The Boogeyman and Mommy-Dearest: A Deliberately Ridiculous Title

March 14, 2018 – In the predawn hours of the "17-minute walk out demonstration day", which we, having BEEN high schoolers, all know will turn into a full ditch day, I want to stress again some perspective. This is NOT to be shared with your small child.  This is to YOU people who are supposed to be grown ups.

The Boogeyman is Real: That is What They are Told

I will be as generous as I can be while still being honest and accurate. The fear being hammered into young people today is not honest and it is not in any way accurate.  It is horribly misguided at best and undeniably cruel. For this perspective, let's not just focus on the fatalities and not even the injuries but let's consider ALL the young people who are affected by a school shooting in their school -- even if they weren't anywhere near the actual trauma; even if they saw nothing at all. I know, had I been a high school kid when it happened at MY school, even if I SAW none of it, I would be deeply affected. I do not dispute that for one minute.

Lacking 2018 data I will use 2014 data for a count on how many young people are enrolled in school grades K-12 In the United States. We can presume that there are at LEAST that many in 2018. So using the 2014 numbers there are 55 MILLION students enrolled in schools grade K-12. An ongoing Washington Post analysis has found that 150,000 students attending at least 170 primary or secondary schools have experienced a shooting on campus since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.

Doing the math, dividing 150K by 55 million we find that less than 1/3 of one-percent (0.2727%) of all students in the United states have been affected by school shootings since Columbine in 1999. It is horrific ANY time it happens. And yet it is NOT an epidemic in any way, shape or form. We have GOT to have perspective on this.

These young people are being damaged by the horrible fear tactics that they are being pummeled with; that are being hammered into them. Seven year olds are writing desperate letters to the president begging to be kept safe from a woefully overblown “threat.” That 7 year old has been lied to. These kids are not different from the kids of the 1950s who lived in constant fear of nuclear attack. That was a more likely reality than a school shooting.

Do you know what is TRULY insane? In the United States, about 500 instances of a parent killing one or more offspring happen every year, a fairly consistent pattern in the past 50 years, said Phillip Resnick, a psychiatry professor at Case Western Reserve University. Roughly 200 of the killers are "mommy." So on average 500 children are murdered by their parents EVERY YEAR. Going all the way back to 1982 an average of 31 people die every year in mass shootings (this is verifiable data source: MotherJones.com) -- this is all mass shootings, not just school shootings.

Should we tell young people to be deathly afraid of their parents the same we they are being told to be deathly afraid of the possibility of a school shooting? Should we tell that terrified 7 year old who wrote to the President, "Ah kid, you don't need to fear being shot at school, but now your MOTHER, she is another story! SHE is MUCH more likely to kill you!" No, that would be cruel and crazy.  It is our responsibility to support their feeling safe at home.  Why have we robbed them of the safety of school when it really IS exceptionally safe?  A child is safer at school than she is at home.  Let that sink in. The odds of them dying at the hands of a parent are substantially higher than at the hands of a school shooter.

These young people are being told TO BE VERY AFRAID when the risk is PROFOUNDLY low that they will ever be AFFECTED by a school shooting much less injured or killed by one.  The ONLY reason these young people are even affected NOW is because they hear about it and see it over and over and over.  If I see the same photo of one tragedy 100 times – I am much more traumatized by that one tragedy than I would have been had I seen it once or even a few times. Remember Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene? It was a half-hour crucible of hell on Omaha Beach.  I felt physically beat up after enduring that scene.  Had it lasted 3 minutes instead of 30, my reaction and visceral response would have been vastly different.  These kids see school shootings as this never-ending stream of violence when it is far, far from it.  At least Private Ryan was "only" 30 minutes; for these kids it is every single day.

How they are being hammered with "fear messaging" has got to be a huge source of damage to these young people. Young people are safer today than in ANY time in human history. I will go so far as to say this targeted fear-mongering is abusive for political gain; these kids are expendable pawns in a grown up game. I would be livid where I a parent of a school-aged child. Living in CONSTANT FEAR is no way to live and it sure as heck isn't an environment to learn in! The media and the extreme anti-gun lobby is conditioning these kids to be fearful. This truly is tantamount to convincing a whole nation of school-aged kids that the boogeyman is real.

It is tragic. It is cruel and it is 100% dishonest.

SPRING IS SPRINGING IN COLORADO! PRIVATE LAND STEWARDSHIP & RESPONSIBLE MANAGEMENT

Spring is springing in Colorado.  Mother's Day is coming and gardens are being planned and landscaping ideas are being discussed.  It made me think about responsible gardening, that lead to looking for information and it ended with writing about responsible small acreage management.  That is how my brain works over coffee in the morning.

A South Carolina friend posted a story on Facebook about the evils of the “Bradford Pear.”  I thought, “How can a pear be evil? Pears are yummy!” Having never lived further east than I do now on the Front Range of Colorado, the "Bradford Pear" didn't mean a thing to me; I had ever heard of it. The story was an ever-more-familiar one of “landscaping gone bad.” The story from Greenville.com (SC) actually said that the pear was worse than kudzu; I KNOW what kudzu is and it is really bad! I loved learning and hope that little by little folks "get it". It is amazing that once I learn the truth about something that is outwardly beautiful (as in pretty flowers or trees in bloom) it loses its loveliness. What is true though is that this story can be repeated across the nation; just different plants in different places.

On the Central West Coast, where I lived so much of my younger life, you can pluck out "Bradford pear" and plug in "Scotch broom". It is beautiful with bright, yellow, tiny flowers and the aroma is sweet and amazing. Until you learn it is invasive. Then it becomes a vast sea of "yellow hell" with a sickly-sweet, worse than church-lady perfume. It is hardy as a Scotsman. Some municipalities now require that a land owner fully eradicate all Scotch broom on their land before they will issue a building permit.  This is a tall order for some and can cost in the 1000s to 10s of thousands of dollars.  It can be negotiated as part of the closing when you buy land; you can ask for allowances for it much like carpet that needs replacing or an aged roof.

Scotch Broom

In Colorado it was once the Russian olive tree. Note these names “Scotch”, “Russian”? Pretty clearly non-native! People did get wise of the olive trees long ago and do not plant them like they once did; they also make a mess. Colorado is that we are not Greenville, South Carolina -- we are "High Desert-Ville.” Even the stuff that you really WANT to grow, is hard to grow. So when you destroy the native environment on your land it is very hard to regain.

The bane of our existence on the Front Range are not so much trees but noxious weeds. Most of the proliferation of these weeds stems from poor small, farm/ranch acreage management. Folks come to Colorado for a "lifestyle". Some are “townies” or urbanites who pick Denver as their new urban stomping-grounds surrounded by a playground. It is definitely an up-and-coming urban experience and it has become wildly expensive to live there. These tend to be younger, professional folks sans kids. Then of course mountain ski folks who can live 10 people to a condo just to ski! There are some are hard core athletes who relocate here to train and then lots are pseudo-farm/ranch dreamers, “let's raise the kids in the country" folks. It is laudable and I wish more kids grew up in the country -- even though where these folks live isn't really the country it still has some of the great country experiences. If you can buy a latte within 15 minutes of home it isn’t really “the country” but I digress!

Some of these ranchette subdivisions seem a far sight better than the scrape-the-ground, postage-stamp-lots with-cookie-cutter-clutter where there are four styles of home, with a slight orientation variation and 6 shades of beige paint. There they are allowed to call their drainage system and retention ponds “open space”.  Developers are getting much better about creating real variation and designating meaningful open space but the massive growth that Colorado experienced in the last 20 years moved far faster than planning regulations did. The five-acre ranchette subdivision is financially unsustainable but what is already here is here to stay.  These developments cost far more to support than they ever pay in property taxes – there are too few tax payers per mile of roadway. This sort of development sprawls down the Front Range from Fort Collins to Pueblo – there is rural sprawl on top of rural-sprawl. I have seen some of the worst land planning policies ever here in Colorado. In planning there is a balance of private property rights and jurisdictional planning regulations.  We are all “in this together” to a certain extent.  You don’t have to stray very far from city limits to find a free-for-all environment when it comes to county planning. People think they live in the sticks if they don’t have curb and gutter…but they don’t and what they do does affect the native environment greatly.

Now back to invasive species. So these people buy their little 5 acres on the Front Range; they get 3 horses and maybe a 4-H critter or two. I love the idea of kids raising animals – the life lessons are valuable and profound. They fence their 5 acres and turn them all out. They look so pretty and pastoral out there grazing! They think they have grass. They do not have a CLUE.

On average in Colorado it take 40 acres of ground to support a SINGLE cow-calf pair or a SINGLE horse. Some places a little less -- some a LOT more. There are years we are so dry that you can't rely on grazing stock much at all unless you have big, BIG land.  So often people graze their 5 - 35 acre "ranchettes" to the point that it looks like a bomb went off. In the livestock world this is called “dry-lot.” No grass. No grazing. Just dirt. If left on the ground unchecked horses will eat the slow-growing, native bunch grasses and leave the weeds alone. Now there is far less competition the next year for the noxious weed seeds that blow in, come in with the Kansas hay or that drain off the dirt road when the county last put imported “gravel” on it. The next year less grass, more weeds and so on and so on... It is awful. You can see it from space. Use Google Earth and scroll around some of these ranchette subdivisions in Elbert and El Paso Counties and without knowing a thing -- you can see who does and does not manage their ground well and you can see exactly where the fences are.

Grazing Patterns -- Colorado

If someone wants to trash their own ground in some ways it is none of my business (although I am so passionate about soil, native foliage and ground that it hurts my heart). It IS their land. BUT when what THEY do with their land adversely affects me and MY land? We gotta talk. If my neighbor has a glorious crop” if Canada thistle, musk thistle or toadflax, it will plunder my property and become quickly my problem. Once you leave the more dense areas and get into a county just outside the metro area you will find there is little over-site and even less education.  It is nearly impossible to “patrol” these vast, scattered counties. The little university extension offices in the counties have no meaningful way to reach all of the residents with the small land, ground management information they DO have. The fact that these developments already don’t pay their way, makes the county budgets where they exist even tighter.  There is no revenue stream tied to code or weed enforcement so it goes undone.  The miles involved in patrolling these areas is also prohibitive.

ABOVE: Canada Thistle RIGHT: Yellow Toadflax

 
Real estate brokers in Colorado are often, clueless about land management and zoning regulations.  A broker from a city just 10 miles away may know nothing about rural land use. Some don’t care; they simply want to make a sale. I know only a handful of truly brilliant brokers.  As a former county planning director I was often stuck being the “bad guy” when a new land owner came in to talk about their plans for their land.  I would be rich if I had a dollar for every time I heard “Well my real estate broker TOLD me I could.”  I always told brokers how much I appreciated them when they came in to do research for a client. They would apologize for taking so much time and I will tell them it was time well spent for both of us!

  

I believe that part of the land buying process, of ANY land that is zoned to have equine or livestock of ANY kind, should require a visit to the local planning department for a “land buyer” meeting.  It would be a requirement of the broker due diligence and it would mandate a sign off from the designated authority. The buyer and/or seller would pay for this meeting so the county tax payer did not.  It could even be a conference call with the broker and buyers reading the regulations online together with the county staff person. After the call, the county could email a certificate for closing to verify completion of that requirement. Part of that would also include a willful and specific sign-off from the buyer stating that they understood their land use rights and land management best practices. It is a buyer beware state. If we did this, the buyer would not buy something that wasn’t going to work for them and would not destroy his own land and damage the lands around him.

The stories I have heard brokers tell to make a sale are mind-blowing more sad really. I don't mean to vilify all brokers; I too have been a broker!  I just find that some brokers are willing to represent clients when it would have been more appropriate to refer them to a regional expert.  Even I know that is a hard thing to do. What I have also found is that even when a buyer learns after the fact that they are not allowed to have 27 horses on 5 acres, they do it anyway – since their broker told them they could – and we end up in a “watcha gonna do about it?” situation.  If everyone is fully informed prior to closing, it makes enforcement a lot more possible and it sets expectations appropriately.  It also educates brokers and that is a good thing. We are stewards of our land and while I am an ardent defender of private property rights, it is part of the fabric of this nation. I am also passionate about land stewardship and defending my own property rights from being damaged by my irresponsible neighbor. 

Just an idea.

THE TALE OF TWO DEMS – THE DOUBLE STANDARD OF COLORADO DEMOCRATS

A Colorado state Democratic lawmaker was expelled on March 2, 2018 amid allegations by female colleagues about sexual harassment and abuse. Rep. Steve Lebsock was expelled by a 52-9 vote after five female state House members took their turns at the podium to come forward as victims of sexual harassment or abuse. His abuse was not physical – his was “hitting on them” and making unwanted advances even after he knew they were unwanted. I don’t believe there is any doubt that Lebsock is a creep. What must be made clear here is that Lebsock had NO DIRECT authority over any of the women who accused him of his lecherousness.  As a state representative he was “one of many” in his elected role and had NO singular authority.

Lebsock of course contested the claims, saying his accusers were lying and accusing an independent investigator of bias in concluding that the claims were credible. This case was 100% “he said-she said” and there was no documented proof against him; these were interactions that no one can prove.  He “lost” because there were five women who accused him and we must assume they were highly credible.

