In December, I boarded an airplane bound for Haiti with Dan Jeune, a man who’d just worn a dashiki through Denver International Airport. Since back in my days at j-school, before I was ever paid to write a word, Haiti was a spot I’d hoped to go on a story…
Denver’s new justice center won’t house women, or food– for too long. After the facility’s projected completion in 2010, men who are arrested will be detained at the new facility through the duration of their legal proceedings. Women, on the other hand, will only be housed at the new facility…
Gary Gygax wasn’t the father of Dungeons and Dragons. He was the weird uncle that lived in the basement, painted lead miniatures, and could expound on the twelve different types of polearm weapons. So it’s understandable that gamers might have trouble talking about it openly. Instead, here are some ways…
The night started out with Vermont being crazy. Not crazy because they went for frontrunners Barack Obama and John McCain, in sizeable fashion (Obama carried white voters, male voters and even female voters by smart margins), but because they voted to arrest Bush and Cheney, 2,012 to 1,795. If that…
A current Craig’s List job posting by Yellow Scene, a magazine that calls itself “104th North’s only source for arts, entertainment and muckraking,” sports the headline, “Fill Jim Spencer’s Big Shoes.” The item goes on to laud Spencer, a former Denver Post columnist whose ouster during last year’s cost-cutting frenzy…
I’m not a John McCain supporter. I knew him as one of my senators when I lived in Arizona, and I’ve come to know him as a presidential candidate in these last two elections. And as much of a beef as I might have with the man and his politics,…
The Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee just spewed out another release — this time noting that “local software company Nanco Global LLC has provided a software upgrade to the Host Committee’s volunteer page at www.DenverConvention2008.com.” Unfortunately, that upgrade clearly didn’t include a stop by spellcheck…
Since writing my column about “Ana,” the faux-pregnant grifter poisoning this city’s fine streets, I have been inundated with many letters and countless comments from people who also fell victim to this scam-artist’s ruse – and not just in the Baker neighborhood – all expressing the same disbelief and frustration…
About three weeks ago, Chad Clevenger put Agave Grill through a mid-season menu overhaul, altering or outright dumping about two-thirds of the opening board. While the result could have been a return to the mixed Chihuahua-meets-Lyon Old World/New World fusion of the Cherry Creek Mel’s during Clevenger’s days there, he…
Click here to see more of the house ad In a March 3 More Messages blog, I noted that the Rocky Mountain News spent two articles complimenting staff members for their performance in a pair of recent journalism contests, while the Denver Post “displayed stunning restraint” by letting the public…
This hard-hitting slide show by political correspondent Joe Horton shows Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Mike Huckabee all dressed up with only the superdelegates of Texas and Ohio to pander to…
A painting a day keeps the gloomy monotony of nine-to-five corporate clock-punching away. That’s the idea behind www.30days30pieces.com, the brainchild of David Schell, a Denver graphic designer who decided he needed to structure creative motivation into his life so he could get back to his heady art-school roots. “A lot…
View larger image In August of 2004, Mayor John Hickenlooper announced that Denver was being given more than 2,000 works of art by abstract expressionist icon Clyfford Still in exchange for a promise to build a museum to house his oeuvre — one that would display his pieces and nothing…
View larger image New Hampshire Total Number of Delegates: 30 Pledged: 22 Unpledged: 8 How to Recognize a New Hampshire Delegate: “Live Free or Die” is the motto that New Hampshirites use to project their image of fierce independence. In truth, it briefly explains the state’s tax code, which exempts…
View larger specimen In order to make more sense of the world around us, illustrator and public house naturalist Nate Stone is compiling here a taxonomy of different barflies. While you’re out and about in Denver, if you spot any of these specimens please add your observations about their habitat…
In a January “diary” penned for Entertainment Weekly, talk-show host Conan O’Brien lamented the prospect that the Writers Guild of America strike might doom the Academy Awards with a perfectly self-deflating line: “I want no part of a world that refuses to congratulate itself.” By that standard, he’d love the…
The December 6, 2007 Message column focused on The Jump, an organization made up of former journalists eager to help veteran colleagues who’ve recently left newspapering to take the next career step. Among those featured was Jump board member Todd Engdahl, a multi-position player at the Denver Post for 31…
The overhaul of the former Gates Rubber Co site into a $1 billion transit-oriented development has gone off-track for the moment thanks to a mysterious move by builder Joseph Freed and Associates to “create a different relationship” with master developer Cherokee Denver, which owns the site. Freed senior vice president…
In 2007, when Westword published its twenty-fourth Best Of Awards, things were looking up for the Rockies: Matt Holliday, our winner for “Best Rocky,” was a rising star, and he and the rest of the team’s young players were — who knew? — just months away from an improbable World…
The three consecutive evenings that the Focus on the Family radio broadcast is devoting to the subject of the Matthew Murray shooting rampage is shaping into a fascinating listen – and not just because it’s the first time that the parents, Ronald and Loretta Murray, are speaking publicly about their…
Beware of pollsters with agendas. A pollster is supposed to be someone just culling data from a statistically significant portion of the population, right? Someone with one eye on politics, and the other on science? Well, if you consider the efficacy of propaganda a scientific end, Frank Luntz is your…
March would mark the 104th birthday of the late Dr. Seuss, and the event is being celebrated at elementary schools around town, where teachers are reading books and stories by the author, whose real name was Theodor Geisel, and by the big-screen release of the animated Horton Hears a Who!…
