Dear Mexican: We’re in state testing this week at the high school where I teach. After the students finish a section, they can only sit and read or just sit. I did an experiment: I chose the cholo-est, most tatted, pierced non-readers and dropped your book on their desk. Students…
Given Arapahoe County’s record, Fox reporter Jana Winter should be glad she’s only facing contempt-of-court charges, not the death penalty. As media outlets were chasing every possible tip in the days following the Aurora shootings last July, Winter came up with a real scoop: James Holmes had sent a notebook…
Even as Coors Field was filling up last Friday, fans were learning Ballpark neighborhood mainstay Snooze would no longer support the city’s May 2012 ban on camping because it hadn’t helped the homeless community. Snooze had initially supported that proposal — a stance that inspired Occupy Denver to boycott the…
As the weather heats up, so do concerns that the camping ban Denver City Council approved a year ago has not worked as envisioned. Last week, Denver Homeless Out Loud released the results of its survey of 500 homeless people on the impact of the ban, which took effect on…
Is the University of Denver’s hunt for a new mascot turning into a Boone-doggle? That’s what some alumni are wondering after attending a Thursday focus group, part of a campus-wide process to calm controversy and select a new mascot. Denver Boone, a coonskin cap-wearing caricature, was adopted as the image…
What makes Colorado Colorado? That’s what “Making Colorado,” the state’s new branding mission announced yesterday, wants to determine — and it’s set up a website where you can offer your own suggestions that will help determine the state’s new brand. This DIY approach drew the attention of the New York…
Dear Mexican: Please explain to me why so many mexicanas seem to think it more important to stay home and baby-sit than to attend school (so that they may become more in life than producers of offspring). As an educator (lately of students identified as “at risk” for failure in…
The University of Denver was founded in 1864, only five years after Denver got its start and the same year a flood threatened to wipe the tiny town off the map. But DU has always had a fighting spirit — and today, both students and alumni are fighting mad over…
It’s coming down to the wire. Everyone knows that Denver beats Portland when it comes to beer and weather — but how do the two rate as bike cities? REI recently rolled out its 2013 Cycling City Showdown, and Denver has already beaten Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis — now it…
Endless vistas of the mountains and plains? Endless pours of craft beers? Endless protests about gun-control laws? What makes Colorado Colorado? That’s what the state plans to find out with Making Colorado, an ambitious branding effort being announced today by Governor John Hickenlooper and Aaron Kennedy, Colorado’s chief marketing officer,…
The rumblings of a boycott started even before Governor John Hickenlooper signed three gun-control measures ten days ago, and they’re only going to get louder with President Barack Obama coming to Colorado on Wednesday to tout this state’s new laws as an example for the rest of the country. “I’m…
Dear Mexican: About six years ago, my wife and I adopted a little baby boy. He is “pure” mestizo and we are complete wabs. I’m a little dark because of my mixed Arab heritage, but my wife is a major-league blanca. He is a sweet little gabacho growing up in…
This is our thirtieth Best of Denver edition. Over the years, we’ve given at least 15,000 awards. Some of the categories — Best Mobile Hot Tub? — have disappeared, reflecting how trends come and go in a boom-and-bust-and-boom town; other honorees, such as the Winter Park Ski Train, simply reached…
The explosions outside the State Capitol yesterday startled people from downtown to Capitol Hill. But unlike so many other explosions today, these were planned. Artillery blasts marked the 151st anniversary of the Battle of Glorieta Pass, on March 26, 1862, when Colonel Major John Chivington led members of the First…
For Governor John Hickenlooper, it was a very hard week at the end of a hard year, filled with disasters both natural and man-made — disasters Colorado is still struggling to understand. The frustrations that consumed Hickenlooper over the past twelve months came bubbling out during an interview about his…
Is Denver International Airport in the dark? The airport will be celebrating touchy-feely Earth Hour tomorrow, turning off lights between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 23. The black-out includes the illuminated DIA sign along Pena Boulevard, the illuminated sign marking the Jeppesen Terminal and the lights on…
It should be all hearts and flowers when Governor John Hickenlooper signs the civil unions bill at History Colorado this afternoon. But we’re betting that this historic moment will also have a history-making amount of security, given the vehement response to Hickenlooper’s signing of three gun measures yesterday — just…
Dear Mexican: I’m living in Mexico part of the year. I’m learning Spanish, but I can’t say I understand or speak it well. I read several books about the history of Mexico and think I’m reasonably well-informed. I’m curious about a phrase I saw on a T-shirt in an expensive…
When all the smoke clears over the gun debate, Colorado will still have other tough issues to tackle. What’s the future of this state? That’s what TBD Colorado wants to determine. Last year, the non-partisan nonprofit — “No state dollars are being spent on TBD Colorado,” its website promises –…
Joe Garcia, Colorado’s coolest lieutenant governor, won’t be going to Washington, D.C. — not now, at least, and not as the head of the Department of Labor. Yesterday, the White House announced that Tom Perez, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, will take that post. Like Garcia, Perez…
Want evidence of just how colorful Colorado has become? Stop by the Colorado Senate this morning, where two big bills will be considered. One, calling for new sex education standards, shows how very blue the Colorado Legislature is these days, The second, HB 13-1061, which would set standards for “responsible…
The late Dale Tooley — longtime Denver District Attorney, one-time mayoral candidate and full-time Irishman — is remembered every year in Denver, when a downtown street is officially, if temporarily, changed to Tooley Street for St. Patrick’s Day. For years, the street sign at Wazee and 17th streets was the…
