by Mark Smiley | Jul 22, 2016 | Editorials, Feature Story Middle Left
by Bob Gardner
Coloradans: Would you like all your health care decisions for the next three years to be made by 15 unelected government bureaucrats? That’s what Amendment 69, which has qualified for this fall’s ballot, would mandate.
Before you answer, here’s a few additional facts to help you decide.
These 15 “trustees” — a fancier word for bureaucrats, by the way — would get to say which procedures and which drugs would be covered by insurance and which ones wouldn’t from 2017 until 2020. How would they get that power? Amendment 69 makes it illegal for any other health insurance company to do business in the state of Colorado. And when those companies are all gone, all decisions about any kind of payment to anyone in the health care system fall under the thumb of those unelected trustees.
They’d get to decide how long you should have to wait in the emergency room, how many months your elderly mother should have to wait for hip replacement surgery, and what treatments for your kids will and won’t be paid for.
If you don’t like the sound of that system, you should know there’ll be no opting out. If you’re wealthy, you could pay for health care from your pocket. Otherwise, your family’s care exists solely at the whim of the 15 bureaucrats.
Don’t like it? Move to Nebraska if it’s enacted. Because if we Coloradans go down this road, there’ll be no appeals, no flexibility and no choice in health care in our state.
It gets worse.
In 2020 at the latest, Amendment 69 says we’ll hold statewide elections to replace the 15 appointed bureaucrats with 21 elected bureaucrats.
That’s right — we’ll have giant campaigns across Colorado every other year to pick new health care czars. “A vote for me is a vote for liver transplants!” or “Two nose jobs in every house — vote for me!” An unending buzz of negative TV ads about how the trustee candidate’s evil opponent is trying to take away childbirth reimbursement or how their vote backed up back surgeries.
Sounds ridiculously unappealing, doesn’t it?
Obamacare’s been bad enough — its promised savings cruelly turning into a 13.4 percent average rate increase this year — but Amendment 69 will make things much worse. Its ironclad regime of single-payer health care for every resident of the state, without exception, would almost double Colorado’s state taxes overnight. It imposes an immediate 10 percent across-the-board payroll tax that would cost Coloradans a jaw-dropping $25 billion in additional taxes on top of the $27 billion the state already levies. And the whole system is specifically designed to exist outside of TABOR limits that control state and local government taxation in Colorado.
So who’s behind this nonsense?
Great question. Colorado State Sen. Irene Aguilar has been identified as one of the “leaders” of the campaign, but the funding sources are much more shadowy, with a Boulder psychologist, a Littleton physician, a Denver attorney, and a Fort Collins retiree being identified as collectively donating more than $140,000 to the cause.
Why those four people would have such a burning passion to control our health care isn’t clear to me.
What is clear is that we shouldn’t let them.
The net effect of this disastrous plan would be to drive state taxes through the roof, kill job creation (and likely most economic growth) in Colorado, and institute health care rationing for all Coloradans. All at the hands of a mysterious group of health care ideologues who’ll do their bidding through a shadow “health care Legislature” with literal power over life and death decisions.
Even Gov. John Hickenlooper was caught on tape saying he “can’t imagine there’s any chance (Amendment 69) will pass,” and noting that some large companies considering moving their headquarters to Colorado have put their plans on hold with Amendment 69 even on the ballot. It would make our state singularly economically uncompetitive and hurt the very people it claims it would help.
Just like Obamacare before it, Amendment 69 is an attempt to sell a bill of goods — sweet-sounding words about universal coverage, better benefits, and cost savings from efficiencies driven by an all-seeing, all-knowing government.
And it will turn out just as badly in the end. The difference is that Amendment 69 is a disaster we can all prevent from happening this fall at the ballot box.
Bob Gardner is a Colorado Springs attorney and former Colorado state representative.
This editorial was originally printed in the Colorado Springs Gazette.
by Mark Smiley | Jul 22, 2016 | Valley Gadfly
Summer’s sky is in full bloom. Puffy white clouds — those feather canyons in the sky — are everywhere. Joni Mitchell’s lyrics depict them thus, “Rows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air.” August is when you’re authorized to be laid-back, stretch out on the grass and scrutinize those hovering palettes of heavenly clouds.
In meteorology, a cloud is a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals of water and various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above us.
Here are our last month of summer puffy, unearthly choices for shopping, dining and entertainment to keep you partly cloudy, with low humidity and hints of fall:
3 With cloud cover blocking out the sun most days, set up a neighborhood block party during Denver Days through Aug. 7. Plan a picnic, social event or service project around town. Information: 720-865-9090.
3 Soak up time in the shade with friends and fellow workers at Cherry Creek North’s Food & Wine, Aug. 13, 6-9 p.m. Information: 303-606-7332.
3 Enjoy cloud cooled Wednesday evenings through Aug. 17 listening to music at the Shady Grove Picnic Series. Information: 303-777-1005.
3 You’ll be in the clouds when your duck wins the Hope Floats fundraiser at Lowry’s Great Lawn Park Aug. 20, 11 a.m. information: 303-928-7100.
