48 minute read
Who’s the highest in the room?
[travel] Get outta town: Visit the mausoleum of Percival Lowell, who mapped Mars’ nonexistent canals Astronomer set the stage for the discovery of Pluto
Northern Arizona has all sorts of cool natural wonders — the red rock buttes of Sedona, Monument Valley, Meteor Crater, the Petrified Desert, that Grand Canyon thing. But once you get bored of marveling at Earth’s surface, one of the most fascinating places to go is Flagstaff’s Lowell Observatory.
Located above the city at over 7,000 feet, the complex has a bunch of interactive exhibits, educational scientific programs, and telescopes they’ll let you use to gaze out into the cosmos. It’s also a stellar place to people watch, as it’s an active research facility with astronomers coming and going all the time.
But while visitors head from the museum to the telescopes, one structure tends to go overlooked: the mausoleum of the observatory’s founder, Percival
The canals Percival Lowell mapped on Mars’ surface later turned out to be an optical illusion.
Lowell — a man who, in devoting his life to something that doesn’t exist, advanced human understanding of the universe considerably.
A wealthy Bostonian born in 1855, Lowell studied math, ran a cotton mill, and traveled extensively in Asia, eventually serving as a foreign secretary
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Three Springs Blvd and counselor for a Korean diplomatic mission to the United States. But then in the 1890s, he read French spiritualist and science writer Camille Flammarion’s “The Planet Mars and Its Conditions of Habitability” and “Life on Mars,” a book featuring the Martian observations of Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1877. The latter detailed a complex system of canals that Schiaparelli had observed on Mars’ surface, and upon reading about them, Lowell was obsessed.
The astronomer figured that the existence of a system of canals implied a deliberately-constructed irrigation or transportation system – and thus the Martians who built them. So he moved out to Arizona, built the observatory that still bears his name, and began mapping every canal he could see on the red planet.
Astronomy has advanced considerably since Lowell’s day, to the point where we’ve actually sent robots to Mars, and it turns out the canals were just an optical illusion. There’s no liquid water on the planet’s surface, and definitely, no Martians as far as we can tell. Oops. (Lowell also tried to map Venus – which has an opaque atmosphere that renders the surface impossible to see from Earth — describing it as having spoke-like features that radiated out from a central dark spot. Scientists later figured out that Lowell was looking at an image of his own eye.)
Courtesy of Michael-Rainabba Richardson/Wikimedia Commons » Percival Lowell’s mausoleum in Flagstaff, Arizona, features a glass dome through which star light can shine.
Lowell may have been misguided when it comes to Mars, and Venus, but his study of astronomy and the construction of the observatory actually paid off. During the last decade of his life, he shifted his focus to the search for Planet X, a proposed planet in our solar system beyond the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Lowell died in 1916, having never found that hypothetical planet. In 1930, Clyde Tombaugh, another astronomer searching for Planet X at Lowell Observatory, discovered Pluto. (Sure, it’s no longer considered a full-fledged planet, but it was a major discovery nonetheless.)
Meanwhile, Lowell’s idea that an alien had built canals across Mars’ desert, maybe even dying surface. influenced pop culture for more than a century. H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” and Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles” both owe at least part of their existence to Lowell. The astronomer’s mausoleum on the observatory campus, which features a glass dome through which its occupant can gaze out upon the stars, is even alluded to in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “John Carter of Mars” series and the (unfairly maligned) 2012 movie.
As a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, Lowell Observatory is currently going through a phased reopening process, so check what’s open before visiting it. — Nick Gonzales
[mysteries] Forrest Fenn’s death: A new twist to the hidden treasure debacle
It’s been a year of unraveling, one could say. A year where we do the big no-no of asking ourselves how things could possibly get weirder. After all, how could it get any worse?
It turns out, 2020 is not the year to test that question. After months of back and forths regarding an infamous treasure that was hidden in the Rocky Mountains, the treasure’s gatekeeper, Forrest Fenn, has died.
According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, in early September, police concluded that the 90-year-old Santa Fe antique dealer died of natural causes in his home. Fenn, a military veteran and writer, attained a bit of a celebrity in this life, especially this year, because of a $2 million bronze treasure chest he hid somewhere in the Rockies. The cache was allegedly found earlier this year in June in Wyoming by an individual Fenn would not identify.
“Because I promised the finder I would not reveal who found it or where, I have remained mostly silent,” Fenn claimed on dalneitzel.com, his chronicler. “However, the finder understands how important some closure is for many searchers, so today he agreed that we should reveal that the treasure was found in Wyoming.”
Because Fenn was so tight-lipped over the details, some speculated whether the treasure was ever actually found. To push back, Fenn released photos of the cache.
“The finder wants me to remain silent and I always said the finder gets to make those two calls. Who and where,” Fenn wrote.
The chest, hidden by Fenn in 2010 in the Rocky Mountains, was apparently filled with gold and valuable antiques. For the last decade, more than 350,000 people have scoured the wilderness in search of it. Some of them have gone as far as to give up their jobs and spend their savings in search of the treasure. As many as five people are believed to have died.