So to sum up Lebsock: There is no documented proof against him.  There has been no trial. No sworn testimony. No judge, no jury. Nothing.  BAM! He is gone by a vote of his peers.  Mr. Lebsock may or may not be a complete creep; I don’t know the man.  It is true that the Colorado Dems in office never really liked him.  He was one of those law makers who bucked his party from time to time and he wasn’t a “team player”. In fact 10 minutes before the vote to oust him he changed his party affiliation to Republican. Why? Because when someone leaves office prior to his term being up, that person’s party gets to appoint his replacement for the remainder of the term.  It was his last jab at his party.

NOW WE HAVE THE BELOVED DEMOCRATIC MAYOR OF DENVER…

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock is the Dem party’s darling.  He is liberal, he is smooth, he is “likeable”, he is black, he is young, he is handsome…  They simply love him to pieces!  He is ALSO accused of sexual harassment and intimidation.  The accusations against him came out at nearly the same time as those against Lebsock.  In this case however we have proof against the accused.  We have the text messages that he sent to his head of security – a stunningly, beautiful woman.  He was very clear about his feelings toward her in texts. After spotting her on TV while watching a Denver Nuggets game he texted: ‘You look sexy in all that black.’

Another time, he complimented her haircut and said: “You make it hard on a brotha [sic] to keep it correct every day.”

Another text asked her about pole-dancing classes: ‘So I just watched this story on women taking pole dancing classes. Have you ever taken one? Why do women take the course? If not have you ever considered taking one and why? Your thoughts?’

When she didn’t respond, the officer said, she received a follow-up text from Hancock: ‘Be careful, I’m curious. LOL!'”  So what is a direct-report to think when your boss says, “Be careful, I’m curious?”  Are you serious dude?  Be careful of what? 

She sought a transfer to be away from him.  She, at the time, feared retaliation so she just decided distance was her best solution; after being told to “be careful” I would have feared retaliation too. Considering that he had already proved to be a bit “Teflon” during the election (more on this later), her concerns were reasonable. Hancock and his team somehow got out in front of these allegations and went into a multi-day lock down to work out the PR plan to save Mayoral face.  And the smooth Mayor executed it perfectly.

In this case we have seen the texts; there is irrefutable proof of Hancock’s misdeeds. We have heard directly from her and she is highly regarded and credible. At the time of his advances, Mayor Hancock was her DIRECT boss, she was the head of his security detail -- oh and yes, he was married at the time. 

A Mayor has a great deal of SINGULAR power.  He is NOT one of many; he is THE boss. While he may not be able to fire everyone on his own, he has a great deal of power to influence the lives of City and County employees (Denver is a City-County). 

These allegations against Mayor Michael Hancock came out within DAYS of the Lebsock ordeal… and the Dems are doing nothing to force this Mayor out of office.  Because he got out in front with his ARMY of PR professionals coaching him – he is somehow being given a pass.  It might be important to note that prior to his election, while just a regular councilman and just the “mayor-elect”, his name and personal cell number were found in the appointment book of an escort service that was later busted as a prostitution ring.  So we have some sort of character inkling?  Maybe?  We also got a very clear message, early on, that Mr. Mayor was somewhat untouchable, that he would be protected. He went on to be sworn in as the Mayor of the largest City in the Rocky Mountain Region despite appearing to have been a married customer of a prostitution ring.  Not quite “Marion Berry” but still…

In closing, it is interesting to have these two events perfectly timed with one another and stunning to see how differently they are being handled by the Colorado Dems.  The double-standard is PROFOUND and can’t help but slap one in the face.  I have heard that local Democrats are feeling a bit disillusioned – they are not happy with the way their elected leaders are handling, or MIS-handling this issue. I don’t blame them.  The double standard is THAT glaring. In addition to all of this against the shining mayor is a 2012 cover up involving lawsuits, the same officer, settlements and the firing of a one-time good friend of the Mayor’s for his inappropriate behavior.  The shenanigans of that time certainly stimulate the notion of “cover up”, “smoke screen,” “diversion” and “fall guy.”  None of that debacle makes any sense.  But as it is a messy, convoluted story, I shall not go into it.  This simple story of double-standards doesn’t rely on it anyway.

The Colorado Fraternal Order of Police has demanded Mayor Hancock’s resignation and a rally was held at the Capitol, organized by Lisa Calderon, co-chair of the Colorado Latino Forum. Their rally cry was “"Time's up" in a direct message to Mayor Michael Hancock.  But still the only sound we hear are crickets from the party…

HOW WE BROKE OUR BOYS

America has a “boy” problem. Boys and young men are being negated and neglected in America and they are understandably frustrated.  In fact, they might be angry and not even know why they are angry.  The trend of gender-fluidity completely ignores that there are differences in the sexes.  Your gender, is what you identify as.  Your sex is your biological assignment at birth.  To pretend they are the same is ignorant.

