Denver Post to add Rocky Mountain News voices

Almost two months ago, Michael Roberts offered an all-star list of five Rocky Mountain News staffers that he suggested the Denver Post hire should the News shut down.Now, with the News’s last day tomorrow, the Post has announced that it’s adding a handful of News employees, and three of them…

Wake-Up Call: The bell tolls for Joe Nacchio

Yesterday, with the news that the San Francisco Chronicle may go down, leaving the free Examiner the only real daily in SF, Phil Anschutz once again looked like the smartest guy in the room.Today, he’s also looking like the luckiest. Because before Anschutz bought the dying Examiner label and turned…

There’s no law against the word “illegal”

Dear Mexican: I believe that the words people use to describe other people, intentionally or unintentionally, reflect their political values. But I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. You described César Chávez as hating “illegals” in a previous column, and as being ethnocentric early in his career…

Wake-Up Call: Another contemporary art treasure in Denver

Michael Paglia posted the news first: Adam Lerner, head of the Laboratory of Art and Ideas in Lakewood, will take over as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, replacing Cydney Payton, who exited last fall. And that’s not all: In revealing the hire yesterday, the MCA board also…

Wake-Up Call: Forget coyotes. What about cougars?

Denver is in a tizzy over coyotes. Greenwood Village wants to shoot them. Denver wants to talk them to death, and will host a meeting Thursday to do just that. And not a moment too soon, apparently, because on Saturday evening, a 51-year-old woman walking a 75-pound lab near her…

Wake-Up Call: Nathan Ybanez gets his week in court

By June of 1998, sixteen-year-old Nathan Ybanez couldn’t take it any more. So he called his friend, seventeen-year-old Eric Jensen, to get him out of the house. And he got out, all right: In separate trials, both boys were convicted of the murder of Julie Ybanez, as detailed in Luke…

Wake-Up Call: Sometimes, there is no justice

You would have thought that getting voters to approve a bond measure to build a new jail — smack in the heart of the artsy Golden Triangle, at the edge of the revived Civic Center — would have been the challenging task. But that was a breeze compared to coming…

Wake-Up Call: Beat the press

The Colorado chapter of the Public Relations Society of America held a meet-the-press style session yesterday, as PRSA members and students played a game of musical chairs, sitting down at literal round tables for fast, fifteen-minute sessions with actual representatives of the media. Or what passes for the media these…

Shame and denial cross all borders

Dear Mexican: What is the deal with Mexican denial when it comes to dealing with child sexual abuse? I know counselors who tell me that it’s a big problem trying to get Mexican families to admit and confront this. In my own experience, I have seen my Mexican relatives be…

Wake-Up Call: Pony up for the Arts

Fresh from shmoozing with Barack Obama, John Hickenlooper will be at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House tonight, presenting the 2008 Mayor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts to Charles Burrell, the Denver Young Artists, Su Teatro and the Bloomsbury Review, as well as a Mayor’s Cultural Legacy Award to Noel…

Wake-Up Call: You can’t get there from here

Sure, there may be big, fatty streaks of pork running through the $787 billion stimulus-package bill that President Barack Obama will be signing into law today at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (www.stimuluswatch.org has gone hog-wild finding them). But if Colorado can bring home the bacon for just…

Wake-Up Call: The week ahead, February 16-21

The big news: Barack Obama is coming back to Denver, the town where he accepted the Democratic nomination on August 28, and where now, as president, he will now sign the $787 billion stimulus bill on Tuesday, February 17 at the Museum of Nature & Science (conveniently vetted by the…

Wake-Up Call: Good news out of a bad economy

Wolf Creek Ski Area is one of the last vestiges of old Colorado, a family-run, rustic, relaxed ski area with tons of powder and no pretense. Not surprisingly, a Texas developer took one look at the stunning spot and decided to build a massive resort village nearby — one that…

Wake-Up Call: More scary stuff at DIA

The devil horse. The one-world murals. The underground tunnels where aliens (the extraterrestrial ones) hang out. Yes, Denver International Airport has a lot of scary stuff. Starting with the name of its terminal: Jeppesen. It was supposed to honor pioneering aviation navigator Elrey Jeppesen, who founded the Colorado-based Jeppesen Company…

There’s a bit of truth in every stereotype

Dear Mexican: I have a question from one Mexican to another: Why do gabachos think we know everything about plants? During conversations with the estadounidenses, I will get asked about plants, pruning, how to keep roses alive, etc. I understand many of my compatriotas working over here are gardeners (and…

Wake-Up Call: welcome to the Mile Haiku City

In desperate times, the media are desperate for an uplifting story — or at least a fun one. And so Luis Jimenez’s “Mustang” has become our own Hudson River miracle landing. It was just two weeks ago that I got the invite to join the nascent Facebook group started by…

Wake-Up Call: a visit to the dinosaur museum

On Sunday, I stopped by the Newseum in Washington, D.C., the new, 250,000 square foot facility on Pennyslvania Avenue devoted to the history of news. The views from this building are stunning, as are many of the exhibits. But in many ways, I might as well have been at a…

Wake-Up Call: Stimulate This

The last time this state’s economy went bust, Colorado fought its way back by constructing Denver International Airport. That’s not going to be an option this time, Governor Bill Ritter said as he walked along DIA’s Concourse B Thursday, off on a fast (less than 24-hour) trip to the East…

Wake-Up Call: high-flying art at DIA

The debate took off fast last week over Luis Jimenez’s “Mustang,” otherwise known as “DIA’s Heinous Blue Mustang,” which stands outside Denver International Airport. (Read more in this Off Limits report, as well as at www.byebyebluemustang, the site started by local realtor Rachel Hultin.) But in all the hot discussion…

Wake-Up Call: From hope to nope

You can still spot remnants of Shepard Fairey’s iconic Barack Obama posters around town, which the artist himself slapped up during the Democratic National Convention (earning himself a stint in the clink in the process, as Jared Jacang Maher first reported here). But even the most grassroots efforts grow up,…

The War on Drugs: We demand, they supply

Dear Mexican: I can’t tell you how disappointed I’ve been these past few days, as a U.S. citizen and ciudadano mexicano, seeing more and more stories about los narcos and how the Mexican government keeps getting screwed over in newspapers. I think you should dedicate a whole article in your…

Wake-Up Call: the sins of former senators

It’s not quite the million-buck-a-year consulting job that Tom Daschle got working with former Tele-Communication Inc. honcho Leo Hindery’s InterMedia Advisors, and it may not come with a private car. But former Senator Wayne Allard just took a job with The Livingston Group, a D.C. lobbying firm. Apparently the dog-eat-dog world…