pitkin county politics

 Yup its that time of year when we get to express our feelings about our elected officials.  And for those of us in the roaring fork valley that means Lauren Boebert.  She represents CO3 in the US congress, it's a district as big as the state of Mississippi.  She is expected to win because a huge bit of the district is rural as fuck and rural tends to vote red.  Rumor has it though that the poles are getting tight and so she is fighting extra dirty (which is of course interesting for someone with as much dirty laundry as Rep Boebert has.)  That said Trump has more dirty laundry than anyone (multiple bankruptcies, multiple divorces, multiple rape accusations, self dealing---ohhh yea and a cameo in a soft core porn flick and claiming he would have sex with his daughter---yuuuuuuck) and Trump is a very dirty fighter so maybe Boebert's most recent attacks shouldn't come as a surprise.

Via Brietbart news her staff published a claim by local Aspen business man Todd Gardner claiming that one of his employees discovered Boebert's opponent Adam Frisch having an affair with a woman in her storage unit.  Todd then says he used this information to blackmail Frisch (who at the time was on the Aspen city council) to vote against using Lyft or Uber for a local ride sharing project and instead vote to use his local business--High Mountain Taxi.  Todd Gardner confesses to felony  Frisch has a pretty strong defense to the bribery charge Todd is leveling at him---namely he voted to support a local business over a national one.  Most of our citizens would prefer our tax dollars stay local rather than line the owners of Uber's pockets.  Todd on the other hand should be in a world of shit.  He went to Boebert's office and had them create a video in which he confessed too bribing a public official.  Dude, even asking for a bribe is punishable by 12 years in prison and $750k.  And if Todd changes his mind then there is the exposure for slander.  What a clown show.

If you want to know how they kinda know each other they are both very active in the local evangelical churches.  Maybe this is Boebert's idea of mixing church and state.  Actually I am pretty sure she has no idea what she is doing outside of hoping to promote the heck out of herself so she can land a deal with Fox news when she retires.

But wait there is more.

We have a very hot race for .............local sherif.  The incumbent Joe DiSalvo is running hard against a fired (or did he quit hard to know he left the force twice) Buglione.  One incident kinda sums up my disgust with both men.  The infamous Bumps party.  In 2019 there was a high school party to raise money for God knows what at the base of Buttermilk on a SCHOOL NIGHT.  It was a quasi school kinda sorta event and Buglione's daughters was one of the sponsors.  Buglione was supposed to be there to chaperone (maybe in uniform maybe not), BUT he was also supposed to be in Denver for additional training at the same time.  Buglione went to the department assigned training, and other parents who were supposed to chaperone either didn't show or got there late and by the time they did show up the party was......a party.  Kids were drunk and in a surprise to no one Lipsey was once again serving up lines in the bathroom.  2 students were given MIPS (minor in possession) and that was that.

Except DiSalvo demoted and then either fired or got Buglione to quit.  DiSalvo claims it was Buglione's responsibility to alert his office to the conflict between training in Denver and chaperoning his daughter's party at Bumps.  Buglione claims that the sheriffs office should have been aware of the conflict and assigned a different deputy to chaperone the party.  Buglione also claims he told his daughter he couldn't chaperone the party because he would be in Denver.

Bottom line we got a Sherif who can't keep track of his deputies and we have a challenger whose excuse for not making the sheriff's department aware of the conflict is to say he told his daughter.  Wow, great options.

Vote Frisch because he looks good in flannel, and well he isn't Lauren Boebert.  And be friends with Lance Armstrong because if (when) DiSalvo wins Lance has the sheriff in his back pocket.  

price improvement

 if they drop it another $1.9m I am a buyer.

price improvement in aspen

Ohh yea and we are selling racks faster than we can make them....get your Gravirax order in now so you don't need to worry about what gift to buy for the holidays.  We already sold out of combos for the season, but we do have GR4s GR6s and in 5 weeks attachable snowboard sleeves.

bargain real estate in Aspen?????

 You can buy something in Aspen for less than $1MM.  For $950k you can get 3 parking spots plus storage in the Obermeyer parking garage.  Yes!!! this is not dead restricted or affordable housing so it's even an opportunity to make some money as Aspen real estate prices continue to increase.  ITs true, Obermeyer is not exactly centrally located in Aspen (0.4 mile walk to gondola, and 0.3 miles to restaurant row) but what can you expect for $950k?

For what its worth, Zillow for sale maps of ski towns look like a bad case of chicken pox (i.e. lots and lots of red dots indicating homes for sale) and there is a ton of both new construction and rehab to sell work going on.  I wonder which way real estate prices are going to go?

lighter fare---- facebook frats & hidden menu items

 my boy left for college last week.  over the course of 6 phone calls (to mom of course) on the first day of classes he told her physics was too easy and he should find a more challenging physics class and that he was quitting STEM cause physics and calc were too hard.  All in one day (the first day of class).  His freshman advisor who is also head of the physics department and had clearly read his college application said that in 30 years of teaching he had never met a student who had made their own cloud chamber in their garage and maybe just maybe he should 1.  talk to his physics teacher about the homework assignment he was struggling with and 2.  SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP

He also seems to be popular with some of the older frat boys--he has been asked to DJ a couple of their parties and is invited to two different frat parties tonight.  yes i guess most freshman boys do not get invited to frat parties so it does require an invitation.  my son said "great thanks "and the frat boys said what is your facebook profile so we can send you an invite.  it took my boy all his will power (actually he failed) not to laugh and asked if the frat was actually made up of 50 year old soccer moms cause he was pretty sure that was the last demographic still using facebook

getting back to aspen--the Aspen Public House is in the Wheeler opera house which is subsidized by public money.  one of the requirements when the Public House restaurant opened was that they would 1.  stay open and 2.  offer affordable food.  They don't actually stay open all year as was required and the only really affordable item a $13 burger that isn't even on the menu.  you have to know they have it to order it.  Kinda like "if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it does it make a sound", "if an affordable item isn't actually on the menu does the restaurant count as offering affordable food?"  And when an order of fries or onion rings to go with the burger costs $10 putting a burger and fries and a beer with tip and tax at $55 is it actually affordable.? And yes the city of aspen pretty much covers their rent taking about $800k off fair market rents a year.  My guess is the only reason they are profitable is the city paying their rent and in return the citizens get an off menu $13 burger.

I should post something on facebook about that.

Uvalde comes to Aspen

 Today is the first day of school,  My daughter dressed up a little country to honor a senior who died in a freak accident on a farm last week.  He was taking a break from working and he and a friend climbed into a hammock, the post supporting the hammock broke and crushed the rising senior.  His best friend tried heroically to save his friend.  I can't begin to imagine the pain these families are going through.  Totally impossible to understand and humans like to understand.  Whether its God's causing the sun to disappear (actually an eclipse); the human brain really really craves a reason.  A wood post cracking and landing on one high school kid in the hammock killing them while another is physically uninjured is really hard to get your mind around.  And is there a lesson to be learned---don't get in hammocks?  Always wear full medieval plate armor?  No.  Random tragic stuff sometimes just happens.

Yesterday our school informed us that the Aspen School District is moving to a closed campus for security reasons.  The high school will continue to allow juniors and seniors to leave campus during free periods but all people entering and leaving the school will have to go through one set of doors (arguably not even the main doors but maybe the doors that are easiest to monitor).  I guess the thinking is having one set of doors that is monitored by armed police will prevent a Uvalde type school shooting.  

Let's think about that for a moment.  What we will have instead is all high school and elementary school students entering schools from the same location.  I guess if I was a highly motivated school shooter I would take aim at the 1000 students in a common area waiting to enter two different schools through limited doors.  On the plus side there are a lot more places to run away if a shooting occurs outside of a building, but it's gonna be harder for the police to respond if they are in the schools and the shooter is outside as hundreds of students flee into the school.  Maybe we should build a tower in the middle of campus with sharpshooters.  And if the shooter follows other students into the school the police are going to be in a very challenging situation.  This is an example of trying to force control and order onto a situation that would be unpredictable, chaotic and surely going to result in much tragedy.  More than if students can enter and exit through multiple doors??----No way of knowing, but at least our human brains feel like we are doing something proactive to help save our children.  Of course Uvalde had a plan and 75 trained and armed officers who waited 70+ minutes before engaging an active shooter.  We saw how well that worked out--the takeaway should not be better planning the takeaway is take away access to the weapons mass shooters use.  

