Author - The Durango Herald

W.S. Robinson: Climbing walls in the West while sitting in a chair

Reclining in my favorite chair recently in vanishingly small Inez, Wyoming, I found myself close to tears. My wife, Maria, sat beside me to ask what was troubling me. ...

DATE: Aug 8, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

David Brooks: Nonconformity must have a future; we need it

Like other realms, American intellectual life has been marked by a series of exclusions. The oldest and vastest was the exclusion of people of color from the commanding institutio...

DATE: Aug 7, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Richard Grossman: Looking for rain? Try reducing population growth

It is windy, hot and dry, dry, dry here. According to www.drought.gov, Durango is in an extreme drought. What’s going on? Do we need to start doing rain dances? Past droughts have...

DATE: Aug 2, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Clyde Church: County considers land use code for adoption

For almost three years, the La Plata County Board of County Commissioners and county staff have been working to develop and adopt a new land-use code that makes the development process more ...

DATE: Jul 30, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Sue Dorsey: Colorado’s overlooked small businesses still have time to grab a lifeline

We heard panic from our community lending partners almost immediately as the COVID-19 pandemic began forcing closures. The smallest local businesses were falling through the crack...

DATE: Jul 28, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Bret Stephens: American crime and the crazy Baltimore model

In 2014, there were 211 homicides in the city of Baltimore. The next year, there were 342, an astonishing increase of 62%. The murder rate has barely budged since. What happened? ...

DATE: Jul 24, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Michelle Goldberg: Trump’s occupation of American cities has begun

The month after Donald Trump’s inauguration, Yale historian Timothy Snyder published the best-selling book “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century.” It was part of...

DATE: Jul 23, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Charles Blow: Let’s start calling things by their proper names – like ‘race relations’

Now that we are deep into protests over racism, inequality and police brutality – protests that I’ve come to see as a revisiting of Freedom Summer – it is clear that Donald Trump sees the ac...

DATE: Jul 18, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Trent England: Electoral College protects Coloradoans’ voices

Every four years, along with the presidential election come criticisms of the Electoral College. Some people are just unhappy their candidate lost, but others are truly uncertain. Why do we ...

DATE: Jul 11, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Charles Blow: Yes, even George Washington – especially him

On the issue of American slavery, I am an absolutist: Enslavers were amoral monsters. The very idea that one group of people believed that they had the right to own another human ...

DATE: Jul 10, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Denise Fort: Babbitt’s plan for the river doesn’t go far enough

Each spring, the acequias in New Mexico carry cold, clear snowmelt to freshly furrowed fields on small farms. The centuries-old irrigation culture is recognized in state law and supported by...

DATE: Jul 5, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Michael Fields: State government needs to get out of the way

In the middle of a recession, the Legislature wants to raise your property taxes. State Sens. Jack Tate and Chris Hansen, along with Reps. Matt Soper and Dayena Esgar, led an eff...

DATE: Jul 4, 2020 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns