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My house used to have Thai Tuesday.

We’d order takeout from our favorite local spot, happily trading time at the stove and a sink full of dishes for curries and noodles that arrived hot and delicious. At a little more than $10 a plate, it felt like a splurge — but a manageable one. An easy-to-rationalize indulgence on a random weeknight when everyone was tired and hungry and no one wanted to talk about quinoa.

But Thai Tuesday has gone the way of free bread at restaurants and anyone but me changing the rolls of toilet paper at my house. Not because we stopped loving Thai food, but because dinner now comes with a side of financial anxiety. As someone who loves to eat and try new restaurants, but who also loves paying her (thankfully-locked-in-at-2.5%) mortgage on time, I keep coming back to that age-old question, but for different reasons these days: What’s for dinner?

Ordering takeout used to feel like opting out of effort. Lately, it feels like opting into credit card debt. I do the quiet mental math while waiting in drive-thru lines: $13 meals times four people adds up to nearly $60 for my family’s beloved Good Times burgers and fries.

And that’s just for fast food. Somewhere along the way, the dinner middle ground disappeared. Picking up to-go food from the local Chinese spot or even Chipotle was once the compromise between cooking at home and sitting down at a restaurant. It cost a little more than a home-cooked meal, but not so much that it felt out of reach. But now it’s adding up.

I’ve had this conversation with pretty much everyone I know lately. A friend tells me her Chick-fil-A lunch ran $16. Someone else grabbed drinks and appetizers at The Cherry Cricket and left $60 lighter. Scroll Denver Food Reddit for five minutes and you’ll find the requisite “Can you believe this sandwich cost $20?” thread.

Dinner choices, like so many things right now, feel increasingly stratified. There’s the cheapish and labor-intensive cooking at home and stretching leftovers, or the takeout/eating out experience that’s increasingly expensive. What’s missing is that once-reliable in-between option that made weeknights easier without blowing the budget. Middle-ground food, like the middle class itself, feels like it’s slipping away.

Takeout used to be the pressure valve, the thing that kept us from burning out after returning from work, out of energy and willpower. Too tired to cook? Too broke for a sit-down restaurant? No problem, have some takeout tacos. But lately, even fast-casual feels like a decision you have to justify.

How did that happen? Not because restaurants suddenly got greedy, or because we all collectively broke Apple Wallet when money stopped feeling real. It’s not like restaurant owners banded together at their Annual Restaurant Owner Meeting and decided to spike prices for the heck of it. I don’t see the owner of my local pizzeria driving around town in a Ferrari.

If anything, it was inevitable. Restaurants are dealing with the same things the rest of us are — runaway rents, soaring food costs and, at least in Denver, a tipped minimum wage that’s nearly $5 higher per hour than that in notoriously expensive New York City. And all of this is happening in an industry that’s always operated on famously thin margins.

Unsurprisingly, a 2025 Expert Market Food & Beverage Industry Report, which surveyed restaurant professionals, found that 85 percent believe labor issues affect their business, with more than half pointing to wages and benefits as the single biggest threat to profitability. To cope, nearly two-thirds have raised prices. Almost one in five have raised them significantly.

So, yeah, this is why the math stops working at mealtime. A recent Newsweek article called the food and beverage sector “the canary in the coal mine,” one of the first sectors where economic anxiety shows up when people start tightening their belts. Which means that that $20 pad thai could be just the beginning.

The real loss isn’t any one dish or restaurant, but the ease of it all. Thai Tuesday didn’t disappear at my house because it stopped being good; it disappeared because it stopped being reasonable. The middle ground it occupied ghosted us, along with the idea that a weeknight meal could be both convenient and affordable.

Tonight, “What’s for dinner?” is about more than just food. It’s about time, money, burnout and what we’re willing to give up. Cooking means more work. Eating out means more money. And somewhere between the fridge and the menu board, we’re realizing, often with a side of sticker shock, that the way we eat now says as much about the economy as it does about our appetites.

Allyson Reedy is a Denver-area freelance writer, cookbook author and novelist. She is also a former Denver Post food writer. 

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What readers saw: The killing of driver in Minneapolis

Re: “ICE officer kills driver,” Jan. 8 news story

On Wednesday, a 37-year-old citizen was shot by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We don’t know why she was where she was; that will come out in the days ahead. And there is plenty of video. So Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem, Vice President JD Vance, and even President Donald Trump can spin their lies, but we will know what occurred.

What’s disturbing is the rush to cover their asses and disparage the victim. Makes me want to throw up. This is what our nation has to face daily: an administration of liars and an agency that appears to believe they can do whatever they want and face no accountability. What’s next?

Deborah Harvey, Thornton

I am writing to express serious concern about recent public attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement following an incident where a woman attempted to use her vehicle to strike an ICE agent and completely disobeyed law enforcement instructions. Regardless of immigration policy views, attempting to injure or kill law enforcement is a grave act of violence and must be unequivocally condemned.

What is troubling is the rhetoric from some Democratic officials and commentators appearing to excuse violent conduct directed at ICE personnel. This is deeply problematic. The rule of law depends on consistent moral standards: violence and attempted homicide are unacceptable regardless of the identity of the victim or the political controversy surrounding their role. Clearly the vehicle was driven toward the agent.

Social science research on political violence and moral disengagement shows sustained rhetorical delegitimization of institutions increases the likelihood of real-world harm. When elected officials frame federal agents as inherently illegitimate or malicious, it erodes public trust and lowers social inhibitions against attacking them. This dynamic has historically preceded escalations in political violence, domestically and internationally.

Criticism of federal agencies is legitimate in a democratic society. However, ethical leadership requires a clear boundary between policy disagreement and the normalization — or tacit justification — of violence.

I urge our society to publicly affirm attempted vehicular assault against any law-enforcement officer is indefensible, and to encourage responsible rhetoric that does not endanger public servants or the public at large.

Silence or equivocation in moments like this is itself consequential. Clear moral leadership matters.

Kriss Perras, Colorado Springs

As a former member and chair of our city’s police Citizen Review Board, I am sharing thoughts on the Minneapolis ICE shooting videos I have watched. It did not appear to me that the ICE agents were in any physical danger unless they placed themselves in it.

I did not hear any commands from the agents to the driver who was killed. There were no de-escalation tactics, instead they escalated to the lethal use of force.

There are rules for the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies that direct officers not to pursue fleeing cars unless life is in danger or similar.

The assessments from the president and his administration do not comport with the evidence I have seen.

To me, this was an unnecessary escalation of the use of force that resulted in an unnecessary death.

As to the protesters who were maced, if you impede the legal actions of law enforcement, you can be arrested, or they can use non-lethal means such as mace.

The killing leaves me wondering whether ICE agents have been trained properly and I suspect there will be civil and criminal litigation to sort out officer immunity issues.

John W. Thomas, Fort Collins

Interfering with a federal ICE agent is a serious federal felony that can result in substantial fines and imprisonment. Assuming that the Colorado resident driver had a Colorado state driver’s license, the recommended actions when stopped by law enforcement are to stay calm, keep hands visible, provide your physical license, registration, and insurance when asked, but politely decline searches and self-incriminating answers. Comply with exiting the vehicle if ordered, but do not argue; dispute violations later in court. This AI-Gemini generated advice does not recommend trying to run the officer down!

The Colorado resident, nice as they might have been, made a fatal error in judgment.

No one should be defending activists who engage in the most foolish and dangerous actions! These activists would be much wiser to write letters to the editor of local papers or to relevant federal and state legislatures and officials. Officials should not be supporting kinetic protestors at all!

Take note of successful non-violent protests that worked (i.e., Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.). Once violence is initiated by the protester, much of the argument is lost.

In this case, a life was lost by not complying with law enforcement. One can contest law enforcement in court, but not adjudicate from behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. To support such actions is irreverent and, for an elected official, malicious.

Steven D. Kalavity, Fort Collins

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President Donald Trump would like Coloradans to know this holiday season that he wants our governor to “rot in hell” and that he wishes Mesa County’s district attorney, Dan Rubenstein, “only the worst.” All that anger directed at Coloradans is because our justice system is refusing to release a woman who was tried and convicted of fraud in relation to Trump’s illegal attempt to remain in office in 2020.

Trump’s embarrassing temper tantrums would be tolerable if they didn’t also come with real-world actions that hurt Coloradans — costing them their livelihoods, and yes, access to clean drinking water.

Gov. Jared Polis’ and Rep. Lauren Boebert’s responses to Trump give us hope that Americans can unite after Trump leaves office, as required by the U.S. Constitution, in January 2029. Trump will not succeed in his effort to divide Coloradans who love one another despite our political differences.

Trump is hurting our more liberal-minded residents in Boulder County with his decision to first cut dozens of jobs at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and then his pledge to dismantle the headquarters entirely.

And now Trump will hurt more conservative-minded Coloradans with his veto of $1.2 billion in federal funding for a clean-drinking water pipeline to residents in eastern Pueblo County who have been advised for years not to drink well water because of contamination.

Gov. Jared Polis’ response to all of this has been calm, dignified and dedicated to preserving the integrity of our justice system.

“I hope the President’s resolution this year is to spend less time online talking about me and more on making America more affordable by stopping his disastrous tariffs and fixing rising health care costs. Finally, I wish all Americans, including the President and all the wonderful people across the political spectrum, a happy, healthy and productive New Year,” Polis said Wednesday.

Boebert shot back at Trump’s veto of her bill, telling 9News that: “If this administration wants to make its legacy blocking projects that deliver water to rural Americans, that’s on them … Americans deserve leadership that puts people over politics.”

Before the New Year, Trump ordered his administration to move the work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research from Boulder to “another entity or location.”

The administration attempted to blame the move on NCAR’s work studying climate change. The White House issued a statement to The Denver Post calling NCAR “the premier research stronghold for left-wing climate lunacy.”

We disagree strongly with both of the assertions in that statement. First, the global climate is warming, and a vast amount of scientific research indicates that the trend is being driven in large part by the increase in greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and methane, among others) in our atmosphere.

Second, NCAR’s work is professional, scientifically based and doesn’t carry a hint of the “alarmism” that we see from many politicians who talk about an extinction-level event occurring in a few years.

But we also don’t believe for a moment that “climate change alarmism” is the real reason behind Trump’s decision to dismantle NCAR — a federal agency we must remind the president that was created by Congress and funded by Congress and protected from unilateral termination by the executive branch.

Trump’s decision came rapidly after Colorado officials refused Trump’s demand that Tina Peters be released from jail. Peters, a former clerk and recorder from Mesa County, was convicted of using fraudulent means to give a random man access to the county’s voting equipment. Peters believed Trump’s lies that the 2020 election had been stolen. She stole credentials from one of her employees and brought a man into a secure area where he accessed data from vote-counting machines. Later, she tried to cover up her actions.

The data did not show any evidence of voter fraud.

But that hasn’t prevented Trump from trying to pardon her and now from retaliating against Colorado officials who are merely upholding the work of a jury of Peter’s peers who found her guilty.

Hundreds of federal workers in Colorado have already lost their jobs as a result of Trump’s policies. Then those employees who remained suffered under the federal shutdown. Now, Trump is coming again for federal workers, claiming he is trying to reduce the federal debt and deficit. But Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill added more to the federal deficit than what he has cut so far.

Which brings us to Trump’s most recent retaliatory action against Colorado, which he says was done in the name of cutting the federal budget and “restoring fiscal sanity.”

We cannot argue with Trump that the $1.3 billion price tag to bring clean drinking water to 50,000 residents is steep. But it is not wasteful. This is a necessary and long-awaited public infrastructure project. The project has been thoroughly vetted and is shovel-ready.

Trump’s veto is a black eye on his administration, and his outlandish words and actions only underline why he is wholly unfit to serve as president of the United States of America.

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Jamallstar.

Turns out it is not just a cool hashtag, but a mindset. This is how it looks on social media: #JAMALLSTAR.

This is how it looks on the court:

24.9 points per game. Career high.

6.8 assists per game. Career high. 44.7 % on 3-pointers. Career high.

Entering Thursday night against Orlando, the Nuggets boasted a 19-6 record, their best mark after 25 games, despite the monthlong absences of starters Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon.

Reasons to believe the Nuggets would unseat the Oklahoma City Thunder this season began with Mr. Nugget, aka Gordon, getting more shots with Michael Porter Jr. in Brooklyn and the deep bench, most notably Jonas Valanciunas.

But the explanation was more obvious. Standing right in front of us.

Jamal Murray.

He is no longer treating stardom like an accidental tourist, waiting until late spring before wandering into the spotlight with his passport.

If we are being honest, even if this was foreshadowed in July, we all worried that Murray the Magnificent would be reduced to a memory only in our streams.

At 28, in his 10th season, Murray has abandoned mystery for consistency. It all started with an offseason conversation with co-general manager Jon Wallace. Then others in the organization.

