9/26/25 Blog: Black Culture, Rick Lewis, and Author Jim Butcher

LET'S DO SOMETHING DIFFERENTISH TODAY First off it's an Ask Me Anything sort of day, though that is not different for a Friday. We're going to talk about fun stuff and nerdy books and also do a deeper dive on black culture with two African American guests. Let's put MOST of the politics aside for the day.

RICK LEWIS IS PLAYING AROUND And his band the Rick Lewis Project is playing this weekend in Evergreen at the Little Bear Saloon. This is fundraiser for #EvergreenStrong Community Recovery Fund. This money will specifically staying in the local Evergreen community and will be allocated by the Coloradogives.com Evergreen board. Find out more about the band and get the address to the Little Bear here. Rick's band absolutely COOKS and you should go see them.

DOES BLACK CULTURE EMBRACE VIOLENCE? I've got Nick Ferguson on with one of my listeners, Steven Williams, who reached out last week when I was talking about my view that black culture embraces violence. That is a sweeping generalization of course, but we know that African Americans are overrepresented when it comes to prison populations and violent crime. This morning I read a very interesting story on rap and hip hop music that shows the shifting content in music. It demonstrated that hood life and violence in music have dropped considerably in the last twenty years. So I've invited two men who know way more about black culture than I do for a conversation.

DRESDEN FILES AUTHOR JIM BUTCHER TODAY AT 2:30 My son introduced me to the Dresden Files a few years ago and the series is a delight. It follows the adventures of wizard and private investigator Harry Dresden as he investigates all manner of supernatural disturbances in modern day Chicago. Yesterday while prepping for the interview I read this about how he got published and it's a fantastic tale in an of itself about perseverance winning out. He's got a new book coming out January 20th and you can pre order your copy here, and this gives you plenty of time to read the rest of the series first, amiright? The Dresden Files isn't his only series, he's also written the Codex Alera, and the Cinder Spires novels though I'm not familiar with either. I found out yesterday that Ben Allbright is a super fan of Jim's as well so he may pop in to fanboy all over him.

DOBETTERDNVR IS BACK! I got a message from her today announcing she is back. Jimmy Sengenberger posted this on X about it:

I'm so happy about this, as you can see in a story below.

HOSPITAL MATERNITY UNITS ARE SHUTTING DOWN And before Jared Polis tries to tell us that rural maternity wards are shutting down because of Trump let me direct your attention to this part of this story from CBS Denver:

Delta Health isn't alone. According to the Colorado Hospital Association, nearly 75% of hospitals in rural and urban Colorado have unsustainable operating margins. It blames state lawmakers in part, pointing to nearly 350 new state laws in five years that impact hospitals, including new reporting mandates on everything from charity care to complaint resolution. They also include new patient notifications on multiple issues, from facility fees to provider qualifications, and new rules on carbon emissions, staff name tags and more.

"Those unfunded mandates just cripple a hospital. Because we have people chasing that, then you can't have staff doing exactly what it is that they should be doing, which is taking care of patients," says Cohee.  

The legislature has also expanded the number of services covered by Medicaid and requires hospitals to screen uninsured patients for Medicaid eligibility and provide discounted care and bill forgiveness after three years.

Now the Big Beautiful Bill that returned Medicaid requirement to where they should be is also PART of the problem but we can't fix that at the local level.

A MICRO COMMUNITY EXPLOSION IS THE LAST STRAW For many in the Elati neighborhood where the tiny pallet home community was plopped down by the mayor a couple of years ago. An RV exploded outside the community this week and neighbors have had enough and want the high dollar homeless camp shut down. What happened? From CBS 4:

According to a Denver Fire department report on the incident, someone in the RV "fell asleep with torch on and caused clothing to lite(sic) on fire." The department sent four apparatus to the incident, which the fire department called "unintentional."

Neighbors say the RV had been parked illegally for days before the incident and they had reported the issue over and over. Read this:

The neighbor said the RV was spotted illegally parked outside Elati Village days before it blew up, with residents of the micro community interacting with whoever was inside the RV. Those sightings prompted communications with city officials asking that something be done. In one email to a city councilman dated the day before the RV fire, residents wrote, "We're seeing a spike in vehicle encampments along the block. We've had issues with one RV that was camped out for 3 days in a parking spot reserved for Elati Village staff. We've contacted the mayor's team, DPD and ROWE(right of way enforcement)but haven't seen an improvement." The email went on to say, "We could use some help here. At this point the vehicle should probably be towed."

Of course the Mayor's office responded with "EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!" This is why we still need Do Better Denver. Stuff like this right here.

