and mathematical references went right by them, they still thought it was a funny. They just interpreted the humor on a different level. For example, they took the ice axe stuck in the head of Trotsky as sight gag – and thought it was funny. I suspect that may be the mark of a good playwright – he/she can entertain and get the message across to a wide range of audience backgrounds. It is a skill I have often admired but seldom evinced.

The president himself had a similar reaction to the play as I did. He *knew* there was something he should remember about Trotsky’s death, but couldn’t quite connect it in his mind. He was planning to look up the details this morning after our teleconference. I pointed him to the Time article and left it at that. We’ll see what he has to say on Monday since I have another meeting he will be at then.

On the other hand, he was completely taken aback by one of the actors in the production. He has the actor in a philosophy class he is teaching this term. (He decided to teach a class this term just to be sure he had a handle on the issues his faculty face day-to-day.) He said “the young man has never said a word in class discussions and even one on one, getting him to talk is like pulling eye-teeth.” Thus he was shocked to discover this young man starring as Trotsky in “Variations on the Death of Trotsky “ and as Alan in “The Philadelphia “. Both very outgoing, voluble, and extroverted roles. It yielded a completely different view of the young man’s personality and abilities.

Other than that the day was one of usual hassles. It was a good day to be inside since the NWS Wind Warning was in effect again. I’m convinced that there must have been a change in policy, they didn’t use to issue warnings for 40-50 mph winds. The cold front dropping in from the north was evidently in a hurry. My own view is that it could have detoured to Nebraska and I would not have been disappointed. At least it is supposed to be back into the 50’s by Sunday.

Ives, play, strange, theater, trotsky

Ars Dramatica

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Tonight, I attended the local community college production of David Ives ‘ All in the Timing. Since my wife was in the other community , my mother was my guest. (She did a bit of theater in this self-same college more years ago than anyone wants to admit.) For those who aren’t familiar with the Ives’ work, it is a four part, minimal scenery, Kafkaesque comedy affair. It counts on the audience being very literate in readings from science and the arts and history in places – so of course I loved it. The new Theater Director of the college got it right when he said “…I feel that a blustery November in Colorado calls for a lighter tone of entertainment.”

The first skit, “Words,  Words, Words ” is based on statistics and probability.  It features three “monkeys” in a college lab earning their keep by trying to type Shakespeare’s Hamlet in less than an infinite amount of time. Needless to say the “monkeys” feel a bit of stress when they realize that it will take them longer than the current age of the universe to stand an even chance of success.

The next skit was one of my favorites, “The Philadelphia “. It is based on the idea of metaphysical black holes in reality called “Philadelphias” where it is impossible to get what you ask for. In fact you have to ask for the opposite of what you want. The kicker is that some people are better at living in a “Philadelphia” than they are in the normal reality.

The third skit clearly appealed to the college students in the audience. It is called “Sure Thing ” and is about a boy and girl  in a cafe undergoing that painful first meeting. The hook is that they each have a bell they ring to restart the conversation when it reaches a dead end or goes a direction unacceptable to one or the other. The end result is finally negotiating the conversation to a first “date”.

The final skit was my personal favorite. Called “Variations on the Death of Trotsky “, it shows us the revolutionary on the day of his demise trying to cope with a mountain climber’s axe he has discovered smashed in his skull. He goes through several explanations and reasons and denials for the axe while his wife keeps reading aloud from the current encyclopedia article that he died on this day (August 21, 1940) of an ice axe smashed into his head. Not buried, but smashed.

The inside joke here is that the skit is actually less odd than the real death of Trotsky on August 21, 1940. He was indeed smashed in the head with an ice axe on the 20th and lingered talking and carrying on until the 21st. In fact, according to the report in Time Magazine in 1940, he yelled to his body guards “Don’t kill him. This man has a story to tell.” as they subdued his assailant. Ever the historian, Trotsky later in the evening said to Natalie Sedova (his wife) about what had happened to him during the assassination attempt “I feel here,” said Trotsky, pointing to his heart, “that this time they have succeeded.”


As Time Magazine reported 

Although his skull was fractured and his brain pierced, although paralysis was already creeping down his left side, Leon Trotsky clung to consciousness. In a Green Cross hospital he dictated to Hansen a clear-minded statement:

I am close to death from the blow of a political assassin, who struck me in my room. I struggled with him. He had entered the room to talk about French statistics. He struck me. Please say to our friends: I am sure of the victory of the Fourth International. Go Forward!

Sometimes theater is stranger that reality, but this time reality was even stranger! And if I hadn’t put in the links to the Time article, I’m sure you’d all think I was making this up to!

Things Done Right