When a person flies literally halfway around the world (13 time zones) from October 6 to 8th, how can a person predict just where they will be on October 7th? I may be over the Pacific, or in Japan, or over the South China Sea, or in Thailand. In any event, I am no longer in Colorado. I am still thinking about you folks.
I came across a few items that I wanted to share with you as I travel, so here’s my Open Thread and I hope you play while the cat’s away.
Tina Peters Case Judged, Weighed, and She Was Found Wanting.
You probably have heard by now that Mesa County’s former County Clerk Tina Peters was found guilty of crimes against the state for her efforts to go outside of her duties to contest the veracity of the 2020 vote count in her county. Her sentences for the various guilty verdicts totaled to nine years, which she immediately gets to begin serving (why couldn’t TFG immediately begin serving his punishment?). She protested in part because she’s a “child of God” and in another part because she claims to need a special magnetic type of bed that she can’t obtain for her cell. If she showed any repentance for her crimes, the judge might have gone easy on her, but since she wouldn’t, he didn’t, and depending upon whether she ever learns that her attitude is what’s keeping her in prison, she may serve the whole nine years. At this point, I have no pity, tears or any more pixels to spare for her. The stories I have seen published by Kosaks have been republished to Colorado COmmunity and the Four Corners Kosaks groups.
From the Denver Post (hopefully this link works) as a gift article
The CSU Ram’s Women’s Volleyball Team played San Jose State at CSU’s Moby Arena last week. Why is that noteworthy?
FORT COLLINS — You know what Inclusive Excellence Day at Moby Arena didn’t include? Droves of armed police. Protests outside or inside the facility.
The Rams swept San Jose State, 3-0. No offensive signs. No hollering. There was, by media count, one armed security officer standing outside the visiting locker room.
A trans player took the court for the visiting Spartans and it felt like any other Mountain West volleyball match.
Which, of course, it wasn’t.
So far this season, San Jose State has had matches forfeited to them without playing by Southern Utah, Utah State, Boise State and the latest is Wyoming. The schools would rather be puritan and not allow their women to compete against a trans woman athlete, reflecting the prevalent attitude of their states.
I’m proud of my Rammies competing and winning.
ColoTim, Masters of Science, 1996
Now, About My Alma Mater…
And Our State of Colorado. The High Country News has a long article that talks about how the Land Grant University program (the Morrill Act), of which Colorado State University is one of many Universities, has badly cheated the Native Americans it was supposed to benefit, along with the Universities.
Over the past two years, High Country News has located more than 99% of all Morrill Act acres, identified their original Indigenous inhabitants and caretakers, and researched the principal raised from their sale in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We reconstructed approximately 10.7 million acres taken from nearly 250 tribes, bands and communities through over 160 violence-backed land cessions, a legal term for the giving up of territory.
Our data shows how the Morrill Act turned Indigenous land into college endowments. It reveals two open secrets: First, according to the Morrill Act, all money made from land sales must be used in perpetuity, meaning those funds still remain on university ledgers to this day. And secondly, at least 12 states are still in possession of unsold Morrill acres as well as associated mineral rights, which continue to produce revenue for their designated institutions.
The returns were stunning: To extinguish Indigenous title to land siphoned through the Morrill Act, the United States paid less than $400,000. But in truth, it often paid nothing at all. Not a single dollar was paid for more than a quarter of the parcels that supplied the grants — land confiscated through outright seizure or by treaties that were never ratified by the federal government. From the University of Florida to Washington State University, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the University of Arizona, the grants of land raised endowment principal for 52 institutions across the United States.
The High Country News and I keep harping on the treatment of Native Americans because this is an injustice by the United States. I know it’s one of many, and I know it’s not going to be solved any time soon. I hope I can raise some awareness so that you can talk knowledgeably and spread the information to others so that, in some future time, support for righting this series of wrongs can be tackled by a more progressive and fair world.
Now, on that kind of downer of a note, I’m going to invite you to read and participate in the upcoming few Open Threads which will hopefully give you a break from my writing for a month. Enjoy the last month before the election, enjoy the election, and I will return afterwards to help bring Colorado’s point of view to what the results are, both nationally and locally. Until then, the floor is yours...
