Harvey and I were breaking out the Doritos when there was a knock on the door. It was Richard Nixon and a guy with a serious 5 o’clock shadow.
Harvey and I were breaking out the Doritos when there was a knock on the door. It was Richard Nixon and a guy with a serious 5 o’clock shadow.
The drug war dead-enders and nanny-statists who want to recriminalize marijuana in Colorado think they have hit on a cunning new strategy to do the deed.
April 19 is a big day in American history, maybe even the biggest. Doesn’t ring a bell, huh? Here’s a clue.
So you don’t like fracking, huh? Hope you like blood for oil.
Sometimes you learn the darnedest things if you read a news story all the way to the end.
I’ve been reading the recommendations of the Amendment 64 Implementation Task Force. They mostly remind me of Mark Twain’s description of Wagner’s music: “It’s better than it sounds.” But just barely.
A while back I offered some modest proposals for how a resurrected draft should be structured. Since Rep. Rangel is recycling his proposal, this is a good time to revisit them.
A frequent refrain of gun control freaks is “Why does anyone need a gun?” Good question. I’ll get to it in a minute.
A week after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the National Rifle Association called for immediately assigning armed police officers to every school in the country. It also called on Congress to appropriate the money to pay for doing so.
I’ve been exchanging emails on gun control with an old friend who also happens to be a gun-fearing, tree-hugging, knee-jerking, banners-snapping-in-the-breeze progressive.
Dodge's Bullets
When my dear friend Bonnie Lloyd gave opening remarks at a private ceremony April 30 before she and her partner, Pattea Carpenter, obtained one of the first civil-union licenses issued by Boulder County, she thanked us. She thanked the small group of close friends for treating her and Pattea as “normal,” for not treating them as a lesbian couple.
Dodge's Bullets
When my dear friend Bonnie Lloyd gave opening remarks at a private ceremony April 30 before she and her partner, Pattea Carpenter, obtained one of the first civil-union licenses issued by Boulder County, she thanked us. She thanked the small group of close friends for treating her and Pattea as “normal,” for not treating them as a lesbian couple.
Dodge's Bullets
One key role of the press is to serve as the eyes and ears of the public at open meetings. After all, most folks have jobs and families and better things to do than sit through a boring county commissioners hearing or city council study session.
Dodge's Bullets
Yet another CU administrator has been “double-dipping,” we at Boulder Weekly have learned. And it’s not that big of deal. A bigger deal is how these things have been communicated. Much has been made lately about University of Colorado Boulder administrators, their tuition-funded salary increases and their ability to retire and get rehired — “double-dipping” by receiving their pension and a salary.
I've noticed that CU officials are fond of saying that "discontinuance is an unfortunate term" when they talk about the closure of the J-School. (And even though a committee is still considering that closure, I think it's a done deal - they just have to study it for a few months to preserve the deliberative spirit of the university.
Dodge's Bullets
Currently, the board is controlled by Republicans, 5-4. Three positions are up for election this November, and two of those seats are expected to stay with their current parties, given political dynamics in the First and Fourth Congressional Districts.
After all, most of us lead fairly secure, soft, comfortable lives, especially compared to people in Third World countries hell, even compared to parts of the United States.
After all, my Feb. 11 story about the Christian music festival, which was held July 31 south of the reservoir, had outlined a variety of concerns about the event, ranging from traffic congestion to environmental impacts on plants and wildlife around the reservoir.
Bob Brancato, a Republican vying to unseat U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, sent us a press release several weeks ago proudly announcing the fact that former Congressman Tom Tancredo had endorsed him. In the release, Brancato talked about his support for Arizonas new anti-immigration law, which some say encourages racial profiling.
At one point during the Feb. 15 debate between Howard Dean and Karl Rove in Boulder, an audience member asked them to answer a question — without blaming the other side of the political aisle. It was a telling request and a sad commentary on the current state of our political system.
