Denver swelters, media gyrates, oil rigs keep flying up

The days of Denver’s being a low- or no-air-conditioning town appear to be a distant, heat-hazy memory.

The cow town that used to have only one or two weeks a summer necessitating any sort of thermal-comfort device on Thursday set a record of 19 straight days with temperatures topping out at 90 degrees or above.

With a high of 100 Thursday and triple digits expected to last through the weekend, the mainstream media is in a frenzy. Nothing sells papers like weather stories, with the possible exception of animal stories. Combine the two and we

is an award-winning reporter who has covered energy, environmental and political issues for years. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Denver Post. He's founder of Real Vail and Real Aspen.