A Kenny Be Slideshow Festival

The summer’s here and the time is right for Westword cartoonist Kenny Be to bring the festival season to life. As a fitting capper to our recent series of web extras (like this one), we proudly present twelve full-color illustrations that celebrate hot fun in the summertime. To view the…

Face the Nation? Let’s Face Reality

On CBS’s Face the Nation this last Sunday, genial host Bob Schieffer asked General Wesley Clark to talk about John McCain’s war record, specifically his criticisms as to McCain’s readiness to serve in the highest office, and how that compares to Barack Obama’s. Fair enough. But what it turned into…

A Short Course in Prison Nicknames

“A friend writes…” That’s the way many New Yorker “Talk of the Town” items used to start, back in the magazine’s most genteel days. Well, nobody writes real letters any more — except prisoners, deprived of e-mail and text messaging. And here at Westword, we get lots of letters from…

Is Anything That Happens to John Ramsey News?

For the better part of a decade after the still-unsolved December 25, 1996 murder of his daughter, JonBenét Ramsey, onetime Boulderite John Ramsey was a constant television-news presence in these parts — so much so that many of us felt the urge to run away screaming whenever an anchor mentioned…

E.W. Scripps Stock in Freefall

On July 1, E.W. Scripps, the venerable company that owns the Rocky Mountain News and the Boulder Daily Camera, among other newspapers around the country, officially spun off its most valuable properties, including HGTV, The Food Network and the Shopzilla website, into a separate enterprise christened Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI)…

Kenny Be Festival Favorites: Web Extra Day Four

View larger image This week’s Worst-Case Scenario takes a look at the ubiquitous denizens of summer festivals. This is the last of four bonus festival folks from Kenny Be, presented in full color. Use the comments section to tell us about your favorite festival denizens that we might have missed,…

Where Will MillerCoors Call Home? Not Here…

July 1, the start of a new fiscal year, marks day one of MillerCoors, the new entity that turns longtime brew competitors Miller and Coors into a corporate Chang and Eng. No one knows at this point what this merger will portend for the overall suds market or individual guzzlers,…

Wal-Mart Undergoes Hyphen-Removal Surgery

For the past several years, Wal-Mart has been fighting a battle against bad publicity of the sort collected in The United States of Wal-Mart, a 2005 book by Colorado journalist (and Geeks Who Drink quiz-master) John Dicker. The mega-corp’s latest weapon? A new logo that moves the star that previously…

Colorado Rockies Apologia Smacks of the Bad Old Days

How did KOA Morning News host Steffan Tubbs attempt to rationalize the latest ignominious loss by the Colorado Rockies — the lowly San Diego Padres beat them 15-8 thanks to a seven-run outburst in the ninth — shortly after 5 a.m. on July 1? By spinning a golden oldie. The…

The Convention: Fit to Be Fried

With Barack Obama slated to accept the Democratic presidential nomination on August 28, the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, black TV networks will be all over the convention in Denver. In her piece in the June 30 Denver Post, Joanne Ostrow quotes TV…

The Westword.com Blog Shortcut, June 30 Edition

What? There are other Westword blogs aside from this one? Why, yes — and here is some of the excellent stuff you can find on them. Backbeat Online overflows with weekend concert reviews, including wide-ranging coverage of the Warped Tour at which 3Oh!3 ruled, plus the SoCo Music Fest featuring…

National Public Radio Segregates Republicans, Democrats

With its June 30 edition, the National Public Radio offering Talk of the Nation launched a new series entitled “Issues Monday.” According to the program’s web page, “advisers from each campaign can join the program in the coming weeks to discuss their candidate’s policies on Iraq, energy, immigration and other…

Colorado Contemporary Arts Collaborative Launches Its Website

The Colorado Contemporary Arts Collaborative, called CCAC, was established last year to “build public awareness and appreciation of contemporary art in Colorado.” The group — the brainchild of Kent Logan (pictured with his wife, Vicki) — has a lot of ideas, with one of the first being the establishment of…

Delegating Denver #50 of 56: Vermont

View larger image Vermont Total Number of Delegates: 23 Pledged: 15 Unpledged: 8 How to Recognize a Vermont Delegate: Vermont has a reputation as a haven for hippies and trust-funders, but loaded wannabes are only fooling themselves if they think they can be a Green Mountaineer simply by relocating and…

The Bill Ritter Meet the Press Transcript

Sleep in on Sunday (or maybe go to the Warped Tour) and miss Colorado guv Bill Ritter on Meet the Press? Look below for the transcript of his conversation with moderator Tom Brokaw and Wyoming’s governor, Dave Freudenthal…

Wildfires Stop Ultrarunner Tony K in His Tracks

For months Colorado Springs ultrarunner Tony Krupicka has been focused on a single challenge: getting ready for one of the most prestigious events in his sport, the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run in northern California, scheduled for the weekend of June 27-28. But despite his string of unbeaten (and often…

Kenny Be Festival Favorites: Web Extra Day Three

View larger image This week’s Worst-Case Scenario takes a look at the ubiquitous denizens of summer festivals. Each day through Tuesday, Kenny Be will bring a bonus festival-goer to the web, in full color. Use the comments section to tell us about festival folks that we might have missed, and…

Jimmy Buffett and Mikhail Gorbachev: Separated at Birth?

The USA Weekend magazine included in the June 29 Denver Post and oodles of other newspapers across These United States contained an unfortunate surprise — and I’m not talking about the feature story on Jimmy Buffett (although, frankly, that makes sense in this context, too). No, the scary part was…

Bobble Yourself Like Matt Holliday and Tulo

Unless you are Matt Holliday or Troy Tulowitzki, it’s unlikely that you will have a bobblehead night set aside just for you (and if you are Holliday or Tulo, would you mind autographing one of the bobbleheads from my collection?). But thanks to XM Radio, you can see what your…

Show Your Pussy

Want to be a millionaire? Who doesn’t? Well, do you own a cat? More importantly, can you think like your cat? And why are we asking these seemingly inane questions? To determine your eligibility for the Meow Mix Game Show, that’s why…

McCain’s Vietcong Endorsement: Believe It…or Not!

Let’s get this clear up front: This is not some sort of liberal swift-boating. The fact that John McCain’s Vietcong jailer has backhandedly endorsed him for president isn’t — or shouldn’t be, anyway — anything more than one of those weird political stories. McCain spent over five years as a…

Kenny Be Festival Favorites: Web Extra Day Two

View larger image This week’s Worst-Case Scenario takes a look at the ubiquitous denizens of summer festivals. Every day through Tuesday, Kenny Be is bringing a bonus festival-goer to the web, in full color. Use the comments section to tell us about your favorite festival folks that we might have…