The “Head On” debate between former state Sen. John Andrews (R) and former Denver councilwoman Susan Barnes-Gelt (D), seen daily on Colorado Public Television since 1997, began its January series this week. Andrews praised President Bush for his aggressive monitoring of Al Qaeda, under what he called inherent constitutional powers of the executive. Other topics this month include the Abramoff lobbying scandal in Congress, the Colorado legislative outlook and governor's race, and a possible ballot issue decriminalizing marijuana possession.
New Year's in Backbone
(John Andrews in the Denver Post, Jan. 1) Times Square? Overrated. You haven’t really done New Year’s Eve until you’ve done it in Backbone, Colorado, my imaginary hometown. Up at the head of Cottonwood Creek in Chaffee County, close to timberline in the shadow of the divide, we don’t get TV or the Web and don’t miss them. Rockin’ Dick Clark can go fish, we say. In Backbone on the last night of the year, things start at sundown with a potluck at the church. Families from town and the nearby gulches all gather, and the unattached folks of whatever description are made to feel like family. Later there’s ice skating on the pond, with a bonfire for s’mores and hot cider, plus the appropriate adult beverages. Yarns from the Old Prospector are in demand at the fireside.
No frigate like a book
(John Andrews in the Denver Post, Dec. 18) It all started with a teenager giving birth in a stable, while soldiers searched for her baby to kill him. No, it really started long before that, with a couple in a garden throwing away paradise in one act of disobedience. It all ended, anyway, with three crosses atop a skull-shaped hill on a dark afternoon. But actually it hasn’t ended yet, and won’t end until the world itself does. I’m referring, obviously, to the greatest story ever told, the Christmas story. Christmas is not my subject, though. Books are. The two are closely joined, of course. It is only through a book, the most important book ever written, the Bible, that we know the story of Adam’s fall and Christ’s coming.
TV, December: Don't Dems Care?
The “Head On” debate between former state Sen. John Andrews (R) and former Denver councilwoman Susan Barnes-Gelt (D), seen daily on Colorado Public Television since 1997, began its December series this week. Topics include the defeatist Democrats, immigration, the 9/11 Commission, and a New Year's look back / look ahead.
Balkan trip opened this voter's eyes
(John Andrews in the Denver Post, Nov. 20) When I voted in Colorado’s 2005 tax referendum and the Centennial local election, it had deeper meaning for me than any vote since my first one almost 40 years ago. In 1966 I was just out of college, engaged and headed for the Navy. I patriotically cast my ballot for Republican candidates committed to America’s struggle against world communism and skeptical of Lyndon Johnson’s welfare state. I’m now a grandfather and politically battle-scarred. Yet this November I felt a brand-new sense of gratitude for our privilege to exercise “the consent of the governed.” It came from spending part of October in Macedonia and Serbia, where the icy grip of communism denied such consent until very recently.