Class Dismissed

Dawn Everhart met her first spirit guide when she was three years old. Suffering from rheumatic fever in a small hospital room in California, Everhart was scared and couldn’t sleep. She lifted her heavy eyelids and realized she wasn’t alone: A sleek black panther was on her bed. It didn’t…

The Truth Is Almost Out Here

In the world of Ufology, it’s tough to be taken seriously. “There’ll be a sighting somewhere, and it’ll be a fantastic sighting,” says Mike Curta, state director of the Colorado Chapter of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). “Five hundred people saw it, and there’ll be an interview with a doctor,…

Off Limits

Our state legislators must be so jealous. First the Colorado Board of Education decides to flaunt the Constitution by demanding that the slogan “In God We Trust” be posted in public schools. (Hint to the Colorado Board of Education: Posting “In Math We Trust” might be more appropriate.) Then a…

It’s Black and It’s Proud

There are many types of niche magazines that might seem to have a shot at thriving in the Denver marketplace — ones focusing on, say, Broncos worship, sport utility vehicles or constructing a wardrobe exclusively by shopping at Eddie Bauer. Few observers would have expected, though, that a glossy African-American…

Taking the Bull by the Horns

Monty Doiel had his first inkling of trouble as he turned right at the end of Mercaderes Street onto Estafeta. The corner is hard and angular, difficult under the best of circumstances. Doiel had hoped his new black Nike Air ACG cross-trainers with the reverse-tread grip would provide an advantage…

Letters to the Editor

Blowing Hot and Cold Feel the burn: Our thanks to Westword and Eileen Welsome for bringing the dirty and disturbing history of Rocky Flats to a whole new audience in the current series “From Cold War to Hot Property.” She does her homework, and it shows. In 1986, my sister…

Letters to the Editor

United We Standby Rise and shine: I am writing in regard to the July 20 Off Limits item about United Airlines — the worst piece of “journalism” I have ever seen. It showed no professionalism or factual support whatsoever. Who knows why everyone loves to hate United so much? Is…

Suffer the Children

Last month, after waiting almost four years for an explanation, the public heard what happened the night two-year-old David Polreis was killed. Renee Polreis, who’d adopted the boy from Russia six months before his death, told a rapt courtroom that she apparently “lost it” the night of February 9, 1996…

The Child From Hell

Neuropsychologist Steven Gray sees many kids who have been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder. Working with them, he’s been struck by a common theme. “Most parents have a label for their child,” he says. “They’ll say, ‘I love my child, but my child is the child from hell.’ I hear…

This Place Is a Dump!

When the Atomic Energy Commission chose Rocky Flats as the site for its new nuclear-weapons plant, no one gave much thought to the wastes the plant would produce — nor would they think much about those wastes in the decades to come. In the beginning, the paper bags, cardboard boxes…

A Broken Code

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Last year, when several individual defectors from the Aryan Brotherhood, the notorious white-supremacist prison gang, expressed an interest in cooperating with the government against their own, federal officials rose to the occasion like Shriners at a testimonial dinner. They…

Off Limits

For years, opening day at Cheyenne Frontier Days has been “Colorado Appreciation Day.” But on Saturday, not a single appreciative Colorado official returned the favor by joining in the parade of cowboys, baton twirlers, Shriner cars and Minuteman missiles winding its way through downtown Cheyenne. Even if he didn’t ride…

Fox on the Run

If the established television-news purveyors in town were hoping that Channel 31’s foray into their territory — an hour-long broadcast unveiled at 9 p.m. on July 16 — would stink like the cast of Survivor after a long day on the beach, they wound up disappointed. The initial broadcast by…

Yuck!

Hall of Famer Robin Roberts was once asked to recall his greatest thrill in an All-Star game. The Phillies’ estimable right-hander answered immediately: “When Mickey Mantle bunted with the wind blowing out in Crosley Field.” Your Colorado Rockies should be so lucky. The recent eleven-game losing streak that likely spelled…

Bombs Away!

In the spring of 1951, engineering consultants for the Atomic Energy Commission crisscrossed the West, discreetly scoping out potential locations for a new government plant. Their mission was urgent and of the utmost secrecy; not even the governors of the states where the sprawling facility might be located had been…

I’m OK, You’re KO’d

Two men in their mid-twenties are talking outside a Capitol Hill bar. It’s 5:17 p.m. on July 5. Dirty D: “There’s this new guy in town. He’s from Philadelphia. He’s short, stocky.” Jerry Bronze: “Put him against Butz?” Dirty D: “Nah, he’ll kill him.” Bronze: “What about Crane?” Dirty D:…

Showing Its Metal

Shortly after the debut last September of the Daniel L. Ritchie Center for Sports & Wellness, an enormous, $70 million complex on the University of Denver campus best known for its gleaming copper exterior, Mark Rodgers, DU’s chief architect, got a call from the building’s namesake, chancellor Daniel Ritchie. As…

Crime Bytes

When Mary Jo Barber took a list of client names home from her job managing Hawley Printing Services, a tiny Wheat Ridge printing press, she thought she was doing the out-of-state owners a favor — balancing the books and helping Leslie and James Cowley complete the sale of their company…

Off Limits

United Airlines sucks. You know it. We know it. Even the people who run United know it, but they won’t admit it — at least, not to their customers. And this summer has been especially sucky. Just as Congress was realizing its mistake in dumping last year’s airline passengers’ bill…

When on Rome…

Jim Rome, a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and star of his own nightly TV program on Fox Sports, takes pride in talking smack. That’s his shtick — to rant about all things sports in the most arrogant, contentious manner possible and to inspire his foamy-mouthed listenership to do likewise…

Let the Games Begin

Olympic sports purists — i.e., those who stay up until 4 a.m. to watch the live telecasts of synchronized swimming, rhythm gymnastics, curling and badminton every four years — will be gratified to learn that plans are proceeding apace to include the game of contract bridge (and not contact bridge,…

Letters to the Editor

A Few Bad Men The wrong stuff: I read Alan Prendergast’s latest account of the Columbine disaster/fiasco, his July 13 “The Lost Command,” along with his previous reports, and it appears that what happened was the lack of the “right stuff.” What we should learn from this human tragedy is…