Happy New Year, Colorado Sunday friends!
I know, it’s a late greeting. But if you follow me on any of the four (four!) social media accounts I use for fun and not fun, I’ve been remiss about posting even the most basic information to keep my friends, family and “audiences” engaged. I blame taking on that fourth account and the stupid amount of emotional and creative energy it has taken me to figure out how to behave on a new platform. What should my tone be? Should I be posting more photos of my dog than news content? Is it safe for me to interact with people commenting on my posts? It makes me long for the good old days, when I was only concerned with filling up old fashioned print pages and someone else was in charge of delivering the news to subscribers’ doorsteps.
That’s why I feel for the creators Parker Yamasaki talked with for this week’s cover story about the very real threats to the powerful social media platform TikTok. They put a lot of serious effort into creating content that is useful and engaging. If the light turns out in the U.S., where will they go next?
It’s time to talk about TikTok
I need to level with you. I don’t have a TikTok account. I’ve never had a TikTok account. I used to watch a curated feed of TikTok videos via text messages from my brother, but that was the extent of the hold that TikTok had on my life. I say “used to” because at some point the privacy settings changed and I couldn’t watch the videos anymore without an account. He still (generously) screen records the best of them for me when there’s something on there that the two of us really need to discuss.
So if TikTok is indeed banned in the United States starting Jan. 19 — as some signs and most experts are pointing to at the moment — my personal life, to be quite honest, doesn’t change much.
But I’m not here to talk about how I use TikTok. And as I figured out while reporting this Sunday’s story, many of the people who have the most to say about TikTok — including creators, cultural commentators, legislators, Supreme Court justices and the former-and-incoming president himself — aren’t really concerned with their For You Pages, either. What they are concerned about is, well, hard to put into a single sentence.
I went into this story with a kind of outside-looking-in attitude, but the daily ritual of diving headfirst down this rabbit hole to emerge eight hours later, gasping for air with visions of NyQuil chicken and the Chinese Communist Party dancing before my eyes, awakened me to the much deeper, and highly consequential, conversation about TikTok that isn’t even necessarily about TikTok.
It’s ostensibly about national security and the right to free speech, but baked into those conversations are questions about America’s data privacy laws, surveillance, censorship, teen mental health, new forms of media and, of course, NyQuil chicken and the Chinese Communist Party.
See you on the other side.
READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE
Winter is on in Colorado and we’re taking advantage of it when and where we can. Here are a few of our favorite images this week.
A view of the West from Tremont Place
A visit to the American Museum of Western Art is a great way to celebrate the artists of the West, whether you’re in Denver for the National Western Stock Show or just in Denver.
The museum is also known as The Anschutz Collection because Denver businessman Philip Anschutz assembled the works of art. The collection was in his home for years before spending a few decades touring worldwide. It returned to Denver and has been on view since 2012 in the historic Navarre Building, which has also been a school, a gentlemen’s club (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), a restaurant and a jazz club, and is across the street from the Brown Palace hotel. More than 300 paintings and sculptures are displayed on three floors at any one time.
Works range from Albert Bierstadt’s “Wind River, Wyoming,” from 1870 to Edward Hopper’s “Mount Moran,” painted in the late 1940s. Of course, Charles Marion Russell and Frederic Remington are represented, and so are Georgia O’Keefe and Maxfield Parrish. And that just scratches the surface.
Each floor features walls full of works in a salon-style display. There’s also an actual salon outfitted in period furniture and more art facing the street.
The museum offers low-key ways to engage with Western art, including small reading and writing groups, and viewing sessions focused on a single painting or artist. Next up: Writing the West: The Seasons of Haiku at 2 p.m. Wednesday and Artful Insights: Maxfield Parrish at 3 p.m. Jan. 13.
American Museum of Western Art, 1727 Tremont Place, Denver: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Admission is $5. Guided tours, limited to 15 people, $7-$10 at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Reservations may be made in advance, but spur of the moment visits are also welcome. The ground-floor entry door is locked, so ring the bell to be admitted.
“Sinai Surrender” hints at complexity, international scope of thriller
“Just be careful my new friend. Expect nasty.”
— From “Sinai Surrender”
EXCERPT: Jake Tillard navigates a world of international oil and gas production on both sea and land, forging alliances and making enemies of powerful people along the way. Jeff Lelek’s “Sinai Surrender,” a Colorado Authors League finalist for thriller, introduces the unlikely protagonist — a geologist — as he suffers a near-death experience, earns the enmity of an oligarch and angles to make a deal with Australian interests. Indeed, expect nasty.
READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT
THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Though Lelek was a geology major in college, he knew early on that he’d eventually turn to writing — which he did after a career in the oil and gas industry. And he did so in a location that echoed the work of a famous thriller author. Here’s a portion of his Q&A:
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory. What inspired you to write it? Where did the story/theme originate?
In college, I earned a liberal arts degree (major in geology) and read/wrote innumerable works. After pulling an all-nighter and writing 22 pages of iambic pentameter for a two-page assignment, I knew someday I would tackle a writing project. Years later while commuting from Winnetka to downtown Chicago by the same train on which I heard Scott Turow wrote “Presumed Innocent,” I decided to take the plunge.
More than half of what I read is fiction, commonly featuring a lawyer or crime fighter. Almost never is the protagonist a geologist. Knowing the rich lives international explorationists can have, I decided to write a “bulk interest” novel starring a geologist on that train — 30 minutes in and 26 minutes out.
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH JEFF LELEK
LISTEN TO A PODCAST WITH THE AUTHOR
A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.
???? Three ranchers presented a nearly $600,000 bill for losses attributed to gray wolves released in Grand County one year ago. Tracy Ross reports that people watching the politics of reintroduction closely are skeptical all of the claims will be compensated — more so now that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is looking for the person who shot one of the wolves blamed for the predation.
???? Patrollers on strike at Park City Mountain Resort are having a big impact on the largest resort in the U.S. Jason Blevins learned that Colorado patrollers in or about to enter contract negotiations with Vail Resorts — owner of Keystone, Breckenridge, Crested Butte and Park City — are watching for the ripples here at home.
???? State Attorney General Phil Weiser is first to the starting line in what promises to be a crowded primary in the run for governor in 2026. Jesse Paul has the details.
???? It’s been a minute since the state Transportation Department boss stood up near Denver International Airport to talk about how new “hyperloop” technology might change travel in Colorado. Sue McMillin was in Pueblo when a different group rolled out plans — and the first segment — for a test track attempting to prove shooting people in a tube to Denver in just 11 minutes is more than a pipedream.
???? Too much of anything is bad for you, but the state is especially concerned about high-THC cannabis products. John Ingold reports on how the latest campaign to get people to ease off a little on the consumption is rooted in serious data.
???? Job creation incentives are always dangled in front of companies looking to move to Colorado. But Tamara Chuang checked the data and the number of jobs approved for the credit last year was a quarter of the number OK’d in 2023.
???? There’s a reason those black out license plates seem like they’re ubiquitous — they kind of are. In addition to giving us a low-stakes thing to complain about, Jennifer Brown reports that they’re doing a whole lot of good for people with disabilities.
Save the date! The annual National Western Stock Show Parade steps off from Denver Union Station Wednesday around noon and rolls up 17th Street to just short of the Brown Palace hotel. It’s worth your while — frigid Stock Show weather in the forecast or not — to witness 30 longhorn cattle leading the procession of horses, mules, stagecoaches and wagons, rodeo queens and wranglers through the heart of the modern city.
— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun
Corrections & Clarifications
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