Over the past couple of weeks, some of you may have heard about a Summit Daily News reporter in Frisco who was fired after writing a column that was critical of a major advertiser — the CEO of Vail Resorts, Rob Katz. In his column, Bob Berwyn poked fun at Katz for posting a photo of the snow at his Front Range home on Twitter to generate excitement about a Colorado winter storm, even though it was warm and sunny in Vail.
DyerTimes
Every time I drive by a drilling rig with an American flag attached to it I want to tear it down and hand-deliver it, along with a few choice words, to the industry marketing jerk who signed the order to put it there.
DyerTimes
Every time I drive by a drilling rig with an American flag attached to it I want to tear it down and hand-deliver it, along with a few choice words, to the industry marketing jerk who signed the order to put it there.
DyerTimes
Colorado’s Republi … Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper was in Boulder a few days back speaking at the FrackingSENSE lecture series that the University of Colorado puts on. As is the norm for the governor these days, he spent a fair amount of time bemoaning his reputation as a puppet of the oil and gas industry.
DyerTimes
Two pro-gun-rights billboards have recently gone up in Greeley and they’re causing quite a stir, as in you can read about them in The Washington Post kind of stir. But why have a couple of political signs sparked so much controversy and who is paying for them?
Parachute Creek is now officially contaminated with cancer-causing benzene and heaven knows what else.
As we recently reported, a last-minute rider was slipped into HR 933, the 240-page spending bill signed by President Barack Obama on March 26. The bill was designed as an emergency measure to prevent a government shutdown, but as it turned out, it also made a pretty good Trojan horse for the biotech industry.
DyerTimes
There’s more than one way to lie. You can knowingly offer up false information as truth, or you can offer up little pieces of a story while leaving out other parts of the tale in order to convey a false impression without actually stating an inaccurate fact.
DyerTimes
I believe there is a darker side to our current gun conversation. The elephant in the room is the impact that the gun control debate is having on the conspiracy-driven anti-government movement.
It’s hard for me to believe that Boulder Weekly has gone to press a thousand times. It’s also hard for me to believe that I was here for the very first issue nearly 20 years ago.
DyerTimes
As you may recall, the last Boulder County commissioners meeting got a bit rowdy, as anti-fracking advocates disrupted the meeting with chants and heckling aimed at an Encana employee who came to present commissioners with the industry’s take on things.
DyerTimes
This time around, Boulder County citizens can’t just choose to shop at the local organic clean air and water store and pay a little more to keep their families safe while they carry on the fight with their own county to get it to do what the vast majority of citizens want.
In Case You Missed It
We found out last week from city of Boulder officials that the ongoing cleanup at Valmont Butte that BW devoted a 10-part series and 38,000 words to last year has been delayed — again.
In Case You Missed It
We found out last week from city of Boulder officials that the ongoing cleanup at Valmont Butte that BW devoted a 10-part series and 38,000 words to last year has been delayed — again.
In Case You Missed It
We love it that local mothers came out of the woodwork on May 13, the day after Mother’s Day, to give our all-female county commissioners an earful about fracking.
In Case You Missed It
It was another one of those moments that scare the heck out of taxpayers. You know the kind, like the city can’t find $9,000 to put in a groundwater monitoring well below the Valmont dike dam to protect public health, but they can happily keep finding millions of dollars for the cost overruns occurring on the other side of the dam where all the waste is buried.
Ask a random Comcast customer for horror stories and you’ll get an earful about constantly rising rates, unnecessary fees and unresponsive customer service. But since U.S.
In Case You Missed It
We have to agree with those who are calling for a final vote of Boulder residents on the municipalization question, before the city moves ahead with it.
In Case You Missed It
Well, it’s official. The city of Boulder is getting rid of the last few pay phones that still dot the Pearl Street Mall. Most of the city’s motive is pretty simple: The phones just aren’t used that much anymore because “everyone” has a cell phone.
In Case You Missed It
To be honest, we were afraid that the debate might turn out to be more of a conversation among friends who just sort of disagree on a few things. We were worried for no reason. Elise Jones kicked the governor’s butt.
Apparently, state officials believe that counties, cities and even school districts have the right to be reimbursed when something of value is taken from them, whether it’s their health or the natural gas under their feet.
In Case You Missed It
It was almost amusing to see Boulder City Council members suddenly get up tight about appointing former councilmember Crystal Gray to the city Planning Board.
In Case You Missed It
We love how University of Colorado officials are still using the same old excuse they used last year for attempting to shut down the campus during the 4/20 marijuana protest.
I wish that I could say that I am both surprised and appalled. But I am neither. The behavior of the COGCC and their attorney (the office of the attorney general) are completely consistent with everything that has transpired since members of the public throughout the state have examined the actions of.
I wish that I could say that I am both surprised and appalled. But I am neither. The behavior of the COGCC and their attorney (the office of the attorney general) are completely consistent with everything that has transpired since members of the public throughout the state have examined the actions of.
For all its trumpeted commitment to social-environmental responsibility, Walmart fails to understand this simple truth: Its workers are part of the environment. Treating them all as well as the rest of the Earth it claims to be protecting, and fully honoring their contributions to the company’s success, is the least it can do. And it should do a lot more if it wants to earn our respect and spending dollars.
The fact that Native Americans were well-armed, proud and proficient warriors became the very excuse for the White Government to vilify, demonize and ultimately extirpate them. The billboard could more accurately be titled: “Because they wouldn’t turn in their arms, the government had to ‘take care’ of them.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you for carrying Dan Savage’s column Savage Love!!! I usually get the Westword paper just for that column since I live in the mountains above Boulder and your paper is more relevant to me. Now if you could just reinstate the puzzle page with crosswords and sudoku I wouldn’t need the Colorado Daily either, and you would be the perfect paper in the world to me. Thank you also for This Modern World, the only “cartoon” I could ever need.
Could somebody explain to Paul Danish that the Front Range climate is semi-arid, and the weather is in the second year of a severe drought which may go on for more years? There isn’t enough water now.
The COGCC and their ally Gov. Hickenlooper want to put the fracking operations ridiculously close to people’s homes and neighborhood. The scientific data is extremely clear that current fracking practices adversely affect the local air and water quality. The impact to home values is also pretty undeniable.
These high-use customers drive the need for increased supply, which all customers have to pay for. A gas electric plant costs in the neighborhood of $80 million. Should we all have to pay increased rates, or just the customers who use twice the average or more?
In “Have we accidentally prevented another ice age?” (Danish Plan, March 21), he supports global warming as preferable to another ice age, but, not being a climatologist, he doesn’t understand that they are not alternatives.
You guys hardly mentioned mercury. Fly ash doesn’t get all of it, especially when burning dirty coal.
A virtually unnoticed crime wave is under way. The perps are our most respected citizens. The crime is wage theft. This happens when you aren’t paid the minimum wage or overtime, are forced to work off the clock, denied meal breaks, have your tips pocketed by the boss or just plain not paid at all.
A virtually unnoticed crime wave is under way. The perps are our most respected citizens. The crime is wage theft. This happens when you aren’t paid the minimum wage or overtime, are forced to work off the clock, denied meal breaks, have your tips pocketed by the boss or just plain not paid at all.
The situation for the workers is even less satisfying. Hundreds went on strike on Black Friday last fall. With the backing of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), thousands of Walmart employees have formed an association called OUR Walmart that works with community activists to pressure the company to make changes.
Investigative reporter David Dayen calls foreclosure fraud “the largest consumer fraud in the history of the United States.
Perspectives
It’s been more than four decades since the first Earth Day event held on April 22, 1970. And since that time it is fair to say that the environmental movement has had its ups and downs.
Climate change is the biggest challenge human beings have ever faced. We don’t have much time to deal with it. Unfortunately, political transformation is usually a slow process.
Over the past 150 years, there has been a vast re-greening of the landscape from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Plains. Wild species that almost became extinct are now flourishing.
I know quite a few progressive Democrats who say they won’t vote for Gov. John Hickenlooper when he runs for re-election.
It’s a weekday at the Follis household, and 12-year-old non-identical twins Button and Pout are headed downstairs — getting ready for school. This morning, the girls are being “difficult.”
Sen. Irene Aguilar (D-Denver) wants to use that provision to establish a Colorado Health Care Cooperative. Under this plan, Coloradans would form their own self-insurance pool to pay for the cost of medical care. Every resident of the state would be member-owners.
That’s why it is so painful that Boulder’s “explicitly socialist” Left Hand Books is closing on April 15. I was involved in the group that created it, and its roots run all the way back to activism in the 1970s.
I want to contact him and ask him to apologize because I feel a sincere apology would help me get over this. The problem is that he lives on the other side of the country, and I have no way of contacting him besides looking him up on Facebook.
I want to contact him and ask him to apologize because I feel a sincere apology would help me get over this. The problem is that he lives on the other side of the country, and I have no way of contacting him besides looking him up on Facebook.
Dear Dan: I have a mentally disabled cousin who I haven’t figured out how to help. He’s lived for more than 40 years in the same nursing home in a small, conservative town. His mental age is about 8, there are other mental-illness issues, and he has some physical problems.
I turn to you now for advice. Five months ago, I married the man of my dreams. He was driven, hardworking, loving, and happy. We had amazing, cosmic, and connected sex, and we enjoyed pleasing each other. We have been together for a little over a year.
There are six other continents on this planet — six in addition to the one your ex-girlfriend currently resides on — and my advice for you, HIM, is to pick any other continent and move there.
Dear Readers: Last week was made of problems. The bombing of the Boston Marathon, the explosion that leveled a small town in Texas, the rising tide of antigay violence in France, the North Koreans being North Korean. And when I sat down to write this week’s column — while the manhunt was still under way for the second bomber in Boston — it occurred to me that the last thing the world needs right now is more problems. So instead of the usual sex problems, STI problems, CPOS problems, and DTMFA problems, this week I’m only running letters from people who don’t really have problems. Because we could all use a break.
Dear Dan: I am uncircumcised, and the opening at the end of my foreskin is not large enough for the head of my penis to pass through.
Stew's Views
Over the course of almost 20 years and 1,000 editions, hundreds of talented individuals have worked for Boulder Weekly.
Stew's Views
Over the course of almost 20 years and 1,000 editions, hundreds of talented individuals have worked for Boulder Weekly.
Stew's Views
Every life is a story. And every story requires a soundtrack. For life is a sensual experience, and among the senses, the sounds — and, particularly, the music — that accompany life’s experiences provide a context that enriches and completes them.
Stew's Views
There are so many angles from which to contemplate the wrong that CU is perpetrating with respect to its tactics to end the “4/20 smokeout” that one hardly knows where to begin.
Stew's Views
But despite the strength and power that he displayed at the plate, Killebrew exemplified a humble and gentle demeanor that has been all but lost in a modern era of baseball that is rife with ill-behaved, overpaid, egomaniacal athletes. Babe Ruth was a womanizer; Mickey Mantle was an alcoholic; Pete Rose was a gambler; Barry Bonds cheated with steroids. But Harmon Killebrew was the kind of heroic role model that every 8-year-old boy needs and deserves...
Stew's Views
In the interest of full disclosure, I am an avid mountain biker. I enjoy riding several times a week, weather permitting, and for me that includes temperatures as low as 40 degrees, so long as the trails are clear and rideable with no residual damage. I have been known to get up at the crack of dawn, sneak away from the office in the middle of the day or hit the trails after work, rushing home for dinner after dark to the disapproving.