3 Take cover in the garden-level Grind Kitchen with a new American menu plus craft cocktails, homemade sodas & beer. Information: 720-749-4158.
3 Pick a shady spot to live adjacent to Sloan’s Lake in new row homes for sale with a cool community garden on site. Information: 303-934-9091.
3 Chill under cloudy skies for the yearly ice cream social plus rock & roll in the Rose Garden Plaza on Havana Aug. 23, 6 p.m. Information: 303-360-7505.
3 See Lowry Foundation’s Artists In August show beneath the shady Wings Over The Rockies Aug. 27, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Information: 303-344-0581.
3 Brews will be brewing in the shade for you to taste during the Bruises + Brews Beerfest at Infinity Park, Aug. 27, noon-4 p.m. Event features tastings from 15 Colorado breweries including Comrade Brewing, honored at the 2016 World Beer Cup. There will also be live music and three distilleries. Plus there’s certain to be cloud cover for watching the international 7s rugby action. Information: Glendalebeerfest.com.
Clouds soak up sun’s solar rays during the day and allow the evening to buzz with delightful aroma. Like a grapevine-covered trellis, they keep us tucked under shaded cover so we can enjoy cool strolls. Cloud cover allows us to enjoy a picnic with a bottle of wine and the scent of sun-kissed flowers as we wait for those magnificent sunsets.
On a representative August day in the Cherry Creek Valley the sky is partly cloudy 34 percent of the time, and mostly cloudy or overcast 40 percent of the time.
To be sure clouds and cloud cover block the sun and help keep us cool. But like our assumptions about Valley weather, Mitchell’s lyrical and poetic finale articulates our August outlook best: “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now. From up and down, and still somehow it’s cloud illusions I recall. I really don’t know clouds at all.”
— Glen Richardson
The Valley Gadfly can be reached at newspaper@glendalecherrycreek.com.
by Mark Smiley | Jul 22, 2016 | Feature Story Bottom Left
“For the record I don’t date any women under the age of 18,” I said that jokingly after she dropped the “you sound like a pedophile” comment on me after I said, “I feel like I raised three or four women in their late 20s and early 30s when I was in a relationship with them.”
If you have no idea what I’m talking about right now you should catch up by reading Part 1 of “I Keep Getting Older and the Girls Keep Getting Younger,” which can be found on the GCCC website, www. glendalecherrycreek.com. For those of you caught up let me continue with Part 2.
So there we are, the tension in my condo was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. Truthfully I didn’t know what to do. Should I calmly explain why I said, “I feel like I raised three or four women in their late 20s and early 30s when I was in a relationship with them?” Should I try to lighten up the conversation and make a last- ditch effort to try and salvage what was left of an already horrible date? Or should I just simply boot her rude loose-lipped mouth out of my home?
Before I tell you what option I chose I want to cover a couple of things. First, I was talking to a friend about this date days later and told him how she called me a pedophile after I explained why I generally date women younger than myself. My friend’s response to the interaction that my date and I had was something like this. “Even if she truly felt that way regarding your preference in the age of the women you date why wouldn’t she just say, this date isn’t working for me and excuse herself, rather than resort to name calling?” I mean after all, she and I don’t know each other well enough to vomit out rude, name-calling comments.
I happen to agree with my friend. If you are at the point on a first date to where you feel you need to be verbally abusive to the other person you should probably just move on and save your bad mouthing breath for someone who has to put up with your rudeness.
Now let me explain why I said, “I feel like I raised three or four women in their late 20s and early 30s when I was in a relationship with them.” Side note: I would have been happy to offer her the following explanation on our date if she hadn’t insulted my with the pedophile comment which ended up being a conversation killer. We can debate this all day long if you want but I believe nature has shown a pattern where men enjoy the company of younger women and women enjoy the company of men older than themselves. If you don’t know this dynamic, ask somebody.
With that said there are some obvious generational gaps and life experiences that the younger woman has not gone through yet. In my experience when I have been in relationships with women younger than myself I can’t help but offer my thoughts and advice when I see her going through something I have already experienced. This is a tricky one because I firmly believe people need to make their own mistakes in life but it’s hard to stand by tight lipped and idle when the decisions they make can affect your life because your lives are attached by being in a relationship.
Personally I can’t stop myself when it comes to trying to help someone avoid disaster if I can help it. Unfortunately by doing so the relationship dynamic turns into more of a parenting feel. Which brings us full circle back to the comment I made, “I feel like I raised three or four women in their late 20s and early 30s when I was in a relationship with them.” I may be crazy but I think that statement is a completely reasonable summary of my experiences looking back at a few of the relationships I’ve been in with women younger than I.
Now let me tell you about the end of the date from hell. I felt trapped in my condo and I wanted her to leave but being the gentleman that I am I continued to try and make the best of it. The problem is she didn’t want the same. I had the feeling from her continued name calling and belligerent attitude that she was enjoying the opportunity to have me cornered and seemingly hammer me with the frustration with what I can only guess are her issues with men. Luckily I have to wake up early to do morning radio so I tried to wind this nightmare down and used the excuse of needing to go to bed in order to pull the plug on this miserable evening.