In June, however, Fenn claimed that a man (who did not wish to be identified) discovered the chest. To confirm he had found the treasure, Fenn said the man sent him a photo of the chest. He claimed the man who found the cache was able to locate the treasure in the Rockies because of a poem Fenn had written in his 2010 memoir, “The Thrill of the Chase.” The poem apparently held clues as to the treasure’s whereabouts. Fenn wrote the poem to inspire people to go on a good ol’ fashioned adventure, and boy did they take him up on that offer.
For some, Fenn’s release of new details has confirmed the story’s authenticity while, for others, it’s only added to their doubts. Linda Bilyeu, the ex-wife of Randy Bilyeu, a Colorado man who died hunting for the treasure in 2016, is one such outspoken skeptic.
“I believe he never hid the treasure,” she told Westword. “He needed attention and this is how he got it. Fenn
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needed more attention, which is why he
said the treasure has been found with ‘no proof.’” SALKA VOTE SALKA VOTE Building Bridges: Since Fenn first announced the buried treasure, the quest has drawn its fair share of controversy. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, a Chicago attorney, Barbara Andersen, said she filed an injunction Building Bridges: to Affordable Housing to a Renewed Economy Across Generations Across Political Divides mattsalka.com | 970-444-2210 Paid for by Matt for County Commissioner, Matt Salka, Registered Agent to Affordable Housing to a Renewed Economy Across Generations Across Political Divides mattsalka.com | 970-444-2210 Paid for by Matt for County Commissioner, Matt Salka, Registered Agent COUNTY COMMISSIONER, DISTRICT 3 SALKA VOTE Building Bridges: to Affordable Housing to a Renewed Economy Across Generations Across Political Divides mattsalka.com | 970-444-2210 Paid for by Matt for County Commissioner, Matt Salka, Registered Agent SALKA VOTE Building Bridges: Across Generations Across Political Divides SALKA VOTE A fresh YOUNGER perspective Real Life EXPERIENCE Building BRIDGES Across political and generational divides, to a renewed economy, and affordable housing. YOUR COUNTY YOUR VOICE salka2020 @matthewsalka in federal District Court. She alleged that it was actually she who solved the case but a mysterious hacker stole her answers. Another treasure hunter, Brian Erskine of Prescott, Ariz., filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court claiming that it was he who solved the mystery. Erskine believed the treasure was located in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, between Silverton and Ouray. Fortunately or unfortunately, however, with this new twist to the story, we may never know the whole truth of what happened with the treasure of Forrest Fenn. Perhaps the alleged finder will come forward now that Fenn can no longer serve as their mouthpiece, mattsalka.com | 970-444-2210 Paid for by Matt for County Commissioner, Matt Salka, Registered Agentto Affordable Housing to a Renewed EconomyBuilding Bridges: Across Political Divides but for many, however, this strange and deadly tale will remain unresolved. — Amanda Push Across Generations Thursday, September 24, 2020 | 11 mattsalka.com | 970-444-2210 to a Renewed Economy Paid for by Matt for County Commissioner, Matt Salka, Registered Agent to Affordable Housing
Why fat acceptance matters in 2020
Even in ‘fit’ Colorado, weight based-stigma rears its ugly head
By Nick Gonzales DGO STAFF WRITER
It’s safe to say that, as a year, 2020 has sucked. At the same time, though, and perhaps partly because of it, many Americans have begun reexamining our roles in the treatment of people of other races, genders, classes, and so on. But some types of discrimination receive more attention than others. Fat-shaming pervades every aspect of our culture. If you’re fat, there are few, if any, aspects of your life that it will not impact. It will shape your social relationships, affect your ability to find employment, and alter the quality of the healthcare you receive. “This is a cultural problem and the more we can identify that the problem is in the culture and not in our bodies, the closer we get to changing it,” said Lindo Bacon, author of “Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight.” Fat phobia is such a part of our everyday lives, most people don’t recognize it when they’re actively perpetuating it. If anything, they think they’re helping. Instead, the blame for size discrimination is placed on its recipients, who tend to be perceived as too lazy or unwilling to change their lives to improve their situations.
The intersectionality of fatness
Hailey Otis is a Ph.D. candidate at Colorado State University who experienced fat phobia throughout her life. After becoming aware of body positivity and fat activism in college, she decided to make it the focus of her academic career.
“This movement has done a lot for me and made me sort of more able to live in this world and survive and thrive. And so I felt like it was kind of my responsibility to give back to the movement by researching it and uplifting it and sort of bringing those voices into my own
work,” she said.
For Otis, fat acceptance intersects on a basic level with most forms of social justice.
“Our cultural understandings about fatness and fat bodies are rooted in so many other forms of marginalization,” she said. “Our cultural hatred towards fat bodies has a lot to do with the fact that fatness was read as a property of blackness or minority identities for a really long time within our history. White people tended to be thin, or at least that was kind of the common perception, and people of color were larger and therefore less civilized.”
In other words, the bias against fat people is inherently racist, and questioning assumptions about body size also means recognizing how they’re connected to race. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, that fat-shaming is a feminist issue as well.
