He’s back! It’s seemed so quiet since Steve Horner, the anti-ladies’-night crusader, left town. A half-dozen years ago, he kept bars and restaurants around town hopping as he filed complaints with the Colorado Civil Rights Division, charging that their ladies’-night deals were discriminatory, since men cannot enjoy the same deals…
This week I told the remarkable story of PeaceJam, the Colorado-based non-profit that a down-and-out Denver artist was inspired to start after the Summer of Violence. From those unlikely beginnings, PeaceJam has grown to a powerhouse that includes thirteen Nobel Peace Prize laureates on its board and hosts activities around…
Their story is more fantastic than anything that screened during the Monte Carlo Film Festival last week, a more unlikely saga than even the fairy-tale life of Grace Kelly, who started the festival in Monaco more than five decades ago, after the Hollywood star had married Prince Rainier, the ruler…
Dear Mexican: Why do some Mexicans expect us to learn Spanish instead of them learning English? (Note: I said some, not most or all!) I’m offended whenever I am assaulted by listening to anything in Spanish on phone menus or see it on forms that I have to fill out…
“Rocky Flats Then and Now: 25 Years After the Raid,” a three-day panel at the Arvada Center this past weekend that coincided with the 25th anniversary of the FBI’s raid on the former nuclear weapons plant, raised more questions than it answered. One of the stumpers: What’s the status of…
Behind these rolling grasslands dotted with wildflowers stand the foothills and still-snowcapped peaks; far off in front is the skyline of downtown Denver, sixteen miles to the southeast. Sixteen miles downwind. This expanse of open space is a lovely surprise amid encroaching suburbia. But the real surprise is the ugly…
Dear Mexican: If dark-skinned people are so “undesirable,” unwelcome and put down by gringos, how come gringos bake in the sun like zopilotes to get dark? Summer is fantasy time for all of them, when they can actually get some color in that white skin of theirs. Maybe the whole…
Dear Mexican: I am a Mexican who owns a successful wholesale liquidation business, which happens to be an industry dominated by Jews and Asians and some gringos. So why does almost everyone, including mexicanos, who visits my warehouse think my business — or any successful business, for that matter —…
Last Tuesday was a lovely morning for a softball game — sunny, with no clouds on the horizon. Not in the sky, and not involving the status of Sonny Lawson Field, where the Homeless Diamond was about to begin its fourth season. It was a much more auspicious start to…
Dear Mexican: While vacationing in Mexico, a couple of times I have had vendors or waiters address me as chica. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but while relating a conversation with one of these guys to a Mexican friend of mine back in the U.S., he…
Dear Mexican: I’m a half mexicana/half gabacha working as an appointment scheduler in a medical office. I’m one of a handful of schedulers there who speak Spanish. I’ve noticed in the years I’ve been working in this field that about seven to eight times out of ten, when a Spanish-speaking…
The state’s mascots gathered around the steps of the State Capitol two weeks ago for the Discover Colorado Rally, a Colorado Tourism Office event celebrating National Travel and Tourism Week. There was Spike, the symbol of the Colorado Railroad Museum; Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill, loaded for bear; Miles, apparently…
In that ballooning budget for Denver International Airport’s expansion, do you think officials could find a little extra cash for some signage? Zooming to DIA two Fridays ago for a one-way flight to Durango (where I was meeting family for a road trip back to Denver), flashing temporary signs outside…
Dear Mexican: Our graphic artist walked out of the room the other day pissed because the publisher asked my opinion on a Cinco de Mayo advertisement they were planning to publish and ended up publishing. The graphic showed a row of chickens with sombreros. The publisher asked if I thought…
Three years ago next month, Denver suddenly woke up to the realization that it could lose the National Western Stock Show — maybe to another city, maybe to that upstart Aurora and its proposed Gaylord Entertainment hotel — an $800 million, Western-themed hotel and entertainment complex by Denver International Airport…
Dear Mexican: I’m a pocha and my husband is a gabacho (by the way, we loved the explanation in your book on why Mexicans and Irish get along so well; it really explained a lot about our marriage). We had the rehearsal dinner for our wedding catered by one of…
Dear Mexican: Is there a pecking order at the places where you see day laborers waiting to be hired? What’s the hierarchy? Are all those dudes Mexican, or are some Central and South American, and if so, who has priority when the random contractor comes by to pick up a…
Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown’s newsletter will be a little late today. That’s because when the Mayor’s office learned that Brown was about to break the news that the city had decided against a temporary alcohol ban in Washington Park, located in Brown’s district, the city moved up a planned…
It was two years ago that Denver City Council passed a ban on urban camping, promising to offer new services for the homeless population that would be pushed off the 16th Street Mall and out into nearby neighborhoods. For two years, residents of the Ballpark neighborhood watched as more and…
The stretch of I-70 that crosses north Denver is a rough ride — and the reputation of that 1.2 mile patch of pavement — and plans for its replacement — will get roughed up even further today, at the North Metro Denver Citizen’s Transportation Summit. The Colorado Department of Transportation…
Dear Mexican: Our grandparents came from Mexico. The entire next generation spoke Spanish. However, in my generation, pretty much none of us do. One cousin’s daughter does because the cousin married a fluently bilingual person. Most white people I know have long ago lost both awareness of what their actual…
Ka-ching. Coloradans could vote on at least three new gambling proposals this November, including one that would allow Kiowa County to host a single casino. That proposal’s boosters want legislators to put a measure on the November ballot asking voters statewide to authorize casino gambling in the parched — both…
