Opinion & Commentary

A few minutes ago, as I was looking across I-25 toward Invesco Field at Mile High, an e-mail popped up from the man who’d given such a stirring speech at that stadium in August 2008: Barack Obama. But compared to the soaring emotions and symbolism of that night — the…

Last night I wandered around the Ballpark neighborhood, which was bustling with preparations for opening day, thinking about how much this area has changed since the decision was made to put the baseball stadium just beyond the LoDo Historic District. Thinking about how the Ballpark neighborhood might never have been…

The Best of Denver 2011 had just hit the streets, so I hit a handy liquor store on my way to a haircut appointment yesterday. The owner met me at the register. “Mondo Vino!” he said. Oops. Mondo Vino had just been named the Best Wine Shop; I was at…

The plans for the new, improved City, O’ City go to the city today. Dan Landes, who opened the original WaterCourse Foods in the City, O City space in 1998, has now bought the whole building, which will allow for a major overhaul of City, O’ City, as well as…

At night, as you drive north along Speer Boulevard through downtown, you catch sight of an eerie glow to the right — and no, it’s not the soon-to-be-extinguished Qwest sign.The Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex, that massive building at the edge of the Denver Performing Arts Complex, has suddenly turned blue…

Before Coors Field opened in 1995, a group of hearty baseball/bar fans took a field trip to the neighborhood around the ballpark, drinking in one of the oldest parts of town, an area that would inevitably change. We started at the bar at the Nisei post on Market, which later…

Decades ago, when marketers started touting “the television family,” they were talking about all the network people who’d show up in your living room every day…

Tom Tancredo is busy these days. He just wrote the April Fools’ edition of Ask a Mexican. He has a real new job, as a marketing exec with a local investment company, so that others won’t lose their nest eggs to a Bernie Madoff character, as he did. He’s repairing…

This was not going to be the year that the legislature poured its time and energy into fixing this state’s arcane liquor laws. These old laws still have big brewers making watered-down beer for sale in convenience and grocery stores in Colorado — one of only five states that still…

The mayoral race is finally heating up, not because of TV ads, but because robocalls are burning up the phone lines — of those Denver residents who still have land lines, at least. I heard a recent message from James Mejia too late for “Denver-made” breakfast at his headquarters, but…

With the warm weather rolling into Denver, can a fleet of gourmet food trucks be far behind? Last year, the truck trend took the town by storm — but by the end of 2010, things were looking stormy, with Sean and Denon Moore complaining that their Denver Cupcake Trucks had…

In the years that Westword has published Savage Love, author Dan Savage’s savagely funny, very smart weekly sex column, I’ve been fascinated by the seemingly buttoned-up Denverites who always turn to his page first to see what he might be saying about butt plugs, for example, or who ask me…

Denver parking enforcement never sleeps — as those who take advantage of the new overnight parking option downtown will soon know all too well. I have the evidence: a ticket issued at 4:24 a.m. last Monday. The violation? Parking on the curb. On about six inches of the curb, judging…

Aside from skiing and John Denver, Colorado is probably best known around the nation for its beer — and not just because of Coors. There are currently 126 craft breweries in the state, according to the Colorado Brewers Guild, with more on the way. And right now, this signature industry…

For two decades, the Westword office was in lower downtown, where the parking rules seemed to change inexplicably, almost overnight. Or actually overnight: We emerged from one all-nighter to discover that our cars had been turned around by city trucks when the direction of Market Street was reversed. But the…

House Democratic Leader Sal Pace’s proposal to restrict travel at Pinnacol Assurance passed an initial reading yesterday, and could move on to a final House vote as early as today. And Pinnacol, is unlikely to fight this move…

Yes, timing is everything. Last night, opponents of a proposed nuclear power plant in Pueblo County pointed to the situation in Japan as just one reason to stop the project. And tonight, experts will talk about how nukes already resulted in plutonium contamination outside the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons…

Denverites love the arts — but the arts didn’t officially become a part of the city structure until “1 percent for the arts,” a program established under Mayor Federico Peña that earmarked one percent of any city construction project for art works. Even as that project grew, so did the…

Janet Napolitano is in town today for the National Fusion Center Conference, a meeting of the country’s joint intelligence centers. Not included in that local fusion lineup are some of our homegrown terrorism experts, including John Elway, who narrated “8 Signs of Terrorism,” a film at the CELL, our home-grown…