PREVENTION IS PAINLESS, CURE IS PAINFUL
By Helen L. Burleson, D.P.A.
Doctor of Public Administration

At the very earliest sign that your child will bring something into the home that you did not buy, STOP, the child at the pass. This is the time for one of the most important lessons that you can teach your child. When my daughter was 5 years old, we went to the drug store and I purchased several items. When we got home, she had a candy bar. Asking her how she got the candy bar, she told me she picked it up because she saw me pick up things I wanted. I explained to her the difference between my picking items up and PAYING for them, and her picking things up which she did not give to me to PAY for. Immediately, I took her back to the store, asked for the manager and had HER to return the candy bar. He was so impressed that he said she could have it. Oh, no, I told him, she is not to be rewarded for bad behavior, innocent though it may have been. That’s when the PREVENTION began. I told her nothing was ever to come into our home unless I either purchased it or had knowledge and proof of its purchase.

Later in high school, she came home one day with a sweater I had not purchased. It was determined that she and her girlfriend has exchanged sweaters. Straight to the phone I went to verify this and to explain to the young lady on the other end that my children were not allowed to bring anything into the home unless I purchased it or had knowledge and proof of its purchase. There was to be no exchanging of clothes. Both young ladies had a very adequate wardrobe; and, even if they had not, they could not exchange clothes.

In single parent homes, mothers often lay down the gauntlet and feel daunted by their teen-aged sons. From the very beginning of their journey in life, the mother must bond sufficiently so that the child won’t stray too far from the teaching. If bonding isn’t sufficient, then authority must be established from day one. The mother as the authority figure is the judge and the jury, and if necessary (the executioner). By execution, I mean the one who metes out the effective punishment. It is better to establish acceptable behavior with love (the carrot); but, when necessary the heavy hand (the stick) must be used. I am not advocating corporal punishment, just an authoritative, no nonsense attitude that sets the standards in your home for your child to live by.

Where are the parents when children can get guns to go out and kill? Were you there when the child left home? Were you there when your child returned home? Did he hide the gun elsewhere? Where is that elsewhere that he/she is allowed to go that you don’t know about?
How does your child come home looking disheveled and there is no logical explanation? Not only is the parent the child’s first teacher, but the parent is the child’s guardian angel, the sheriff or whatever role is necessary to play in order to rear children who grow up to lead successful and productive lives.

Do you know who your children’s friends are? Do you have a working relationship with their parents? Do you and their parents ever get together and organize supervised activities? Middle class people have their children in scouting, organizations like Jack and Jill and Pros and Cons, but you don’t have to be middle class to organize group activities. Parents can simply get together in the back yards or in each other’s homes, or ask the church to sponsor youth activities. Money or lack of money is no excuse for poor parenting. Children can be lead on shell hunting of the beach or rock hunting on the block. Children are not born delinquent; but too often parents are negligent.

Child care starts at the cradle, if you are fortunate enough to have a cradle. The same love and attention must be paid to the child throughout his life until he is old enough to leave the home and establish his own home.

Parents of teens think their job is done. Oh no, it’s just beginning! Don’t let them get away with telling you what their friends can do. Do their friends live in your home? The rules in your home are for YOURS! What others are allowed to do does not apply to you. Perhaps it is these children who will be a bad influence on your children, and the ties should be severed upon discovery.

Some of this may sound too harsh; but, talk to most successful people and they will tell you that their parents set the standards for them to live up to and they did not deviate too much from those standards. I’ve heard some successful grown men who grew up in a one parent home, say, ‘Man, my mama kept her foot up my ………” (you fill in the blanks!) This they say with great pride. Your child is not your buddy! You are the loving authority figure in the child’s life. Wake up, parents and start preventing socially unacceptable behavior because it is painless. The parent who has that call in the middle of the night, that his/her child has been jailed, or worse yet, shot, knows nothing but pain. Which would you choose painless or painful?

What’s the old axiom, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? It needs to be dusted off and put to good use today.

I chose painless, and thank, God, my children are living proof of that!

Gregg Herbert Martens, Obituary to a Virtuoso

Nee, September 17, 1946, died, July 13, 2008
From Gregg: A Mealtime Prayer

"Our thanks to the earth
bearing the fruits
through God's creation
in the depths.

Our thanks to the sun and stars
ripening the fruits
through God's creation
in the heights.

Our thanks to the people
sharing the labors
making possible what we need
for our lives.

May they and we
all do so out of love
through God creating
in our hearts.

