The Talking Gourd / 7feb26013 / XLVII

Off to watch the Niner-Raven matchup

Ulama on the big screen. A spectacle

Coliseum style. Live video clash

of East Coast versus West Coast

Old Word European versus

New World Post-Mayan

Oglesby’s Cowboys versus Yankees

The Illuminati versus Anonymous

Taking a silly macho entertainment

break from the daily diet of disasters

Rooting for gladiator proxies

after skirmish within battle after war

where the winner takes all

& the rest are liars & terrorists

Like all the faithful -- sometimes winning

& sometimes learning how to lose

Ulama players

Up Bear Creek / 7feb26013 / Producer Responsibility Organizations

Baled aluminum block at a PRO facility

We used to call them recycling centers. But eleven European packaging waste management groups -- ”Producer Responsibility Organisations” -- have issued a manifesto on Extended Producer Responsibility for how best to manage waste with the packaging industry and the public … 1) EPR organizations should be owned by the obliged companies and run on a not for profit basis … 2) There needs to be strong governmental support and monitoring … 3) There are many advantages of having one rather than multiple organizations in each country [that’s for the European Union, in U.S. substitute “state”] … 4) The EPR organization needs to be set up in a way that ensures sustainable financing … 5) The EPR organization should contribute to packaging optimization and waste prevention … The eleven organizations have announced that a new association will be launched in spring 2013 in Brussels to carry out the EPR principles outlined in the manifesto ... Imagine if we could get producers to take responsibility for their packaging in this country and help support the recycling of the waste stream they create in order to sell their products.

Up Bear Creek / 7feb26013 / Gun Control hearing in Norwood

NOT EXACTLY VIRAL 

The San Miguel Board of County Commissioner gun control hearing in January was surreptitiously filmed via cell phone by Norwood Post editor Patrick Coleman who’s posted the meeting on YouTube.

After listening to our Norwood constituents and Telluride's Mayor Stu Fraser, I thought this contentious an issue deserved another hearing up in Telluride, or no county letter at all. My colleagues didn’t agree. To me the letter went too far. As written, I voted against it.

I believe a large percentage of this county believes the recent Sandy Hook tragedy demands some form of gun control action. And I would have supported a call from San Miguel County for mandatory background checks for all gun sales, retail or private. That seems like a prudent and reasonable regulatory change.

But, beyond that, I think gun control is a very polarizing issue in the West, where gun ownership has been traditional and customary. I’ve been having some very interesting discussions with folks from both sides of this debate on Facebook, and I’ve learned a lot.

I just wish we as a nation, as fellow citizens would seek better compromises on tough issues like this, rather than simply pitting advocates against opponents

Check out the crude video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voXVSrEPx6k

Up Bear Creek / 7feb26013 / Obit for the Mountain Gazette

As poetry editor and contributor for this gonzo extreme sports version of glossy newsstand Outside, I loved what M. John Fayhee was doing heading up this irreverent but insightful magazine. It’s sad that the financial folks have pulled the plug and we lose another wonderful regional print publication

Adieu, hard copy MG, at least for now (if or until someone else comes to the rescue and resuscitates this valuable organ of mountain communication).

According to the Facebook site, they're looking to figure out this hiccup, and are continuing an on-line version 

http://www.mountaingazette.com/blogs/to-the-loyal-members-of-the-mountain-gazette-tribe/#comment-7198

Up Bear Creek / 7feb26013 / Poetry Ascendant after Imbolc

LAUREATE ON TOUR … As my two years as the Western Slope’s first poet laureate will come to an end with the Third Annual Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival in Carbondale next month, I’m delighted to take a poetry tour with my friend and rising national poetry star from Grand Junction, Wendy Videlock … We’ve been invited by the state poet laureate David Mason to come to Colorado College in Colorado Springs where he teaches, and give a campus performance of our work. We’re both excited to do that tonight, Feb. 7th … As it happens, I also have a guest lecture slot in Dr. Patricia Limerick’s Center for the New West class at the University of Colorado at Boulder this same day. It will be my third year coming to speak to her history students on Western Slope politics from a Green perspective (not at county expense). It’s a chance to dip a toe in the academic world that once intrigued me so as a student at San Francisco State College (now university). And apparently the students, as least, find it intriguing … Then Friday, Feb. 8^th, Wendy and I will join Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer of Placerville and Danny Rosen of Fruita for a poetry performance in Salida’s Steamplant at 7 p.m. Legendary North Beach poet Jack Mueller of Log Hill Village, whose new book Boxwork is about to be published by Lithic Press, will be performed in absentia. The show’s called Birds of a Feather, and references a poetry festival called Sparrows that happened for many years in Salida … And in case you missed it this week, the Talking Gourds Poetry Club meets on the first Tuesday of every month at Arroyo’s here in Telluride. Rosemerry and I are hosts, and we try to pick themes and favorite writers to read, and encourage others to do so as well. It’s free and open to the public, not just for poets.

Up Bear Creek / 31j13 / The Talking Gourd

Climate Change

If it’s at all odd

the weather this year

on Wright’s Mesa’s uplifted shores

it’s gotta be the chill

before the January thaw

Ferns & transplants

can tolerate summer swamps

but a cold spell

clamps down on bones

like a box turtle’s jaw

Up Bear Creek / 31j13i3 / Confessions of an Energy Pig

Well, I keep chipping away at my energy consumption piggyness. My latest San Miguel Power bill for December at my ramshackle Cloud Acre home in Norwood shows a total kilowatt hour (kWh) usage for the past 12 months of 6,708 kWh, with a monthly average of 519 kWh

That’s down from a total usage calculated in February of last year at 10,580 kWh, with a monthly average of 881 kWh

Compare that to my December bill two years ago of 11,452 kWh and a monthly average of 954 kWh, and finally to my bill for August three years ago when I had a whopping total yearly usage of 16,118 kWh and a monthly average of 1,343 kWh

Getting conscious of my energy use and working to reduce it, I’ve been able in three years to cut my energy guzzling by more than half. Imagine the carbon footprint savings we’d have if everyone in the county could start getting energy conscious?