Dear Mexican: How come all the Mexicans who came here two or three generations ago look like “almost-white” people, while the ones coming now look like those little guys who live naked in the Amazon and kill things with blowguns? No Indios Need Apply Dear NINA: Chalk the phenomenon up…
Growth and development, newcomers and Mile High rent dominated much of the conversation in the city in 20015. But there were also lighter, funnier and just plain weirder stories, too. Here are some of our favorite strange but true events involving public servants. Find the rest of our Year in…
As the cold weather hangs on, the discussion is heating up about Denver’s homeless. Many of the most heated comments have been about those who were left out in the cold this Christmas after their possessions were removed by Denver police officers. Says Marion: What the DPD is doing is NOT…
Frequent visitors to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science may have noticed something different about the facility’s entrance area this holiday season. Since the beginning of December, the museum no longer has any signs posted that ban handguns on its premises. That’s because early this month, the museum’s Board…
Many philanthropic organizations spend the days leading to the holidays donating their time and resources to those in need — but one local non-profit made headlines for its choice of charitable gifts. Wearing sweatshirts that said, “I helped 1,000 people get high for Cannamas,” members of Cannabis Can handed out…
There are some unavoidable ironies in Facing the Wind, the large-scale photographic exhibit looming over passengers at Denver International Airport this holiday season. Trudging between interminable security lines and packed airplanes, the weary traveler can gaze upon splashy color images of wild mustangs at play in the vast open spaces…
The Colorado caucus system might be the least understood political process in the state — and that’s saying something. “Precinct caucuses are meetings of registered electors within a precinct who are members of a particular major political party,” explains the Colorado Secretary of State’s web page. “The purpose of precinct…
We’ve received many, many responses to “Stoner Hill,” our cover story about a refuge for homeless youth in Denver, as well as “Homeless in Denver: The Cold, Hard Facts Behind Six Myths.” Jeanie Anderson sent this account of discovering that her father was homeless. When I was young, I lived…
Last week, during the first major snowstorm of the season, Denver Police Department officers began rousting people from their tents and lean-to shelters near the Samaritan House at Park Avenue and Lawrence Street around 6 a.m. The cops told everyone to get into shelters — shelters that had been too…
Dear Westword: I want to start by saying I’m a Chicano. Now, I don’t understand why you allow Gastavo [sic] Arellano’s article in your publication. He is a racist. First, he has a negative cartoon of a Mexican. Just look at it. Just because his last name is Arellano does…
Kerri Peek woke up in her Aurora motel room at 7:30 a.m. Monday and had soon managed to spill Cocoa Puffs and milk down her bra, break her favorite coffee mug, spill chicken soup in her Crocs — and collect some “crazy hate” that accused her of being a fake…
Gentle cabrones: Behold my annual Mexican Christmas guide, where I recommend the best Mexi-themed libros for you to give to your loved ones this Navidad. Buy them at your local bookstore or order online, but do buy! F*ck Cancer: The True Story of How Robert the Bold Kicked Cancer’s Ass…
We’ve received many, many responses to “Stoner Hill,” our cover story about a refuge for homeless youth in Denver, as well as “Homeless in Denver: The Cold, Hard Facts Behind Six Myths.” Nancy Wilson, who found herself homeless herself last year, sent this first-person account: Sausage and Salvation The view from the second-floor dining…
Last Friday, on the sixth night of Hanukkah, the Front Range Jewish Voice for Peace chapter gathered a group of Jews, Muslims and Christians to protest the “fear and paranoia” of Syrian refugees and Muslims they claimed was being spread by the Cell: the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab, the world’s only museum dedicated…
Dear Mexican: Mexicans always talk about the Reconquista. However, I think you should be invading Spain instead. The Spanish did to the Native Americans in Mexico what the whites did to the Native Americans in America. In fact, we treated them better. We gave them reservations, they pay no taxes,…
Joyce Lisbin doesn’t shy away from crabs, chlamydia or controversy. At seventy, the longtime sex educator is now spearheading a multi-faith operation designed to guarantee religiously affiliated women and their families something they don’t always have when faced with an unwanted pregnancy: a choice. A choice that shouldn’t endanger their…
Dear Mexican: What is the origin of the grito?Not the one done in September to celebrate independence, but the one belted out during passionate rancheras like Chente’s “Volver, Volver.” El Gallo Gritón Dear Mexican: I think I’ve identified the Mexican “rallying cry,” but I need your confirmation. Why do groups…
The Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shootings committed by Robert Dear on November 27 were a human tragedy. Three people were killed and nine others injured. But due to the supposition that Dear attacked the facility over much disputed claims that Planned Parenthood has profited from aborted fetuses — he reportedly made…
Robert Dear’s attack on a Planned Parenthood branch in Colorado Springs this past Friday, which killed three people and injured nine others, instantly became one of the nation’s biggest news stories. So big that presidential candidates were put in the position of offering their take on the horrific crime. But…
Dear Mexican: We Americans have been spoiled by such low costs for so long, we’ve started acting as if said low costs were our birthright, which explains why our government leaders have never been in any real hurry to do anything significant about our southern borders. Now, many spoiled, control-freak…
The past is coming full circle. On Sunday, November 29, on day four of the seventeenth annual Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run, participants will gather by the grave of Captain Silas Soule at Riverside Cemetery, as they have every year since 1999. Then they’ll run into downtown Denver and along Arapahoe…
The attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya is probably something Hillary Clinton hopes to avoid talking about today as she passes through Denver to organize local campaign supporters. The presidential hopeful has tried to move beyond the controversial topic since participating in congressional hearings about Benghazi last month…
