Your chance to vote on a measure about bail for murder suspects. If you start college and don't finish, who bears the responsibility? Chamomile teas for the bees.
Concerned about crime? You have a chance to vote on a measure about bail for murder suspects.
The Colorado Constitution denies bail for capital offenses, but in 2020, Governor Polis signed a law that ended the death penalty here in Colorado. See the first link below if you want a trip down memory lane.
The Colorado Supreme Court, noting that there are now no capital offenses in this state, concluded that bail needs to be offered to all, even those accused of first degree murder.
In an effort to remedy a likely unintentional consequence of an earlier bill, a bipartisan referred measure recently passed the Assembly and will appear on your ballot this November. I put a Sun article on the measure along with a bill link (for convenience's sake) below.
It's got my vote. I just wish we could know already that we were going to pair this with another initiative that's out for signatures (see the screenshot from the Secretary of Sate's Initiative Tracker linked third below). That initiative would require that offenders for certain offenses (violent felonies for example) complete the bulk of their sentence (85% in one example) before being eligible for parole.
As I've written before, the problem with crime in this state is more than just the laws we have. It's also the judiciary (via the ease with which some judges offer bond, including PR bonds for people who have no business having a PR bond) and parole.
If I hear more about the measure on parole (e.g. where you can go to sign it--it's not for sure going to be on the ballot), I'll update.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/03/28/colorado-first-degree-murder-bail-ballot-measure/
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/HCR24-1002
https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/
Where does personal responsibility fit in here? If you start college and don't finish, who bears the responsibility there?
The Chalkbeat article linked below had an interesting statistic. Quoting with the link intact:
"Just 13% of Colorado community college students transfer and finish with a bachelor’s degree six years after starting college, the national measure used to track graduation rates. And the rate is even lower for older students, students of color, and those from low-income backgrounds."
That puts us below the 16% national average and in the bottom half of the states.
Not good news but there are a couple things that occurred to me while reading. I'll illustrate with another quote (emphasis in ALL CAPS added by me).
"Colorado’s rate is lower than the 16% national figure, and places it in the bottom half of states when it comes to HELPING COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS TO OBTAIN A BACHELOR'S DEGREE, according to the report. Nonetheless, no state is doing a good job at serving these students, said Tania LaViolet, director of research and innovation at the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program. 'Not a single state SUPPORTS MORE THAN A QUARTER OF THEIR COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS in completing a bachelor’s degree,' she said.' That’s unacceptable.'”
The reason for emphasizing the language I did above is because of its implication. How much help/support is appropriate? Whose job is it to provide that help/support? And what role is there for personal choice and responsibility?
If you read the Chalkbeat article (and know their philosophical tilt and/or that of Mr. Gonzales the reporter), it's pretty clear what the expectations are, but do those match yours? Do they match what's reasonable?
I think there is most definitely a role for schools at both ends of the transfer process to help. For example, I think connecting people to resources such as day care for parents trying to get a degree is a service that colleges can and should provide.
But if the idea is that we need to push and lean on people, stuffing them through the mill or lowering standards, I'm not in agreement. In fact, I think dynamics such as these have played a big part in getting us where we are now.
If universal bachelor's degrees are considered the ultimate good, we're going to have people going into huge amounts of debt to get degrees that have no economic value. We're going to end up with a BS or BA required to do what used to be done by on the job training and was the first rung on the ladder to a decent career (such as, for example, hospitality management).
People enter and leave college for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, it's because their lives are too chaotic to continue. Sometimes, it's because they tried it and have decided it's not for them (at least at that point in their lives--let me here put in a word for not being afraid to "pause" your college career). Sometimes it's because they lacked, or didn't pursue, academic assistance like tutoring which would have meant the difference between success and failure.
Instead of focusing on disparities and hinting that they show some sort of structural racism (as Chalkbeat does), we should be focusing on what people can expect from college and whether or not it's the best place for everyone at every point in their lives.
We should also be leaving room in the discussion (as Chalkbeat does not) for personal choice and personal responsibility.
By not doing these things, we leave out the chance to have a complete picture of education. Without that complete picture, we cannot hope to find and address what problems there are both inside and outside the actual educational institutions in a meaningful, impactful way.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/colorado/2024/02/22/most-colorado-community-college-students-never-earn-bachelors-degree-data-shows/?utm_source=Chalkbeat&utm_campaign=c15e4fe079-Colorado+Beyond+High+School+The+transfer+problem&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9091015053-c15e4fe079-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&mc_cid=c15e4fe079
Related:
Recently wrote an op ed about transferring credits at the college level and a Colorado Senate bill about same.
Similar to the above, you cannot discount the human element here.
https://gazette.com/opinion/increasing-flexibility-in-colorado-s-higher-ed/article_144aecc8-f376-11ee-968f-af42535c6f3a.html
Bees like them some chamomile (and apparently hate banana oil).
That time of the week again. Last post til Sunday and that means something for fun not related to politics.
I have a lot of fruit plants/trees at my house and some of them are nearing the age where they can reliably produce.*
My sour (pie) cherry tree produced a ton of flowers last year. Unfortunately, there was a ton of drop as well; almost all of the flowers had a bit of swelling then withered away. I know my tree has enough nutrients and enough light. It's a healthy specimen. It's also obviously getting old enough to set lots of flower. Interestingly, it seemed to set more flower later in the year and those flowers seemed to do better at getting fruit across the finish line.
This makes me think that the issue is pollination. Enter a colleague who is a beekeeper.** I talked to her and she said that she'd be willing to bring over a tiny hive to leave at my house. That's what you can see in the picture with the wooden box on a stand.
She was also kind enough to bring me a specially-made bee water dish (the other picture--note the dish is lined with small pebbles which are grouted in).
You might wonder at why there's a tea bag in the water. Apparently, to attract bees, to get them to find something, including water, you can use chamomile tea.
Chamomile's got the flowery fragrance that bees love. Draws them over and once they find it, they know where to check again if you don't move things.
Know what they don't like (because it apparently mimics a distress/alarm scent)? Banana oil. This colleague teaches organic chemistry and the students made artificial banana oil recently and were warned against having it near hives. The thinking is that it makes the bees think they must swarm to defend the hive, though per the link below, it seems that opinion may be divided in the bee community.
I know I will not be bringing banana oil anywhere near the hive at my house. When I was helping to mount the hive, the piece of wire mesh in the entrance to the hive caught on my shorts and when I moved, it came away, letting a couple bees out.
I squealed like a little sissy baby girl and jumped back like 10 feet. Clearly, I haven't courage enough to test the banana oil story personally.
Embarrassing.
Well, have a good Friday and back at it Sunday!
*Fruit, like asparagus, is an exercise in patience. It is years between planting and harvesting. I planted the cherry tree I reference here probably 4 years ago, and it was a decent sized little tree when I planted it. Don't believe those ads you might see on the internet about trees that can "flower in their first year". Flower, maybe. Make fruit? Probably not.
**She was even kind enough to not charge me a fee. Apparently big beekeeping outfits charge orchards a fee for their hives. That's part of their income stream!