Opinion & Commentary

We’re now number two! It was big, big news in November 2011 when the Denver metro area suddenly topped the list of the country’s “cool cities.”That was according to William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, who studied the numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and…

The Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant has been out of the business of producing plutonium-triggers for atomic bombs for two decades now; after a $7 billion cleanup, it was transferred to the Department of Fish & Wildlife, which one day will reopen the property sixteen miles upwind of Denver as…

The Colorado Republican Party wants Denver to host the 2016 GOP convention, ideally with a Republican governor in the State Capitol. But to do that, the party will have to do a lot better in next year’s election than it did in 2010, when, after a bruising primary, candidate Dan…

On the last Saturday before Daylight Savings Time ended, a motley crew was sitting around the bar at the Lakeview Lounge, watching the sun rise over Sloan’s Lake and lamenting how the sun has set on too many Denver watering holes. Only a handful of true dives remain in this…

Developer and urban preservationist Dana Crawford is a landmark in this city, so it’s not surprising that a landmark would be named after her. But two? Next week, the Crawford Building will be dedicated in Larimer Square, the Victorian-era block she saved from the wrecking ball. And today, Sage Hospitality…

Was it “Mustang” that killed the competition — just as the sculpture killed its creator, Luis Jimenez? Maybe it was Terry Allen’s bronze gargoyles by baggage claim that had victory in the bag. Or perhaps it was part of some New World order conspiracy, as presaged in the murals by…

When Aaron Harber started planning an episode of the Aaron Harber Show that would feature the Republican candidates for Colorado governor, there were only three: ex-congressman Tom Tancredo, who got more than 36 percent of the vote running for governor on the 2010 American Constitution Party ticket; onetime state senator…

From its humble beginnings in Denver almost twenty years ago, PeaceJam has gone global, with a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, thirteen Nobel laureates on its board and meetings around the world. But founders Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff haven’t forgotten PeaceJam’s local roots, and today, Nobel Peace Laureate Betty Williams…

Nicole Millman, aka Nicole Sisneros, aka the Crazy Jesus Lady, has come back from the dead. Two years ago, when Occupy Denver was a couple of months into occupying Denver, a rumor spread that an occupier had died, succumbing to hypothermia while camped out in Civic Center Park. The rumor…

The University of Colorado is not the only school to take a scary interest in what its students will be wearing for Halloween. Although CU’s memo urging students to avoid “inaccurate and hurtful portrayals of other people’s cultures” — including any hillbilly or ghetto outfits — has been roundly mocked…

Denver International Airport has an out-of-this-world art collection — literally, if you believe the people who think some of the pieces speak to the Martians that inhabit those underground tunnels, or predict the coming of the New World Order, or simply signify hell on earth — in the form of…

Aurora has big balls — and we’re not just talking the globes out at Buckley. This morning, Aurora mayor Steve Hogan announced that the city, the Aurora Renewal Authority and RIDA Development Corporation is suing a group of eleven hotels — five with a common owner or operator — that…

You wouldn’t think members of Occupy Denver were big customers of The Palm, an upscale steakhouse. But they figured out how to make their voices heard at the Denver location of the chain: They gathered outside the restaurant located just off the Sixteenth Street Mall, at 1672 Lawrence Street, and…

Just Like Us, Helen Thorpe’s bestselling book, was a variation on “Head of the Class,” a 2004 Westword cover story that followed Pablo, a West High student whose grades and high school activities made him an ideal candidate for college, except for one hitch: Pablo was illegal. For the book,…

More than sixty years ago, Jack Kerouac watched a baseball game at a ballfield at 23rd Avenue and Welton Street in downtown Denver, a field known today as Sonny Lawson Park. He appreciated the crowd watching the game along with him that night, and commemorated “all humanity, the lot” in…

Denver International Airport’s new cell-phone waiting lot, Final Approach, has gotten raves since it opened on September 24: Dunkin’ Donuts! Free wifi! Even indoor bathrooms, to replace the Portpotties! Raves, but also a few rants — as people arriving at that lot after 10 p.m. to wait for travelers discovered…