Posts tagged help
Pottery Lab will close at 5 p.m. #boulderfire, twitter bullys , Evacuations Can we go home yet
Oct 29th
Pottery Lab will close at 5 p.m.
The Pottery Lab will close at 5 p.m. on Friday can we go home yet?, Oct. 29, as a result of the Dome Fire burning west of Boulder:
Residents are encouraged to continue monitoring the Boulder County Emergency Management website at http://www.boulderoem.com/emergency-status for further information and evacuation updates.
Evacuations are still in effect, but a huge number of air water attacks before dark will help to ensure that the fire remains on the ground and close to extinction. There is some discussion right now as to whether resident will be allowed back in to their homes in some evac area. according to Sarah Huntley OEM media the lifting evacuations were being discussed regularly, but no decision had been made to do so as of yet. 1700 people have been evacuated in the city with over 800 units including the Senior center on Walnut. Evacuation are goes from Canyon to North Street and 7th west.
The fire has not been a catastrophic threat since early this afternoon as reported by Boulder Channel 1. With the winds calm and rigorous fire fighting efforts, the worst had passed by 1:00.
According to Sarah Huntley at OEM “ This fire is not nearly as dangerous as the Fourmile Fire where the wind were a factor. ” Our hope is the fire will settle down this evening” she said. It has not spread beyond it’s 139 acres for several hours….and we see that as a good sign. Over 29 agencies and 165 firemen are on the scene. she said. We do not need federal help for this fires Huntley said.
Huntley did say the fire has not crossed Sunshine, is not on Mt Sanitas and remains South of Sun Shine Canyon though there was a lot of smoke up on Sanitas.
Social Media in Boulder went nuts today with much gossip going on by local techies where they descended into cyber bullying. This will be the topic of a special Jann Scott Live on Boulder Channel 1 at 8:00 pm tonight. The bullying started out with young marketing women and then spread to their male counterparts. Twitter is primarily a womens social media tool has become a form of watching soap operas gone ary.
NPR won't back down: puts funding on chopping block. Williams gone Fox wins Dumb
Oct 23rd
NPR fires Juan Williams
(NECN: Jim Braude) – Fallout continues from the firing of Juan Williams. It’s turning into a major PR headache for public radio.
Consider this: Williams’ so-called offense was telling Bill O’reilly he sometimes gets nervous when flying with people in muslim dress. For that, NPR canned him.
NPR’s complaint line was so jammed that it crashed. Even newspapers like the Washington Post said NPR overreacted.
Fox rewarded Williams with a $2 million contract.
So who really came out ahead? Williams re-joined O’reilly last night to trash NPR.
Gone from NPR, Williams begins bigger role on Fox:
BYBRETT ZONGKER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — As listeners and angry citizens complained to NPR and public radio stations across the country over the firing of Juan Williams, the news analyst kept up his own criticism of his former employer as he began a bigger role with Fox News Channel.
As the guest host Friday night of “The O’Reilly Factor,” Williams, who was axed for saying he gets nervous on a plane when he sees Muslims, mentioned several remarks made by other NPR commentators that didn’t result in firings.
“My comments about my feelings supposedly crossed this line, some line, somewhere. That crossed the line?” Williams said. “Let me tell you what you can say on National Public Radio without losing your job.”
Williams went on to note that commentator Nina Totenberg said 15 years ago that if there is “retributive justice,” former Republican North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms or one of his grandchildren will get AIDS from a transfusion.
An NPR spokeswoman said Totenberg has repeatedly apologized for her comments.
Meanwhile, a number of major stations said they were meeting or surpassing their fundraising goals in the wake of the furor over Williams’ dismissal, despite it being pledge season.
“We find ourselves kind of caught between NPR and the audience,” said Craig Curtis, program director at KPCC in Pasadena, Calif., which won’t hold its pledge drive until next month. He said the station had received about 150 comments on the firing, mostly disapproving, and three people asked to cancel their memberships.
Conservative leaders including Sarah Palin called on Congress to cut off NPR’s federal funding – an idea that was also raised in the 1990s and didn’t get very far.
Williams was fired Wednesday over comments he made on “The O’Reilly Factor.”
“When I get on a plane,” he said, “I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
After his remarks, Fox announced it had re-signed Williams, who has been with the network since 1997, to a multiyear deal that will give him an expanded role.
NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller held a staff meeting Friday and said management was standing by its decision, spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm said. Schiller acknowledged that NPR didn’t handle the firing perfectly and executives would review their process, Rehm said.
Veronica Richardson, 38, a paralegal from Raleigh, N.C., said the firing revealed that NPR had a “political agenda.” She said she would stop listening and donating to her local station, WUNC-FM in Chapel Hill.
“I think it’s unfair to fire someone for a comment that was innocuous to begin with. It’s how many people feel,” said Richardson, who describes herself as a libertarian.
Teresa Kopec, 42, of Spartanburg, S.C., backed the firing, saying, “I thought what he said was kind of offensive. I think it was probably the last straw. He had a pattern of saying things that were not appropriate.” But she said his association with conservative Fox News may have been more troubling, because it damaged NPR’s reputation for objectivity.
At KUNC, an NPR affiliate in Colorado, general manager Neil Best said that Thursday, the start of a pledge drive, was one of the station’s best fundraising days ever. Best said some callers who criticized the firing seemed to be reading from a script since they used some of the same words, such as “totalitarian.”
Rehm said several other stations also reported callers may be reading from a script. In other cases, it was clear the callers weren’t listeners or supporters, she said.
“When people say, `I’m never going to watch you again,’ that’s an indicator,” she said, because NPR isn’t on TV.
Stations in some big cities such as New York, Washington and Philadelphia, all three of which have been holding pledge drives, said fundraising remained strong even as complaints rolled in. In Denver, Colorado Public Radio President Max Wycisk said the episode could boost fundraising. “It might actually help, because it reinforces how seriously public radio takes its integrity,” Wycisk said.
At least one station wants to distance itself from the firing. In Miami, WLRN general manager John Labonia said he was hearing dozens of complaints from angry citizens and loyal donors. He said one called to cancel a $1,000 pledge. The station’s fundraising drive had already ended when the furor erupted.
“We don’t want that negative halo of NPR’s decision to affect us, so we are making it perfectly clear that we were not part of this decision and we do not agree with it,” Labonia said. “It was a short-sighted and irresponsible decision by NPR.”
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said he will introduce legislation to end federal funding for public radio and television.
“Once again, we find the only free speech liberals support is the speech with which they agree,” he said in a statement. “With record debt and unemployment, there’s simply no reason to force taxpayers to subsidize a liberal programming they disagree with.”
In June, Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., introduced similar legislation in the House. He said the Williams firing will help his bill.
NPR radio stations are independently owned and operated and, like the nation’s public TV stations, receive government funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which got about $420 million this year from Washington.
As for NPR’s headquarters operation, federal grants account for less than 2 percent – or $3.3 million – of its $166 million annual budget. It is funded primarily by its affiliates, corporate sponsors and major donors.
This isn’t the first time public broadcasting has been in the crosshairs of conservative politicians. In 1994, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for an end to all federal funding for public broadcasters.
NPR’s Rehm warned that if Congress cut off funding, “stations across the country would be hurt by that and would have to make up that balance elsewhere. In many places that would be difficult to do.”
Associated Press Writers Dan Elliott in Denver, Jeff Wilson in Los Angeles, Ben Nuckols in Baltimore, Suzette Laboy in Miami, Kendal Weaver in Birmingham, Ala., Ula Ilnytzky in New York City and JoAnn Loviglio in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
“Walk With Me” Lisa Bell boulder music video
Apr 15th
Song by Lisa Bell, Lisa Simmons and Bob Story. Starring two adorable dogs, a very catchy tune and helps more dogs get adopted!
The video features Joey and Kona, who were adopted through the Humane Society of Boulder Valley. Joey, the one being led, was adopted more than 9 years ago as a puppy; and Kona, the one who walks Joey, three years ago when he was six years old. Here is the back story to the video:
Kona was in the shelter for several weeks. I was a volunteer at the shelter during that time, and walked him several days a week. He stole my heart and after the third week that he was still waiting for adoption, I decided he was waiting for me. Kona came home a well-trained and very loving dog.
A few days after adoption, he stopped eating and we quickly realized that something was very wrong. With the help of the veterinary clinic at the Humane Society, he was diagnosed within a week with a rare case of canine myositis. With the first round of medication, Kona had a new lease on life and he has never looked back.
He came to us with a cute habit of carrying his own leash in his mouth. One day on a walk in the park, he grabbed for the leash of his adopted brother and started leading him around. Kona was very proud of his new trick and over a two-year period, he learned how to actually take the other dog for a walk. Joey has a habit of wandering and lagging behind, so this made walking and running on our beautiful trails much easier. I’m always there of course, and make sure that Kona has ample water and takes breaks so that he can properly hydrate and be able to cool his body. Leading Joey by the leash helped Kona to regain some of the muscle mass in his jaw and neck that he had lost due to the disease, so it had a rehabilitative effect as well.
The dogs have become quite the celebrities on our trails here in Boulder, CO, with people stopping to take pictures and thanking me and them continuously for making their day. I decided to write a song and develop a music video to tell their story, with the ultimate goal of donating a percentage of the proceeds to non-profits whose mission is to help adopt out wonderful dogs like Joey and Kona.
A portion of all advertising revenue obtained through click throughs for the video, as well as digital downloads of the song will go to local and national organizations including the Humane Society of Boulder Valley, ASPCA, Humane Society of the US, and Best Friends Animal Society. Please help me share the video far and wide so I can give a significant donation to these wonderful organizations. Downloads of the song are available on iTunes: