Author: Vince Bzdek
-
Clash of the titans: Democratic race for governor pits two candidates similar in focus, but very different in style | Vince Bzdek
—
by
By Vince Bzdek The race for governor is shaping up to be a clash of Democratic titans, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Attorney General Phil Weiser. They are two of Colorado’s highest profile politicians with deep track records who are remarkably similar in their visions for Colorado’s future, and their choice of our state’s…
-
Sometimes feeding the hungry takes a village, and a colonel | Vince Bzdek
—
by
When Nate Springer, the retired Army colonel who is now head of the Care and Share Food Bank in Colorado Springs, attended the opening ceremony for a new American-led water project in Afghanistan in 2007, he was approached by an elder named Mohammed Ayoub. Ayoub let Springer have it. He said the new water pipe…
-
9 things you probably didn’t know about the American Revolution | Vince Bzdek
—
by
By Vince Bzdek What is most striking about Ken Burns’ extraordinary new PBS documentary on the American Revolution is how alike we are right now to those folks in 1776. Take away the tricorn hats and ruffled shirts and they were just as divided as we are now, just as polyglot and p—ed off and…
-
Congress cracks down on intoxicating hemp, but high-potency pot products get a free pass┃Vince Bzdek
—
by
Buried deep in the bill to reopen the government was a little Easter egg: a ban on all intoxicating hemp products nationwide. Hemp-derived cannabinoids recently reached a total of $28.4 billion in annual sales across the nation, exceeding annual sales of marijuana products, according to a 2023 analysis by Whitney Economics, a firm that analyzes…
-
This may be the best time ever to visit national parks | Vince Bzdek
During a visit to Yosemite last weekend, 40 years since my first, I found myself sitting happily in front of Half Dome for hours recalling memorable moments from a long string of visits to national parks. I remembered many years ago sitting next to a roaring fire in Many Glaciers Hotel, watching out the giant…
-
Why do out-of-state donors have more power than in-state voters? | Vince Bzdek
Why is Michael Bloomberg, the former presidential candidate, three-term New York mayor and founder of the financial info firm that bears his name, spending millions on Colorado elections? The short answer: because he can. The liberal New Yorker has donated $2.7 million to support Denver’s flavored tobacco ban, Referendum 301, to be decided on Tuesday. Two…
-
Colorado’s own ‘Miracle’ team | Vince Bzdek
The sign for “miracle” in American Sign Language is a combination of the signs for “wonderful” and “work.” Joe Sisneros will tell you that those two words together, wonderful work, perfectly describe his more than 26 years as coach of the football team at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind in Colorado…
-
Six lessons in democracy from Ukraine
After 3 1/2 years of war, you might assume everyone in Ukraine right now is demoralized and hunkered down in bunkers, dreading the next drone attack from Russia. But that is not at all what Ukraine is like right now, according to a Ukrainian student of mine just returned from there. Over the summer, in…
-
Why are government jobs growing faster than private jobs? | Vince Bzdek
By Vince Bzdek A couple of numbers keep bugging me. Over the past 12 months, the number of Colorado government jobs has grown by 12,000 while private jobs increased by 10,200 jobs, according to the Common Sense Institute. The government grew faster than the private sector. That’s pretty weird, given the private sector is about…
-
The greatest aspen drive of all time | Vince Bzdek
—
by
We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming of shutdowns, violence and vitriol this week to take you on a Jeep ride through the aspen, a balm for the world’s recent run of bad news if ever there was one. Let me say with great humility that the 12-hour ride I recently took is…