Clear Creek in Idaho Springs is an excellent place to catch some great frothy river fun this season, we tackled some class four rapids, luckily we didn't lose Phil, he almost fell in! Then we enjoyed Tommy Knockers brewery in town and the pinball arcade.
Lake Dillon is also gorgeous, we shared a pontoon with family and friends then camped up Swan Mountain in prospector with a lake view. The Dillon BBQ festival was tasty, they had hot jalapenos, shrimp bombs, pulled pork tacos and more, and the Dam Brewery was there serving cold beers.
Our garden is turning out, I'm glad we have another round of green beans coming, small red tomatoes, over 6 feet tall sunflowers and some herbs; I made an organic pasta sauce for the manicotti tonight with fresh basil and Italian parsley.
I also decided that a tall iced cold glass of Celestial Seasoning Blueberry Green tea with mint from the garden and blueberries is my favorite drink this summer. But if you want a beverage with more kick, recently I tried a spicy Bloody Mary, and great Southern cuisine at Shugs in Boulder, it's great!
Tomorrow August 16th, is a White House Call In Day put on by the SOA Watch to ask the Obama administration to close the SOA or WHINSEC formerly the School of the Americas. The SOA has been open since 1946 located in Benning, Georgia and has graduated murderers and terrorists claiming the lives of many innocent people in Latin America. SOA graduates participated in committing a military coup in Honduras in June 2009 and removed democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya and replaced him with an oppressive regime. I first heard about the SOA in college when I heard an activist priest come to campus to talk about his efforts in closing the SOA.
The push for the Call In Day is to make aware that sixty-nine members of congress will officially request that President Barack Obama sign an executive order shutting down the SOA/WHINSEC thus ending funding a school of assassins and saving the United States $180 million over the next decade.
$180 million over the next decade may not be that much but it's a chunk of the $917 billion over 10 years we are supposed to cut or $5 billion cut out of our "budget". Of course there is opposition to cut defense spending from the right but that's expected, right? Then of course there is a difference between defense spending and security spending so which does closing the SOA fall under? Either way it's a huge questionable expense our resources should not be going towards, it's nauseating to think about actually.
It was funny to hear Mr. Obama talk about "other stuff" in referring to Biomass for Energy and the potential for that industry to create jobs, which was the question, "How will renewable energy create jobs?" He had a town hall on CNN this morning in Minnesota, and while it's a step maybe he could elaborate. The debt deal certainly doesn't sound like a job stimulator much to economists, democrats and critics dismay, but there is one thing I agree about. We must stop playing politics when trying to solve our issues and take the best ideas regardless of affiliation. The Industry Hemp initiative is another cause to take up, talking of the best renewable resource besides solar energy, that could create jobs, with California farmers in the front running.
I've just finished 'The Sun Also Rises' by Hemmingway and on to 'Tender is the Night' by Scott Fitzgerald, two classics I've always meant to read, and what a perfect summer to do so. I love the simple but rich, honest and telling prose of Hemmingway.
"Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it. The world was a good place to buy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years, I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I've had." -Ernest Hemmingway 'The Sun Also Rises' 1926