If we want to save children we should outlaw guns that chamber more than 1 round.  We know this works ---see Austria as an example.  We know it can be done in our current world ---see New Zealand's example.  Let me rant a bit longer.  The argument that teachers should be armed?  I am sure for some teachers the fear of not being able to fight back against an armed attacker is terrifying.  You know what else is terrifying, walking around school with every adult carrying a sidearm.  Having just done the cross country drive I saw many people in rural America with a gun on their hip.  What must their children think when mom and dad put a .357 on their hip before leaving their home.  Every day.  What are their children being taught about the world they live in?  Same thing in school?  It's only safe if all the teachers are armed, there are police officers with body armor and assault rifles close at hand, and sharpshooters take the high ground to monitor the grounds?  Is that a healthy learning environment?  Is it a sign of a healthy society when individuals only feel safe if they are allowed to carry a weapon of war everywhere?  

I live in a county with a lot of guns and very little gun violence.  Still at the start of every school year I get a little cramp in my stomach wondering.....And then I move onto the good stuff like why the hell my daughter didn't put her dishes in the dishwasher and how the heck to explain math these days.

Vote Blue no matter who because the second amendment just might kill your kids.

was driving with daughter listening to Jan 6 post game and she said.....

 'What the hell are all these talking heads so worked up about.'

I said,  'President Trump wanted to lead armed protestors to the Capitol to stop the election of Biden.'

She said 'it took an investigation to figure that out?  it was obvious'

then I said 'and he tried to strangle his Secret service guys'

Daughter 'well no surprise there he has a temper if someone says no to him'

I said 'and he tossed his food in the dining area against the wall'

Daughter 'whoa he wasted McDonalds well that is news' and I had to admit is was more ketchup and China that was destroyed; not a quarter pounder with Cheese.  

Which gets us to the point.  Trump is either a criminal or insane (or maybe both).  You either know that or you have your head buried further in Twitter than a 16 year old girl.  Which begs the question, where are the heads of the majority of the GOP?

my daughter was called a kike on the ice

 The Aspen hockey jerseys never had last names on them and my daughter loved that.  Then in a money raising move the team got new jerseys right at the end of the season.  My daughter was not excited about that because she figured she would get harassed for her Jewish last name.

First game with the names on the back and a Vail player called her a kike.  She took the high road and ignored it during the game.  She told her coach (a Christian) who said ignore it.  We told the Aspen head of hockey and he took the same approach.

So the answer for the Jewish kid is to ignore anti semitic attacks.

When a Christian football coach kneels down on the 50 yard line, bows his head and prays to Jesus SCOTUS says that is ok.  They decided that freedom of speech trump's separation of church and state.  Full stop.

If the coach was Muslim and pulled out a prayer rug and prayed at the 50 yard line after the game (inviting his players to join him) do you think this SCOTUS would have taken the case?  Would they have decided that praying to Allah was an acceptable form of free speech from a high school employee at a high school event?

Methinks not.

And don't get me started about the white male Christian right desire to sanitize history in school (i.e. Holocaust deniers, Holocaust minimizers (i.e. can't read Maus), Slavery minimizers, lynching minimizers, etc).  The white male need to 'whitewash' history so that white boys don't feel bad about themselves, BUT God forbid a white Christian coach not be able to pray and thank his god at a football game.  But my daughter should just suck it up and ignore the insults to her person and her religion.

I ask everyone to fight SCOTUS and the current GOP.  During the rise of the Nazis a Protestant minister who at first was an enthusiastic support of Hitler changed his mind and penned the following poem:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist  

Then they came for the Jews, And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me

As we move towards the 4th of July its time to think of what kind of country you want America to be.  White male Christian control or a diverse melting pot of people held together by a desire to be free?