The respect for Murray is real. His jersey will hang from the Ball Arena rafters when he retires. But for another championship banner to accompany it, the Nuggets needed Murray to perform like he was being paid — as a top 15 player.

Wallace challenged Murray to shut up the critics. And David Adelman served the role of part coach, part couch.

“It’s not really the physical side for guys, maybe just the mental. We have seen some of the pressure he has felt, (to) just to become more of a leader with the guys,” Adelman explained. “It is about going through the summer and understanding what working too hard means going into an 82-game season, what feeling fresh means, and be mentally stronger. And I think that stuff does translate. I feel like I am writing a self-help book. But it really is true.”

Murray had led the Nuggets to countless postseason victories, but they needed him to become a rudder over the summer with Nikola Jokic out of the country. He responded by organizing pickup games in Las Vegas, connecting teammates in Denver, showing up for training camp with the entire bag of Doritos on his shoulder.

We have all seen Murray play like this. Just never this early in the season. He recently won player of the week honors for the first time.

“I am happy we are off to a good start. Glad I am off to a good start as well. I am pretty happy with the way things are going right now,” Murray said. “It’s great recognition for the three games I had. I appreciate it.”

Looking back, the reasons for Murray’s slow start last season were there all along. He was hurt, and needed rest rather than to represent Canada in the Olympics. There was the $208.5 million max contract extension that Murray never took ownership of, spending his first press conference after it was signed talking more about his love of UFC than his understanding of accountability.

And there was the urgency to perform in Jokic’s championship window as coach Michael Malone’s message became increasingly stale and ignored. In mid-January, the overall numbers were alarming, his points (19.8) and 3-point percentage (39.2%) were his lowest since 2019.

Eleven months later, Murray has channeled the strain into his game. He has become #JAMALLSTAR.

Now, all we have to do is wait to see if he gets the honor.  Wallace mused recently with a smile, “He better.”

This is not bias. These are the facts. Murray should be a lock for the World Team against the United States. He probably won’t be among the top five vote getters required for starters, regardless of position, but should easily be among the top seven reserves. Murray ranks 16th in scoring, 11th in 3-point percentage and assists.

If that isn’t an all-star, what is?

“Just his poise sticks out. The way he is picking and choosing his spots. He and Jokic do an amazing job of playing off and reading off each other,” guard Tim Hardaway Jr. said. “It is been great to witness.”

The improved numbers are rooted in nuance. Murray is creating better angles, finding cleaner paths to the basket, though “No Call Jamal” remains a thing as refs continue to diss him. He is not relying on step-backs. The way he has played off-ball for his teammates has been eye-opening.

And yet, he has not lost his aggressiveness. In Monday’s overtime victory over the Rockets, Murray poured in 35 points. At one point, he backed down Reed Sheppard, drained a jumper and blew a kiss instead of shooting a blue arrow into our hearts.

It was easy to love, nonetheless.

“Open communication sometimes leads to positive things. From what I saw this summer, mentally, physically, all those things were at such a high level, and it’s cool to see it translate into the season,” Adelman said. “Jamal has been a special player forever. I don’t really judge the starts to his season, but obviously this has been one that will stand out. Not just because of the way he has scored, but the efficiency.”

Is this the year that Murray changes the narrative, plays with excellence from tip-to-tip from October to June?

A third of the way into the season, he has provided the answer in the form of a hashtag.

#JAMALLSTAR.

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When Congressman Jason Crow and five Democratic colleagues with military and intelligence service released a video on social media urging troops to refuse orders “that violate the law or our Constitution,” detractors complained the message was dangerously ambiguous; it implied the administration was giving illegal orders but provided no specific examples.

These critics had a point, that is, until The Washington Post exposed one such incident, a potential war crime no less. Turns out, the video’s warning about illegal orders was right on target.

Whether the episode will garner the bipartisan scrutiny it deserves, time will tell. Republicans in Congress have been hesitant to criticize the Trump administration, fearing retribution — a Trump-backed primary opponent, an agency investigation, or a lawsuit.

With President Trump’s approval rating dropping to a near-low of 36% in the most recent Gallop poll, they might find the courage to defy their leader. Let’s hope so. The illegal order exposed by The Washington Post isn’t the only one worth questioning.

According to the news story, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth commanded “kill them all” before a September 2 military strike on an alleged drug boat that slew 11, including two who survived the first strike and were clinging to the wreckage. Firing upon shipwrecked combatants is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Department of Defense’s own Law of War Manual.

Hegseth assailed the allegation as “fake news” on a social media post that also boasted “Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them.” He was referring to the 80-plus suspected drug traffickers whose boats the military has blown up in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since early September.

Hegseth also tweeted a meme of Franklin the Turtle firing missiles at drug boats further undermining his credibility and assuring him another cameo on South Park. The Canadian publisher of Franklin the Turtle has since condemned the misuse of their children’s storybook character to depict violence. Later, Hegseth tried to distance himself from the incident, claiming he had left the room after the first strike, and then by saying the “fog of war” prevented him from seeing the survivors.

U.S. House and Senate Armed Services Committees have opened investigations into the incident. To do it justice, they need to examine the wider situation. While killing the incapacitated is a war crime, we have not declared war on Venezuela. Moreover, the alleged drug traffickers targeted by these missiles are not soldiers; they are civilians. They pose no imminent threat to troops. Labeling them “narco-terrorists” doesn’t negate military rules of engagement. Even if they are guilty of drug trafficking, killing them isn’t a justifiable use of the military power. Their deaths are extrajudicial executions.

And if they aren’t guilty? This week, the family of a Colombian man who was killed in a strike made an official complaint against the U.S. with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He was a fisherman, they say, the primary breadwinner for a family of six and they want compensation for their loss. It’s hard to secure evidence of guilt or innocence post-obliteration. Bomb first, ask questions later doesn’t work.

There are lawful ways to intercept drugs and bring drug traffickers to justice that assure due process, protect the innocent, and maintain the integrity of the armed forces. The U.S. Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Border Patrol regularly seize illicit drugs and arrest smugglers who are then prosecuted in federal courts.

One such drug trafficker, Juan Orlando Hernández, former president of Honduras, was arrested by the DEA in 2022, extradited to the U.S., tried, and convicted of moving more than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. Although sentenced to 45 years in prison, he walked free this week thanks to a pardon by President Donald Trump.

During the upcoming hearings on Hegseth’s “kill them all” moment, senators and representatives should inquire why suspected, low-level smugglers get death without due process and convicted kingpins walk.

They should also ask Hegseth if he plans to bomb civilian targets on the Venezuelan mainland, as Trump alluded to this week.

Is the man who renamed the Department of Defense, the Department of War, itching to start one? Is he aware that only Congress has the authority to declare war? If not, the committee could take the opportunity to show the secretary a recently-released video about the military’s responsibility to uphold the law and the Constitution.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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FORT COLLINS — What began as forts made of pads as a toddler ended with a hug made of tears as a senior.

His teammates clearing the field at Canvas Stadium, posing for snapshots that they can live in forever, Kellen Behrendsen raced up the stairs at the 30-yard line. He greeted both sets of his grandparents, brother and mom with an embrace decades in the making.

Behrendsen was born into the Dakota Ridge community, a bundle of energy, curiosity and light.

And on a chilly Saturday night, he became his father’s sonshine.

Behrendsen and his dad Jeremiah guided Dakota Ridge to its first state football championship, overwhelming Palmer Ridge 38-14. After six losses in the semifinals, after falling in their lone title game appearance in 2004, thirty years of Dakota Ridge dreaming awoke to a blissful reality on Sunday morning.

The Eagle has landed. DRidge Nation, you are champions.

“I have been here my whole life, raised here. I started going to practices when I was little. I was making forts out of the pads, playing with other kids,” Kellen Behrendsen said. “This is a full circle moment. Knowing I was able to bring this home with my brothers on the team and my dad, it means so much.”

Father knew this was possible before the coach. Jeremiah watched his son grow up competing with great kids who were surrounded by strong families. This is the kind of life he wanted for when moving from Akron to Littleton, and taking a job as the Eagles freshman team offensive coordinator in 2004.

“I love this community,” coach Behrendsen said. “I absolutely thought (Kellen) might win state someday because I knew this group had a chance to do something special if they came together the right way.”

The bonds begin forming on two feeders during middle school. When the players morphed into one as freshmen, the vision began to crystallize like a Polaroid picture. That season the Eagles averaged roughly 50 points per game and allowed 50.

“We still had all the same guys, and we kept getting better,” said star receiver Nathan Rodriguez. “We knew our senior year was going to be our year.”

