Paonia’s Paolo Bacigalupi, profiled in Westword as “the hottest writer in sci-fi” a couple of weeks ago, just got hotter. His first novel, The Windup Girl, just won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The Nebula is one of the…
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has been spending a lot of time on the Gulf Coast lately, dealing with the noxious plumes (environmental and political) spewing from the Deepwater Horizon oil leak. In the past few days, the Secretary has had photo ops with oil-slimed pelicans, issued his umpteenth…
In the wake of the worst American offshore oil disaster in decades, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is scrambling on several fronts to address the perception that his administration has been more occupied with eco-spin than actual environmental reform. Having announced a plan to split the Minerals Management Service,…
The finger-pointing over the massive oil slick threatening the Gulf Coast is spreading almost as fast as the spill itself. While critics on the right chortle over Department of the Interior chief of staff Tom Strickland’s ill-timed trip to the Grand Canyon, the White House and the DOI have been…
In the wake of the offshore rig explosion and massive oil spill threatening the Gulf Coast, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has announced a major shakeup of the Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for overseeing drilling safety and royalty collection — a move that will add yet more…
Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a piece about local disenchantment with our current crop of sad-sack incumbents, headlined “Democrats See Hopes for West Dim in Colorado.” GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton was so delighted with the article that she linked to it on her Facebook page, introducing…
The finger-pointing over the massive oil slick threatening the Gulf Coast is spreading almost as fast as the spill itself. While critics on the right chortle over Department of the Interior chief of staff Tom Strickland’s ill-timed trip to the Grand Canyon in the midst of the developing crisis, the…
Most student film projects never get a screening outside the classroom. But the University of Colorado at Denver’s Digital Animation Center takes a different approach. Instead of sending budding Scorseses out to make two dozen individual and utterly forgettable films, the program puts all the students to work on one…
Paolo Bacigalupi is staring at his lunch. Tortilla chips, salsa, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — thrown together in the kitchen of his home on a mesa outside of Paonia, and pretty boring by anybody’s culinary standards. But Bacigalupi, a novelist with a nearly unpronounceable name (BAH-cha-ga-loo-py) and a…
Fact or Science Fiction? Paolo Bacigalupi is the latest in a distinguished line of award-winning fantasy, horror and science-fiction authors with special ties to Colorado. The state has long been a hotbed for talented writers and rabid fans of the genres; maybe it has something to do with all those…
On Monday night, the Denver City Council approved a $40,000 settlement for Eric Winfield, the Denver artist severely beaten by three police officers as he was making his way through the LoDo crowds after a 2007 World Series game. The city also agreed to cover Winfield’s legal fees — but…
Troy Anderson knows he’s never going to get out of prison alive. He’s spent 23 of his forty years on the inside, and though he’s never killed anyone, he’s currently serving a 75-year sentence on multiple counts for two shootouts with police in the late 1990s. Yet Anderson, who’s been…
It’s too soon to start putting a figure on the damage — to marine life, tourism, fishing industries and more — from the 600-square-mile oil slick oozing onto the Gulf Coast today. And it’s too early in the investigation to know anything conclusive about the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon…
A recent police blotter item from YourHub notes that a vehicle booted for outstanding parking tickets in northwest Denver was “mysteriously gone” when an enforcement officer returned to the area. Call out the hounds, Sherlock. How will this baffling feat of legerdemain ever be solved? Fact is, there’s nothing mysterious…
Yes, it’s the season for blustery rhetoric and high-pressure posturing down at the statehouse. But few stunts can match, for sheer unintended hilarity, this recent blast from Colorado Senate Republicans, denouncing a bill to restore voting rights to state parolees as a conspiracy by Dems to stuff the ballot boxes…
Months after the Bureau of Land Management’s controversial roundup of wild horses in Nevada last winter, official counts of the number of animals injured and killed in the operation continue to rise. And activists opposing the BLM efforts to reduce free-ranging herds have just released new photos and accounts of…
Amid all the peculiar anniversaries this week, ranging from the Oklahoma City bombing and Columbine to the annual obliteration of the 4/20 rituals, it’s easy to forget that this is also the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. A soggy gathering of the faithful will converge at Civic Center Park today…
It’s not likely that officials at All Nippon Airways would forget that the folks at Denver International Airport dearly want to make a deal for a nonstop flight to Tokyo; DIA’s been chasing that brass ring for a decade. But that didn’t stop a few locals from flying to Japan…
Now that South Park bad boys Trey Parker and Matt Stone have announced plans for a Broadway production titled The Book of Mormon, congregants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are bracing themselves for some savage jokes about polygamous prophets, complicated underwear, annoying missionaries and an angel…
A 22-year-old convicted car thief, left a quadraplegic by police gunfire and now costing the state prison system $200,000 a year for his care, was recently granted an unusual “special medical needs” parole — only to see it revoked after law enforcement officials learned of the arrangement and complained that…
There are mellow cops and in-your-face cops.Then there are cops like the Denver Police Department’s Perry Speelman, the subject of at least 18 internal affairs investigations dating back to the 1990s, many triggered by complaints of alleged “unnecessary force” or “discourtesy.” Precisely how many complaints Speelman has generated is unknown…
Mike McCormick could have saved at least one life and a lot of trouble if he’d simply pulled the trigger 25 years ago, back when the police had him cornered in Omaha and he had a pistol in his mouth and was threatening suicide. Instead, he surrendered and came back…
