Fall into healthy eating

Fall is here with its busy “back to school” schedules and iffy weather. Even in these conditions, with a little creativity and improvisation it’s possible to keep up healthy practices. ...

Getting students to write about democracy

Summer is almost gone, children are back in school, and high school football is in full swing. The younger kids are also playing football and soccer after school at the city parks. ...

Thank you, John McPhee

In the final part of John McPhee’s 1971 classic, Encounters with the Archdruid, David Brower and Floyd Dominy — both men I would have loved to meet — raft the Grand Canyon together. ...

Responsibility vs. unreliability

Knowing and doing what is expected of me. A responsible person does not wait for a “to do” list. Responsibility is knowing within one’s self what needs to be done and carrying the...

Washington dysfunction hurts rural Colorado

One sign of the dysfunction in Washington these days is that the conversations there have completely detached from the ones happening in kitchens and living rooms across Colorado and the cou...

Traveling and enjoying three weeks of heaven

Three weeks of heaven ... For the past three weeks, my family and I vacationed in Santa Fe and Taos, N.M., Flagstaff, Ariz., and Carlsbad, Calif. Put another way, over the past three weeks I...

Looking Back Which came first: the chicken or the chicken ordinance?

From the Cortez Sentinel, March 21, 1929 CHICKEN OWNERS Notice is hereby given that henceforth chickens must be kept on the premises of the owner. Allowing chickens to ...

Colorado water, wildfires and recalls

With Labor Day behind us, I begin preparing for legislative session 2014. I sit on two legislative interim committees, one on water and one on wildfires. These committees start meeting frequ...

Colorado water, wildfires and recalls

With Labor Day behind us, I begin preparing for legislative session 2014. I sit on two legislative interim committees, one on water and one on wildfires. These committees start meeting frequ...

More talk before action

As talk of U.S. military action against Syria escalates, let’s remember our history lessons. Recall that a decade ago, Congress and the American people were sold a story that Iraq...

The age of happiness

Get this: Happiness among human beings peaks at age 23, tanks at 55, then peaks again at 69. So says a study by the Center for Economic Performance at the London School of Econom...

Don’t jump too quickly into Syria

There is little doubt now that President Obama is planning some kind of military response to what the administration says without equivocation was a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian gov...