David Sirota vs. Stephen Colbert, Round Two

At 12:30 a.m. Mountain time, during the wee hours of May 30, David Sirota, a columnist whose work frequently turns up in the physical version of the Denver Post as well as on Politics West, a Post blog that was at the center of a September 2007 Message column, will…

Nude Bicyclist Gives Comcast Viewers an Eyeful

At first glance, the most recent advertisement for Turin Bicycles Ltd. (viewable by clicking here) is thoroughly non-controverial: images of bikes, highways, traffic and various portions of the store’s 700 Lincoln Street headquarters accompanied by a voiceover that touts pedaling as an environmentally conscious commuting choice. Look closely, though, and…

Running with McCain: Who It Won’t Be

Choosing a Presidential running mate is always a tough thing. Choosing a running mate when you’re the oldest non-incumbent presidential candidate in American history? Well, that’s a whole other kettle of fish. Very old fish. Age is just one of the factors in play to determine who gets the nod…

A Perfect Match

Eagle County Republican candidate Muhammad Ali Hasan, who is 27, has had his share of road bumps in his quest for House District 56. The flamboyant founder of Muslims for Bush and son of multimillionaire HMO executive Malik Hasan, Ali had to switch races – he originally coveted a Senate…

Do the Denver Dailies’ Page Ones Display Political Bias?

Locals who consider the Rocky Mountain News to be Denver’s conservative paper and view the Denver Post as its liberal counterpart likely feel that the respective dailies’ May 29 covers confirm their suspicions. The previous day, President George W. Bush and leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama both visited Colorado…

Letters to the Editor

“Kopelgänger!,” Adam Cayton-Holland, May 22 Double Trouble I always wondered what the shine was that was reflecting off of Mr. Kopel’s forehead. Now I know that it comes from the brilliance of Westword’s writers, such as Adam Cayton-Holland and cartoonist Kenny Be. Calhoun has a great crew, and Denver is…

Shlock Value: Dem Gear for Sale Here

Democratic National Convention souvenirs are now on sale at the Pepsi Center and at www.denverdncgear.com, where the enthusiastic blue-stater can score everything from a $48 Denver 2008 hoodie to a $9 keychain to a $3 recycled (gag) green Frisbee. The site, operated by Stan Kroenke, the Republican who owns the…

Turn Up the Mike!

I was up on stage, midway through some new routine that I would probably never use again, floundering, when a man walked off of Colfax and straight into infamy. He was frazzled and drugged-out-looking — nothing out of the ordinary for a Tuesday-night comedy open-mike at the Squire Lounge. Unlike…

The Good, The Bad & The Mad

On a bitter winter morning four years ago, Heather Gooch stood in her apartment on South Bannock Street and listened to the awful thumping. The noise was coming from the floor above and getting louder, as if someone was slamming weights down again and again. Gooch had never heard anything…

A Hospital Without Walls

Thursday afternoons in courtroom 151P tend to be less formal than other proceedings in Denver county courts. Judge Larry Bohning still hands out an occasional scolding (“Time’s running out, Mr. Finn; you need to stay away from that alcohol”), and every once in a while somebody gets their probation revoked…

Thomas Espinoza’s Confession and a History of the Insanity Defense

This week’s feature story tells the gruesome tale of convicted killer Thomas Espinoza’s brutal murder of his neighbor, and his subsequent efforts to escape justice by claiming he was insane. Here are several brief excerpts from his taped confession. When you’re done with those, have a look at this slideshow…

Graduation Day: Obama and Bush in Colorado

Colorado hosts two graduations with major policy speeches today: one by a current president looking back and one by a (possible) future president looking forward. Barack Obama will host an invitation-only town hall meeting at 11:30 a.m. at Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts (MESA) in Thornton, where he is…

Up Late with John McCain

For all the talk about John McCain being too old to run for president, the guy sure seems to stay up awfully late. No four-thirty dinners at Furr’s Cafeteria for this guy—that is, unless he’s planning on supplementing that diet with a 1 a.m. “fourthmeal” from Taco Bell. This is…

Tough Times

A story in today’s New York Times — and previewed yesterday by Matt Drudge — details Denver’s problems raising money for the upcoming Democratic National Convention. “So far, the Denver host committee is about $15 million short of the $40.6 million it must raise by June 16,” the Times reports…

Fiscal Crisis Hits The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer

As noted in a November 2007 Message column, few folks know about the Colorado branch of The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, PBS’ weeknightly news staple, even though it’s celebrating its 25th year of existence and continues to contribute mightily to the program as a whole. Two correspondents, Tom Bearden (pictured)…

Q&A With the Late (Sort of) Lincoln Hall

Australia’s Lincoln Hall didn’t live through his descent from the summit of Mount Everest in May 2006 – or at least that’s what his companions thought. He tells his unlikely survival story in Dead Lucky, a new book he’ll share with an audience at the Tattered Cover Highlands Ranch (click…

Denver Dailies Invest in Stanley Cup

The May 8 Message column looked at the ways travel budgets at print and electronic media outlets have been impacted by tight budgetary times — and coverage of the ongoing Stanley Cup matchup between the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins shows that this situation is affecting news organizations…

Phoning It In at Channel 9

Local television has gotten more sophisticated over the years, even in mid-size markets such as Denver. But remnants of small-time cheesiness remain, and thank goodness, since they infuse the increasingly slick medium with much needed charm. The anachronistic phone-in segments regularly featured on Channel 9’s a.m. news block are an…

Denver Post Pimps Advertiser on Sunday Page One

The concept of advertising on the front page of the Denver dailies isn’t entirely foreign; note the use of irritating stickers that are regularly affixed to their covers these days — a topic explored in this October 2007 Message column. But the Sunday, May 25 Denver Post took up-front advertising…

Rocky Mountain Chronicle Does the Limbo

A December 2006 Message column documented the incredible proliferation of free weekly papers going after readers in the northern Colorado triangle formed by Fort Collins, Greeley and Loveland – five at the time of the article’s appearance, including two independents, the Rocky Mountain Chronicle and the Fort Collins Weekly, and…