“Fatness is often linked with the inability to perform femininity. Women are supposed to be thin and dainty and all these things, and when they’re not, that’s a problem that gets in the way of these gender roles that we’re so invested in,” she said. “And with sexuality, fatness is kind of this refusal to perform sexual desirability in the way that people want them to.”
But that’s certainly not where the cross-connections end.
“Anti-fatness is also super connected to capitalism and how we understand bodies that can perform the labor that needs to happen to keep capitalism going. ... Our assumptions about body size are never just about body size, or about all these other things, and all these other ways that people get marginalized,” she said.
What fat phobia looks like
Many forms of fat discrimination, such as bullying and harassment, are obvious. On a more subtle level, studies show fat people are less likely to be chosen as friends and romantic partners. They’re more likely to have lower levels of education, live in poverty, be unemployed, and experience lower standards of living. People perceived as fat, particularly women, are less likely to be hired or promoted within workplaces and tend to be paid less than their thin counterparts.
Anti-fat bias is particularly dangerous within medical settings.
Obesity (a problematic word in and of itself because it pathologizes a body type), is defined medically as a category on the body mass index, calculated based on height and weight. Obesity is the result of several factors, including genetics and environment. But studies show that healthcare professionals, including those who specialize in treating obesity, often treat it as a character defect and associate fatness with stereotypes of laziness, lack of intelligence, and less personal worth. In practice, medical professionals spend less time with fat patients, develop less of a rapport with them, and leave them feeling dehumanized.
As a consequence, fat patients are less likely to seek care for ailments or get medi-
cal screenings to, for instance, detect cancers that are easier to treat and less deadly when you catch them early.
It’s also worth noting that the “obesity epidemic” the pop culture likes to warn us about is based on a bad Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004. The article reported that more than 400,000 Americans die as a result of being overweight or obese every year — and the news media publicized the heck out of it. Much less popular was the correction JAMA published the next year in which better methodology and proper computation placed the number around 26,000 — less than guns, alcohol, and car crashes, according to Otis’ white paper, “Improving Healthcare Professionals’ Communication to Reduce Fat Stigma.”
This is all compounded by the fact that stigmatization isn’t great for your health in the first place — it has both psychological and physiological effects, Bacon points out.
“We tell people that they’re not worthy of respect, and it’s bound to make them feel bad and increase levels of depression and anxiety and fear going out into the world,” he said. “It’s also pretty well documented that when people feel bad about themselves, they’re less able to take care of their bodies. And we also know that regardless of what somebody’s self-care behaviors are, when people are treated poorly it affects their stress levels, which in turn has a major impact on health — things like diabetes and heart disease and irritable bowel syndrome.”
And it’s not just fat people who suffer from the stigmatization. Thinner people often live their lives in fear of fat, which leads them to adopt bad behaviors and to be scared of food, he said.
Colorado’s subtle health obsession
Thin people tend to engage unknowingly in another form of fat-shaming, Otis said, when they talk about their own bodies.
“People think that when they’re talking about their own body, they’re
not implicating other people. People talk about wanting to lose weight or not feeling good because they’re feeling fat. The idea of feeling fat is really problematic,” she said. “When people talk about their own bodies in a disparaging way, because of their perceived proximity to fatness, I think that’s one way that comes through. I’ve had a lot of family members and friends who are thin, but any moment that they think they’re getting fat or gaining weight, they talk about it a lot and how upset they are. ... They’re not trying to apply that to me, but it always will because the way we talk about our own bodies automatically implicates other people’s bodies.”
Similarly, congratulating people on weight loss, let alone chastising them for not achieving it, can be a very negative thing.
“When we congratulate people on weight loss, we’re automatically affirming this idea that losing weight is good and being fat is bad — often without knowing anything about why somebody lost weight.”
People lose weight for many reasons — eating disorders, losing a loved one, fighting an illness — but we’re culturally ingrained to assume that any kind of weight loss is a positive thing.
“When somebody congratulates somebody else on weight loss that sort of sends a message to everybody else in the room about what types of bodies are valued and what kinds aren’t,” she said.
These more subtle forms of anti-fatness are especially common in places like Colorado, which is consistently rated as one of the “fittest” states in the country (often based on little more the arbitrary measurement of average BMI). Colorado has an affinity toward fitness culture, but likes to pretend that outdoor exercise activities are part of the lifestyle of Coloradans and not what people choose to do to stay fit or thin, Otis said. Hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, kayaking, and the like are activities that are not accessible to a lot of fat or disabled people.
“That obsession with healthiness is super interesting in Colorado because for the most part people aren’t calling out fat bodies for being problematic, but there’s a lot of judgment toward people that aren’t perceived as healthy — which tend to be fat people. Fitness-and-health culture is a super interesting, coded way of still excluding fat people and enforcing stigma against them,” Otis said.
COVID-19 and fatness
Fat stigma goes hand in hand with healthism — the idea that only healthy bodies have value. This was already a widespread problem, but the discourse about the coronavirus epidemic has brought it right out into the open.
“Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, it was like, ‘Oh, this thing is only going to hurt or kill people with underlying conditions. Therefore, we don’t all have to worry about it.’ Which was always sort of a very ableist argument — that disabled people and people with health conditions don’t matter and that we can happily sacrifice them if it means that we all get to live our life the way that we want to,” Otis said.
That ableism quickly overlapped with anti-fatness when people began pointing at obesity as a risk factor for COVID-19. Studies suggested that weight was not a factor, and some even suggested that being overweight was protective against the coronavirus (something true about a lot of illnesses), she said. Many studies that now include weight as a risk factor don’t account for race or socioeconomic status, two forms of marginalization linked with health disparities.
“We have all this sort of problematic data that wants to blame fat people and say that they’re going to die or get sick and it’s their fault, when we actually don’t have the data to support that because we aren’t accounting for all these other factors, and we’re not accounting for the fact that things like medical bias and not treating comorbidities — specifically not treating fat people’s comorbidities — all of that leads to poor health outcomes,” she said.
In medicine, comorbidity is the presence of additional conditions that co-occur with a patient’s primary condition. And it became a hot topic at the end of August when a CDC statistic — indicating that 6% of people who have died of COVID-19 have only the virus listed as the diagnosis on the death certificate — became popular on social media. Conspiracy theorists, including President Trump, shared the stat, suggesting that it was the CDC sheepishly admitting it had wildly inflated the virus’ death toll by lumping in people who were killed by conditions unrelated to the virus.
That’s not what the statistic actually means.
“Death certificates list any causes or conditions that contributed to the death,” the CDC/NCHS Mortality Statistics Branch told Health.com in a statement. For instance, over 30% of that remaining 94% also have “respiratory failure” listed as a cause of death. They stopped breathing ... probably because of the coronavirus. (That “SARS” in “SARS-CoV-2,” the name of the virus, stands for “severe acute respiratory syndrome” — it makes your respiratory system fail.) Even when the comorbidity is something like diabetes or cardiovascular disease, both linked to obesity, in the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths, the virus has been determined to be the trigger for mortality.
“I think any moment that public health comes into question, people automatically want to turn and blame fat people. And they also want to make sure that resources don’t go to fat people because, you know, we are to blame for not being healthy, whatever that means,” Otis said.
The entire situation is also aggravated by the fact that many people lost their usual means of self-care during COVID-19 shutdowns and turned to food instead, resulting in weight gain, Bacon said. At the same time, others are taking advantage of the situation to sell more diets, all while the government promotes bad assumptions about the relationship between health and weight.
Where to go from here
What can people do to fight fat stigma and fat phobia?
For one, listen to the people who are most affected by it and take them seriously, Otis said. A ton of information is already out there through organizations such as the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. Bloggers such as the anonymous Your Fat Friend are useful resources to follow on social media.
“That way you don’t have to bombard your fat friends with all these questions and put that emotional labor on them,” she said.
Making a commitment to questioning your own internalized fat phobia — sitting down and thinking about your beliefs about bodies and what those are rooted in and what experiences led to them — is also important, she said. You can also see if there’s any kind of fat activism going on in your region, repost activist content on social media, and bring up arguments against fat phobia in conversations with friends and family.
“Most of the work that people can do to help the cause of fat activism and be an ally honestly happens at that interpersonal level — just tweaking those conversations and disrupting them when fat phobia kind of rears its ugly head,” she said.
Her Highness is a hybrid strain fit for a queen (or king, or some member of royalty, anyway)
This strain deserves to wear every single royal crown we can get our hands on
Ever pondered what role you would play if you were a member of a royal family? Yeah, me neither, but this week’s strain from Prohibition Herb is named Her Highness. With a name that regal, this seems like a fitting game to play.
So, let’s do it. Who would you be? Would you go modern, a la Prince Harry or his hot wife? Good call. Nobody wants to be the bald brother who aged poorly, so we can just skip him. Or you could go way out of the box and be the King of Belgium or something, I guess. Think of all the chocolate you’d get!
Or would we take things back to like, medieval times instead? To be honest, I don’t really care what timeline we’re in, as long as it ain’t this one, but I do want to be in charge of all the shit in the kingdom. Let me rule! This is my fantasy, and we all know that in reality I would be a scullery maid or like, court jester or something. No power but all the dang responsibility. I’m just not fancy enough
for a leading role.
You know who would be fit to be the ruler of any kingdom, though? Her Highness. And it’s not just her name that makes her a good fit. It’s also all of the properties that come with this indica hybrid strain, from her royal heritage as an offspring of (White x Tahoe OG) x Cookies) x Face Off (one very confusing and regal algebraic equation) to the natural beauty of her thicc nugs.
This strain recently landed on the shelves at Prohibition, but it’s been flying off of them and into the hands of potheads at lightning speed. In fact, this strain is so in demand that our buddies up at the dispensary had to hide some in the back for me to pick up. Otherwise, it would have sold out before I could get there.
