Hazlehurst's Blog » 2010

County commissioners “advise” on U.S. trade policy

28. January 2010

Can there be anything more meaningless than the resolutions that local governments throughout our great land churn out on a daily basis? Most of them are feel-good thank you notes to worthy citizens, non-profits, retiring employees, and fresh-faced schoolchildren. Few of us object to such gestures (other than a certain curmudgeonly taxophobe who once served [...]

Colorado Springs: The entitlement city

25. January 2010

14 Comments

Remember the “6035” project? Remember “Dream City”? And whatever happened to those hundreds of fresh-faced community leaders that the Colorado Springs Leadership Institute has trained, graduated and sent on their way during the last decade? I have good news for you! Dream City is alive, sort of, kept on life support by the occasional article [...]

Brown wins, Dems in disarray

21. January 2010

3 Comments

So what does Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts Senate race mean? This morning at Starbucks, my pal Jack Mason who’s lived on this earth for almost as many years as have I, opined that Brown’s election “saved our country.” NPR’s Michael Feldman, who hosts the popular show “Wait, wait…don’t tell me!” took a different [...]

Pioneers, bums and the Broadmoor golf course

19. January 2010

4 Comments

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Anatole France, Le Lys Rouge, 1894 Go on the library’s website (ppld.org), search for the earliest photograph of Colorado Springs, and what do you see? It’s a grainy [...]

Larry Liston’s Lexus Lanes for Lobbyists

14. January 2010

2 Comments

I never thought of the ever-amiable Rep. Larry Liston as a particular friend of the lobbyists who helpfully swarm the state Capitol when the legislature is in session, but he’s asking his colleagues to extend them a hand. He’s introduced a bill (HB 1092), which, according to a summary posted on the legislature’s website “authorizes [...]

“The Constitutionalist Today” debuts next month

14. January 2010

8 Comments

There’s a new local publication in the works, a conservative monthly to be called “The Constitutionalist Today,” slated to hit the newsstands in 17 days. It doesn’t look as if the Constitutionalist intends to target readers of the Independent. It has come into being, according to the paper’s Web site, “as our collective righteous anger [...]

Streetcar guys can fix what ails us

13. January 2010

6 Comments

If you want to see old-fashioned competence on display, and think that you have the skill sets to keep up with a bunch of guys who understand machinery the way that Tiger Woods understands golf, here’s a suggestion. Spend a few hours a week volunteering at the Pikes Peak Historic Street Railway Foundation, tucked away in [...]

Journalism awards: We won! We won! We hope…

12. January 2010

4 Comments

To most of us, January may be a kind of a dead zone – the dreariest, coldest and nastiest month. The holidays are over, the kids are back in school, you feel as if you’re getting a cold, and the car barely starts in the morning. Need a new car? Too bad – you’re broke. [...]

It’s not easy to subscribe to the Gazette

11. January 2010

6 Comments

If you’ve ever considered subscribing to the Gazette, now’s the time … maybe. My subscription ended on New Year’s Eve, since I had ignored several missives advising me to re-up or no longer get the G tossed on the porch every morning. Tried to renew online – no luck, since the site wanted my “subscription [...]

Blackmun appointment good news all around

6. January 2010

2 Comments

Is it possible that the long-dysfunctional USOC has finally turned the corner, and is ready to begin the long-painful process of reinventing itself? Selecting Scott Blackmun as the organization’s new CEO is a giant step in that direction. Clausewitz’s first principle of warfare: secure your base. Thanks to the infamous USOC deal between the city [...]

Archive | January, 2010