May they and we
all do so with wisdom
through God shining
in our thoughts."

He was a loving father, friend and husband. He was citizen and community member, as well as learned practitioner. He was the first biodynamic grower I knew here and he is remembered most of all because of his compassion and humor, his love of life, his generosity of his spirit and his contemplative mind.
With gratitude we honor Gregg Herbert Martens.

Subjects for the Colorado Social Legislative Committee luncheons in 2009

1. HATE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, Abolishing Injustice and Bigotry

2. What War has to do with domestic policy?

3. Economic Justice, when are the troops coming home and American getting back on the road to caring for Americans?

4. Homeless young people and discharge from foster care or for that matter any institution?

5. Mental Illness and treatment costs from not treating behavioral health care? 37% release of persons with mental illness from county jails.

6. Legislative streamlining

7. Affordable housing and you, wherever you live.

8. The cost of doing business the old fashioned way decently with integrity, standards for the industry that prevent fraud, abuse and neglect?

9. Efficiency in the work place, does anyone earn a living? And how can we ensure that we are working for fair labor laws and rights of workers>

10 Killing the lobbyists before they emerge as a virus. A plague on both your houses.

11. Radical economics, protecting the working poor with decent health care without gouging the defenseless? Single payer with a twist.

12. overturning and DEBRUCE debrucing or debauching the despots. Tarnishing the image of the state legislature.

13. Running for office as a right for all of its citizens and not the landed and wealthy gentry?

14. ever so lightly, rights of immigrants and dismantling the borders.

15. Run, Jane Run, human trafficking and slavery of kids in America, How to grasp the enormity of the violence against our young?

16. The Internal Revenue Service and Selected Service. Why I won’t pay a dime to Uncle Sam?
Taxes the unseemly scam in Washington D.C. Preventing our dollars to be used for war.

17. Dismantling the invasion of the Body Snatchers, in Homeland Security and the Patriot Act that wasn’t ever concerned with our safety.

18. Achieving peace in the Brave New World. Creating a Department of Peace

19. our kindergartners are real people not statistics for building jails.

20. Cloth diapers and disposable wastes. Why we have to recycle everything, including poop.

21. Global warming the sudden mystery unless you watered everything for three straight months.

22. How to live more simply in the technology age? And why PAY DAY LOANS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL.

23. What the hell are we doing here?

24. Benefits Acquisition and Identification, Human Rights?

25. Could we please Adjourn, I need a nap?

26. Every child matters: Colorado Children's Campaign.

27. Child Welfare Action Committee

28. Double the number of graduates from high schools

29. Criminal Justice Reform Bill

30. Centralize, single point of entry eligibility for Medicaid benefits.

31. SB 64: Maintaining families in their homes.

32. Colorado Child Mental Health Treatment plan

33. Rapid Reentry for families experiencing homelessness through McKinney-Vento Act, providing 1.6 million dollars to the state for housing and services.

34. Work place standards for paid sick days, parent leave for families.

35. Privacy issues, federal and state I.D. Vita check, vital statistics.

36. Higher education for families who are on TANF to support job training and education for serious occupational training and development. Self-sufficiency standards.

37. Lack of access of officials of the Governor and the state legislature.

38. Child care tax credits: definition of recessions three quarters with negative growth. The poverty standard needs change of definition.

40. "Banks do not want to do banking with the poor." Children's savings accounts.

41. How to make sure that people have health care insurance.

42. Increasing cost of food and burden on food banks.

43. Returning veterans reentry and establishment of safety net for veterans.

"Moonsocket" Film Review on Substance Abuse and Treatment, Released by the Denver Drug Strategy Plan to Reduce Substance Abuse in Denver in five years.

"moonsocket" is the Algonquin Tribe term for waterfalls, which are prominent in this town in Rhode Island. One wonders where the Native Americans, who named the town, went as a result of both small pox and "firewater?" One is left with the impression that the only people drinking in Moonsocket are White middle-aged men, who are homeless. The social crisis of drinking is big business both on the legal end and the largest single cost of healthcare, topping heart disease, since the two illnesses are interrelated and hereditary.

The producers were asked, "why this film did not also focus on women?" They considered the impact of Normand's drinking on his son and daughter and their families. They considered the harrowing impact of the recidivist relapses of Frank on his father, who paid for his first rehabilitation program. They also engaged the audience in how frightening it is to lose one's self-determination and will to live. One of the most troubling episodes of the story line is how easily anyone can ruin their lives.

