In the childcare business? Know someone who is? Pt 2. What the Post left out of its coverage of SPLC's extremist groups report. Root washing a brown turkey fig.
In the childcare business? Know someone who is? Pt 2.
Near the end of May (see the newsletter linked first below), I wrote about how a rule change under the Biden administration has led to problems for childcare providers, waitlists, and a lack of openings for those who use the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP--a program to help get low income Coloradans childcare).
The problems persist to now, as evidenced by the recent Sun article linked second below.
I'll leave it to you to read up on the history of the problem and recent developments, but the main purpose of this post is to alert you to an opportunity for people to speak up about changes to CCCAP as a result of the Federal changes.
Link 3 below is to a request for written comment put out by the Colorado Dept of Early Childhood. Screenshot 1 (from the link) gives the three issues they're seeking comment on.
There are links draft rules and to the form to submit comment in the third link below, you have until July 14 to submit them.
Also, if ECE is an interest or passion, scroll to the very bottom of that link to see how you can sign up to get the updates delivered directly to you.
https://coloradosun.com/2025/06/30/mile-high-early-learning-closing-cutting-programs/
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/CODEC/bulletins/3e6040b
Related:
I put up a recent Sun article in the post above to provide some extra context on the Federal changes (under Biden) that have caused problems in Colorado's childcare industry.
I wanted to call out something easily missed in the Sun article. Quoting from that article (linked here again for convenience):
"The red light to enrolling more students was born out of well-intentioned federal rule changes designed by the Biden administration to better support families in need of affordable child care."
Well-intentioned.
How many times in the entirety of their Trump fear-porn collection has the "nonpartisan" Sun ever referred to anything Trump has done as "well-intentioned"?
The same frequency with which you'd find hens with teeth I'd imagine.
Keep up that "journalism" there Sun!
https://coloradosun.com/2025/06/30/mile-high-early-learning-closing-cutting-programs/
A study in contrast: what the Post left out of its coverage of the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) extremist groups report.
The SPLC released a list of what they term Extremist Groups and the Denver Post was all over that like white on rice. The first link below is the (credulous) reporting on the list by Noelle Phillips.
The quote below is taken from her article (and copied here with link intact), and shows how Phillips characterizes SPLC's list.
"The extremist groups in Colorado include anti-government organizations, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant groups, white nationalists and sovereign citizens. One organization, Northern Kingdom Prophets, is classified as a hate group."
Phillips details some of the people/groups on SPLC's list, highlighting a group calling for citizen militias to enforce laws, white supremacy groups, as well as further delving into who made the list and, perhaps, why
"Twenty groups on the Colorado list are considered to be involved in anti-government or sovereign citizen movements. Six — mostly based in Colorado Springs — want to suppress the LGBTQ community, three are white supremacist groups and the rest either promote anti-immigrant ideology, run a militia or generate general conspiracy theories."
What makes Noelle's effort remarkable, it's the reason for calling her reporting credulous, is not so much what she puts in the article, as for what she leaves out.
You and I might agree or might disagree about whether or not any one particular group should be labeled an extremist. We might agree or disagree about whether SPLC was right or not calling any given group an extremist group (or, to use their catchier phrase, a dot on their "hate map").
I hope we could agree, however, that more than just a breezy label like "... want to suppress the LGBTQ community" is needed if you're to level a charge of being extremist or a hate group is in order. I hope we could agree that some exploration of the group producing the list (its history, its motives) is in order.
You will NOT find that in the Denver Post, however.
To offer some contrast and counterpoint to the Post's one-sided reporting, I wanted to offer a couple resources. The second link below is to an article on the report appearing in the Gazette's Out There magazine (of all things an outdoors themed offshoot of the Gazette), and the third link is to a Colorado Politics article which offers what Phillips chose to not offer to at least one of the groups she lists out--it's an article giving Focus on the Family a chance to respond to SPLC's claim that they're an extremist group.
The Out There article, though not perfect, is much closer to news than the Post's SPLC press release is. You'll note some history on the SPLC, their list, and an opportunity for some talkback on what the SPLC produces. This is echoed also in the Colorado Politics article which, as should be the case for any journalistic effort that allows one group to throw dirt at another, gives Focus on the Family ample space to discuss their philosophy and their thoughts about being included on SPLC's list.
SPLC has had a credibility problem for years now, as has the Post. Perhaps its unsurprising, then, that the Post would thoughtlessly champion the SPLC's list. Over time, both groups have swung to more overt activism around their ideology than fair reporting.
https://www.denverpost.com/2025/05/27/colorado-extremist-hate-white-supremacist-groups/?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_content=tw-denverpost
https://denvergazette.com/outtherecolorado/news/report-claims-33-hate-and-antigovernment-extremist-groups-operating-in-colorado/article_0d6405ec-d193-43f9-9be8-4c0529c98677.html
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/local-government/focus-on-the-family-responds-after-splc-adds-it-to-hate-group-list/article_050294ea-3c24-5958-ad39-916115f0ec71.html
Root washing a brown turkey fig: a helping of truth with a side of wisdom.
