Opinion & Commentary

This past weekend the largest gay-rights demonstration in close to a decade descended on Washington, D.C., where lawmakers may finally approve the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a measure that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the categories covered by federal hate crime…

Yesterday was a long day in Idledale, the tiny town in the foothills where Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff put up their feet when they’re not pounding the pavement on behalf of PeaceJam, the non-profit they founded over a dozen years ago that links up youth from around the world…

In the 21 months since John Parr, Sandy Widener and their daughter, Chase Parr, were killed in a horrific car accident, I’ve trained myself not to grab the phone to call Sandy, a wonderful writer and college pal who was one of the founders of Westword, to hoot over some…

Is this the most attention you’ve ever gotten?” asked the national reporter. Westword got bomb threats when we broke the news about University of Colorado coach Bill McCartney’s daughter being pregnant by dying quarterback Sal Aunese, a story that’s gotten a second life on ESPN now that their son is…

The Tilted Kilt has been called a Celtic Hooters — a label that its Arizona-based owners don’t appreciate, we hear. They prefer “The Best Looking Sports Pub You’ve Ever Seen,” the slogan on the web site. A sports pub with waitresses who wear naughty school-girl skirts. There are already 22…

Twenty-five years ago, the Department of Defense took over 235,000 acres of ranchland in southeastern Colorado — the largest condemnation of private property in the country. And the Army’s not done yet. Six years ago, word surfaced that the feds would try to add another 400,000 acres to the Pinon…

Last March, chef/restaurateur Kevin Taylor announced that in September 2009, he would be opening Kevin Taylor Steak in the aloft Hotel at Arista in Broomfield. It would be his seventh restaurant (if you count the one in Central City’s Teller House, which is only open in the summer), one that…

Yesterday, Westword’s quest for a medical-marijuana critic made the New York Times, after already being featured in the Wall Street Journal, MSN and CNBC. My e-mail box overflowed and my phone rang off the hook. It’s funny how the national media has jumped all over this. “Is this the most…

“Dim sum, a meal of varied dishes originating in China, is often translated loosely into English as ‘a little bit of’ what?”That’s the $15,000 question that Karl Allis, aka “Hungus,” a restaurant manager at Atomic Cowboy and Fat Sully’s, will be asked on the episide of Who Wants to Be…

I’ve always had good luck at the Division of Motor Vehicles office at 2736 Welton Street. Sure, the tiny parking lot is a nightmare, but the DMV employees are friendly, if not always fast — and you can always take a quick stroll around Five Points if there’s a wait…

President Barack Obama just signed an executive order banning federal workers from text-messaging when they are driving government cars, or driving their own cars on government business, or using their on government phones while driving their own cars on personal business. The ban was announced at a transportation department meeting…

James Mazzio poured his heart and soul — and a lot of elbow grease — into Icehouse Tavern, the comfort food restaurant at 1801 Wynkoop Street that took the place of Via and opened in July, after Mazzio had done much of the renovation work himself. “I redid the deck,…

For years, I fought the urge to buy a pair of Crocs, that homegrown phenomenon that has millions of people shuffling around the planet in what look like wading pools. It wasn’t the shoes’ appearance that bothered me, or the stories of people getting their Crocs stuck in escalators, or…

I lost my camera, some of my hide and a piece of my heart to Piñon Canyon. That’s the stunning swathe of scenery east of Trinidad and hard on the 235,000-acre Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, which the Department of Defense created in the early 1980s in the largest condemnation of…

I may have lost my camera, some of my hide and a piece of my heart in Piñon Canyon, but I also brought some of the land home with me — and not just the dirt in my boots and the cactus spines in my skin. I’ve signed up to…

Today is Trucker Appreciation Day at Johnson’s Corner. “Being a truck driver is often a thankless job,” Chauncey Taylor, owner of the 56-year-old roadhouse off I-25 just north of the Berthoud exit, told the Coloradoan.”We want to show our appreciation for and thank truck drivers — after all, it is…

Pat Schroeder was always quick with a quip when she represented Denver in Congress for 24 years, from 1972-1996, whether she was talking one-on-one with a reporter or treating the masses to her opinion of the “Teflon presidency” of Ronald Reagan. In China with members of the House Armed Services…

Ameristar is betting on Black Hawk. Today, the company will cut the ribbon on its 33-story, 500-plus room hotel that towers over the old mining/new gaming town — a hotel that boasts not just a renovated casino, but luxury suites, a spa and the “only rooftop pool” in Black Hawk…

When asked about the catfight over his run for the U.S. Senate nomination, Andrew Romanoff usually repeats some variation on this line, first offered up at his Pueblo campaign announcement two weeks ago: “Democrats are a lot like cats. When you hear them making a lot of noise, it sounds…

According to the FBI affidavit and indictment unsealed yesterday, twice this summer Najibullah Zazi checked into an unnamed Aurora hotel that had a kitchen, where he attempted to cook up a bomb with items he’d bought from a nearby beauty-supply house. To keep this country safe from terrorists (and other…