Behrendsen felt responsible for getting the Eagles across the finish line. Consistency was paramount. As a first-year starter last season, he completed 67.6 % of his passes for 12 touchdowns and six interceptions. For a kid who wants to be engineer, he knew there were bigger numbers available if he solved the equation of work, film and calm.

Against an undefeated Bears team, Behrendsen was more accurate than a DNA test. He completed his first nine passes. He had 167 yards on his first seven attempts.

On the Eagles’ opening drive, he connected on a swing pass to Landon Kalsbeck. The one-man wrecking ball who is headed to Washington State broke three tackles and juked two other defenders for a 44-yard score.

Following a Jack Offerdahl interception, Behrendsen took the shotgun snap and fired a dart to Jaxson Arnold, who raced 84 yards untouched to the end zone.

When the Eagles were briefly threatened in the third quarter, Behrendsen climbed the pocket and launched a ball 50 yards in that air that Rodriguez hauled in for a diving touchdown worthy of SportsCenter.

His subsequent celebration – think Rob Gronkowski with the Patriots – provided an exclamation point, showing why Dakota Ridge outscored opponents 565-168 this season.

“I absolutely burned the DB. I was a little bit overwhelmed with excitement and spiked the ball. But I think it was fair to do that, don’t you?” Rodriguez said. “My quarterback puts trust in me. And he absolutely put on a show. He does this every game. He’s got the arm, and he believes in us, and it’s why he is so good.”

What makes Behrendsen special is the work performed in the shadows. He stands 5-foot-11, weighs 155 pounds. What he lacks in physicality, he makes up for with efficiency. Behrendsen finished the season with 235 completions in 286 attempts, an alarming 82.1 percent, with 42 touchdowns and three interceptions.

He added more helium to statistics on Saturday, going for 14-for-16 for 259 yards and four scores.

“He is really smart and an incredible decision maker. Experience is the difference this season. And he has grown into being a leader,” coach Behrendsen said. “As he played better, his teammates started to believing in and his confidence grew tenfold.”

Father and son tried to keep this past week as normal as possible. They lived in cliches. Kept everything the same even when they knew the stakes were higher, the end was closer. The pair tries to avoid football talk at home, where coach estimates he is dad “90 percent of the time.” And this week, they were not about to let stress steal their joy.

“After practices we did some fun stuff,” Kellen said. “When it snowed, we went out and shoveled the ‘DR’ out front of the school so everybody still knew we were playing. … But honestly, it still hasn’t hit me that I am not going to play for him again.”

The son plans to continue to his career. He has attracted interested from five Division III and Division II schools, including CSU-Pueblo. Dad will keep coaching.

Long ago, he realized something very cool about giving up your time for children who are not your own. You gain another life.

You become part of something bigger. As the Dakota Ridge players celebrated, as tears rolled down cheeks, Jeremiah basked in the glow of his son, overcome with gratitude on what they had done.

“We have worked really hard to cultivate the type of community where everyone has your back. We have worked really hard to get to this point. I have watched great coaches and players try. We were building and building and building,” coach Behrendsen said. “This was for DRidge Nation. This championship was built on the backs of 30 years of people. A lot of them are here today. It is special.”

Editor’s note: Features coordinator Barbara Ellis takes a side in the “real vs. fake” Christmas tree debate. Look for the counterpoint by Editorial Page editor Megan Schrader.

I can still see my dad, hand slapping his forehead, looking exasperated, as my mom instructed (OK, bossed) him on how to “fix up” the live Christmas tree they had brought home from a hardware store lot in our small Massachusetts town.

She made him purchase extra branches “to fill the tree out.”

“Drill a hole and insert this branch there, Joe. And then that one goes there. No, there.”

“OK, now take this branch out and put it on top.”

Related: Colorado’s national forests open for Christmas tree cutting — with strict rules

And most years, it was too wide to fit through the door, and too tall to stand in our living room. More amending.

It’s amazing that dad (the most patient man on Earth) didn’t turn into the Grinch right before our eyes.

When I started my own family, I, too, insisted on a real tree. We would trudge out into the snowy wild (permit in hand) with hand saws, kids in tow, to select and cut down a Colorado fir or spruce under which to place our wrapped gifts.

Then we’d return home, fight to get the tree in a stand in front of the fireplace (sometimes having to hack away at it to make it fit), make hot cocoa and watch old animated versions of “Frosty the Snowman” or “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” while the kids hung their favorite ornaments on the lower branches. So cozy, so familial. Visions of sugarplums, and all that.

