The Poop Fairy program expands to Boise

Comments (0) Tuesday, Feb 21 2012

Rachel Maddow knows there is no Poop Fairy. In fact, the MSNBC pundit is the reason that a good part of the country has heard of Jefferson County, Colorado, which created a "There Is No Poop Fairy" public-service campaign last summer as a way to remind people who used the county's parks and open spaces to pick up after their dogs.

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Now the city of Boise, Idaho, plans to use the idea as well (it will roll out its version sometime this spring or summer). And although that city is giving props to Jeffco, Maddow wants some credit, too.

On Friday, she brought back her feature on the Poop Fairy campaign, which she had named the "Best New Thing in the World" last June. During that segment, she'd gleefully shared the details of the Poop Fairy push — which included a Facebook page — and pointed out that the Jeffco worker responsible for the project had most likely been underutilized before then. (As Off Limits reported back in July, that "worker" was actually a team of employees who scoured the Internet for creative ideas after several people complained about doggie debris piling up in the parks.)

"After getting a lot of publicity," Maddow reported last week, "the campaign ended successfully: mission accomplished; awareness raised; Jefferson County park walkways seemingly cleaner than usual. End of story. Or was it? We have just received word that the simultaneously disillusioning and instructive Don't Believe in the Poop Fairy campaign is expanding, now to Boise, Idaho. We'd like to think the parks and rec people in Boise heard about the Poop Fairy from us."

If they did, the credit shouldn't stop with Maddow, or even Jeffco. At least one other municipality — Virginia Beach, Virginia — didn't believe in the Poop Fairy before Colorado borrowed the idea, although the Virginia campaign didn't come with Jefferson County's graphics and backstory that so delighted Maddow.

"Like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, the fabled Poop Fairy has been the stuff of legend," Jeffco told its citizens. "Flying undetected in parks, neighborhoods and schoolyards, she was said to follow close behind dogs and their owners — picking up what the dog left behind before flying off to the next canine creation. A widespread belief that she existed seemed to reassure some that cleaning up after one's dog was sort of...optional."

But now you say there's no Poop Fairy? Oh, crap.

Scene and herd: Speaking of cleaning up, Michelle Obama brought the First Daughters to Aspen over Presidents' Day weekend, where they stayed at the home of Paula and Jim Crown, owner of Aspen Ski Corporation. We're guessing that the town was itching to erase the work of one Lee Mulcahy, an artist and former Aspen Ski employee who lives four blocks from the Crowns, and who, along with fellow members of Occupy Aspen, created a sculpture outside of his house — "public art in a public place," Mulcahy points out — with "lots of references to the Revolution, both American and French," he reports. "We even made a guillotine and hung a Barbie from the third-floor window." The city sent a note (copied to Aspen Ski Corp.) asking him to remove it; Mulcahy, who'd installed an earlier homage to the Crowns outside of the Aspen Art Museum (which he's now banned from entering), declined.

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Lee Mulcahy, PhD
Lee Mulcahy, PhD

Here is some small town gossip in the biggest little town in America. “ FYI, I'm not a criminal ---but I am an 8th generation Texan artist who happens to believe in liberty. Since the comment book at the sculpture maintained thatI'm a thief and pedophile [the CEO of Skico was spotted writing in it after dark, know that I am an Eagle Scout, a PhD, & skiing freestyle aeria certified. Currently, we are in a lawsuit. Instead of all this court stuff where justice is determined by big $ [and I'm fighting billionaires], I proposed this to the CEO of Skico:

"Just returned from art class @SAIC. [School of the Art Institute of Chicago]. Had birthday breakfast this morning with girl pals dressed as Barbie. Check out aspen ideas festival...."-tweet, Skico/General Dynamics/JP Morgan Chase owner Paula Crown. Her Aspen Skiing CEO:

"Watch out, I'm blogging now. How's your Aspen? @ heidizj: [Heidi is CEO of the Aspen art Museum.] Good move, Heidi."-AspenSnowCEO

Dear Little Mikey,

Despite our differences, we both love teaching skiing & our community. These days our politicians are just blowhards; whereas, our Revolutionary forefathers deeply respected a good fight: Vice President Burr fatally wounded former Secretary of Treasury Hamilton in a High Noon dueling shootout. Taking inspiration from the current Roger Marolt/Aspen Times and Lo Semple/Aspen Daily News ski-OFF: Why not a Mulcahy/Kaplan Wild West flip-OFF at the base of Aspen? Cheerleaders?---would Heidi & Paula bring pom-poms and go all Dallas Cowboys for you?

It’ll be hilarious: CEO vs. peon.

BIG $$$ vs. white trash.

Chicago North Shore vs. Fort Worth, Texas.

Audi driving Master of the Skico Universe vs. pick-up driving banned Skico whistleblower.

Aspen Institute green “limousine liberal” vs. “Don’t tread on me” NRA/Tea Party occupier.

Castle Creek free market DU MBA vs. Burlingame public housing unionizer Sorbonne-attending PhD.

Skier vs. snowboarder. Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker.

Elite 1% vs. 99%.

Or a moguls contest on AH’s Scarlett’s instead of all this legal stuff? Man to man. It would be so in line with Aspen's history. But if I win, Skico has to pay more than $9.25/hr. u call a “living wage” here & I get my job back. Full disclosure: I was freestyle aerial certified. But I'll even flip on a snowboard and u can use those skis Roger Marolt pokes fun of u about.

And that's the paradox of the public space, everyone may kind of know something unpleasant, but once someone says it, it changes everything.

Therefore, I cannot resist: Paula Crown, PhD candidate at the Art Institute of Chicago, is on President Obama's arts council; Michelle vacations @ Paula’s palace; General Dynamics, a merchant of death, and Wall Street's JP Morgan Chase are prosperous.

What was the name of that Dan Sheridan song Skico has banned? “Big $”?

28th amendment to get the big $$$ out of politics already?

So back to skiing, AspenSnowCEO, are you in?

Thou shall not speak ill of the Crown Royals: I sent the peon vs CEO challenge as a letter to editor of the Aspen Times; but they refused to print it. We're a small town and they print EVERYTHING. Well, unless it's anti-Skico. When I asked to run it as an advertisement, the paper’s editor/co-manager [huh?] refused. Can u say company town? Or lack of separation between editorial and publishing? Note: Skico has a large ad budget with the Aspen Times. [LOL: they refuse to advertise in the Aspen Daily News].

 
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