I am going to take some extended time off from posting to enjoy the holiday and relax.
That means this will be the last post for a full week. Barring something notable enough to get me off my dead rear end, I won't post again until Wednesday the 9th.
As is often the case, the last post before a break means something for fun. This time I thought I'd update you on this year's fig crop (as well as a notable grape development). In short, I'm expecting a good one!
I now have 3 different fig varieties (more in a minute): Chicago Hardy, Violet De Bordeaux, and Brown Turkey. I've done some cuttings and grown them out, but the first plants from the first two in the list above are old enough to be potted up and are now mature enough (along with a robust enough root system) to be putting up some good sized branches.
I also got lucky on the weather this Spring. I was able to get them out early enough in Spring so they got revved up sooner than they would have in the past.
Pictures 1 and 2 show the biggest Hardy and Violet respectively. Pictures 3 and 4 show some of the BIG figs already growing on the Hardy. I've not seen them this big, this early in the past.
Violet has had a slower start this year (she was in a funk?), so her figs aren't as big, but they're well on their way. Picture 5 shows those. This is closer to what I usually see this time of year.
The Brown Turkey is a new one for me, bought on a whim. It got potted up into the usual 5 gallon bucket when I got it, this being after one hell of a root trimming (check out pictures 6 and 7). You might contrast this with the vigorous Hardy and Violet and wonder what happened.
The reason it's just setting out leaves now at the end of June relates to the life lesson I alluded to at the top of this post.
After some reading and research over the half year or so, I've taken to doing what's called "root washing" with new plants: shaking, teasing, and/or sometimes literally washing the potting medium out of a potted plant's roots before transplanting.
I also take the chance to straighten the roots and do some trimming. If you'd like to see more from one of the sources I've used when reading up, check out the link at bottom. This is an excellent blog on gardening.
Root washing may not be as critical for things you're potting up as it is before transplanting into the ground, but I still think it is a good idea. You can assess the health of the root system, do some correcting, and help the plant establish quicker.
Such was the case with Brown Turkey. To say it was pot bound is an understatement. The root ball was literally that. Ever seen the wad of Xmas lights that come out of the box every single year? Imagine that, but with roots. And not just tiny roots either, I mean ones the size of a pencil in some cases. Not good.
Long story short, the Brown Turkey lost a fair bit of its root mass and also had all of them rearranged to point the way roots ought to: down and radially out. This can be a pretty disruptive process to a plant used to growing a certain way. As you might imagine, it's stressful. In response to this stress, my new fig lost every single leaf it had. Every one. That's why it's only now putting out new leaves.*
The worry is, of course, that you will kill your plant. The truth is that it was dead already if I did nothing.
That's the lesson here. Sometimes there are things that are necessary for us that we don't like. Things that cause us stress but which ultimately lead to our benefit. I'm not saying that these things always have to come from some sort of outside entity--we have the capacity to force ourselves-but they frequently can and do.
The trick, and I offer no wisdom here, is to note when those things come, to recognize them for what they are, and to embrace them pain and all. If you're like me, you're as good (or better) at missing opportunities as you are at grabbing them.
One last thing to share. A success.
I have some grape plants which are a year old, and I'm excited to share that one of them (the St. Theresa) has made it all the way to the top of its arbor! Maybe I'm overstating it, but when I saw the vine up there and bending over to continue its horizontal progress, it made my day. This means it will soon fill out the upper panel, and soon bear fruit.** Check out picture 8. That thing is going grape crazy!
Fingers crossed that the St. Theresa remembers to thoroughly harden off that new growth so the cold + wind + sunny days of the Eastern Plains don't freeze dry and kill them. Not wanting to start back at ground level again. Free pro tip: with grapes and other plants, be careful to not fertilize too late in the year so they put don't put time and energy into a bunch of new growth.
That's it for now. Enjoy your holiday, celebrate our luck to be living in the best country on the planet (flaws and all).
I'll see you back at it next Wednesday!
*Thankfully, this plant was healthy and vigorous enough, with sufficient reserves to do this. Kind of like with humans who have few reserves, this could indeed kill a plant that didn't have enough "go power" to survive trauma like this. Reserve enough or no, the Brown Turkey got a few day's shade outside, then a gentle reintroduction to the sun, along with some extra nutrients slowly applied.
**Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the St. Theresa to impart some of its wisdom to my concord grape which is lagging (though, to be fair is only in its first year in my yard--and you know the old saying about perennials). See picture 9.
https://gardenprofessors.com/why-root-washing-is-important-an-illustrated-cautionary-tale/