I learned really quickly why this strain is so popular, though. Not only is this girl a beaut, but she’s also a force to be reckoned with — just like any good leader
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Details Where to find Her Highness: Perched on her royal throne at Prohibition Herb, 1185 Camino del Rio, prohibitionherb.com should be. She comes packing an insane amount of THC, and the eighth I picked up tested for, I shit you not, a whopping 28.74% THC. That alone deserves a crown.
She also smells delicious. I’m not entirely sure how to explain it (insert my recent “I have no real sense of smell from COVID” explainer here), but I know it’s good. I guess to my broken COVID nose this strain smells green and earthy, but don’t quote me on that. I was never good at sniffing out the smells in strains, and now I really suck at it. I know enough to say this one is pleasant and clean-smelling, though.
This strain tastes delicious, too. I’ve been smoking out of a Pax vape recently and I could really pick up the grassy goodness of Her Highness. Let’s just call it refined.
The high, on the other hand, was not as refined. In fact, it kicked my freaking ass after just a couple of hits. One hit in and I started to feel the effects, which is pretty impressive given how much I smoke to avoid falling into a 2020 pit of despair lately. Two hits in and the body high was getting real.
I’m not exactly sure how this strain hit me as hard as it did, but it was a big ol’ whomp to the senses. My body felt tingly, my arms were pool noodles, and my brain found everything amusing. What I really found funny, though, was how quickly my eyelids went from open and normal to tiny little eyeball blinds that I couldn’t lift. They were definitely halfmast. Just catching a glimpse of myself and my dumb eyelids in the mirror set off a case of the giggles.
And, once I’d laughed at myself hysterically like a maniac, I decided I was starving. The only problem was that I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to eat. I was also so high that I caught myself standing in the pantry (more than once) and staring at nothing and everything simultaneously. I ended up eating a crap ton of chips at some point, but I don’t know when.
What was interesting about this strain is that I didn’t have that drop-off or noticeable tapering off of effects that can happen with other high-THC strains. I stayed high for a very long time... like very long. Long enough to watch the entire “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” movie alongside my royal weed queen.
I must have fallen asleep at some point, but I truly don’t know when — I definitely went to bed high that night. But that’s OK! I like passing out while stoned. It’s the best kind of sleep. I woke up the next morning well-rested and relaxed.
So, in short, I choose Her Highness as my cannabis royal family. This strain deserves a crown, and I would even play stupid court jester if it meant I could hang out with Her Highness every day. Besides, all I’d have to do to entertain people in my jester role is smoke a bowl of this strain. My tiny, half-open stoner eyes alone would provide all the comedic relief necessary to keep my ass out of the dungeon. Sounds like the perfect setup to me.
[weed] The Gelato Cake strain is delicious — but don’t try to bake cookies after smoking it
I’m not what you call a stupendous cook, but this week, I learned that I’m far worse after I’ve smoked a bowl of Gelato Cake. Specifically, I get distracted and burn things.
Now, it’s long been documented that The Green House tends to put us on our asses with the bud they sell. If you’re planning to smoke bud from this Durango shop, you best clear your schedule because you won’t be useful for a good few hours. That goes for Gelato Cake as well.
For those of you who are Gelato Cake beginners, let me fill you in. This strain is a mix of Gelato #33 and Wedding Cake. An indica-dominant strain, Gelato Cake is the popular girl at the party and for a reason. This is one hella potent strain. Not for triflers.
People attribute side effects such as sleepiness, the munchies, and being long-lasting. Highly citrusy, Gelato Cake also has peppery and piney aromatic notes.
After grinding up some bud and packing into a bowl, I took myself outside with my new strain. The first thing I noticed about Gelato Cake is that it’s super smooth. It’s also almost instantaneously relaxing. True to its indica roots, Gelato Cake is the Empire State building of body highs.
Another major side effect of Gelato Cake was the monster-sized case of the munchies you end up with. Consequently, I decided it would be cool to bake some chocolate chip cookies. Didn’t even make the dough. Just pulled some pre-made crap out of the fridge and tossed it into the oven. Maybe even quite literally.
Turns out with a body high as killer as Gelato Cake’s, it’s very easy to get distracted and become one with the couch. Again, quite literally. I had turned on some new true-crime documentary I had pettily put off seeing because EVERYONE had seen it and not long into it I figured out why. It was eerily creepy and I was completely immersed. So much so that it wasn’t long until I could smell burning.
Dear readers. I had completely forgotten about the cookies, though Details Where to find Sinsere: The Green House, 730 S. Camino del Rio, thegreenhousecolorado.com
they weren’t much of cookies anymore. They’d been burned to a total crisp. Totally black on the bottom. Might as well have been baking chips. Inedible, much to my munchies’ dismay. I would have to satisfy my stoned-self with some other highly processed food and that, friends, ended up being ramen, as usual. My sweet tooth would have to be quenched some other day.
Thankfully, Gelato Cake is also heavy-handed when it comes to getting some shut-eye. If you’re someone like me who struggles with sleeping, this strain will knock you into the next morning. A total sleep miracle worker.
It’s hard to pinpoint any downsides to this indica-hybrid and we’re pretty sure that’s because there aren’t any. Gelato Cake is a great sleep-aid and it launches you into a zone that’s about as relaxed as it gets. How can you pass up a strain like that?
