Dave Chandler

A Little for Andrew Romanoff

Since leaving the Green Party of Colorado this past April, I have cherished the political liberty that being an 'unaffiliated' voter has given me -- and today I exercised that freedom.

This day, at the Jeffco motor vehicles office in Arvada, I voted for Andrew Romanoff for the Democratic Party nomination for United States Senate.

Be assured, I will re-register as 'unaffiliated' immediately after the August 10 primary election ... a reminder is already written on my calendar.

However, in these times when the corruption of our government and politics is ubiquitous because of the corroding influence of corporate and special interest money, those few running for public office who eschew the current 'system' should be rewarded and encouraged.

That is the main reason I decided to give my single vote to Romanoff ... it ain't much, but it's all I've got to give. My small action keeps me in accord with one of my favorite sentiments expressed in a quotation attributed to Edmund Burke: "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."

Those who read my commentaries here on this blog and at my other web site, www.Earthside.com, know that I have a rather less than sanguine view of the state of our nation -- the rise of mega-transnational corporations and their effective capture of our governments and political institutions causes me great apprehension and angst for the future of this Republic.

So, when I see that Andrew Romanoff's campaign is not taking Political Action Committee money, well, that's a positive sign. Furthermore, I, in particular, am also encouraged by this report in the Denver Post on education:

While Bennet says he supports the controversial teacher evaluation bill passed by the Colorado legislature this year, Romanoff said at a teacher rally, "It's not the package I would have produced" as speaker of the House.

"A lot of teachers have suffered from reform fatigue," said Romanoff, who counts himself among them as a longtime college instructor. Educators already know what works in the classroom, Romanoff said, and don't need a more complex federal framework.

And, let me be frank, too ... it is admirable that Romanoff had the fortitude to run for this nomination in the first place, even while Gov. Ritter and the Washington Democratic Party establishment continue to slouch towards further irrelevancy by supporting the pretentious Senatorship and campaign of Michael Bennet.

For other voters who are 'unaffiliated', there is time left for you, too, to lend the support of a cast ballot for Mr. Romanoff. Call your county or elections clerk and find out how.

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A new ad.

McInnis's Watergate

It is a "cover-up" in broad daylight.

And ... you know what the conventional wisdom says, "It's not the crime that brings down the politician, it's the cover-up."

The letter that the Scott McInnis gubernatorial campaign sent to Rolly Fischer for his signature reads like it could have been concocted by President Nixon in his attempts to make John Mitchell the fall guy for the whole Watergate scandal.

The plagiarism charge is serious, however, that wrongdoing took place before the McInnis 2010 candidacy, making this part of the scandal mostly a matter of Scott McInnis's integrity or lack thereof. Perhaps McInnis might have been able to survive this ignominy, he is a politician after all and expectations are low.

But the "it was all my fault" confession that the McInnis campaign wanted Fischer to sign elevates the controversy to a big-time political scandal. The letter demonstrates that the McInnis campaign wanted to cover-up the plagiarism by getting Rolly Fischer to take the fall, thereby absolving Mr. McInnis completely.

However, in his channel 7 interview, Fischer refused to take the knife for Scott and the McInnis attempt at cover-up instead blew sky high.

Consequently, the Scott McInnis quest for the Republican nomination for the Colorado governorship in 2010 is over ... whether he gets out now or later, is defeated in the primary, or goes down in brilliant hot flames in the November election.

If there is one thing that lefties, righties and independents agree on in politics this year, it is that we are all sick and tired of politicians who have this notion that somehow they are a breed apart from the rest of us. In other words, McInnis has committed the most unforgivable political transgression on the 2010 election stage: he done wrong and still is arrogant enough to try and tell us, the voters, that his revealed corruption is a "non-issue."

Scott McInnis and his campaign have shown us in a most disturbing manner that they are beneath the floor of what citizens will tolerate from politicians or elected officials. He certainly doesn't deserve to be Colorado's governor.

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Here is the McInnis authored letter that Rolly Fischer was asked to sign (as provided by 7News):

Dear Scott:

I am writing to express my sincere apology for failing to provide appropriate attribution for the research I provided for the water articles we collaborated on. While my mistake was not intentional, it is nonetheless clear that this material needed footnotes.

This mistake was solely my own and I recognize that my work fell short of the expectations you had when you included me in this project.

Again, please accept my deep apology.