What did I learn from this date? Well let me tell you…
- No first dates at your home!
- Keep the conversation light. No past relationship talk, don’t talk about religion or politics and most importantly never, never ever ever ever, never ever call a stranger names. If you start to feel you want to, be the bigger person and excuse yourself.
- Finally, keep it classy. Not every date is going to be a home run. But how you conduct yourself will follow you from date to date. If one date sours you, don’t bring it to your next date. Stay even.
That’s it for this month. I hope my telling this date story will spark a real conversation in your life with someone. If you have a comment about any of this month’s article I encourage you to send them to the Chronicle. Who knows, they may publish it. Until next month, date with class.
Your pal, Sheik
by Peter Boyles | Jul 22, 2016 | Blasting with Boyles
I have written before about growing up in Pittsburgh’s lower end of a working class family with one true gift — I loved to read. And I really loved to read history books. Looking back, I best described them as history, fiction, adventure stories.
I can’t remember not being able to read. The long humid summers of western Pennsylvania, and grade school years went slowly by, but what always stood out is my mom taking us to the local neighborhood Carnegie library. I didn’t know there was more than one. And until later in life, when I read about old Andy himself, I thought he was this great old guy who happened to put a lot of books in a big old building so kids like me could check out free books.
I read Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe, a lot of Jack London books and I really thought that Moby Dick was about a one legged guy hunting a bad ass whale.
I’m always drawn to these earlier times when incredibly brave men faced unbelievable odds. They were living through great events, fighting evil kings and despots, facing dragons and enduring unrequited love.
I didn’t realize it at the time that these were all morality plays. Good versus evil, devil versus god, dark against light and later Japanese versus Marines, and good guy pros versus bad guy heels.
But the story line that I loved the most always took place in the Middle East. Richard the Lion Hearted and Saladin, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, mysterious Cairo and T.E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia who I dubbed “Larry the Arab”). Those bold and strong men who always fought for what was right and good. The way we saw the world I later came to learn was from the European view point. The Balkans and Turkey were called the Near East. Asia was the Far East and we called Egypt and Arabia the Mid-East. Again as I progressed in my thinking and reading, the whole idea and my thought process shifted.
There seems to be more than enough blame to go around for what is happening in the Mid-East. More broken promises, assassinations and overthrows, enough inside jobs to make a mob boss blush.
Ruthless power, crazy religions invaders and defenders — a world I just returned from again. This time from Egypt. Traveling once more with Father Andrew Mhanna, Lebanese Maronite Catholic priest. As you may recall I went to Lebanon last summer and wrote about it here in the Chronicle. So now another personal look at the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the lack of media coverage; both an outrage.
Last year seeing the outcome of the colossal failure of the Bush/ Cheney war of lies, this time I saw the aftermath of the Obama/Clinton Arab Spring. These are two of the saddest chapters in the history of American foreign policy. These two administrations have unleashed forces of radical Islam, overthrown governments, Byzantine plots and given rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood. There are growing attacks of terror, the same insanity that seems to be grafting itself into the fabric of our own country.
We met with families whose husbands and fathers were beheaded in Libya simply because they were Christians. We went into old Coptic Christian churches that Islamic police throw you out of simply because they can. One of my childhood dreams was to visit the Valley of Kings and see the face of the Sphinx and of the great pyramids — and in fact they are unbelievable.
The great line rings true — man fear time, time fears the Pyramids. It is also very real and time stands still.
Later I sat next to the Nile River at a restaurant and ate dinner with young Muslim men who loved my tattoos but they knew that they would be deemed religious criminals, if they dared to get any themselves.
All things come to us from the Nile. They flow from the water starting from Africa’s Lake Victoria to become the forces of civilizations. The Nile, where baby Moses was found, the Nile that I read about in the early 1950s laying on what my family called the day bed which was just really a fold out bed in my old man’s living room. Like Jem Finch I too tried to walk like an Egyptian.
So I wonder what Ramesses II (not John and Patsy) but the Pharaoh Ramesses would think now when a guy in a long dirty gray robe wearing a Chicago Bulls baseball hat, hustled my guide for some duty free Dunhill cigarettes so we could park our car closer to the Pyramids. What would he think of the horrible slums that grow almost to the edge of the Valley of the Kings? It is an unthinkably huge area entitled the City of the Dead and stretches as far as the distance from Orchard Road to Speer Boulevard, where people live in tombs for generations never leaving the equivalent of Gas Town in the latest Mad Max movie. In old Cairo we had full water bottles thrown at us as the Egyptian Army keeps a lid on all of it, and the City of the Dead could be the fuse that makes it all explode.
So what looms for the future of Egypt, nobody know for sure, but with time and history as our guide what happens in Egypt will affect the world.
— Peter
