Monday, March 30, 2009

D’s Daily Dish Seed Exchange

The ever-community-oriented Denise Meny of D's Daily Dish has added a new event to her efforts: The Seed Exchange. Come by and lend your support to our "growing" neighborhood community. Planning A Garden? Have Extra Seeds? --- Bring ‘em!! Need Seeds? --- Come get ‘em!! Tomato Seeds, Vegetable Seeds, Herb Seeds, Flower Seeds D’s Daily Dish Seed Exchange Saturday, 4/4/09 and Sunday 4/5/09 10:00am to 9:00pm D’s Daily Dish 1426 East 22nd Avenue (between Lafayette and Humboldt) Denver, CO 80205

Friday, March 27, 2009

Long Time Coming - Hallelujah!

Update:

The synagogue at 16th and Gaylord has finally come back to life under the guidance of Pastor Michael and The Church in the City. The rehab was substantially fiananced by The St Charles Town Company, which had an interest in the old Safeway corner at Josephine and Colfax and wanted the Church to move. After I reported on the beginning of the rehab, I met with Pastor Michael. His enthusiasm was contagious. Upon seeing my collection of old articles and letters from the 80's and 90's, he asked for a copy. Rather than make paper copies, I decided to scan and post the collection, from which anyone may print copies. The following documents chronicle some of the problems endured by the neighbors brought on by various attempts to put the building to some kind of use. Understand that this is a partial and incomplete record to which I may add from time to time. I wanted to get it out before the first celebration tomorrow, March 28, 2009, at 3:00 pm. 1981 1986 Dana Crawford (1994) The Irish (2000)

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Museum: Er….ah….about that $23 million

...that we said we would raise to match the $30 million put up by the City for expansion?….we don’t have it. Sorry, but we’ve only raised $4 million of our share...you know, the economy and all that. You want to go ahead and build what we can? Oh…and the voters? Sorry, about that. George has it completely covered so I won't repeat the full story here. Amazing how Jeanne Faatz is the only Councilperson with a memory and a sense of fiscal responsibility to the voters.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Denver City Councilman Brown on the Depression

(Sorry about the sync slippage - I haven't been able to correct this problem from Channel 8 footage)

Flash Pan

(def: Panning rapidly across a scene causing blur; also, accidental ignition of gunpowder in muzzle loader) In this new feature I’ll bring topics of minor interest for your brief consideration. 1. Warner Music Group (WMG) goes greedy. When Google bought YouTube they got major deals covering the use of music in videos posted on YouTube. In other words, if I used “unauthorized” music in one of my posts, WMG got paid for each play anyway. But apparently that wasn’t good enough, the contract expired, and now YouTube is systematically removing the “offending” soundtracks but leaving the video up. This explains the missing sound on (currently) 4 of my videos. If you wish to contest YouTube’s actions, they caution you to have a lawyer handy. Fair use? Who knows. For now, I’m leaving them up without sound. I’ll just wait to see what happens. 2. On a positive note, The Huffington Post picked up a DenverDirect video and gave us a little bump. Thanks, Arrianna. Call me when you get a chance. 3. Status Report – a. DenverDirect – 175 videos posted since June 19, 2007 with over 53,000 views to date. b. Magneticbottle (former channel) – 59 videos posted since May 1, 2006 with over 12,000 views to date. c. DenverDirect.tv blog – over 40,000 hits to date. d. AstoundingNews.com blog – over 6,000 hits to date.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Size of Money

In $100 bills (source) $1 million $100 million $1 billion $1 trillion Now you know.

Bailout Outrage

Not so much in Denver, Colorado where eventually 4 people showed up to protest in front of the AIG offices at 1225 17th Street. They seemed well informed. Update: Apparently about 60 additional people gathered at the Wells Fargo offices downtown and marched to the AIG office location where we were, as reported here. We stayed until 1:00 pm but didn't see them. Update 2: This post got picked up by The Huffington Post. I often wonder what it will take to get the people of Denver riled up. Apparently $10 trillion down the rabbit hole (so far) is not enough. The inflation (hyper?) that will result is yet to come. Maybe $10 gasoline or $7 bread will do it. Maybe food shortages will get people going. Yesterday the Federal Reserve Bank announced its plan to devote $1 trillion to the purchase of US Treasuries and to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Gold jumped $60 dollars in two hours and the dollar index fell 2 full points as the market weighed in with its opinion. Now the Fed is printing money (on which we pay interest) to buy US debt (on which we pay interest). This sure feels like a tipping point.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Get Used to It

Violent police action against peaceful protest.

Enough!

Sign up for protest this Thursday (3/19/09)! UPDATE: Protest Thursday March 19, noon at AIG, 1225 17th St., Suite 1700, Denver, CO

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Fjord Horses and Legislators at the Denver Capitol

Videotaping horses was a pleasant change on Friday, March 13, 2009. Representative McKinley organized a combo parade through downtown with The Westernaires and the Norwegian Fjord horse group. Not much of the parade included as it is hard to shoot a parade when you are riding in it. Thanks to all who participated.