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Opinion

  •
    Americans’ views seem contradictory

    A few recent news items, each powerfully pointing a finger at us and to our system, disconcertingly indicate why things are askew.

    The first deals with the wealth gap. According to an Associated Press story, a University of Michigan study shows the Great Recession and consequential slow recovery have widened the chasm between the über-wealthy and the rest of Americans.

    In 2007, the top 5 percent boasted 16.5 times the wealth as the bottom 95 percent collectively, but by 2013 it soared by nearly 50 percent, to 24 times.

  •
    Americans’ views seem contradictory

    A few recent news items, each powerfully pointing a finger at us and to our system, disconcertingly indicate why things are askew.

    The first deals with the wealth gap. According to an Associated Press story, a University of Michigan study shows the Great Recession and consequential slow recovery have widened the chasm between the über-wealthy and the rest of Americans.

    In 2007, the top 5 percent boasted 16.5 times the wealth as the bottom 95 percent collectively, but by 2013 it soared by nearly 50 percent, to 24 times.

  • Time for school board to come clean

    “A little water clears us of this deed.”
     — Lady Macbeth

    Let’s pick up where I left off last week: with the untimely decapitation of Todd Lancaster, our erstwhile superintendent.
    I e-mailed Peter Monson, an old friend, colleague and longtime member of the Board of Education, inviting the board and “interim” superintendent Roslin Marshall to my KYGT-FM show to give them the opportunity “to clear the air regarding ‘Toddgate.’ ”

  • Vox

    The monorail mule team
     There is an old  saying: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.“

  • Life lessons can be rude awakening

    The other day, a friend asked me how I come up with ideas about what to write, and I told her the problem isn’t coming up with them as much as deciding upon one. That’s my pleasant problem this week, so to wit:

  • Vox: A July 4 slap in the face

    A July 4 slap in the face
    Editor:
    This letter is most especially addressed to the man who took the American flags away from my granddaughters at the Georgetown July 4 parade:

  • An imaginary news conference

    “It’s simple: Mark Udall is avoiding an unpopular president,” former state GOP chairman Dick Wadhams told the Denver Post after Sen. Udall chose to stay in Washington to cast votes during President Obama’s visit to Colorado. Hmmm, I thought, imagining a news conference held by Republican nominee Cory Gardner:
     “This is outrageous,” exclaims Gardner. “For Mark Udall to violate a time-honored tradition is simply inexcusable.”

  • Business and religion don’t mix

     “The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield,” writes Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg about the recently adjudicated Hobby Lobby case. In her dissent, she asks pointed questions of the all-male, religious-centered majority including “Do for-profit corporations rank among persons who exercise religion?”

    Ginsberg quotes the first chief justice John Marshall, who declared a corporation “an artificial being, invisible, intangible and existing only in contemplation of the law.”  

  • It’s good to find common ground

     Three rulings made last week a good one for civil liberties and, therefore, for civil libertarians, despite one ruling causing consternation for some women and their health providers. There is a reason the First Amendment is the first in the hierarchy: Without it, all the rest crumble.

  • Vox

     Kudos to Mary Jane, Annelise Loevlie

    Editor:

    I suspect that most Clear Creek County residents saw the article in the June 13 Denver Post business section about Mary Jane and Annelise Loevlie both receiving the presidential “E” Award for managing nation-leading exporters. Mary Jane created and manages Shotcrete Technologies; Annelise is CEO and a founder of Icelantic Skis.

  • Slacker a boon for runners, county

     It’s called the Slacker given it’s primarily a downhill course, but running 13.1 miles beginning near 11,000 feet is still taxing. Runners from Europe, Australia and across America know if they want their lungs screaming, America’s highest-in-elevation half-marathon will make that happen.

    The 13th annual Slacker Half Marathon and Four-Mile Run is the brainchild of local everything Beth Luther. Keeping up with Beth is like running a full marathon. A slacker she’s not.

  • Vox

     Thanks to Xcel for contribution

    Editor:

    Powerful is how I describe the Xcel Energy Foundation’s recent $10,000 contribution to the Georgetown Energy Museum. This generous gift will allow us to open the museum’s doors to additional visitors, enhance our displays and continue offering the public unique opportunities to interact with Colorado history. 

  • Democracy is all about listening

     It was great to read Dave Stahl’s letter to the editor last week about Sen. Mark Udall being a senator who listens. Way too often we read letters and columns criticizing officeholders. I’m as guilty as anyone, so I’m happy Dave took time to relay his positive experience.

  • Vox

     Udall is a senator who listens

    Editor:

    The pending mid-term elections are perhaps among the most critical in U.S. history. The  partisan divide in Washington, and here in Colorado, has never been as deep as now. 

    We have but a handful of politicians in Washington D.C. who have refused to become  engulfed by the chasm. Among them is U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.

  • School board owes the public an...

     Stunned, like so many in Clear Creek. Todd Lancaster, home-grown superintendent, unceremoniously axed in a chaotic forum that, according to several accounts, resembled more of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on first” routine than a dignified deliberative body. We, the public, having had little or no inkling of irresolvable division within the leadership and ranks of our schools, were blindsided.

  • Vox: Taxpayers, students lose if...

    Taxpayers, students lose if teachers control the school board

    Editor:

    From the point of view of a casual observer and a taxpayer of the situation surrounding the firing of the school Superintendent Todd Lancaster, it appears the tail is wagging the dog. If the teachers (and I assume their union) have the power to control the school board, we, the taxpayers, and the schoolchildren are losers.

  • Angelou showed a rare form of...

     The news of Maya Angelou’s passing reverberated through me. Though not a big woman, she stood tall among modern American writers and poets, giving voice to those repressed and underprivileged.

    Her aptly titled classic work “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” resonated within me as a closeted gay man despite it being an African-American woman’s story. Cages and closets, after all, share the commonality of potentially being virtual prisons.

  • Jeffco school head search mishandled

     After longtime, nationally recognized Jeffco superintendent Cindy Stevenson, facing the reality of a painful conclusion to her tenure, resigned in disgust over the shenanigans taking place in Jeffco, a national hunt for a new person to take the helm was announced. 

    The standard protocol is for a screening group of all stakeholders to winnow the field to nominate three or four to be given to the board for consideration. I participated in such a process twice, once as a private citizen and the other time when I served on the Clear Creek Board of Education.

  • Vox

     Lynch mob mentality over superintendent

    Editor:

    In the 1943 movie “The Ox-Bow Incident,” a lynch mob takes control of a situation it perceives to threaten its way of life and hangs two men despite the protests of several level-headed onlookers.

  • Vox

    Thanks for help with 9Health Fair

    Editor:

    Thank you for the very nice article regarding the 9Health Fair. This year we had another very successful fair on Saturday, April 26, in Idaho Springs. We served 216 participants. 

    I would like to add that the success of the fair is due to hard work by a number of volunteers, and to the help of local businesses and professionals. I would like to take the opportunity to publicly thank everyone involved. 

     A special thank-you to the following people and businesses: