Opinion

Bus transit a better solution
to I-70 congestion
Editor:
Make no mistake about it, the key to the entire Interstate70 mountain corridor is how the eastbound congestion at the Twin Tunnels is addressed.
If CDOT spends $55 million on a “highway” solution to alleviate congestion in that area, as has been recently suggested by a panel of experts, then that will be the approach for the remainder of the corridor.

We believe we have some pretty impressive publications here at Evergreen Newspapers, and the Colorado Press Association recently offered support for this assertion with 14 awards in its annual newspaper contest.
The honors included five first-place awards in the categories of Sports Story, Sustained Coverage, Public Service, Deadline Reporting and News Story.
The 14 awards mark the biggest total so far in my five years as group editor here.
But putting out high-quality weekly newspapers is not an easy or inexpensive endeavor.

Thanks for hosting mixer
Editor:
The Idaho Springs Chamber would like to show our appreciation to Beau Jo’s for its generosity in hosting the 2011 membership drive mixer.
The food and service were excellent, and a great time was had by all 50-plus people in attendance.
Beau Jo’s is a member of our business community that doesn’t think twice about giving back again and again!
 Idaho Springs Chamber

Costs for light rail would be on

It’s enough to cause one to wonder whether scientists in Cern, Switzerland, succeeded in tearing the fabric of the cosmos with their particle accelerator.  
Soon-to-be former chair of the Republican Party Dick Wadhams commenting to Lynn Bartels of The Denver Post about the reasons he has decided after all not to seek another term says he is “tired of the nuts who have no grasp of what the states party’s role is” and “of those who are obsessed with seeing conspiracy theories around every corner.”

To James Madison’s dictum, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” I propose a post-Madison economic corollary: If capitalists were angels, we’d be a healthy and debt-free society.
Debt and poor health serve as linchpins of the modern American economic system. Two recent Denver Post columns published the same day get at those two seemingly disparate issues.

The news is good: We made it through the State of the Union address without a congressman going off half-cocked shouting, “You lie!”  
Not yelling adolescent taunts at the president of the United States has become the new-normal standard of being civil, much like the disagreement among the states 150 years ago was civil.
That was a war, of course, in which 623,000 Americans died courtesy of their fellow Americans, but it is generally described as a civil one, so perhaps we have raised the bar for what passes muster as civil.

Let’s keep Eagles Aerie
Editor:
   The U.S. Forest Service ranger is still planning to decommission the picnic area known as Eagles Aerie. (The sign went down a couple of years ago and was never put back up, but it is the picnic area at the top of Highway 103.)  
This means that one of the most, if not the most, beautiful scenic areas in Clear Creek County will have its outhouse and the picnic tables with braziers yanked out.

“(Man’s) history, in all climes, all ages and all circumstances, furnishes oceans and continents of proof that of all the creatures that were made he is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one — solitary one — that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices — the most hateful.”
- The Autobiography of Mark Twain

Into the second week of 2011, it’s time for assessing progress on those dietary new year’s resolutions made with best intentions. Weakening? There’s an explanation for it:  dopamine, a pleasure-seeking chemical released in the brain.  
An article in The Denver Post, “Brain’s dopamine is habit-firming: The pleasure-sensing chemical’s immediacy can keep regrettable routines locked in place,” caught my eye for two reasons.