The spiritual costs of addiction affect all of us. We lose humanity each time we encounter a "drunk person." We feel revulsion, that it is the other person's responsibility, and for that person's part, he or she feels like a worthless victim, a vagabond. No matter how reviling the illness appears that person is you and me. You are the person and we need to admit that we have all failed that person to create such a cruel and vindictive world that creates these repeated scenarios in every culture and place on earth.

Until we stop ignoring the need for spiritual connection, care and touch in its most elemental form the story line of films like, "Moonsocket," will repeat themselves in the 'Talking Circles," or Red Road Way, in the non-religious treatment groups, in the variations based on addictions of every type possible, and in the wet programs, which allow a person to drink and use drugs while being in treatment. We need individual responses for diseases. We need treatment that looks at social and behavioral histories and tailors the program to fit the aims of the individual, and finally we need responses that develop leaders from the victims who are advocates for one another.

Get out there and respond to a person who has helped you and spread the story one person to another until we come full circle to understand that we are the same. For more information go to www.random1.com, to drugfree.org or call 800-662-help and help yourselves.

Celebrate 1908 Denver Democratic National Convention Revisited

Historic Turnhalle in the Tivoli on Auraria Campus July 25 and July 26
Celebrate 1908 compares and contrasts the times. Go to the web site www.denver1908.org or email acmh1908@msn.com. Romero Theatre Troupe will be performing a new drama. There will be forums on conservation, much as they considered energy then and today. Transportation was a big topic and the banking industry. They were also faced with a collapse of the banking industry. This program benefits students through the Auraria Casa Mayan Heritage, which teaches history through culture and the arts.
Celebrate 1908
Presentations & Performances
July 25-26, 2008
2:00 a.m. - 9:30 p.m.
Friday
AFTERNOON
REGISTRATION/EXHIBIT VIEWING:
1:00 p.m. - Ongoing Tivoli Turnhalle Foyer
TOUR: Historic Casa Mayan (Meet at Turnhalle Foyer)
2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. (Gregorio Alcaro, Trini Gonzalez, & Jim McNally) - Limit 25
Hosts for the Day: The Legendary Ladies
PRESENTATIONS
OPENING REMARKS: Auraria Casa Mayan Heritage (Gregorio Alcaro & Trini H. Gonzalez)
3:30 p.m. The Philippines in 1908 (Elnora Mercado)
3:40 p.m. Politics of Women (Dr. Robert Hazan & Dr. Jacqueline McLeod)
4:00 p.m. The Empire - Then & Now (Douglas Vaughan Jr.)
4:20 p.m. Denver’s Destitute 1908 vs. 2008 (Randle Loeb)
4:40 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Round Table Forum

BREAK
5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Tivoli Food Court (Subway)

EVENING
1908 SLIDE SHOW Child Labor (Jim McNally & Hank Troy)
6:20 p.m. Governors Conference on Conservation (Gregorio Alcaro)
6:25 p.m. Enos Mills Conservation 1908 vs. 2008 (Eryn Mills) EXHIBITION: An Un-conventional Visit: Buffalo Bill ( Steve Friesen)
BREAK:
6:45 p.m. - 7:00 Exhibit Viewing

OPENING REMARKS: Auraria Casa Mayan Heritage (Gregorio Alcaro & Trini H. Gonzalez) MUSIC:
7:15 p .m Music of 1908 (Pianist Hank Troy)
THEATRE: Introduction: Paul Stewart (Black West History Museum)
7:45 p.m. Denver School of the Arts (Theatre students)
Breaking Away – African American Community in 1908

POEM: Italian Immigration (Dr. Linda Marangia)
8:15 p.m.
PERFORMANCE: Romero Theatre Troupe
8:20 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Immigration & Labor 1908 vs. 2008
Celebrate 1908
Presentations & Performances
William Jennings Bryan Day
(Anniversary of William Jennings Bryan’s Death - July 26, 1925)

Saturday
AFTERNOON
REGISTRATION/EXHIBIT VIEWING:
1:00 p.m. – Ongoing Tivoli Turnhalle Foyer (1908 Sears Roebuck Automobile Tivoli Plaza)

TOUR: Historic Casa Mayan (meet at Turnhalle Foyer)
2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Gregorio Alcaro, Trini Gonzalez, & Jim McNally) - Limit 25

PRESENTATIONS:
OPENING REMARKS:
3:30 p.m. Forney Museum- Transportation (Amy Newman, Director)
3:50 p.m. Consumerism, Advertising & Technology (Dr. Pamela Laird)
4:10 p.m. Denver Architecture 1908 (Francis Pierson)
4:30 P.M. Lakeside Amusement Park (Linda Hoffman)
4:40 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Round Table Forum

BREAK
5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Tivoli Food Court (Subway)

EVENING
MAYORAL PROCLAMATION:
6:15 p.m. William Jennings Bryan Day (Gregorio Alcaro & WJB Relatives)
SLIDE SHOW:
6:20 p.m. William Jennings Bryan (Jim McNally)
SPEECH:
6:30 p.m. Cross of Gold (Larry L. Bohning)
POETRY READING:
6:40 p.m. Bryan, Bryan, Bryan (Gregorio Alcaro)
6:50 p.m.-7:00p.m. Bryan’s Mexico (Gregorio Alcaro)
BREAK: Exhibit Viewing

TRIBUTE:
7:30 p.m. 1908 Colorado Governor John Shafroth (Mo Shafroth)
REENACTMENT: 1908 Colorado Senator Henry Teller (John Steinle)
SPEECH: 1908 Democratic Platform (Mark Benner)
REENACTMENT: Damon Runyon (Kevin Flynn)

MUSIC: Denver Municipal Band Quintet
THEATER:
8:00p.m - 9:30p.m. Laura Cuetara’s - Mayor Speer’s 1908 Convention

To The Editor:

For all the critics slamming presumptive Presidential nominee Barack Obama, you only show your own ignorance/jealousy/bigotry and insincerity when you criticize his asking that Americans learn Spanish. What countries are contiguous to the U S and what language do they speak? In Mexico, our closest neighbor, a country which originally covered much of our country adjacent to Mexico. Then there’s Cuba, Puerto Rico and the countries of Central and South America. There are more people in the world whose natural language is one other than English; and, yet the educated people of those countries speak English.

If you truly objected to Americans learning Spanish, then you should start with our government and all the major U S companies, industries and institutions. For when you call any of the above named, the first thing stated is for Spanish, press 1, for English press 2. Why have you not lodged a vociferous complaint with the U S government? Most merchandise sold in the U S has assemblage instructions in several languages. Why have you not complained about that? In some ethnic neighborhoods, social service offices have instructions in English and the language spoken by the majority of the people living there. In airports, especially in the international terminals there are several languages giving instructions.

I have traveled widely throughout the world and find that most of the educated citizens speak several languages proficiently. Here, in America, MOST citizens cannot even speak the national language which is English. We have elected officials and people in high places in this country who slaughter the English language and have a predilection for malapropisms, incorrect grammar and inability to complete a sentence.

We finally have joined the global community, either in war or peace, and we are at a distinct disadvantage because we cannot communicate with their leaders except through interpreters. How do we know how much is lost in translation and interpretation? We don’t.

All of you in the media who are attempting to persuade, dissuade and manipulate public opinion are as transparent and gossamer as a feather. You might as well stop because the mud is on your face. We are wise to your malevolent ways and we cannot be fooled. Further you should all be advocating that our military academies MANDATE the teaching of foreign languages. How many of our young people have been killed in wars on foreign shores because they do not know the language? How do we know that we can trust the loyalty of their foreign interpreters to be accurate or even honest. Before out troops go to foreign shores, most should have at least a minimal level of comprehension and all officers should be proficient in the language.

There was nothing elitist and condescending about what Senator Obama said, it was forward thinking and sage. Only a fool would not want to know what someone was saying to him or about him. In this case, it is the people in the media who are trying to smear Senator Obama; therefore, they are the fools!

Senator Obama advocates that we truly educate the American populace so that we can’t be victimized and exploited by people that we cannot communicate with and are intent on destroying us.

I personally studied German, French and Spanish when I was in a public high school and college in Chicago, IL. I have a 13 year old granddaughter, of whom I am very proud, because she is fluent in Chinese and French. Her 11 year old sister is fluent in French and Spanish, and her brother who is only 7 is studying Spanish. Do you know why they are studying these languages, because they are being prepared to become 21st Century people who can operate on the world scale at any level? My oldest sister studied French, Spanish, German
and Swahili. As a world traveler she was able to operate on all levels. Am I talking about elite, affluent people? No, my father had a 6th grade education and was a laborer, but he knew and appreciated the value of education and at one time had 3 daughters in college at one time. Were he still alive, he would sanction what Barack Obama said 1,000 times! Though he was not educated, he recognized that in order for people throughout the world to coexist, they needed to be able to communicate with others for the sake of diplomacy and world peace.