And every year, I fought to keep that tree from drying out and turning brown, begging it to hang on until at least Dec. 25. But constant watering, and even a humidifier nearby, never seemed to be enough in Colorado’s arid climate. Before too long, the tree skirt was littered with needles — which would then hide in the carpet to be stepped on in March.

After the holiday was over, we had another burden: Back then, some 25 years ago, it wasn’t as easy to dispose of live trees as it is now. There was no tree recycling program that we knew of. So we would hack the tree up into chunks and cart them down to our cabin in Fremont County to burn in a campfire. (The sap and needles would spread over the inside of the truck and get inside all the gear and bins of food we carried down, just one more mess to deal with.)

Oh, I bought into the romanticized vision of cutting down a live tree. “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening,” etc. Family unity. Creating traditions. Teaching the kids to appreciate the outdoors and bring them closer to nature, fa la la la la.

To that I say: Bah, humbug.

When we finally bought a fabulous fake, I breathed a sigh of relief.

No watering. No messy needles everywhere. No sap. No disposal (just storage).

No problem.

We still were able to teach the kids about nature and the beauty of the land, just in other ways: at the cabin, at parks, during visits to the mountains, in our backyard and through books.

As I entered my 40s, I was happy to trade in the tree-cutting tradition to spend more time with the family on other things: Decorating the house, making popcorn strings to hang on the (fake) tree, baking hundreds of cookies, pinching dozens of pierogi, visiting with friends, and trying to cut down on the frenzy.

And our artificial tree really is lovely. It’s not perfectly shaped (that would look too fake, you know); its uneven branches are sturdy enough to carry the weight of dozens of ornaments, all heavy with memories; its needles are soft, not pokey (yes, they drop off, but not obnoxiously so); the color is rich and natural, not washed out or garish. A couple of pine-scented ornaments add to the ambiance, and voila! My fabulous fake is a thing of beauty.

And easy to store, since it breaks into three pieces. As long as I have some help getting it in the bag and up in the rafters of the garage, that is.

Of course, some will argue that an artificial tree isn’t as environmentally friendly as a real one. And they would be right.

Still, I’ve had the same fake tree for more than 20 years now, so haven’t (yet) polluted a landfill with a plastic stem and branches. And it still looks as good as any real tree, IMO. With any luck, it’ll last another 10 years or more.

Not bad for an investment of $129 for an 8-foot fake fir in 2001. Even Scrooge would approve of that.

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Laboratory name change spells trouble

Re: “The National Renewable Energy Lab is renamed,” Dec. 3 news story

Changing the name of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to the National Laboratory of the Rockies may seem inconsequential to the casual newsreader, but it’s a true harbinger of this administration’s brutal neutralizing of clean energy technology development in the United States.

It’s hard to know what the “Laboratory of the Rockies” will actually be; maybe something like analyzing professional baseball in Colorado or such. Regardless, the laboratory will soon lose its position as the leading applied science lab in the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratory System for developing marketable, clean energy technologies. This has been done primarily through NREL’s long-term research relationships with American business concerns.

Three more years of slash-and-burn of these relationships will cause irreparable harm to American leadership in this critical 21st-century sector, allowing China dominance for years to come. Bad news for Colorado, bad news for the United States. Very sad.

John A. Herrick, Denver

Editor’s note: Herrick is a former chief counsel for the Department of Energy’s Golden Field Office.

Forty-one years have elapsed since constructed in 1984, but hey, it’s never too late to make a change. “Renewable energy” is no longer permissible under the “climate realism” Orwellian newspeak of the new regime. The buildings remain in place on the southern slope of South Table Mountain in Golden, but the National Renewable Energy Lab is now the National Laboratory of the Rockies. Wonder what they will be doing there?

Phil Nelson, Golden

Putting on chains altogether now

Re: “Law requires anti-slip devices for 2WD vehicles,” Nov. 22 news story

Can CDOT and the state legislature as a whole imagine the drivers of all two-wheel drive vehicles on many miles of Interstate 70 stopping at the same time to install “anti-slip devices” when snows begin? That is what their new law requires. And notably, many miles of the highway now have an express lane, which “disappeared” formerly safe shoulders. Additionally, if you happen to have an all-wheel drive vehicle, note that if you are rolling on the last 59% of your thousand-dollar tire set’s tread in such weather, you will be breaking the law as well.

