Five students stand together at the front of a bright, spacious classroom. The tables that serve as desks are pushed aside and the chairs arranged in rows to form an audience. Spencer Isensee, an outgoing, ponytailed eighteen-year-old junior at P.S. 1 Charter School, begins the group’s end-of-quarter presentation. “For this…
“Last Things,” Jason Sheehan, January 7 Last But Not Least Really going to miss Jason. I follow him around, in a sense, and he’s never let me down; we will try Ondo’s. Love the writing, and he’s turned me on to at least forty places I would not have found…
Terrorist attacks like the underwear bomber’s incendiary attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day remind Americans that the threat of terrorism is still pervasive — and in Denver, that reminder usually translates to more attention for the Cell, the nonprofit at 99…
The future of charter schools in Denver looked bright in 2009. Despite voting to close P.S. 1 and Skyland Community High School charter schools because of sub-par academics, the seven-member Denver Public Schools board approved six new ones. They include the expansion of two existing, high-performing charters, as well as…
The evidence against P.S. 1 Charter School, the subject of this week’s feature, “P.S. 1 Didn’t Make the Grade, But Can Anything Replace Denver’s Longest-running Charter School?,” is harsh. Several reports from Denver Public Schools officials and the Colorado Department of Education detail what they see as the school’s problems:…
Rozita Swinton may finally get the help she needs. The 35-year-old Colorado Springs woman, who authorities believe made a hoax call that triggered a massive raid on a breakaway Mormon polygamist sect in Texas in April 2008, pleaded guilty today to one charge of false reporting on an unrelated charge…
Charlie Sheen has made some nice coin over the years working in front of cameras. But apparently he doesn’t want to do so for free — especially when it pertains to his December 25 arrest in Aspen for allegedly threatening and assaulting his wife, Brooke Mueller, with whom he now…
We knew Balloon Boy dad Richard Heene wouldn’t go away quietly. But with the help of attorney David Lane, he’s managing to make noise even while serving a jail sentence for pretending that his son, Falcon, had floated away in an inflatable silver chef’s hat. Lane’s claim: The amount law…
Hey, Denver! Here are some blogs about you! Kyle at Bronco Talk gets fans up to speed on reports that two veteran Broncos assistants, Rick Dennison and Bobby Turner, are leaving the team for Houston and Washington, respectively. Maybe the grass really is greener on the other side of the…
Confirmation that the federal government has no sense of humor: The book is being thrown at Longmont’s Jason Kay, whose sin was to relabel Gatorade bottles with a photo of Tiger Woods and his wife Elin and the word “Unfaithful.” As is obvious from an affidavit by special agent Daniel…
Since Denver mayor John Hickenlooper declared his candidacy for governor, Scott McInnis and his braintrust have been busy insisting that SM’s approach to the race won’t change — a point McInnis spokesman Sean Duffy reiterates. “No matter who the Democrats are running, Scott’s focus is still the same,” he says,…
Upon reading the “go fast beer at mice” message spelled out on the Sloan Lake-area sign in the above photograph, I was confused. Immediately I imagined that it might be advertising a new instant-pick lottery game based on a popular smart phone application that allowed gamers to fling mugs of…
No one doubts that lunch room food is offensive. And while I have nothing but respect for lunch ladies — they prepare, cook and serve thousands of meals a day to kids who take tater tots for granted (damn cholesterol!) — the fare itself is, well, just like when you…
In just-released county and employment figures from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, two Colorado counties get significant spotlight time — and not in a way calculated to please representatives Betsy Markey and Mike Coffman. Weld County, part of Democrat Markey’s congressional district, finished first among large U.S…
The latest session of the state legislature kicks off today, with (still) Governor Bill Ritter’s state-of-the-state speech slated for tomorrow. But immediately afterward, the real fun begins. Medical marijuana advocates plan to stage the Mile High NORML Cannabis Rally across the street from the capitol steps, with speakers slated to…
John Hickenlooper’s declaration yesterday that he will run for governor even as he keeps his job as Denver mayor creates a challenge for his mayoral staff, as mayor’s office spokesman Eric Brown acknowledges. Yesterday, for instance, he helped set up the Hick announcement — a task that had nothing to…
Englewood-based DISH Network faces plenty of challenges in today’s entertainment environment, not the least of which is piracy of its programming using software that lets folks with free-to-air receivers view it for nothing. Which is a lot cheaper than a monthly fee. Stopping all such schemes is damn near impossible…
Was a betta fish targeted during a home invasion in Boulder? Consider the evidence. According to the Boulder Daily Camera, a nineteen-year-old woman awoke during the wee hours of Monday morning to find an unknown man in her apartment. When she yelled, he split — and because she initially assumed…
He didn’t ride up on a scooter and he didn’t sky dive out of an airplane. He wasn’t wearing his pajamas or a crazy green bow tie or even a cowboy hat. Mayor John Hickenlooper had declared Tuesday “Dress Western Day” in honor of the National Western Stock Show. But…
Get in serious trouble, go to prison. Get into some bad shit inside prison — attacking staff, running heroin, or maybe somebody doesn’t like your gang tattoo — and you go to the hole, also known as solitary confinement or (in prison speak) administrative segregation. Reporting what goes on inside…
Last week’s cover story on LEGO Universe, an ambitious online LEGO video game being developed by Louisville company NetDevil uncovered lots of intriguing tidbits about everybody’s favorite plastic building blocks — like how serious builders use obscure terms like SNOT (studs not on top) to describe their bricks, and how…
If you can’t make it to the National Western Stock Show to see Miss Rodeo Colorado Kasie Pigg — either the way cartoonist Kenny Be imagined her, or the way she appears on her website and her Facebook page — you can read all about her via her Twitter feed…
