Dear Mexican: I was surprised, on a trip to Mexico earlier this month, to find the holiday referred to as just “Día de Muertos,” whereas in the States, I’ve only heard it referred to as “Día de los Muertos.” I’m curious as to why there’s a difference north/south of the…
Aurora has big balls — and we’re not just talking the globes out at Buckley. This morning, Aurora mayor Steve Hogan announced that the city, the Aurora Renewal Authority and RIDA Development Corporation is suing a group of eleven hotels — five with a common owner or operator — that…
You wouldn’t think members of Occupy Denver were big customers of The Palm, an upscale steakhouse. But they figured out how to make their voices heard at the Denver location of the chain: They gathered outside the restaurant located just off the Sixteenth Street Mall, at 1672 Lawrence Street, and…
Dear Mexican: My wife and I are looking to buy our first house. Being young (-ish) and hip (-ish), we’re looking into buying in Santa Ana. It’s amazing how much house and land you can get for $350K compared to the two-bedroom stacked crackerboxes in south OC. My question is…
Just Like Us, Helen Thorpe’s bestselling book, was a variation on “Head of the Class,” a 2004 Westword cover story that followed Pablo, a West High student whose grades and high school activities made him an ideal candidate for college, except for one hitch: Pablo was illegal. For the book,…
More than sixty years ago, Jack Kerouac watched a baseball game at a ballfield at 23rd Avenue and Welton Street in downtown Denver, a field known today as Sonny Lawson Park. He appreciated the crowd watching the game along with him that night, and commemorated “all humanity, the lot” in…
Dear Readers: The Mexican is taking the week off because his home paper is preparing its fantabulous Best Of issue. (Download the Best Of app, por favor, which also gets you access to my sister papers!) Behold, then, an oldie-but-goodie column that Art Laboe would approve of. Enjoy! Dear Mexican:…
Denver International Airport’s new cell-phone waiting lot, Final Approach, has gotten raves since it opened on September 24: Dunkin’ Donuts! Free wifi! Even indoor bathrooms, to replace the Portpotties! Raves, but also a few rants — as people arriving at that lot after 10 p.m. to wait for travelers discovered…
Dear Mexican: I’m a Mexican-American Catholic who is really upset about something I saw after Mass last night. As I waited for my son to come out of Confirmation class (I had already attended Mass myself), I noticed a grocery cart parked by a curb. It was odd, because it…
Down at 23rd and Welton a softball game was going on under floodlights which also illuminated the gas tank. A great eager crowd roared at every play. The strange young heroes of all kinds, white, colored, Mexican, pure Indian, were on the field, performing with heart-breaking seriousness…. Near me sat…
The Holly keeps rising from the ashes. Yesterday, the new Nancy P. Anschutz Center, home of the Jack A. Vickers Boys & Girls Club, celebrated a grand opening attended by notables such as Mayor Michael Hancock, Phil and Nancy Anschutz, John and Paige Elway, and Jack A. Vickers; see photos…
If things had gone according to plan, the University of Denver would be rolling out its “Evolution of DU’s mascot” event right now, highlighting past icons and introducing a new mascot, chosen after the 76-member Mascot Steering Committee studied the subject, narrowed down the options, then surveyed its constituents. But…
Even as Denver International Airport pushes forward with its South Terminal expansion, it’s updating parts of the airport that were outdated almost from the day DIA opened in 1995. The toll booths on Pena Boulevard proved a real bottleneck; they were moved closer to the parking garages, and the area…
Dear Mexican: With the current state and federal prison systems spitting out even harder criminals due to overcrowding and gang activity allowed to a certain degree by the ‘system,’ and considering the small percentage of inmates who actually make it out and live a positive life, why have some legislators,…
Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler had scheduled an announcement for September 17, long before floodwaters started spilling over in Colorado. So should he have cancelled what would turn out to be his gubernatorial kickoff once he found out that much of the state would soon be underwater? That’s the…
Dear Mexican: Can I “Ask a Mexican” why El Tri sucks so much? And why a little stadium in Columbus, Ohio, was louder and more passionate than Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, which seats over 100,000? Can I also ask why a country that lives and breathes soccer/fútbol always freaks…
The only thing rising faster than the floodwaters this past weekend are the natural urges of Coloradans to help out. The best source for information we’ve found is Help Colorado Now, a partnership between the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and Colorado Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster…
The second annual Denver Startup Week starts today, and this very high-tech event — filled with free, smarty-pants lectures and presentations — has one very low-tech bonus. Southwest Airlines is offering Denver Startup Week participants a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to the company’s Dallas HQ to spend…
A month after its founder, Joshua (no last names, please) was featured in “Free for All,” Josiah Hesse’s July 25 cover story on people living off the grid, Praxis Creative Arts Space, the community warehouse space that Joshua had started with a few friends near Denver’s Art District on Santa…
Dear Mexican: I have a Mexican friend at work, and we happened to get in a discussion that started off fine, but I believe that I offended her as the discussion progressed. We were talking about an upcoming Cinco de Mayo celebration, and I asked if she knew the true…
The Denver Police Department was prepared to throw the book at scofflaws — the good book. On September 6, an e-mail went out from Mary Beth Klee, the DPD’s deputy chief of administration, that Chief David Quinones had okayed the delivery of “a box of Bibles to each of the…
Dear Mexican: I have read (the usual suspects and a few Know Nothings) that illegals can say a few magic words to get temporary, pending-review asylum status. The reports say the illegals can claim asylum from drug gangs. My understanding is that fear of crime in one’s home country has…