Thanks, to all of the genius legislators who so badly want to please the ski industry lobby.

Peter Ehrlich, Denver

License plata data as boogeyman is oversold

Re: “Big Brother is tracking you – Denver’s descent into dystopia,” Nov. 30  commentary

Robin Reichhardt’s column oversells and underdelivers by a mile. Renewing an existing license plate contract is clearly not a “descent” into anything, and the details are as mundane as the license plate cameras on our toll lanes and money trees, er, mobile speed cameras. The piece misses a glaring point: The plate data is hard deleted after 30 days. While police can search it later, it’s not much later.

Among other things the author doesn’t like are data centers, which she used her imagination in describing and tying to Big Brother Denver. The internet is complicated, but there’s no causation between the license plate cameras and the CoreSite — or any other local data center. Flock’s data is not stored in Colorado. Even if it were, plate records contribute no meaningful portion to data center capacity, which is almost entirely videos of attractive people doing banal tasks, cat videos, and, of course, porn.

I do appreciate the writer’s description of herself as a “community organizer” rather than an “informed citizen.”

Bradley Rehak, Denver

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Plaudits for bipartisanship! Dan Rubinstein, the Republican Mesa County district attorney and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, urged Gov. Jared Polis in a recent letter not to acquiesce to demands by the Trump administration to transfer former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters to federal custody. Another letter by the Colorado County Clerks Association counsels the same.

They are right. Under no circumstances should Peters be transferred out of La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo, where she is serving a nine-year sentence. Peters committed multiple felonies in connection with an illegal 2021 scheme to grant unauthorized access to voting equipment in an attempt to prove the election was stolen from her candidate. Peters’ crimes cost taxpayers millions of dollars to replace equipment compromised by her actions and for legal fees, investigations, recounts and other costs. Her election lies fueled harassment and threats to clerks, their staffs, and even their family members, and diminished the public’s trust in elections.

No one is surprised that President Donald Trump is working to free Peters from the grip of justice. He has pardoned most everyone charged with crimes related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. First, he granted clemency to nearly all of the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, even those convicted of assaulting police officers. Trump also ordered the Department of Justice to dismiss any cases still pending against perpetrators of violence. Later, he pardoned the architects of his election subversion conspiracy – liars, I mean, lawyers Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Now it’s Peters’ turn to receive her get-out-of-jail card.

After a few months of truculent, all-caps argle-bargle on social media demanding her release, Trump is now trying other means to liberate her from accountability. He cannot pardon Peters since she was convicted of breaking state laws, but that won’t stop him from trying. On Nov. 12, the Federal Bureau of Prisons sent a letter to the Colorado Department of Corrections requesting Peters be transferred to federal custody.

Not only would this circumvent our justice system here in Colorado, as Rubinstein and Weiser’s letter points out, it also would “offer a politically connected inmate the comforts of an easier sentence. This is not mere speculation or conjecture, as one need only to review recent reports on other politically connected criminals presently receiving ‘preferential treatment’ in federal facilities during their sentences.”

Is this an oblique reference to a certain associate of Jeffrey Epstein’s who was sent to prison for sex trafficking? Ghislaine Maxwell’s sentence got a bit cushier after being transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security one in Bryan, Texas. Maybe Peters can get that magnetic mattress she says she needs if transferred to a new facility.

It’s more likely that once transferred, a bureaucratic “error” would spring Peters. When was the last time the Trump administration let law get in the way? Peters would be free to continue her public recrimination of election clerks, again putting them in harm’s way.

At no point has the jailbird shown contrition for her crimes. Peters’ fans and enablers continue to help her maintain the fantasy of victimhood. Peters’ lead attorney, Peter Ticktin, one of the attorneys who helped secure pardons for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, confessed in a recent interview that  Peters is “not embarrassed or ashamed in any way. She’s proud of what she’s done because she’s not a criminal.” Meanwhile, her pal, far-right podcaster Joe Oltmann, said Colorado’s governor, attorney general and Secretary of State Jena Griswold “should be hung.”

To release Peters into federal custody, thereby securing an easier sentence or outright release, would not only undermine our justice system, it also would encourage people like Oltmann who spout lies and advocate violence. Colorado Republicans and Democrats who uphold truth and justice cannot stop the release of criminals at the federal level, but we can stop that travesty of justice from happening here.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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