Like colorful spring flowers, red-bagged meters are popping up all over downtown. They’re part of a pilot program testing just how smart Denver’s Smart meters really are. Are they smart enough to know when you attempt to plug a meter? Are they smart enough to rat you out?…
My nephew in Chicago has a sudden interest in Colorado politics, and he’s been closely following the progress of the civil union bill at the legislature — a proposal resurrected yesterday when Governor John Hickenlooper said he would call a special session to debate the issue…
Yee-haw! The National Western Stock Show has saddled up for the future. Although NWSS chairman Jerry McMorris passed away yesterday, leaders went through with the announcement of a deal that will help steer the direction of the Stock Show, expanding it beyond an every-January event into more of a year-round…
Dear Mexican: I’m getting sick and tired of all these dirty, stupid Mexicans running around. The first part is easy: As Mr. Dicks says in David Copperfield when asked what to do with David, “Why, bathe him.” The second part could be just as easy: Pay them to learn English…
On January 29, 2009, Alex Landau was brutally beaten by Denver cops after they pulled him over for what they said was an illegal left turn — but he charged was racial profiling. And the City of Denver agreed — or at least was worried enough about the federal lawsuit…
My favorite artifact on display at the new History Colorado Center is an old “Colorful Colorado” sign right by the fabulous floor map of Colorado, riddled with bullet holes and sporting colored-in lettering — vandalism, according to the highway workers who took down the sign. History, according to History Colorado…
“In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to correct that.” So said Mark Twain, and after the first historic week of the History Colorado Center, we have a quick correction: You may not be walking…
Eric Holder called it the most serious terror threat to the United States since 9/11. And the bombs that could have blown up New York’s subway system got their start in Denver beauty-supply stores, where Najibullah Zazi bought the ingredients to make homemade detonators. But that plot exploded, and Zazi’s…
Don Hunt may be the hardest-working man at the State Capitol — and that’s saying a lot as the legislature heads into its final week. The head of the Department of Transportation helped pull the plug on a Beltway Authority proposal — and now he could bury a feud that…
She wasn’t named chief of the Denver Police Department — although she was rumored to be a leading contender until Michael Hancock decided to go outside of the DPD to tap Robert White. But tonight Captain Tracie Keesee will get another honor: She’s the alumni recipient of the 2012 Outstanding…
Dear Mexican: I am a twenty-year-old, tall, slender, blond Jewish Russian-American; he is a 24-year-old, short, muscular Mexican. At face value, you would never think we would work well, but we do. I started to love him. He’s the most unique person I have ever met. He is never down,…
Rock promoter Barry Fey saved Denver’s symphony in 1989 — and was honored by a plaque in Boettcher Concert Hall for his efforts. But last year, when the Colorado Symphony Orchestra hit the rocks, its leaders weren’t interested in Fey’s help, much less locating his plaque…
Here’s an idea that sounds like a definite smash: Smashburger, the homegrown chain, will introduce its first-ever SmashCart next Tuesday on the 16th Street Mall, one of the first physical signs of the extra effort that the Downtown Denver Partnership is putting into its mall vendor program. Smashburger already has…
Let’s go West, young man! The town backed by newspaper publisher Horace Greeley — the man who may, or may not, have proclaimed “Go West, young man!” — is all grown up. Grown up enough to introduce a new branding campaign for its downtown with a colorful, clownish logo and…
Does a bear shit in the woods — and outside a convention center? That question was answered when pranksters placed a pile of blue poo under “I See What You Mean,” the Lawrence Argent sculpture that’s known as the Big Blue Bear. Inspired, one critic turned her eyes to DIA’s…
The Brown Palace has hosted every U.S. president since Teddy Roosevelt first visited in 1905, thirteen years after the hotel opened, except for two: Calvin Coolidge and Barack Obama. And now Obama has snubbed the Brown again, opting to stay at the JW Marriott in Cherry Creek last night…after slumming…
Dear Mexican: How come there are a bunch of fair-skinned, European-looking guys running Mexico? When I am in Mexico, I see them having power lunches in fine restaurants, driving Beemers and escorting absolutely breathtaking women with long legs and high cheekbones around town. Who are these guys? How can I…
Boosters have put the brakes to a proposal that would have formed a state beltway authority to allegedly smooth traffic snarls, but critics charged was really designed to grease the wheels for the completion of the northwest beltway, including a toll road past Rocky Flats…
Location, location, location. For the past twenty years, I’ve lived in Denver City Council’s District 9. But if the proposed redistricting is approved by council, my house at the edge of Highland will become part of District 1, and District 9 will move east. Time — and partisan politics –…
Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work in Northern Ireland, has pulled out of the twelfth World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates that starts Monday in Chicago. “That’s what happens when you don’t hold your big Nobel events in Denver!,” jokes Dawn Engle,…
The first public hearing on the six projects vying for Regional Tourism Act funding was barely over when the state’s Economic Development Commission announced that the sign-up list for the second and — and final — hearing was already full. Who were some of the notables shut out?…
The story seemed too crazy to be true: A DIA shuttle driver conspiring to blow up New York’s subway system with bombs made from components found in Aurora beauty-supply stores? But after days of questioning in September 2009, 26-year-old Najibullah Zazi was indicted and shipped off to New York, where…