I taught Montessori preschool in my mid-20s.  I was studying child development at a local college.  I was blessed to be given this opportunity at such an amazing school. I learned about kids of course but what I learned even more, was how different little boys and little girls were; it smacked me in the face it was so obvious. It was so STARKLY clear to me what boys could and could not do at 3 to 5 years old. Fortunately for the boys this was a Montessori PLUS school on 2 acres of grass and trees and mud... they really got to be BOYS!  On hot days we would fill a huge galvanized tub with water.  The kids could each take pails of water and do their own thing OR they could band together and do something collectively with the whole tub.  They usually opted for the latter, dumped the big tub in the dirt and wallowed in the mud.  It was glorious. 

After that teaching experience I became a strong believer in all-boys’ schools and all-girls’ schools.  They can be on the same campus and have shared recesses, lunchtimes and social functions – but in the classroom no. Boys are simply set up to fail in the American school system.  I believe it is an experiment worth trying in a public charter school.

What is true is that the myelination of the nervous system in little boys completes itself years later than in little girls.  Think of myelin as the insulation of an electrical wire.  Boys have “bare wires” or poorly insulated wires that are sparking, arcing and shorting out in their bodies because they do not have full insulation yet.  This is a COMPLETE over simplification of the nervous system – but illustrative.  Think about that though – when we say, “Little boys can’t control their impulses,” we are being 100% accurate – they literally CAN’T.  Imagine a 6 year-old boy who is sitting there “shorting-out” being told to overcome his own electrical system that is going haywire.  It is impossible and he isn’t a “bad boy” – he is just a boy.

Boys develop gross motor skills before girls – running, jumping, balancing, etc.  This is what they are good at. Girls develop fine motor skills first, beading, drawing, writing, linguistics (the tongue is a “fine motor”).  

Boys’ first auditory excellence comes in LOUD, gross (large) noises.  Such as mimicking sirens, bombs blowing up, crashes.  These “sounds” are not often okay at school ever.  So he can’t even use the tools he has. The sad thing for boys is the ONLY place they get to do what they are GOOD at is recess and recess is maybe 15-20% of the school day…  they are set up from day one.

Ever wonder why boys have such horrible penmanship?  It is a fine motor skill and the possibility for it doesn’t develop in boys until about age 9 – the very time most public schools used to stop penmanship drills and lessons.  I don’t even know if they teach penmanship anymore.  But if boys were required to practice loops, and draw the regular shapes of letters into middle school – we might be able to read their writing! Boys develop spacial relationship excellence sooner than little girls – they can judge the speed of an approaching baseball better, they can play a video game where they have to imagine a world from a video that shows only part of it.  What they are GOOD at are the extra-curricular things, not modern classroom things.

The corpus callosum – the thing that joins the two halves of the brain – in boys is larger.  I have also heard talks where they discussed the in-utero “chemical/hormonal” bathing the boy brains undergo that makes the corpus callosum in boys more challenging for nerve impulses to cross. The corpus callosum is what divides the thought processes too – we do certain things using our right brain and other things using our left. To switch sides the impulses must cross that corpus callosum. It is thought that the corpus callosum in girls being smaller/more easily crossed allows the female brain to “multitask” better.  In women, our brains allow us to bop back and forth between hemispheres of the brain – we women can listen to 5 conversations at a cocktail party, learn who is pregnant, who got a promotion and who is moving to Botswana.  Our husband learned that “Joe turned 50” because that is what the party was for.  A man will tend to be more bore sighted and focused on THE task and do it very, very well without distraction; he stays in one hemisphere while he works.  He has to give up that task to then use the other hemisphere of his brain; little boys don’t “bop”.  Don’t try to talk about feelings while he is focused – it doesn’t work and we women get upset because he doesn’t do what we can do.  This is profoundly true in developing boys and girls. 

In an all boys’ school that little boy would be surrounded by other little boys who were developmentally at his level.  Lessons could be designed for him to succeed.  He would not be chastised or punished for not being able to do things the same way as a little girl.

In closing, little girls learn to drive their brains earlier than boys do because their developing brain is closer to being a road worthy car.  Little boys are driving on 3 wheels with a transmission that shifts itself from forward to reverse to overdrive at will.  Oh they catch up of course but not until the US School system as left them behind and made them feel badly about themselves because they couldn’t keep a three-wheeled car that was stuck in reverse on the road.  I think I would be frustrated and angry too.