WHAT KERMIT WOULD SAY
DEMS, IT AIN'T EASY BEING GREEN

   Democrats should heed the advice of that old American sage, Kermit the Frog: It ain't easy being green. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a famously liberal Democrat, challenged his party and his city to "make this the greenest convention in the history of the planet."

   The greenest convention would involve candidates, delegates and onlookers meeting up in some Internet chat room. That would help them avoid the nagging dilemma of Al Gore's limo jet, tens of thousands of car trips, additional commercial air traffic, and the countless other environmentally harmful side effects of filling hotels and arenas to choose a candidate who has already been chosen.

   But the Democrats aren't going for a virtual convention, so they're settling for other practices they hope will tell the world which party is the greenest of all. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the convention's host committee wanted 15,000 fanny packs for volunteers, which had to be made of organic cotton by unionized labor in the United States. A merchandiser searched the country over and found that no such fanny packs exist. It seems the 1.65 children non-Hispanic white couples have produced in recent decades aren't choosing careers as unionized organic cotton fanny pack makers. Shocking. Or maybe not. Didn't fanny packs go out of style in 1992? And hasn't the resistance of baby boomers to produce a labor pool resulted in an expectation that everyone should be a doctor, lawyer or civil engineer, as opposed to, say, a textile worker paying dues to union goons?

   The convention's merchandiser was also ordered to find organic baseball caps, union made in the United States. Problem is, they don't exist either.

   Andrea Robinson, the convention's director of greening (seriously, that's her title), wants biodegradable balloons. She found some, but the Journal reports that her efforts to prove they will decompose, when buried in steaming compost, have failed. Her desire to ban plastic water bottles (enormous environmental offenders) have also failed.

   And it only gets harder. The convention's "lean 'n' green" catering standards require that each menu contain "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." Most of the food must be organic or grown locally.

   And no fried foods. What about Michael Moore, the morbidly obese arch-liberal who hasn't been converted to run on leafy greens alone?

   It will be interesting to see just how convention organizers go about finding locally grown, organic, color-appropriate foods without encountering Whole Foods Market, a big player in Colorado that recently bought Colorado-based competitor Wild Oats. Convention organizers don't want fanny packs and ball caps that aren't union made, so they can't possibly want lettuce and blue-green algae from Whole Foods, a company that's rabidly anti-union.

   Furthermore, what could be more anti-union than immigrant farm labor? Not much. So, in this quest to show union solidarity, convention organizers had best ensure us that the organic red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white produce involved no union-killing immigrant labor. If they do, which they must, what will that say about the DNC's compassion for immigrant farm laborers, and the American farmers who depend on them?

   People who get to worry about the color of food, and the organic origins of fanny pack fabric, aren't so much environmental stewards as they are cultural elitists. James B. Raskin, writing for the left wing journal In These Times, said it best: "Today, health food, in cultural terms, is primarily a gourmet treat for the rich. In economic terms, it's no longer the nourishment of the counterculture but one more big business for Big Business."

   Speaking of big business, enter Coors Brewing Co. Though Democrats would be consistent to diss Whole Foods and produce handled by immigrants, they've had to embrace a gift by Coors - a conservative Republican-owned company with a foundation that has greatly benefited conservative Republican think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation and the Independence Institute. Coors, which advanced modern recycling by introducing the aluminum can, will donate beer waste biofuel to help power the convention. The Journal reports that die-hard liberals are miffed because of the company's conservative history.

   It's one thing to act fashionably green. As Kermit might say, however, it's entirely another to be green through and through. Having kicked up such an environmental fuss over the years, if Democrats aren't careful the convention will expose environmental hypocrisy.
   So here's some heartfelt advice: If Democrats genuinely desire to help Mother Earth, they'll ask party leaders to leave their private jets at home. Furthermore, they'll host their mid-summer convention without air conditioning. Just those two moves would do more than organic lettuce, ball caps and unionized fanny packs combined. It may be hot, but that's the price. After all, it ain't easy being green.

DREAM CITY: VISION 2020

   Imagine Colorado Springs in the year 2020. Visualize the skyline, the arts scene and the commercial/industrial base of our growing metropolis at the base of majesty. That's what a new project, called Dream City: Vision 2020, invites people throughout the Pikes Peak region to do: share dreams and aspirations about the future of Colorado Springs and work together to make the best ideas come to life.

   The project is sponsored by a variety of our city's institutions, including The Gazette, Leadership Pikes Peak, Pikes Peak Library District and the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region.

   The project is divided into three categories: Inspiration, Education and Engagement. It will launch with art, photography, film, poetry and essay contests for children and adults. There's almost no limit to the ways individuals or organizations might choose to get involved.

   Colorado Springs will never be more than what the people who live in this region decide to make of it. People and their activities establish the culture and character of any community, and Dream City: Vision 2020 is an organized effort to inspire constructive vision and channel it into action.

   Too often, modern communities reflect the goals and aspirations of central planners and the people elected and hired to run local government. The result, unfortunately, is often homogeny. That's because a few leading planners decide on a formula that works and others copy them. Their plans are quickly imposed on the public, which had little say in the process. Central, or top-down planning explains the little boxes made of ticky tacky. It explains the monster garage suburban tract home villages designed around the expectation that people should drive to accommodate their everyday needs. Central planning doesn't cultivate creativity and genius design.

   But Dream City isn't about central planning or top-down engineering. It's about the opposite. It's a project to facilitate individuals in a grass-roots effort to plan a unique, artistic community designed for the way real people want to live. It's about inspiration, education and engagement.

   So engage in Dream City, and help create a city of your dreams. For more information, visit: www.dreamcity2020.com.