Two Bodies by the Platte, No Reason to Panic

The first body was found on June 25, the morning of Bike to Work day, stalling — and stunning — many bikers pedaling along the Platte, who wound up taking a detour as the body was fished out of the river.. Then on Sunday, July 27, a jogger running in…

More Blowhards on Carbon Offsets and the Wray Windmill

On Friday, August 1, the Rocky Mountain News published its fourth piece in a week on the wind turbine in Wray that’s part of the DNC’s carbon offsets program. An op-ed essay from Russell Simon, the communications manager for the Carbonfund.org foundation in Washington, D.C., it was also the third…

See and Be Seen at Racines

Forget about the upcoming Democratic National Convention. Breakfast at Racines this morning was the real DPC — Denver Power Convention. Chew on this! Over a single hour, our spy spotted the following lineup (not necessarily together): Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce honcho Joe Blake; Dem power-broker Howard Gelt; uber developer…

Denver Puts Up Its Daisy Dukes

Looking out my back window, I can see the Pepsi Center, where all the Dippin’ Dots carts and pretzel stands and private suites have been banished while the facility is transformed into the site of next month’s Democratic National Convention — or at least the three days leading up to…

Green Achers

The DNC rumors keep flying. Protesters are going to fling feces at the cops (for more on that, see page 13). Some delegations will be staying as far away as Wyoming. And in the city that wants to host the greenest convention ever, you can’t even recycle a Gatorade bottle…

The Great Race

Dear Mexican: What’s with calling yourselves “La Raza”? Being Mexicans, Chicanos or whatever isn’t enough — now you’re the race? Sounds pretty racist to me.The Race Is On Dear Gabacho: Few things annoy the Mexican more than the Know Nothing Nation’s deliberate ignorance of this most nebulous of Mexican idioms…

Rocky Mountain News Blows Facethestate Story

In our Best of Denver 2008 award that named Facethestate.com the city’s Best Political Blog, we called its founder, Brad Jones, a “snot-nosed kid.” Well, the snot-nosed kid knows his way around a story, and on July 27 he blew mainstream media outlets away with his revelation that a wind…

An Ill Wind Blows the DNC No Good

The Rocky Mountain News’s “Bet made on carbon offsets” article on Saturday started with this: “Thanks to a windmill that tolls day and night producing clean electricity, the tiny eastern plains outpost of Wray has landed in the center of the fast-moving, carbon-offset world.” When he read that, Brad Jones,…

A Garden Party for the Governor’s Mansion

While Bill Owens was co-hosting a radio show with Craig Silverman on the afternoon of July 24, Frances Owens, the former First Lady (pictured), was doing her own buddy act with current First Lady Jeannie Ritter, announcing the launch of the Governor’s Residence Preservation Fund, part of the centennial celebration…

Flour or Corn?

Dear Readers: Gracias, merci, obrigado for the many submissions in our contest asking readers to argue in 25 words why corn tortillas are superior to flour, or vice versa. Below are the winners for some of the cities that carry the Mexican; see the full list at www.westword.com. Don’t like…

Jared Polis and Me

“I love the things you say. I love the way you are a part of my life every day.” Every day, I think about Jared Polis, one of three Democratic candidates for Congress in the second district. I think about him not because of the myriad political missives that his…

Flipping the Bird at the Army

How convenient! Even as Representative Wes McKinley and southeastern Colorado ranchers were complaining about the Army’s revised plans to take part of Pinon Canyon for a training facility, a ranch family was revealing that they had had found a rare, albino eagle on their Pinon Canyon property. After KOA radio…

A Green Thumb in the Eye

For weeks, I chronicled my attempts to grow a Denver Daisy — a PlantSelect seed that’s the progeny of Rudbeckia birta and Rudbeckia “Prairie Sun,” specifically chosen to commemorate the City and County of Denver’s 150th birthday on November 22, 2008,” according to the packets of free seeds distributed by…

Signs of the Times

You see a lot of things on a 950-mile road trip, although you don’t see them for long if you’re trying to average 77 miles (with gas/bathroom stops). But on that long trip yesterday from Clearwater Junction, Montana, to Denver, Colorado, the most welcome sight of all may have been…

Run for the Border

Dear Mexican: Why are there Mexicans in the Border Patrol? What a hypocritical thing to do to our people.Carne Asada Carlos Dear Wab: Not only are Mexicans in the Border Patrol, but la migra’s own figures show that Latinos make up about 52 percent of its force, comfortably outnumbering gabachos…

Hickenlooper, Down for the Count

What with all the history being made in Denver these days, it’s not surprising that Mayor John Hickenlooper might lose track. On July 9, the city celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the Auditorium Theatre — which had opened on July 8, 1908, just in time for that year’s Democratic National…

A Hunka-Hunka Burnin’ Love

Dear Mexican: What’s the fascination that Mexicans have with Elvis?Good Roceando Tonight Dear Gabacho: Your question is spot-on, but it’s taken a while for Elvis to achieve icon status among Mexicans. As recounted in Eric Zolov’s Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture, the King largely sparked the roots…

Susan “Cindy Brady” Olsen: I Drink, Therefore I Am

Drinking at high altitude can be hazardous, as delegates to the Democratic National Convention could soon discover the hard way. As advance warning, convention organizers should enlist the poster child for high-altitude alcohol affliction: Susan Olsen, the child star who became Cindy Brady a few days after her seventh birthday,…

Location, Location, Location

Two weeks ago, the Denver dailies and TV newscasts were full of stories about an early Sunday morning shooting in LoDo — only six blocks, or eight blocks, or ten blocks (depending on who was doing the counting) from where the Democratic National Convention will convene at the end of…

The Lowdown on LoHi

Although I haven’t moved in a decade, I now live in LoHi. The reason? The area of town where I live — right above I-25, at the very edge of Highland — is newly hip, and a newly hip area needs a hippish name. Enter lohi, as it’s referred to…

Denver’s Star-Spangled Bungle: Simmer in the City

It was a bad week for the city to turn down its air-conditioning and turn up the emphasis on Cool Biz, the energy-saving plan that Mayor John Hickenlooper had announced last Thursday. City Hall was already muggy on Tuesday, July 1, and the place really heated up after Rene Marie…