Opinion & Commentary

Ryan Frazier is trading in a clunker in favor of a much sleeker vehicle. Six months after the two-term Aurora City Councilman announced that he was running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, he’s pulling out of that race and making a fast course correction for the 7th…

In an industry when a restaurant reaching its first birthday is considered noteworthy, the run of the Brook Forest Inn is nothing short of remarkable. Edwin and Marie Welz, immigrants who arrived in this country in 1910 and took over a homestead near Evergreen, worked on transforming the place into…

When we learned that Joe Rogan, former host of Fear Factor, had moved to metro Denver, we offered up our top ten list of very scary things for newcomers to Colorado. Number 4? Animal Encounters: “As houses sprawl across formerly uninhabited areas, the animals that used to live where your…

Hospoda, the restaurant that billed itself as “friendly beer house,” has closed after a good effort in a bad location, at 3763 Wynkoop Street (right off Brighton Boulevard), the former home of the Wynkoop Grill. Jason Sheehan loved Hospoda it when I dragged him there — the ambience was a…

“Olives date back to before the invention of the written language,” notes the web page for the Twisted Olive. “We’re here to add a new chapter in Olive history, a fun and tasteful one. It starts with redefining and twisting the Olive’s role in entertainment, cuisine, nightlife and most importantly…you!”…

Jeff Peckman has had a tough month: First, David Letterman’s all-too-earthly horn-dog behavior made big news — and bit into the value of a clip from Letterman’s June 10, 2008 UFO interview with Peckman that’s prominently featured on the campaign web page for the Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission. That’s the concept…

This past weekend the largest gay-rights demonstration in close to a decade descended on Washington, D.C., where lawmakers may finally approve the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a measure that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the categories covered by federal hate crime…

Yesterday was a long day in Idledale, the tiny town in the foothills where Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff put up their feet when they’re not pounding the pavement on behalf of PeaceJam, the non-profit they founded over a dozen years ago that links up youth from around the world…

In the 21 months since John Parr, Sandy Widener and their daughter, Chase Parr, were killed in a horrific car accident, I’ve trained myself not to grab the phone to call Sandy, a wonderful writer and college pal who was one of the founders of Westword, to hoot over some…

Is this the most attention you’ve ever gotten?” asked the national reporter. Westword got bomb threats when we broke the news about University of Colorado coach Bill McCartney’s daughter being pregnant by dying quarterback Sal Aunese, a story that’s gotten a second life on ESPN now that their son is…

The Tilted Kilt has been called a Celtic Hooters — a label that its Arizona-based owners don’t appreciate, we hear. They prefer “The Best Looking Sports Pub You’ve Ever Seen,” the slogan on the web site. A sports pub with waitresses who wear naughty school-girl skirts. There are already 22…

Twenty-five years ago, the Department of Defense took over 235,000 acres of ranchland in southeastern Colorado — the largest condemnation of private property in the country. And the Army’s not done yet. Six years ago, word surfaced that the feds would try to add another 400,000 acres to the Pinon…

Last March, chef/restaurateur Kevin Taylor announced that in September 2009, he would be opening Kevin Taylor Steak in the aloft Hotel at Arista in Broomfield. It would be his seventh restaurant (if you count the one in Central City’s Teller House, which is only open in the summer), one that…

Yesterday, Westword’s quest for a medical-marijuana critic made the New York Times, after already being featured in the Wall Street Journal, MSN and CNBC. My e-mail box overflowed and my phone rang off the hook. It’s funny how the national media has jumped all over this. “Is this the most…

“Dim sum, a meal of varied dishes originating in China, is often translated loosely into English as ‘a little bit of’ what?”That’s the $15,000 question that Karl Allis, aka “Hungus,” a restaurant manager at Atomic Cowboy and Fat Sully’s, will be asked on the episide of Who Wants to Be…

I’ve always had good luck at the Division of Motor Vehicles office at 2736 Welton Street. Sure, the tiny parking lot is a nightmare, but the DMV employees are friendly, if not always fast — and you can always take a quick stroll around Five Points if there’s a wait…

President Barack Obama just signed an executive order banning federal workers from text-messaging when they are driving government cars, or driving their own cars on government business, or using their on government phones while driving their own cars on personal business. The ban was announced at a transportation department meeting…

James Mazzio poured his heart and soul — and a lot of elbow grease — into Icehouse Tavern, the comfort food restaurant at 1801 Wynkoop Street that took the place of Via and opened in July, after Mazzio had done much of the renovation work himself. “I redid the deck,…

For years, I fought the urge to buy a pair of Crocs, that homegrown phenomenon that has millions of people shuffling around the planet in what look like wading pools. It wasn’t the shoes’ appearance that bothered me, or the stories of people getting their Crocs stuck in escalators, or…