Like many a good idea, it came to me while drinking beer. One recent Sunday I glanced at the front of a can of Dale's Pale Ale.  

Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post

Denver has a new mayor, newly named police chief and a council with six new members. Maybe it's time for all of them to take a fresh look at the city's photo radar program, which is apparently issuing thousands of tickets every year that have nothing to do with public safety.  

Mario Tama, Getty Images

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, women and transgendered — and any other human who is able to elude the tyranny of work for a couple of weeks — are created equal.  

In the end, Joe Paterno didn't get his way. That's a start as Penn State football tries to reclaim a semblance of decency.  

We just switched our telephone landline to the cable company from Mountain Bell-US West-Qwest-CenturyLink, and I wasn't sure everything worked properly until I got the call from my favorite inside Washington source, Ananias Ziegler, media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America.  

From London to Greece to Occupy Wall Street, angry, indignant mobs have taken to the streets in protest.  

In a year and a week, we'll know who Americans want for president. Anybody who claims much certainty about it until then is howling at the moon.  

Let's talk regionalism. According to a group of civic leaders, including term-limited Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer, Aurora Economic Development Council president Wendy Mitchell, and Metro Denver Chamber honcho Tom Clark, effective regionalism demands unconditional support for Aurora's $300 million subsidy of Gaylord Entertainment's hotel and conference center.  

It's really no surprise that Proposition 103 lost. To paraphrase Gov. John Hickenlooper, who wouldn't take a position on the ballot issue, it's hard to find any enthusiasm for tax increases in this economy.  

The Great Outdoors Giveaway Act. That's what critics call the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act, which would erase current protections on more than 60 million acres of America's  

Colorado's grand hotels, bank, utilities and family businesses have all too often been gobbled up by out-of-state firms.  

In May, when the Douglas County commissioners gave final approval to the development of Sterling Ranch south of the metro area, I could not help but compare their action with approval of another south metro "ranch" that was given comparatively little scrutiny by the county back in the late 1970s and early '80s.  

My friend Jay has been self-employed for years here in Arvada working as a broker between large machinery buyers and the builders who use those machines.  

Getting older is not easy. I should know; I am an older person. The eyes, the memory, the healing, the sports injuries, the waistline, the wrinkles.  

Earlier this summer, a friend and I walked along a mountain creek in central Colorado that only a few hours before had been covered with snow. Boulders once visible had been replaced by froth and waves, and the water velocity was so great that the middle of the creek was a foot higher than its edges.