(Aspen, CO)-- On Sunday, April 22nd, local government agencies, non-profits, and concerned citizens will unite to celebrate Earth Day in Aspen. The first Earth Day celebration was in 1970 is now observed each year by more than 500 million people and national governments in 175 countries who use it as an opportunity to raise awareness about environmental degradation and what can be done to prevent it. Here in our area, numerous partnering organizations have worked to pack the day with fun and educational activities for all ages.
This week I’ve spent a few hours watching the coverage of the Virginia Tech incident. In those hours spent in front of the television, sickened by the unfathomable horror of the incident itself and the media’s self-serving assault on the people of Blacksburg, I’ve noticed something about the students. The students of Virginia Tech love their university.
I have gotten some great feed-back from the last blog I wrote on Leftovers. One of the most interesting came from my friend Angel who focused not on Belly Dancing or Leftovers but instead honed in on what I said about Bees towards the end of the blog. I was not aware of the difficulty Bees are having staying alive of late. Of notice and in short, 5 or 6 years ago scientists became on the alert of a very rapid decline in Bee colonies around the United States and now Great Britain, Germany and other parts of Europe. The U.S. has probably had the biggest death toll.
In the course of human events, the hot blood of our body politic boils over into catcalls and caterwauling on the way to greater truths. That’s another way of saying the great thing about a democracy, democratically speaking, is that we have a way of resolving issues over time—and sometimes even for the better.
Exhibit A: gun control and the killings at Virginia Tech.
Exhibit B: our Supreme Court’s decision to ban partial-birth abortion.
Absolutists—and you know who you are—will abhor the politics of both gun control and abortion, but I would argue that both issues are being resolved in a wrestling match that actually leans to the center and away from absolutism—and for the greater good.
1. Upon joining the United States Air Force I solemnly swore an oath to God to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Therefore, and also to maintain my present ethical standards, I have publicly declined to file an income tax return for the past seven years.
2. On 31 Oct. 2005 the IRS assessed me for over 11 million dollars for taxes they claim I owe for the year 2002 (I am a man of modest means) and have filed a lien against all my property. Without complying with due process as required by Section 6320 of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) the IRS gained control over everything I own.
~~This goes far beyond income tax into the heart of a government that is profoundly out of control.
Jeffrey Evans and his entrance-to-Aspen group Entrance Solution are sending this mailing to voters before the May 8, 2007, ballot item on the entrance to Aspen:
Bus Lanes will not reduce congestion. The same merging of two lanes into one – which creates the current traffic jam in both directions - will still be in place. Idling cars stuck in traffic are not good for air quality, and this situation will not be temporary. In the current “preferred alternative” plan, this traffic jamming design is intended to be permanent.
We need a different alternative, not Bus Lanes.
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)--You can't keep a funny man down and that goes double for a squatter with nothing left to lose.
Barry Smith, the local Aspen humorist known to take his one-man show on the road, is best known for his run in "Jesus In Montana," the autobiographical story of a young man in search of meaning who ends up believing that God incarnate is this guy in Montana. Smith actually believed he was sleeping in the basement of Jesus Christ before he came to his senses.
In similar, unlikely fashion, comes the world premiere of "American Squatter" May 5-6 at Steve's Guitars in Carbondale, the "funny and true tale of Barry's own uprooted childhood, adolescent rebellion, and escape to a filty mid-1980s London squat."
The turkey is being sliced and our man Bagdikian is completely surrounded by everyone he cares about—everyone except Amanda Madison. When Jimmy Burns and Angie Frangello fly in from Gotham with some unexpected news about the Bag Man’s progeny, they come bearing a special present: Amanda Madison, the love of his life, in the flesh. The plot, like the gravy, thickens.
Is there a beach in Aspen? My idea is that we can appreciate the mountains only with your eyes--what aspect of the moutains is in us? But oh the water. The water we react to with all our body tissue, and the salt cries out to the salt, and our eyes brim full of what we see of ourselves in the sea! I am here trying slowly to relate to the creek, throwing himself down recklessly, tripping as fast as he can (with the help of gravity) to join you, something bitter and deeper and wider than himself.
ASPEN, COLORADO (Post Time News)--Olympic snowboarder Chris Klug is considered nothing less than the embodiement of all that's good about America--and Aspen. His ride to a bronze medal at the Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, after a kidney transplant still has to be considered one of the great sports stories of the aborning 21st Century.
Klug's wild ride will be commemorated and celebrated Tuesday night at the Paramount Theater in Denver in the "Ride of Your Life," a documentary that tells the amazing story of what happened after Klug contracted Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis in 1993, a rare live disease.