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NFuzed sour gummies welcomed us into body high and fuzzy-head heaven
Is it just me or does anyone else miss going to movie theaters, spending a butt load of money on snacks (or sneaking them in, of course), as you fat-kid your way through that film? Well, I sure do, and thanks to NFuzed sour gummies I got a little taste of that this week.
During my last visit to the dispensary, I noticed they had stocked up on a brand I hadn’t had the opportunity to review yet, NFuzed. For those of you who are as new to Nfuzed as I am, the company is based out of Grover Beach, Cali. and Boulder, Colo. They sport interesting products like their cannabis-infused inhaler (sorry, Colorado peeps — they’re not available here).
This week though, I snagged a pack of their sour gummies variety pack and they call it a variety pack for a reason. NFuzed sour gummies come in strawberry, blueberry, green apple, peach, pineapple, watermelon, and grape flavors. The bag comes with 10 pieces and each morsel contains 10 mg apiece.
Side note: this company uses some killer art on their packaging. As soon as I laid eyes on it I thought I was looking straight into Willa Wonka’s factory or perhaps the inside of a snake oil salesman’s suspicious shelf of merchandise. It was what initially caught my eyes as I stood in the dispensary making my decision on which edible to get this week. You don’t see a whole lot of cannabis companies with packaging like that.
The first thing I did when I cut open the bag was take a whiff. I was hit with a fruity, sugary aroma that instantly took me back to holing up in a movie theater shoveling sour gummy candy into my mouth and putting my feet up on the chair in front of me (yeah, I know that makes me a bad person - but not if no one is sitting there!).
The first flavor I tried was blueberry. The gummy was chewy, mouth-watering, and effing delicious with just the slightest hint of sour. Reminded me of movie theater gummies. Sugary perfection I’m telling you - and all the flavors were like that, even grape which I tend to abhor as a flavor option. Let’s just say I’m drooling over them even now as I type this.
NFuzed sour gummies took me into body high-heaven with the most pleasant of head fuzziness. Everything was coated with a sense of euphoric optimism which is most unlike me. My headspace borders on putting friggin’ Squidward on his worst day to shame. What had started as a dreary day suddenly felt light and peaceful. There was a pleasant buzzing in my head that thrummed as I shoved Ben and Jerry’s into my mouth. On a weekday. No pants.
The munchies were strong with this one. I wasn’t even hungry. All I knew was there was a deep black hole inside me that only sugar and carbs could heal. I’m sure you’re familiar with this insatiable experience. If you’re not, dear reader, you are missing what it means to be a stoner. It’s like eating a BLT without the bacon. Makes no sense!
But I digress. These sour gummies were killer, close to literally. At one point I’m fairly certain my soul left my body. Cross my heart.
If you’re hoping for a killer high, you for sure can’t go wrong with NFuzed sour gummies I learned this week. Trust us, it could be the Willa Wonka cannabis factory experience you’ve been waiting for — except you won’t get sucked into a chocolate river.
[weed] Tsk, tsk. Colorado, the birthplace of legal marijuana, isn’t making the grade for medical marijuana access
Colorado, the birthplace of legalized unnecessary burdens on patient access, marijuana, isn’t getting the cannabis and ASA recommends that these new grades it should be. rules be revisited to optimize conve-
The state received a “B-” from Amer- nience of access for the state’s patients.” icans for Safe Access (ASA), a national However, Governor Jared Polis was a advocacy group for cannabis, according to Westword. Just like a dreaded school big factor in the ASA’s positive feedback. report, ASA hands out grades on an A-F “In Governor Polis’ first year in office, scale. he did not disappoint, signing into law
While Colorado failed to score high on measures permitting cannabis delivery patient rights and protections, the state to medical and adult-use consumers still managed to scrape up a B- because from licensed retail storefronts, as well of Colorado’s patient access and func- as approving legislation that authorizes tionality. cannabis hospitality spaces. Under the
“One of the big problems we have new law, medical and adult-use retail here in Colorado is that we changed the civil protections, ease of navigation, ac- safety and provider requirements. facilities may permit onsite consumption constitution to allow medical marijuana cess to medicine, functionality, consumer “Not all of the state’s 2019 reforms of cannabis products subject to local and later recreational marijuana, but we didn’t make corresponding changes to the Colorado Controlled Substances Act,” Martha Montemayor, director of Cannabis Clinicians Colorado, told Westword. Since the ASA began issuing in 2015, Colorado hasn’t managed to get a grade above a “B.” The advocacy group doles safety and provider requirements, and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ASA doesn’t hold back when it comes to these report cards. In Colorado’s case, the bumps seem to come down to legislation. When it comes to patient rights and civil protections, the state only scored 62 out of 100 poswere positive, including a new law setting limits on the amount of medical cannabis products that a legal retailer may sell to an individual in one day,” the report stated. “For flower, the limit is two ounces, for concentrate, the limit is 20 grams, though the law allows a physician to provide an exemption to the limits. The imposition of these limits and government approval,” the report stated. In Colorado’s defense, however, Oregon was the only state to come back with an “A.” Illinois and Maine scored in second with grades of “B+.” Colorado has 83,306 registered medical marijuana patients and 449 medical marijuana retail locations still in operation. out scores based on patient rights and sible points, and 63.67/100 in consumer need for a physician exemption impose — Amanda Push
PLEASE
The folks at DGO miss leaving our homes for concerts, drinks and dinners out. We don’t like cooking or cleaning the kitchen — and we certainly don’t like mixing our own drinks, all things we’ve had to do since the start of this pandemic. PLEASE wear your masks and practice social distancing so we can get back to our regularly scheduled (fun) programming.