JAMES COMEY HAS BEEN INDICTED And I hope this is the first of a long line of tit for tat prosecutions where anyone in any party who lies or engages in illegal behavior is punished no matter how well connected. A girl can dream. Read about the indictments here. My big concern is whether or not the case is strong enough to get a conviction, because as I've said many times, you can indict a ham sandwich. It really means nothing in the grand scheme of things. I do want to point out something about the way this story is written. The story is about a spelling error in a post and this part chapped my hide and is solely designed to make the new attorney prosecuting this case look bad:

Halligan, a former Colorado beauty queen and White House aide who is expected to prosecute Comey, issued a statement about the indictment.

If you think Lindsey Halligan is not up the task, go ahead and make the case. She has zero prosecutorial experience, but she did work on Trump's legal team. But don't drag out a couple of pageants she did IN COLLEGE to make her seem like a lightweight. That she is attractive should hold no bearing on her competence one way or the other. If you want to question her credentials, ABC News found this way to do it:

A former insurance lawyer turned White House aide with no prosecutorial experience, Halligan has been advised by career prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office that seeking the charges would violate DOJ policy, raise serious ethical issues, and risk being rejected by the grand jury, sources said. 

That is an absolutely fair way to write this. I hope she realizes this is a must win case and how damaging this will be for her career if she doesn't.

ONE OF THE OG LEFT WING ATTACKERS IS DEAD I did not even know about Sara Jane Moore until I recently saw Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins. The show completely glossed over the fact that she was a suburban housewife who was radicalized by left wing politics before she shot at President Gerald Ford and missed. Now she's dead at 95.

THE TYLENOL AUTISM THING ISN'T NEW And the makers of Tylenol have been aware for YEARS that there was at least concern that taking the drug in pregnancy MAY lead to neurological disorders. The Daily Caller has the story here.

ROAD RAGE LEADS TO DEATH AND MURDER CHARGES Can we stop with the road rage? A man is dead now and another facing murder charges after an incident in Parker.

SHENANIGANS IN LAKEWOOD WITH JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS And this is too hard to explain on the air but it comes down to secret deals done behind closed doors with no public input that squandered tax payer dollars. Read it here.

MORE ON THE OTHER VICTIM IN THE EVERGREEN SHOOTING The family has chosen to remain anonymous but wants everyone to know their 14 year old continues a very slow and hard recovery. They also want everyone to know about his heroic acts that day. Read them here and continue to pray for both he and Matthew Silvertestone.

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE IN CERTAIN CLASSES ISN'T GREAT And I can totally see why middle and lower class Americans aren't feeling great about things now. Read more here.

DENVER IS A CERTIFIED ACCESSIBLE DESTINATION And certified as such by a travel group that specializes in travel for people with disabilities. This is pretty cool!

IS A WORLD FULL OF ONLY CHILDREN A GREAT IDEA? I say this as a mom who has only birthed one child but lays claim to two more. The rise of "one and done" families is understandable, as the cost of raising a kid is not cheap. But is a world full of only children a great idea? The article addresses that concern here:

While common misconceptions dictate children with no siblings are lonely, spoiled or socially awkward, a review of more than a hundred related studies shows that’s not the case. In fact, Newman said only children often demonstrated generosity, social skills and emotional intelligence.

But birth order makes people into different SORTS of personalities. I am so a middle child in that sense it's ridiculous. I'm just curious about how that will work out in the long run. I find it funny that the article is predicated on Trump wanting people to have more kids. If he said he only wanted liberals to have one child or less there would be hippies with six kids in ten years.

PROVING YOU'RE AN AMERICAN

THERE'S A OLD TIMEY BASEBALL GAME COMING UP! This is the coolest thing and you need to go check it out if you're in Boulder. Find out the details here.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NEW HOMES THAT MAKES THEM WEIRD This is super interesting and probably why I buy older homes.

MORE FEAR MONGERING FROM LEFT POLITICAL LEADERSHIP They never get sick of inspiring people to violence with crap like this.

SPACEBALLS 2 GETS A TABLE READING And I love a good table reading, which is when the entire cast gets together and simply reads through the script together. It looked like this:

But why is even this a joke?

IF GOLF AND FOOTBALL COMMENTATORS SWITCHED STYLES Not only is this funny it's a good lesson in what's called "over modulation" in our industry. Watch below or click here. I'd love to see Dave Logan do this.

A CUTE GENDER REVEAL THAT DOESN'T LEAVE A HUGE MESS Watch below or click here.

TRUMP AND ELON ARE BACK TOGETHER AGAIN Sort of.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE CALLED FROM VARIOUS STATES It's called demonyms and here's a handy map.

SOMETIMES IT'S BETTER TO REMAIN SILENT AND LET PEOPLE THINK YOU ARE AN IDIOT Than to open your mouth and confirm it.