Colorado gubernatorial write-in candidate Christian Komor proposes pairing data centers with clean energy and carbon removal. Paula presses him on what’s been proven at scale, who bears the risk if the technology falls short, and how Colorado would hold companies accountable once investment and jobs are on the line.
Learn more about Komor's campaign at k4gov.com.
Learn more about these conversations and more of COJA's work at cojaservices.com.

Former Colorado Commissioner of Education Katy Anthes joins Jason Masino to explore why students need room to experiment, change direction, and define success for themselves. They discuss career exploration, flexible routes between education and work, and preparing young people for a future still taking shape.

Learn more about Katy Anthes work here.

Colorado offers thousands of education and training options, spread across a maze of state agencies. For the first installment of COJA's What's College For Now? series, Roger Low joins Jason Masino to discuss HB 26-1317, the push to connect higher education and workforce development, and a harder question: Can Colorado demand clearer evidence of economic value without reducing college to job training?

Be part of the conversation. The TAC is seeking feedback on HB 26-1317 and it's implementation. Access the feedback form here.

More Episode Links:
Reimagining Colorado’s Postsecondary Talent Development System and HB 26-1317
Degrees of Abundance: A Postsecondary Path Forward Showcased in Colorado
Colorado Equitable Economic Mobility Initiative
Get Me to the Gray
COJA Services

Season 2 of Get Me to the Gray begins with a handoff. Paula Lehman-Ewing passes the mic to new host Jason Masino as they reflect on Season 1 and introduce the first series question: What is college for now?

Recorded live at GRASP in Denver, this episode asks what research can become when it stops extracting stories from communities and starts protecting the people closest to the harm. Paula sits with Johnny, Ginny, Erica, and members of the GRASP research team to talk about trust, gun violence, community-led inquiry, and why data means very little if it does not lead to action.
Learn more about GRASP at graspyouth.org.

We’ll be back with new episodes in September. In the meantime, keep in touch with us at cojaservices.com, opt in to the newsletter, and follow along as we keep asking better questions in public.

What is religion actually for?

For thousands of years, religion has offered explanations for life's biggest mysteries. But what happens when reason replaces revelation? Can a religion survive if it no longer asks people to believe the supernatural?

In this episode of Get Me to the Gray, Paula Lehman-Ewing sits down with Matt Ward, founder of New Atenism, to explore whether faith is essential to religion—or whether religion can evolve alongside human knowledge.

The conversation begins with reason, science, and the role of speculation in human progress, but quickly moves somewhere deeper: What should we do with the unknown?

Is faith simply belief without evidence? Or is it the willingness to live with questions that may never have answers?

Rather than debating religion versus atheism, this episode asks a more fundamental question: Is religion meant to explain life's mysteries—or help us live with them?
You can learn more about Matt Ward and New Atenism at newatenism.org.
Learn more about COJA Presents at COJAServices.com

Former FBI Special Agent Eric Robinson spent 24 years inside one of the most powerful law enforcement institutions in the world. He worked counterterrorism, crimes against children, public corruption, and national security. He was part of the team that arrested Jon Burge — the Chicago police commander whose torture program put more than 100 Black men in prison on forced confessions over nearly four decades. He's also publicly stated the FBI today is unrecognizable from the one he was a part of. Paula challenges that idea: Is it different or just more exposed?

This conversation asks what it means to do good work inside a broken pattern. Robinson doesn't deflect the hard questions. What he gives instead is something rarer: an honest account of what it means to see clearly and still stay inside.
Learn more about Eric and his forthcoming book Irreverend: From Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners in the FBI visit preachertobreacher.com and follow him on Instagram @_eric_robinson.

If you're interested in having or facilitating conversations with hard questions, contact us at cojaservices.com.

War coverage depends on infrastructure most audiences never see. The fixer — the local journalist who arranges access, speaks the language, reads the room, and absorbs the risk — is the reason foreign correspondents can tell any story at all. And the fixer disappears before it airs.

Amjad Tadros spent 33 years as CBS News' Middle East producer — one of the most decorated fixers in the history of American broadcast journalism. He won some fights to get the real story through. He lost others. The ones he lost still find him at four in the morning.

Now retired and watching a new war unfold from Jordan, Tadros is seeing what happens when that infrastructure collapses entirely. There are no independent journalists inside Iran. The internet is restricted. The coverage is being assembled in London and Washington and Dubai from satellite imagery, Telegram channels, and exile sources with their own agendas. The people who would push back on the frame are not in the room.

This is what that absence looks like — and what it reveals about what the fixer was actually providing when he was there.
Learn more about Amjad Tadros' work and book at amjadtadros.com. His book The Fixer is available on Amazon.
For information about how COJA Services teaches narrative strategies that make these kinds of conversations possible, visit cojaservices.com.