"Cleanup in Local 7," Melanie Asmar, December 3
The pink manicured nails are a no-no in food service. Do you want nail polish chips in your dough? To think that Kim Cordova can be in the upper echelons of food service while breaking a basic food-safety rule boggles the mind.
Yvonne Servis
Savannah, Georgia
I am a Local 7 member who has been to 95 percent of the negotiations. Kim was my union rep and was a complete pitbull when management tried to jack with us. We have been thrown under the bus by the international and I wait to see how Kim deals with all of this. There are many of us who have been working very hard to get our message out to the stores. and my hope is that somehow we heal the divisions and come out of this stronger.
Patrick McCurdy
Morrison
"Shlock and Awe," Patricia Calhoun, December 3, 2009
Shlock and awe: Great pun fun. But instead of the eight country bears, shouldn't they at least be city bears? Leave the country ones to the Larimer County Sheriff.
Dennis Kennedy
Denver
I am sick of radical leftist liberals who hate America and claim that they pay taxes, so therefore nobody can enjoy a Nativity scene. I pay taxes, too, and am sick of their propaganda and agendas taking away more and more of my rights every single day. As for those "religious" leaders who say the scene and Christmas decorations go against their religious texts: Assimilate or get out of America. All of the politically correct BS is causing people to flock to this country, illegal or otherwise, and to have an entitlement sense and no desire to assimilate.
By the way, call the lights what they are: Christmas lights, not holiday lights. For those who hate God and Christmas, why don't you go to work while everyone else enjoys Christmas vacation? You don't deserve the time off. If liberals desire to be so "politically correct," then they need to allow others to practice the First and Second Amendments and have their Christmas displays. It's not hurting you people to see those displays, but you are hurting the fabric of America and the values we once had. Quit forcing your agenda down everyone else's throats.
Amanda
Posted at westword.com
"Blunt Talk," Patricia Calhoun, November 26
Patricia Calhoun, you made me laugh with "Shlock and Awe." There's never been a time when I set out to drive to take in the annual Christmas productions staged by the City and County of Denver, but you might have talked me into doing it this year. Maybe I'll check out this eclectic blend of religious and Walt Disney symbolism while smoking a spliv of Maui Wowie that I didn't purchase from a caregiver. The coverage that your paper has been giving to the issue of marijuana legality in Colorado has been informative and, at times, entertaining.
I've smoked illegal pot for 35 years while living and working in four states. For thirteen years, I've been smoking recreationally in Colorado, mostly in the outdoor smoking areas of Aurora bars, like parking lots and sidewalks. I've long argued that one of the not-too-unexpected consequences of the Clean Indoor Air Act was that when smokers were forced out into the alleys and parking lots, it increased the consumption of pot, because the fraternity of potheads were now all gathered together rather than furtively sneaking off in pairs or individually to take a quick toke on the bowl before going back inside.
Regarding the political and legal debates over what to do about medical marijuana, the prevailing opinion in the experienced, illegal-pot-smoking crowd that I've been hanging with is that whatever the legislature, the governor, the U.S. Congress, the President and the United Nations decide to do about regulating pot, it's not going to make a dime's worth of difference to us. We're going to get high regardless of where we get the weed, at whatever it costs. I think the people of Colorado fell in line with the citizens of several other states to begin the process of totally legalizing the production, distribution and sale of marijuana simply because they know that there are people like me — law-abiding citizens, productive workers, good parents, brothers, sisters — who just like to get high, and this doesn't seem to bother a majority of the people, whether they're potheads or not.
We're always going to be able to find a baggie or a bowl, regardless of what the suits do. Everyone with a brain knows that all of these people who are now medical marijuana prescription patients were toking up long before they had a caregiver.
Name withheld on request
Aurora
"Pipe Dream," Joel Warner, November 26
Now it is painfully clear that the reason that no one is reducing water consumption is that there is too much money to be made in providing it. Denver could easily reduce water consumption by 20 percent, but there is no money to be made.
Gary Zuber
Thornton
Anyone in Wyoming dumb enough to fall for this drug-store cowboy's act is going to get bit in the ass. I suggest everyone involved take a trip to the Owens Valley in California, and on the way back mull over just how little anyone knows about how a diversion project this size would harm Wyoming and Utah communities.
John Reilly
Thermopolis, Wyoming
"Playlist," Kiernan Maletsky, November 19
We would like to thank Kiernan Maletsky for taking the time to review our CD, Nation of Three. We are glad he considers that we are "competent" and recognizes our ability to "hit notes." We are sorry he clearly has no interest in the style of music we play, and that he would not go out of his way to hear us.
We're also sorry he didn't go out of his way to listen to our CD before he reviewed it — or that if he did, he was unable to identify the instruments we are playing. We assume something as old-timey as "journalistic accuracy" or even "reading the liner notes" is as unappealing to him as our "old-timey" sound.
The Alltunators
Denver
"Building a Case," Jared Jacang Maher, November 12
Born on the wrong side of the tracks? Be very, very careful should you stumble into the old boys' club either by design or accident. Abortive developers Erik and Angela Osborn are learning the hard way that the rich never lose. The rich will always — always — have a fall guy on hand, and eleven times out of ten, that sucker will be a striving rube like the Osborns. Why else would wealthy, brilliant businesspeople like Doug Moreland and Michelle Brokaw or wealthy political insiders like Robert Greenlee even bother dirtying their hands with swarthy types like the Osborns?
The Osborns — painted as a latter-day Bonnie and Clyde by Westword's "reporter" — were clearly only pulling exactly the same sort of financial and business sleight-of-hand that their wealthy partners engage in hourly. But these poor saps lacked the R-250 insulation of sleazy attorneys, crooked accountants and unethical financial advisors to...fix niggling little issues of legality, to say nothing of the judges, prosecutors, politicians and even "journalists" who either curry favor with the rich or are simply in their pockets. Little people like the Osborns, who find themselves in this viper's nest, always take it up the ass — hard and without protection — if the shit hits the fan.
Of course, when the rich lose money, someone's always there to bail them out. Or the "authorities" are there to take it from someone poorer, whether that is a pound of gold or of flesh. Curiously, district attorneys who are frothing at the mouth to go after the Osborns seem to have no interest in going after the multitudes of hucksters on TV and radio stations encouraging Joe and Jane 'Forty to buy into clearly crooked multi-level and Internet marketing and real-estate scams. I guess these white knights of the prosecutor's bar are too busy down at the club themselves, lifting a martini or three with important people.
J.M. Schell
Arvada
