Opinion & Commentary

Chefs are Denver’s rock stars, and lower downtown is one hell of a stage. Last night I was lucky enough to moderate a panel of four LoDo chefs — Jen Jasinski, Matt Selby, Tom Coohill and Max MacKissock — who dished out restaurant tidbits (both literal and figurative) before an…

The party had everything: a worthy beneficiary (the Children’s Hospital Burn Center), lots of alcohol for the mostly female crowd, and stripped-down, smokin’ hot firefighters. But then the Denver District Attorney threw a wet blanket on the fun: Turns out that Fired Up for Kids might not have been sending…

Denver has long proclaimed itself the home of the cheeseburger, and even has a monument to that invention on Speer Boulevard — though several other cities have tried to claim the burger-king crown. But we were also the undisputed home of the Hot Pocket, which brothers David and Paul Merage…

You can bet that the 26,000-plus Coloradans who voted for Rick Santorum at yesterday’s Republican caucuses, pushing the conservatives’ conservative to a surprise victory, are not faithful readers of Savage Love. Because Dan Savage, the author of that sex-advice column, not only took issue with Santorum’s stance on gay sex,…

The American Constitution Party has a major problem in Colorado. Because Republican renegade Tom Tancredo, who ran for governor on the ACP ticket in 2010, got more than 36 percent of the vote in 2010 in the race against Republican Dan Maes and Democrat John Hickenlooper, the ACP now qualifies…

The newly painted wall outside the Denver Performing Arts Complex looks like a million bucks. Make that $200 million. Because that’s what graffiti artist David Choe stands to make in Facebook’s public offering: When the street artist did a piece for Facebook headquarters years ago, he took his pay in…

For many years, the regional Planned Parenthood headquarters was Westword’s neighbor, and we had a front-row seat for the picketers who harassed employees of an organization that does so much more than providing abortion services…

The Colorado Legislature is once again tackling the issue of tuition for the children of illegal immigrants, and yesterday, CU’s Board of Regents voted 5-4 to support Colorado ASSET, with Republican Regent Tillie Bishop joining the Democrats. The vote came after much passionate discussion — because with every issue involving…

Christo’s “Over the River” will soon have another bridge to cross. Even as a public hearing that could secure Fremont County’s approval of the project along the Arkansas River gets under way this morning in Canon City, a group of University of Denver students will be filing suit to stop…

As today’s appearances by Ron Paul and Rick Santorum make clear, Colorado’s caucus is a week away for Republicans, one of three major political parties in this state. That’s right: Because Tom Tancredo did so well in the last gubernatorial election, the American Constitution Party qualifies as a major political…

Unlike so many Western towns, Denver has a wealth of wonderful neighborhoods close to the heart of the city. But with that wealth of neighborhoods comes a surfeit of NIMBY issues that often spill out of their immediate area and into City Hall — as the fight over a new…

Have something you want to ask Alex Martinez, Denver’s new Manager of Safety? This is your chance: Westword writers will be meeting with the former Colorado Supreme Court justice this morning, to get an overview of the office and ask about some specific issues, including the recent rulings overturning police…

“Where is the change?” asks a letter outlining a series of disappointing, business-as-usual moves by new Denver Police Chief Robert White. It was signed by “Men and Women of the Denver Police Department” and sent yesterday to Mayor Michael Hancock’s office, which was scrambling last night to find a copy…

Hometown heroes Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who created a musical about a cannibal when they were University of Colorado film students, have an even more unlikely hit on their hands with The Book of Mormon. The boffo Broadway musical will start its tour here in August — and tickets…

A blizzard of snow business is about to hit Denver with the start of this week’s Snow Snowconvention, and it’s now snowing in the high country. But it’s too little, too late to keep the Junior Freeskiing Tour on schedule…

Yesterday, we parked our car off Packinghouse Road, outside the Stockyards Inn, tucked in back of the historic Livestock Exchange Building — which got its start in 1898, then was expanded in 1916 and 1919 — and walked into another world. The world of the National Western Stock Show…

It turned out to be tempest in a teepee. Two months after Lieutenant Governor Joe Garcia removed Carol Harvey as executive secretary of the Colorado Commission or Indian Affairs, which his office oversees, Ernest House Jr. has been ratified as the new executive secretary. And he hit the ground running:…

Polly Sullivan kept lighthouses in her window, miniature beacons that illuminated the old military dorm at Lowry that had become Crooked Tree, a shelter for the once-homeless. Tenants saw it as comforting. But on Christmas Day 1998, someone walked into Polly’s second-floor apartment and turned off the lights…

Late Friday, the Department of Fish and Wildlife referred queries about a proposed land swap (which would add a 617-acre parcel to the southwest side of Rocky Flats in exchange for a 300-foot right-of-way on the eastern border going to the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority) to the Justice Department…