WEAR A MASK! [correctly!]
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[politics] It’s our turn to carry the torch left behind by the notorious, brilliant, imperfect Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
There are moments when hope is diminished.
The passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is one of those moments. A light has gone out in the world this day - September 18, 2020.
I could spend this time recounting Justice Ginsburg’s legendary career as an advocate for women’s rights, but you all know how to search the Internet. What I want to talk about, after we pick ourselves up off the floor, is what do we do now?
Before tonight, I would sprinkle little bits of my political leanings into these columns — make gentle or pointed suggestions based on my mood. Since June, I’ve been offering direction to my fellow white folks on how to engage with racial justice. Tonight feels different. It is the proverbial straw and that poor camel’s back.
We asked this badass woman to hold the line for us long past the point of fairness. The safety and security of this democracy and the rights of its citizens should not rest on the shoulders of one person — yet, that is what we asked of Justice Ginsburg. We asked her to stay. We asked her to do push-ups into her 80s. We asked her to live. We denied her a retirement. Why? Because people could not bother themselves to engage with the gift — THE MOTHERF!CKING GIFT — that is voting. * 61.8 percent of the citizen voting-age population voted in 2012
* 36.4 percent of the citizen voting-age population voted in 2014
* 61.4 percent of the citizen voting-age population voted in 2016
* 53.4 percent of the citizen voting-age population voted in 2018
Sixty-one percent is pathetic, and don’t get me started on the midterm elections (the times when we aren’t voting for a President)! Every election matters. Every race is important. Voting for school board members in your community is as important as voting for the President. I’m very specifically yelling at white people right now. As a white person you are privileged in your access to voting. You don’t have to travel outside your community to find your nearest polling station. As a white person, when 22 | Thursday, September 24, 2020 you present yourself to vote you aren’t dismissed as not being eligible — the implicit bias in the system is set up to do everything it can to help you vote. Access to voting if you are a person of color is purposefully difficult. If you manage to vote, some states, run by white supremacists masquerading as Republicans, throw your ballots out. Don’t believe me? Do some learning about Georgia and 2018.
The only way a democracy works is through the involvement of all of its citizenry, not just the powerful few. This is why a bunch of white folks fled a country and brought their disease-riddled asses over here. Why they wiped out entire groups of native people and forced them onto reservations — because they wanted free and fair elections. They built something with hope (and racism, and classism, and sexism) intending to be better than the monarchy they left.
Justice Ginsburg fought to fix those sexist, classist, and racist deficits. She did this imperfectly and often as one of a few dissenting voices from a majority determined to keep power for wealthy white men.
So what the fuck do we do?
First, call your Senator and demand that they do not vote on a replacement
Supreme Court associate justice until after Inauguration day. Go to www. senate.gov and use the dropdown menu at the top left to Find Your Senators. Call them until you get through and demand that they wait to fill Justice Ginsburg’s vacancy — as Senator Mitch McConnell demanded in 2016 when he refused to bring a vote for President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, because it was an election year.
Second, VOTE. I used to advocate for folks to vote no matter who they were voting for in an election. I wanted to encourage more engagement with our civic responsibility. How fucking quaint and idealisitic I was. I understood that not everyone had time or energy to meet the candidates, watch or attend debates, or volunteer on campaigns. The bare minimum was to vote and I thought that was enough. Not this year. Vote like your life depends on it. Engage with campaigns. Learn about issues and candidates. Volunteer your time.
Bonus! Voting in Colorado is extraordinarily easy because we are a mail-inballot state. You register to vote when you get your driver’s license and/or turn 18 and then your ballot is mailed to you. Mailed to you! You fill it out and put it back in the mail or into a drop box. No standing in line. No funky machines. That’s it. If you’re not sure if you are registered, or what address you might be registered at, go here: https://www.sos. state.co.us/pubs/elections/vote/VoterHome.html.
Of course, this year the United States Postal Service is under attack by its director so I encourage everyone to put their ballot in a drop box. Don’t mail it. In La Plata County, there are two drop box locations in Durango, one in Bayfield, and another one in Ignacio. As it gets closer to the election they open other polling places, like the Durango Fairgrounds, where you can also drop off your ballot. Your ballot will include a piece of paper that has a list of the places you can return it to! Colorado is privileged in that we don’t see the type of voter suppression that places like Georgia, or even most recently, Wisconsin have to battle. Does that mean that it isn’t difficult to vote for people of color in Colorado? Fuck, no, because the system is biased. If you have difficulty voting or submitting your ballot please call 866-OUR-VOTE or go to 866ourvote.org.
