Been groped on a Tokyo train lately? Me neither. If you do often find yourself the gropee, then maybe it’s time to download some anti-groping messages to your cell phone. At the moment you suspect someone invading your space simply flash, err, show the message “Groping is a crime, shall we head to the police?” to your assailant. Why am I picturing the photo message delivered by a kickboxing spiky haired anime character?

Currently the Rocky Mountain News is running a five part series by reporter Kevin Flynn exploring the development and construction of RTD’s new “West Corridor,” which will run from downtown Denver to Golden as part of the Fastracks commuter rail plan. In every transportation project you read a few short articles about someone’s home or business being snatched up and the need to relocate a select few. Kevin Flynn digs deep into the details of specific plots of land and their owners. He balances the positive future elements such as transit oriented development and pedestrian friendly neighborhoods with the consequences of long time residents enduring construction and drastic changes. Here’s an excerpt:

This was a thriving community back when the Golden trolley line was running.

Just north of the Federal station site, where the sea of Invesco Field parking lots begins, there was a mishmash of businesses and homes, stone-cutting shops and power plants, meat markets and smokehouses, churches and synagogues. All were in the shadow of the old Colfax Viaduct, a spindly steel-and-concrete affair replaced in 1982 with the concrete monster that’s now there.

It was an integrated neighborhood glued together with the common bond of hard work and enterprise.

Steel tracks still are embedded in the intersection of Decatur and Howard. They were part of the Denver Lakewood & Golden Railway, laid out in 1890 by former Rocky Mountain News owner William A.H. Loveland.

Here is Kevin Flynn’s full series, as well as a video portion.

Depending on which way you teeter on border of fiction and reality this is either the most important news of the week, or biggest waste of print/bandwidth: Deborah Netburn of the L.A. Times, gives us seven clues that Dumbledore was gay.