About 40 seconds into a 1967 CBS TV documentary about the thengrowing Hippie movement in San Franciscos Haight-Ashbury District (http:// tinyurl.com/2wvzjqq), a youthful, unbearded Jerry Garcia makes his first appearance.
Stew's Views
As we bid goodbye to 2009 and set our sights not only on a new year but a new decade, I would like to share with you some of what has happened during the past year at Boulder's only independent newspaper, as well as what you can expect to see from us in the coming year.
Imagine “net zero.” That’s the wonky phrase attached to an elegant idea — namely, converting communities to total renewable energy, complete recycling, and a culture of conservation to bring humankind’s carbon footprint into a sustainable balance with a healthy earth.
Imagine “net zero.” That’s the wonky phrase attached to an elegant idea — namely, converting communities to total renewable energy, complete recycling, and a culture of conservation to bring humankind’s carbon footprint into a sustainable balance with a healthy earth.
Still, it seems strange that legislators in so many states — from California to Vermont — have simultaneously been pushing “ag-gag” bills that are not merely outrageous, but downright un- American.
Welcome to the Brave New World of “ag-gag” laws being pushed by agribusiness corporations to stop reporters, workers, animal rights advocates and even curious 25-year-old truth-seekers like Ms. Meyer from recording abuses that are routinely taking place on farm-animal confinement factories.
First, some background. A decade earlier, WCS parlayed political donations to Gov. Rick Perry into a special deal to build a low-level nuclear waste dump in a West Texas county, right up against the New Mexico border.
Factory farms are not farms at all. They are corporate-run concentration camps for pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys and other food animals.
Earth Day cometh — the 43rd year of this national focus on our globe. Should we weep? Or cheer? Both.
I like the word “lift.” It implies upward progress and a can-do communal spirit: Yes, letīs all put our backs into it, and lift this load. Itīs so American!
Turf wars can be the silliest of all scuffles, and no place does silly with more zeal than Texas.
It’s one thing for Big Oil frackers to bust into our Earth, our communities and our economic well-being — but the fracking fad is also busting the free speech rights of locals who dare to speak out against it.
Great news, people. As a recent headline puts it: “Household wealth back at pre-recession levels.” Oh joy — we’re all rich again! Or not.
Weed Between the Lines
Although I’m generally encouraged about the rules and regulations passed by the Colorado Legislature to regulate marijuana like alcohol this month, the rule that still bothers me allows a jury to infer that someone whose blood level shows five nanograms of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) per milliliter to be impaired or intoxicated.
Weed Between the Lines
Although I’m generally encouraged about the rules and regulations passed by the Colorado Legislature to regulate marijuana like alcohol this month, the rule that still bothers me allows a jury to infer that someone whose blood level shows five nanograms of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) per milliliter to be impaired or intoxicated.
Weed Between the Lines
Last week Colorado became the first U.S. state to adopt a set of rules that allows marijuana to be regulated like alcohol for adults. Legislators, task force members and all involved are to be congratulated for doing it in accordance with Amendment 64’s spirit and under its tight, six-month deadline.
Weed Between the Lines
More than 17 million Americans admit to smoking marijuana, and in 2010 10.6 million Americans reported driving under the influence of an illegal drug, with a high incidence of people age 18 to 25 among the respondents. More than 70 percent of those said they used marijuana before driving.
Weed Between the Lines
Boulder-area Rep. Jared Polis and a growing group of U.S. representatives have championed efforts to get the federal government out of the pot-enforcement business. I talked with Polis via email about his latest efforts.
Weed Between the Lines
Instead, Shafer’s National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse took its charge seriously and produced, to date, the only serious study of marijuana yet undertaken from its medical, cultural and legal aspects. It offers a history of marijuana use and regulation, but its main conclusion was that marijuana should be decriminalized for adults for personal use.
Weed Between the Lines
On Nov. 6, 54.8 percent of Colorado voters passed Amendment 64, The Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act, which allows adults to possess, consume, buy and grow marijuana in small quantities for personal use.