Make sure you know how to fill out your ballot properly and that you sign the envelope before returning it. Your ballot comes with instructions. Read them. Read them more than once. I apologize to any readers not in Colorado. Please go to your Secretary of State’s website and learn what you need to do in your state to vote.
Third, take five minutes every day for a week and learn more about the candidates running for office. That same link above for checking your voter registration in Colorado also has links to election information, who’s running for what, and a link to your sample ballot. Talk to your friends and family about voting. Find out what issues are important to them and then decide which candidate is going to address those issues. I guarantee you that there will be no perfect candidate that ticks all the boxes. Why? Because they are human! Because diversity is healthy. Because we are more than one issue or belief. Because the world and the choices we have to make are not black and white but rather varied and gorgeous shades of gray.
Fourth, live your life in the service of others. If you need to do this capitalistically, fine, charge money. But do for othContinued on page 23
Horoscope
ARIES (March 21 to April 19) Be patient with partners and close friends at this time, because it’s easy to get angry. In fact, someone might get angry at you. (Then you’ll respond.) Stay chill.
TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) Avoid arguments with co-workers during this time or people who are working with you about your health. People are aggressive right now! Something regarding a pet might even occur.
GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) Parents must be patient with their kids right now. Likewise, lovers should be patient with each other, because arguments are unpleasant and they accomplish nothing.
CANCER (June 21 to July 22) Your ambition is aroused, and because of this strong energy, you might get into a domestic haggle right now. Not wise. Be patient with family members.
LEO (July 23 to Aug. 22) Many people are aggressive right now because Mercury is opposite Mars. This is why you might end up in an argument with a sibling, relative or neighbor. Try to avoid this.
VIRGO (Aug. 23 to Sept. 22) Squabbles about money or possessions might arise over the next few days. Be cool about things, because this is a brief influence. Take the high road.
LIBRA (Sept. 23 to Oct. 22) Right now Mercury is in your sign opposite fiery Mars, which is a classic combination for outbursts and arguments with others. But it doesn’t have to be that way if you stay chill.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23 to Nov. 21) Old feelings that have been repressed might
From page 22
ers. Humanity cannot continue on its current path, and it takes all of us to build healthy and safe communities.
Finally, do not give up. If Justice Ginsburg could survive years of sexism in school and work, take on cancer (again and again), and still stand up to support gender rights, reproductive freedom, lgbtq+ rights, and civil rights, then we certainly can show up now.
Honestly, I don’t know if this is what I wanted to write in this moment. I’ve gone from tears of grief to numbness. These last four years under the ever-growing authoritarian thumb of a racist, sexist, hate-filled person has weakened my resolve. I fear for my child’s future. And then I fight. I fight for the children that are ripped from their parents’ arms and forced into concentration camps. I fight for justice for Black men, women, and children who are gunned down by police. I fight for women’s rights. I fight for gay rights. I fight for the lives of so many trans folks who have been murdered in this country. I fight with my voice, my money, my vote. It is not my full-time job and it doesn’t take all my energy to care about the health and safety of my fellow citizens, so trust me when I say you can join in this fight.
Yes, right now, I’m weary. We lost a
Bizarro
leader, a role model, and an inspiration.
I’m sorry, Justice Ginsburg, that we asked so much of you. Thank you for never just meeting the moment, but always rising higher and taking us with you. You were not perfect, but you perfectly inspired millions of girls and women. I would not be where I am today if you had not fought for women’s rights all those years. I stand on your shoulders with a deep yearning to prove myself worthy of your work.
May your memory be a revolution.
Erin Brandt (she/her/hers) has been a sexologist for 15 years. When she’s not spreading sexual knowledge, Erin can be found learning from her child, hiking with her partner, cuddling with her pitbull, knitting with her cat, dancing with friends, and searching for the nearest hammock and ocean breeze. Want more? Visit www.positivesexed.com suddenly come out right now in an angry way, if provoked. It’s as if you finally have your chance to speak your peace. (Don’t do it.)
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 to Dec. 21) Someone younger might try your patience soon. As a result, you might get angry with them or lay down the law. Is it worth it? Stay mellow for your own sake and for the sake of others.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 to Jan. 19) Arguments with bosses, parents, teachers or the police might flare up SOON. Be wise and avoid these, because if you get involved, you will regret it. Be smart.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 to Feb. 18) Avoid discussions about politics, religion or racial issues, because they will quickly become inflamed and argumentative. This won’t be fun. Chill out.
PISCES (Feb. 19 to March 20) There is no upside to getting into an argument about shared property or the responsibilities or the wealth of someone else. You won’t win; they won’t win. It’s just a lot of hot air. Relax.
BORN DURING THESE TWO WEEKS
You are warm, caring and sociable. You thrive in group settings! This year will be more relaxed for you. Do your best to cooperate with others, because your interactions with others will be important. Always look for ways to be kind and helpful. If you are open when engaging with others, your business and personal relationships will benefit you. (c) 2020 King Features Syndicate, Inc.
