Voices • 283-0505

New question: It’s open forum week. What’s on your mind?• Here we go again!

Sunday, just before noon. Clear sky, cool temperatures. The power fails yet again, in the same area of the city where it has failed for years yet again, for well over an hour and a half. Just enough time to miss the first half of the season’s first football game. When you call about it, you get a machine. And the power company? Never an excuse offered; never an apology. Then on Monday the monthly bill arrived, including the latest rate hike, and a brochure bragging about “rate consolidation” and an offer to “learn how to be more energy efficient.” That’s some power company.

• When one or two of the parents have a drinking problem in the home, the teen should be introduced to alateen (a part of Alcoholic Anonymous). It kind of helps them through it and gets them educated about drinking. It’s a good program, and it helps with awareness. They should be responsible what to deal with and when they get into trouble for drinking they need to be the ones who are responsible. Parents and their friends should not be always have to pick up the tab for everybody.

• Nature is having enough trouble surviving without being “manicured” to death by man-made perfections. Personally, I love the native grasses growing along the Sand Creek banks and think it’s very appropriate. If the complainers would accept it for what it is and open their eyes to its true beauty, they could enjoy watching the butterflies and other little creatures of nature that find protection in such a natural setting. Maybe, instead of complaining, why not toss some wildflower seeds along the pathways and see what comes up next spring?

• In 1990, the average pay for a CEO of the 500 largest corporations was 84 times that of an average worker. By 1999, it was 475 times the workers pay. Also, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans have more than the bottom 95 percent. Some of this comes from Howard Zinn’s book “A People’s History of the United States.”