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Earlier this week, we offered an update on Adam Brickley, a University of Colorado-Colorado Springs student who was credited with helping to bring Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to national prominence via his palinforvp.blogspot.com website. Brickley subsequently agreed to participate in an e-mail Q&A about his experiences, offering plenty of new…

Judge Larry Naves’ decision not to reinstate Ward Churchill to his position at the University of Colorado at Boulder has emboldened CU in a big way. The school’s attorney revealed yesterday that Churchill will be billed ten grand or so for costs incurred while fighting his wrongful-termination lawsuit. Hard to…

Today, and for weeks to come, we at Westword will receive daily reminders about the contraction currently taking place in the media industry. The paper has been based for years at 969 Broadway — but as times have gotten tighter, the staff has gotten smaller, making the space too large…

According to 2007 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, Colorado Springs is home to more than 376,000 people, making it the 47th most populous community in these United States. Apparently, though, the folks at Gawker.com aren’t especially impressed by its size and scope. Why else would they headline a story…

Kristen Parker, the surgical tech who may have led to the hepatitis-C infection of hospital patients numbering in the thousands, continues to make headlines, and not just because her MySpace Page is filled with flashy photos and assorted confessions about, for instance, her love of needles. At this point, plenty…

One elephant produces a lot of poop — nearly 200 pounds per day, on average. Twelve elephants produce a shitload. It was that fact that got George Pond, the Denver Zoo’s vice president for planning and capital projects, thinking. Would there be a way, he wondered, to turn the thousands…

“The Body Shop,” Alan Prendergast, July 2 Dead Reckoning I blame CSI and all those other medical shows for giving people an irresponsible, inaccurate image of coroner’s offices, one that Adams County Coroner James Hibbard is doing nothing to correct. This is serious work that requires rigid adherence to science…

Muhammad Ali Hasan, the wealthy Muslim Republican, filmmaker and flashy former candidate for House District 56, made quite a name for himself when he was running for office in 2008. His political style stirred up conflicting opinions within the state’s Republican Party — particularly after his former girlfriend and campaign…

Raw testosterone leaks from slits on either side of their broad faces, running in rivulets down the wrinkled folds of their gray skin like liquid sideburns. The smell is acrid; one elephant researcher even described it as “evil.” It’s a stench that, when mixed with the potent urine constantly dribbling…

Anyone for a little gin and juice? Today in Backbeat Online: • Q&A with Snoop Dogg. • Last Night’s Show: The Rouge at Red Rocks. • Magic Cyclops + Lion Sized = The Germs? • Harmony Interactive Music Experience postponed. • The Informants reveal details of new album. • Introducing…

We’re all entrenched in the talkies these days, and silent films strike most of us as just a little bit hokey. What’s with all the broad gesticulating, subtitled inserts and tinkly, melodramatic piano music, anyway? A lot, actually. First, it’s food for thought on the subject of how the film…

“Caution: A Herd of Bull Elephants is Coming to the Denver Zoo,” this week’s cover story, looks at the Denver Zoo’s plan to build Asian Tropics, a new exhibit that will be capable of housing up to eight male elephants. The plan is (literally) a big deal, because so few…

Open your wallets! DIA officials need $1 billion to redesign the main terminal building. The money will pay for the removal of the security screening stations, and their long lines, from the “great hall’ of Jeppesen Terminal. The plan is to draw layover travelers with loose change from terminals A,…

Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech, a documentary currently airing on HBO, includes passages implying that attacks against former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill were coordinated by a number of ideologically driven organizations, including the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which was linked in the…

KUNC-FM is licensed in Greeley, but many listeners in the Denver-metro area seem to like it as well — when their radios can pick up the station, that is. The signal was particularly weak along the foothills in western Jefferson County communities such as Golden and Arvada. But within the…

A small item in the Business section of today’s Denver Post announces that the paper is raising the price of single copies for sale at stores and newsstands from 50 cents to 75 cents beginning on Monday — a decision as startling as the revelation that water is wet, wingless…