In case you missed it | Working stiffs

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Working stiffs

Should men on welfare be able to use their public assistance cards in strip club ATMs? Colorado lawmakers say no.

On Valentine’s Day, Colorado’s House of Representatives approved on second reading a bill that would bar those who receive government assistance from using their welfare cards in strip joints.

The vote sends a strong message to the state’s poorest residents: Want to gawk at tits and ass? Want to stuff a $20 down that hot stripper’s tiny G-string? Want to liquor up so you’ll be brave enough to ask her out? Then get a damned job.

State law already prohibits people from using public assistance cards at ATMs in casinos, at racetracks and in liquor stores.

Now you know why, as the good book tells us, rich people rarely make it to heaven. You want to sin? Pay for it yourself.

Kinder bud

A Denver-based company is stepping in to fill the social couponing void by offering daily deals to medical marijuana patients. The company, mmjDeals.com, aims to increase patients’ access to their drug of choice by making medical marijuana, which isn’t covered by group insurance or Medicaid, more affordable.

Just like other online couponing organizations, mmjDeals.com would enable people to opt in for coupon e-mails and would then send them one deal each day, offering up to 80 percent off any product related to medical marijuana.

It’s a bold business move, particularly given the way banks and other businesses treat MMJ dispensaries like pariahs. It also breaks a boundary that Big Pharma has been reluctant to break — treating medicine like a consumer good.

Wouldn’t it be great if the big pharmaceuticals handed out coupons? Imagine getting 80 percent off on birth control pills or insanely expensive anti-retrovirals for HIV or chemo drugs. Hey, if health care is going to operate on a capitalist model, there ought to be something in it for the consumer.

Kudos to mmjDeals.com for reminding us of this.

Spinning class

We were so dizzy from the spinning in that last mass e-mail newsletter from CU President Bruce Benson that we had to sit down.

Turns out that the $785,000, 18-months-late branding project wasn’t just about creating a new logo.

Whew! We were worried that it was a waste of money there for a second. Benson explains that there were just too many different, competing messages and images emanating from CU’s various colleges, schools, departments, centers and institutes. We know, we hear you, that’s a shocking and unconscionable situation for a complex four-campus university system with 56,000 students, almost 4,000 faculty and a $2.6 billion annual budget. People might get confused!

Benson also points out that interest on university investments — not tax dollars or tuition — were used to pay for the project. (Hmm, we seem to remember certain past presidents giving that money to the campuses to improve things like diversity, technology and, um, was that other one? Oh, yeah, education.)

Then Benson lists all of the surveys and interviews that were done in the project. Even a peer analysis of six universities similar to CU! Six! That’s awesome.

And just think of all the money we’ll save printing a single logo on letterhead and business cards, instead of dozens of different ones! (Huh?) At the end of this highly illuminating message, finally, is public acknowledgement of one of the real drivers of this project: the oft-whispered-about fundraising campaign that is reportedly ready to be announced this spring after years and years of waiting out the recession.

The emergence of the campaign, the name of which shall not be spoken, may be the best local economic news of all. Almost makes you forget about the $785,000 branding study.

But if you haven’t forgotten about it, there is always the illusion of feeling like your voice has been heard. You can send feedback about the study to officeofthepresident@cu.edu — unless you actually want someone to read it, in which case you might want to e-mail one of the vice presidents or Bruce himself.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com