Guest Columns

HUDSON: LESS IS MORE

Did we really need so many debates and forums with Denver’s mayoral candidates?

6/17/2011
By Miller Hudson
Contributing Columnist

In a one party town like Denver, the charter provision requiring a non-partisan mayoral election has opened the door to City Hall for underdogs and outsiders like Federico Peña, Wellington Webb, John Hickenlooper and Michael Hancock. That’s the upside, and one well worth preserving. The downside has been a growing propensity for vanity candidacies that clutter the general election campaign with the bizarre distraction of festering grievances and personal obsessions.

TEEGARDEN: JOHN WESLEY POWELL WAS HIS NAME

The Civil War and scarce Western water, and the American hero who understood both

6/17/2011

Until this week, I had not spent much time trying to intertwine my two favorite topics for lifelong study: the American Civil War and the Colorado Plateau Region.

HUDSON: LESS IS MORE

Did we really need so many debates and forums with Denver’s mayoral candidates?

6/17/2011

In a one-party town like Denver, the charter provision requiring a non-partisan mayoral election has opened the door to City Hall for underdogs and outsiders like Federico Peña, Wellington Webb, John Hickenlooper and Michael Hancock.

TEEGARDEN: HISTORICAL NOTES ABOUT OTHER STATES

June 1861: Kanawha (aka West Virginia) secedes from the Confederacy

6/10/2011

The creation of West Virginia as a territory and then a state in the early days of the Civil War is every bit as interesting as it is ignored in U.S. history.

THIEBAUT: OUR BIENNIAL MATHEMATIC RESPONSIBILITY

Just because redistricting is messy, it doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing

5/27/2011

“District plans are integrated bundles of compromises, deals, and principles … representing an array of values, some relatively neutral, some intensely partisan.”
— Sanchez v. State of Colorado, U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit (1996)

As many southern Coloradans, I am disappointed that the General Assembly did not perform its constitutional duty of adopting a congressional redistricting plan following the tabulation of the 2010 decennial census.

TEEGARDEN: HEROES OF THE PAST

‘Reaper Case,’ ‘Neptune’ and remembrances

5/27/2011

In last week’s column, about Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, I incorrectly referred to the lawsuit that brought Abraham Lincoln and his future Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, together for the first time as a “railroad litigation matter.” In fact, it was a “patent litigation matter.”‘Reaper Case,’ ‘Neptune’ and remembrances

TEEGARDEN: POLITICAL GENIUS OF ABE LINCOLN WORTH STUDYING

Team of Rivals doesn’t apply to just Lincoln

5/20/2011

Doris Kearns Goodwin published Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, in 2005. I knew I couldn’t go wrong, with one of my favorite historians writing about my favorite President.

TEEGARDEN: WHY WAS SLAVERY OMITTED FROM THE READINGS?

Understanding Constitution requires more than the sanitized ‘children’s book version’

5/13/2011

When writing my Civil War column, I often refer to the terrific opportunity we have to revisit our nation’s history during this sesquicentennial remembrance. Hopefully, we can do so with an eye toward better understanding the complex journey America has taken to get to the present, as well as our responsibility to continue that journey into the future.

HUDSON: DCPA OFFERS ENGAGING ENTERTAINMENT

Chamber Cirque and a few romantic meals

5/13/2011

TRACES by 7 Fingers through May 14 at the Stage Theater at the DCPA, and FIVE COURSE LOVE, A Lip Smacking Musical Comedy, by Gregg Coffin through June 19 at the Garner Galleria Theater.

The Denver Center Theater Company has stepped outside its traditional role as a purveyor of scripts in favor of a high-energy circus entertainment featuring seven former members of CIRQUE DU SOLEIL companies.

TEEGARDEN: WITNESS TO HISTORY IN THE MAKING

White House celebrations and serenades, then and now — all part of American history

5/6/2011

Watching the joyous crowd of revelers assembled outside the White House on Sunday evening, May 1, 2011, my thoughts wandered to descriptions of crowds at the White House in Abraham Lincoln’s day about the very different White House environment of Abraham Lincoln’s time.