Sincerely,

Rolly Fischer

Watch the Rolly Fisher interview at this link:

Researcher Says Scott McInnis Lied | Tom Burke and Arthur Kane and John Ferrugia/7News

Wake Up, Jeffco Schools!

Here's a loud alarm clock buzzer for Jeffco school administrators: Do what's best for the kids and start the school day at a time that is more beneficial and healthful for teens.

Over a year ago I wrote and published here a short article entitled "Sleeping Colorado High School Teens." In the essay I argued that high schools in particular should do what several studies had indicated and start classes no earlier than about 8:00 A.M.

I penned the piece in support of a National Institutes of Health study that came out then offering evidence that teenagers need fully eight hours of sleep every night, but that their changing physiology made trying to make them go to bed at ten o'clock in the evening was problematic.

Consequently, a start time of 7:25 A.M., as it was at Pomona High School last year, was deleterious to the students.

Now, a new paper published in this month's issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, provides even more evidence that students do better with a later starting time.

Can you hear the alarm clock of health science ringing, Jeffco administrators and principals?

Or are you going to cover your heads with another "Race to the Top" pillow, ignore more evidence, and try and keep on sleeping?

Let's hope that school officials get out of their bureaucratic beds and make some changes that are good for the kids.

Why maybe even their beloved CSAP scores might rise ... if the test takers have had a good night's sleep!

Later School Start Times May Foster Better Students | BusinessWeek.com

High school students at a private school in Rhode Island who started school a half-hour later in the morning were in better moods, more alert, less depressed and more likely to actually attend class than before the time change, a new study shows.

In fact, the experiment was so successful that the school has now permanently shifted its start time from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

"At the end of the experimental period, there was not a single faculty member, student or administrator who wanted to go back to the old start time," said Dr. Judith Owens, lead author of a paper appearing in the July issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

"Mornings are so much more pleasant at my house I can't even begin to tell you," added Owens, whose daughter just graduated from the school and who participated in the experiment. "Many of the faculty members said the same thing: that it improved the quality of their lives as well as the perception that students were just better rested and more ready to start the day."

The study bolsters the evidence that teens have special sleep needs.

"Sleep medicine specialists have long known that delaying high school start times helps teenagers sleep better," said Dr. Heidi V. Connolly, chief of the division of pediatric sleep medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. "Teenagers are biologically programmed to prefer a later bedtime and a later wake-up time so it is not surprising that they struggle with early school start times."

Adolescents' circadian rhythms do shift during puberty. "What that boils down to is that teenagers are not able to fall asleep as early as they did when they were in middle school or elementary school," Owens explained. "There is as much as a two-hour shift in sleep-wake cycles."

But while they may be going to bed later, they still need the same amount of sleep, making sleep deprivation "rampant among American teens," Connolly said.

Owens was approached by St. George's School in Middletown, R.I., about doing a study on a later school start time.

"There was a lot of push back initially from faculty, administration and athletic coaches who felt that half an hour wasn't going to make a substantial difference and was going to be disruptive to academic and athletic schedules," Owens said.

But they agreed to give it the old college try.

About 200 students in grades 9 through 12 filled out questionnaires on sleep habits both before and after the time change. The researchers also measured tardiness and visits to the school health center.

After the time change, students went to bed an average of 18 minutes later at night and slept an average of 45 minutes longer.

The proportion of students getting at least eight hours of sleep a night jumped from 16.4 percent to 54.7 percent, while those getting less than seven hours a night decreased by almost 80 percent.

Other parameters improved as well.

"Virtually everything we looked at -- ranging from the amount of sleep to self-reported sleepiness during the day, to mood and depression symptoms, to interest and motivation to participate in academic and athletic activities -- moved significantly in a positive direction," Owens stated.

As noted in an accompanying journal editorial, research into this topic started in Minnesota 13 years ago and resulted in the Minneapolis Public School District changing the start time of high schools to 8:40 a.m. and of middle schools to 9:10 a.m.

But there's still a lot of resistance to the idea, with some school superintendents actually losing their jobs after supporting the idea of later school times, wrote editorialist Kyla Wahlstrom, of the University of Minnesota.

And even with this new evidence, it's not clear if such changes would work at all schools or if the dramatic improvements seen here would even last.

"It might just be the teenagers were going to bed the same time and got an extra 30 minutes of sleep which was beneficial," said Dr. Lawrence Friedman, director of the adolescent medicine program at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "But will [a later school start] translate to teenagers wanting to stay up another half hour? If so, then it would cancel out the benefit."