China is going to be very dominant on the world stage and we need people who are comfortable communicating with the Chinese people. Though French Is no longer the language of diplomacy the way it once was, it is a Romance language and it makes it easier to learn other Romance languages.

It is not snobbery or elitism to want to be enlightened. It is stupidity that scoffs at enlightenment.

From Helen L. Burleson

In the Heat of the Night, What is Happening to the Earth?

Unless you sleep in a waterfall or have a person stranding by to fan you, you are hot. Hot is a euphemism. It is global climate warming like "Inconvenient Truth," that is causing us to rethink what we do with plants. I used to live in the desert southwest in Saguaro National Forest territory. What we looked at out the window were javelinas. They can endure heat because their dispositions are like, wart hogs, snarling all the time. They know how to apply mudpacks better than we do and they have no objection to scaring up some dust devils.

In their native environment, and Tucson was not always this way, their climate prefers ocotillos, mesquite and Palo Verde beetles, with the trees. They also have Joshua trees, saguaros, and some jumping cactus, chollas. The Gila monster and the gecko are plentiful along with tarantulas.

When Mayor Hickenlooper proposed the million trees for the region I think he was blimey, as in Australia, down under, because deciduous trees simply cannot endure this heat unless they have a rain shower every day, which is how I water them. Forget all of the curb plantings of ash, maple and locusts, even forget cottonwoods. Tumbleweeds are fine and so are dry, dry land grasses.

Many people think that word is "Zeroscape," meaning no water. Xeriscape plants are intolerant to the diametric equation of little water. A plant like snow in the meadow requires a lot of water not to die back to a ghost town on a slope. It is also a necessity these days to put two feet of mulch not just around the roses but the big leaf trees, a concept that drives horticulturists blimey. Conditions are not fit for gardener or newt or eft or "foul." It is too hot for anything to withstand the dryness, and that is the second reason that this is global climate change, the rain is not falling to earth.

I hope that someone is reading this unpleasant truth. It is killing me.

Freedom Comes With Grace and with Grace Comes Inner Peace

When I water the locust trees, the white ash, the silver maples and the maiden rain tree I am smothering them, washing them, bathing them in tender moist air that drips down and forms a canopy of a micro climate underneath. This spurs the mother or every living thing, the fungus. All around I am spawning the Garden of Eden all over again. Underneath the leaf matter is a carpet of nematodes, worms, nits and sow bugs chewing up the fungus that spreads below the carpet of snow in the meadow, pouring over the edges of the sidewalks. The fecundity of life is abundant and the responsibility for nurturing life. Nowhere is this more evident than in the care and nature of the gardener. I am the caretaker of the design of nature, which prospers as much as anything in my hands. Without abundant love and satisfaction none of this is possible. This feeling "grace" grants abundant nurturing and commitment. It is as a newborn child to a mother, a cradle of hollowed ground.

Freedom is not sought by birthright and peace does not come to one with open arms. Clear and open embrace of any other is required and commitments to the other as well as one’s own inner determination are prerequisites for peace and justice.

Too many times throughout the course of American history and especially in the rough and tumble weed torn whistle stops of the frontier west manners called for fighting and determination of industry before companionship and accommodation. Virtue was shown by grit and courage, forbearance and cunning. Every one was called to lift up their head, slough through the pain and tumult without concern for the results of one's neighbors. Bonds were born from toughness and friendships were sought only where the person was deemed of value, worthy, righteous, and possessed with the values of American know how.

What was forged in the finite work of generation upon generation of self sufficient and determined pioneers gave way to justice by order and servitude of the destitute for the generous crumbs that awaited them when they fell from the table of the community. Community chests like the United Fund were born upon the backs of the poor and dehumanizing work of the backbone of America. While wealth was accumulated and horded, people starved to death or became ill and perished building the great institutions of the wild frontier. Literally we lived on our back, and stooped low to create squatter’s camps and missions to convey the needs of the bulk of America.

Human beings all seek comfort and care like weeds they grow where they wish and where there is light, water, nourishment, love, abundant air and space. We must begin to recognize the freedom of caring for others and the dependency of one another in order to flourish. With the desire to care for all others comes peace, inside inner peace from the wisdom of care complete and unrequited. This is the legacy of having people to love. It is a requirement that frees us to love fiercely. When everything fails this love will fulfill us in the darkest nights and moments of our creative spirit. We will share everything and be happy knowing that in this mere mortal life we have brought eternal calm and restored dignity to those who suffered for all time.