Morning Must Reads: Aug. 4

Denver’s ascendant Asian food scene Sunday-May 4. Many of the metro area’s best new restaurants offer creative takes on traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and other diverse Asian cuisines, which makes the 2nd annual Mile High Asian Food Week an idea worth bringing back. More than 100 participating kitchens — from roving trucks and street-food vendors to upscale names such as Hop Alley and sắp sửa — will take part in the event, which is timed to May’s Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month.

Colorado lawmakers have passed new legislation in a years-long effort to curb foreclosures by homeowners associations and metropolitan districts that are based on unpaid fines and fees. The reform bills — including one for metro districts that’s already been signed into law — have aimed to create new regulations for HOAs and metro districts by restricting foreclosure filings of the kind that hit thousands of homeowners in recent years.

Denver has always been happy to flaunt its most visible artistic assets, given that they’ve helped reshape the city into a walkable playground of sculptures, murals and interactive installations. Our 400-piece public art collection contains wildly diverse works, from Denver International Airport’s infamous “Mustang” (a.k.a. Blucifer) and the Colorado Convention Center’s “I See What You Mean” (unofficially: the Big Blue Bear) to the towering “Dancers” outside Denver Performing Arts Complex.

Recycling will expand across Colorado over the next six years through new curbside programs funded by corporations that create the garbage the state wants to see diverted from landfills. Colorado’s recycling expansion was formalized this month after the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee approved a plan to be funded by fees charged to the companies that use boxes, plastic containers and shrink wrap to sell their products. About 1 million households statewide now have access to curbside recycling, said Henry Stiles, an advocate with Environment Colorado.

Somebody give the Democratic majority in the Colorado General Assembly a copy of the Bill of Rights, large print if available, and underline the First Amendment with a sharpie. For the second time this year, they have forgotten they cannot prohibit speech or coerce it from their peers, constituents, or anyone else. This week, Democrats handed Republicans a memo with words they could no longer use when debating immigration policy (e.g., illegal, alien, invader(s), interloper, squatter) and a list of acceptable replacements (e.g., migrant, applicant, undocumented immigrant, immigrant without authorization).

Dear Amy: Have I been gaslighted? My mother was a difficult person. She was often not nice to my sister-in-law. I admired my SIL for taking the high road and for being respectful toward my mother, and I told her so many times. I bumped heads big time with my mother, too, but had a good last six years when she moved near me and dementia mellowed her out. My mother died five years ago and my sister-in-law reminds me often of how awful she was (my brother has no fond memories of childhood, and lets his wife do the talking). The last time my SIL brought this up, I stopped her and said that although her experiences are valid, this is my mother and she is dead now, and I find it offensive to keep hearing about it. I validated her feelings and told her again how much I admired her. Initially she apologized, but afterward apparently decided that I was wrong.