To Be or Not to Be? This month the University of Colorado launched a new branding campaign, entitled “Be Boulder,” after shelling out more than $100,000 to come up with the concept and test it. The motivation behind the move was to turn the conversation away from CU being a…
“Bullet. Proof.,” Melanie Asmar, December 12 On a Roll Karina Vargas is the most beautiful lady I’ve ever seen grace Westword’s cover. She could even sell that photo as a pinup. Kim Kardashian, move over! If we didn’t want illegal immigrants in this country, why did we let them in…by…
There are good years and there are bad years — the ones you wish you could have back for a do-over, could simply recall. And 2013 certainly had its share of events that we wish had never happened, from the entire Colorado Rockies season to the weather: the drought that…
Dear Stoner: Is it easier to get high at high altitude, as it is to get drunk? Tipsy McSpliff Dear Tipsy: Brace yourself, because you might not like the answer. The altitude/alcohol connection is actually a myth. In fact, your tax dollars went to a Federal Aviation Administration study on…
Editor’s note: We’re counting down the most popular Latest Word posts of 2013. This one came in at No. 8. Read it as originally published. July 10, 2013: So you say 4/20 is your weed holiday? Pshaw. That’s so old-school. Get with the times. Or, more specifically the time: 7:10…
As January 1 draws closer, the biggest question in Colorado has been: What will be the first shops legally allowed to sell recreational cannabis to adults 21 and over? Now we know…sort of. Yesterday, the State of Colorado became the first state to license recreational marijuana dispensaries when the Department…
Amendment 64 legalized the possession and use of limited amounts of pot for adults 21 and over, but it didn’t legalize public consumption of cannabis on streets, sidewalks, parks or any other public place, for that matter. But apparently that message didn’t quite reach Denver and Boulder residents, as public…
In the summer of 2012 a federal judge declared that the conditions of solitary confinement at the Colorado State Penitentiary constitute “a paradigm of inhumane treatment” — and ordered that a mentally ill inmate who’d been housed there for years was entitled to at least three hours a week of…
When it comes to Denver blogs, there’s no ifs ands or butts. Westword’s own Cafe Society blog presented its top five ways to deal with the Srirachapocalypse. Predominantly Orange caught us up with Gatorade’s instant commercial celebrating Peyton Manning’s 51st TD of the season. And the Denver Egotist highlighted this…
For eight days, people had held their breath — and, for the most part, their snark — while hoping that Claire Davis, the seventeen-year-old so grievously injured in the December 13 shooting at Arapahoe High School, would survive. But then came the announcement that she had passed away at 4:29…
Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of the sad day in December 2007 when Sandy Widener, Westword co-founder, was killed in a car crash that also took the life of her husband, John Parr, and their daughter Chase. Only then-seventeen-year-old Katy Parr survived. Every December 22, I find a reminder in…
This was the year that Lance Armstrong admitted to doing what most people has already assumed he’d been doing for years: cheating. And in October, the former seven-time Tour de France winner (now stripped of those titles) also became the subject of a documentary, The Armstrong Lie, that is already…
As 2013 winds to a close, I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go. Not because it was a particularly bad year, though. Just the opposite: 2013 was the first year in a long time that wasn’t marked by some kind of personal tragedy. It was a year of…
Tom Martino, the Troubleshooter, found himself in more trouble this weekend when he was arrested for assault and disturbing the peace in a domestic violence incident, and hauled off to the Denver jail (where this mug shot was snapped) while his wife, Holly, was taken to Denver Health. Martino has…
Tom Martino, the Troubleshooter, found himself in more trouble this weekend when he was arrested for assault and disturbing the peace in a domestic violence incident, and hauled off to the Denver jail (where this mug shot was snapped) while his wife, Holly, was taken to Denver Health. Martino has…
The management of Denver’s park system under Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration has generated controversies on several fronts, as detailed in our current feature, “Parks and Wreck.” But perhaps the most serious dispute between the mayor and park lovers has to do with his decision to swap eleven acres of cherished…
Update: Claire Davis, the teen injured in the Arapahoe High shooting, has died. According to a post on Littleton Adventist Hospital’s Facebook page, Davis passed away from her wounds at 4:29 p.m. on Saturday, November 21. “Despite the best efforts of our physicians and nursing staff, and Claire’s fighting spirit,…
This week’s medical marijuana dispensary review took us to Trenchtown, named for the famed Jamaican ghetto where Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and many other amazing musician to ever come from that country were born and raised. Most of us have the ganja-toking image of Jamaica thanks to them, actually. But…
William Breathes recently shared stats from a federal study documenting 221 emergency room visits in Colorado over the span of just a few months from the effects of synthetic marijuana. One reader was so dumbfounded by people who would forego real weed for the fake stuff that he went all…
Denver blog posts wanted to give Will Ferrell a little more publicity. At our Show & Tell blog, Bree Davies counters bah-humbug blogger Josiah M. Hesse with five reasons Christmas totally rules. Colorado Pols on the tedious debate over whether Arapahoe High shooter Karl Pierson was a socialist. A Denver…
Stefan Moton, who was paralyzed from the chest down in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, has filed a lawsuit against theater owner Century Theatres, Inc. Like other lawsuits filed by victims, Moton’s claim alleges that the theater was lacking in security, allowing a gunman to prop open an emergency exit,…
As its name indicates, Loveland is known much more for affection than violence. Yet in July, Stephanie Smith was stabbed to death in town by a man found to have acted in self-defense; months later, Casey Albee was charged with trying to kill him during the same incident. And this…
