2016

The years of late high school through early adulthood were a time of intellectual ferment for me. I majored in political science, read copiously, and became enthralled with conservatism. William F.…

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Solstice. The shortest day of the year north of the equator. Hereon, the…

Paranoia strikes deep / Into your life it will creep / It starts when you’re always afraid / You step out of line, the man come and take you away. –…

I’m trying to find and tap into my inner Garrison Keillor. It’s challenging to say the least. Maybe because I’m tilting not at windmills but, instead, at wind turbines. Don Quixote…

I wrapped up last week’s column with a commitment to write this week about “active citizenry in the Age of Trump.” That got to me to thinking: Why should active citizenry…

Thanksgiving 2016 and searching for that for which to offer thanks. Personally, there’s an abundance, but it’s offset by angst I continue to experience for our country. I hate that feeling.…

Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. John Donne, “Devotions on Emergent Occasions, Mediation 17” In one fell swoop, we’ve repealed the Constitution and done in…

We’re left to our imaginations to posit what it felt like for Americans, after four years of bloodshed on a scale unimaginable, at the surrender by Robert E. Lee to Ulysses…

Students at the newspaper The Bear Truth at Palmer Lake High School near Colorado Springs recently caused an uproar by endorsing Hillary Clinton in an editorial. Outrage ensued. Not realizing the…

Note: This column was not published by the Courant. After reading last week’s column endorsing Randy Wheelock and Nancy Judge for commissioner, a number have asked what might be inferred about…

Full disclosure:  I am chair of the Clear Creek Democrats. I’m also a Courant columnist, 13 years running, and KYGT talk show host for 12. Over those years, I’ve spent considerable…

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together,…

Over the past two weeks, I have given my take on several ballot initiatives. My goal has been to encourage you to do your homework in order to make informed decisions.…

In any game, the game’s rules are more critical than the game itself. For if the rules are stacked against one team or player or flagrantly flaunted, the outcome will be…

When soliciting signatures for Colorado Care, now Amendment 69, I would remind people signing the petition did not require them to support it if on the ballot. My goal was to…