No one can deny that America Online is the cheapest slut on the Internet. The company hands out start-up CDs faster than a hooker spreads the clap (so far, it’s managed to infect 14 million subscribers with its unique brand of easy Net access). But as Denver Web developer Kenton…
This time of year, you’d think a truckload of Christmas trees would be a welcome sight, a Hallmark moment to lift the holiday spirit. But that’s not the case if that truck is rolling through Boulder County with Tony Smith at the wheel and a load of local trees in…
Bear hug: Impeachment-happy Republicans thought the timing was a mite suspicious, but the air strikes on Iraq proved an unexpected boon for Dave Liniger, the Re/Max International founder who’s planning to sail around the world in a balloon shortly after Christmas, circumnavigating the southern hemisphere at an altitude of 130,000…
The people in the picture on this page are all Denver musicians with at least twenty years’ seniority. Every one of them played with guitarist Tom Butters, who died of an overdose last week at age 46. And they are just a handful of the players who show up for…
Mary Christmas Thank you for Harrison Fletcher’s “Virgin Rebirth,” in the December 10 issue. What a pleasure to read–and what a nice story this holiday season! Joy Friedel Denver The statue described and pictured in the article appears to be Our Lady of St. John of the Lake. Auraria library…
Giving birth to a new town is exciting, but running one can be far more challenging than city fathers and mothers ever imagined. Just ask the folks of Foxfield, a 1.3-square-mile town at the corner of Parker and Arapahoe roads. Foxfield is only four years old, created after 700 residents…
The weekly meeting of the Arapahoe County Republican Men’s Club is the ultimate power breakfast. Over scrambled eggs and ham, influential business and political leaders gossip and scheme in a usually well-behaved manner. The opulent Metropolitan Club setting on Orchard Road reflects the comfort and good fortune of the south…
Debbie Black goes flying over a bank of chairs. A whistle blows; time stands still while she’s airborne and then buried under a tangle of spectators. Her teammates are frozen, sweaty on the hardwood, their chests heaving as they catch their breath, waiting to see if she’s all right. Black…
The company that Velma Gilbert worked for was called Caring Hands, but it didn’t seem to care much about one very important thing. Last summer, Gilbert, a licensed practical nurse, quit her job with the Littleton home health-care company after her employers continually refused to pay her wages. When Gilbert…
Death is different,” fellow jurists told District Judge Frank Plaut as he prepared for his first capital murder case, the trial of Robert Riggan Jr. on charges of first-degree murder in Jefferson County. But how different, even they couldn’t have predicted. In mid-October, Riggan went on trial for the murder…
When two South High School journalism students attempted to cover a fight in a school parking lot last month, only to have their film seized by Denver police officers, the incident touched off a vigorous debate about the rights of student journalists. But many parents and students were less upset…
The rust is history: Currigan Hall doesn’t get much respect these days–not since Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau bigwig Eugene “Big Is Better” Dilbeck became obsessed with tearing down the 1970 structure (which played the cloning lab in Woody Allen’s Sleeper) and expanding the Colorado Convention Center (also known…
Somewhere over Denver, moments after the fire, Cindy Andrews’s heart stopped for two minutes and thirty-two seconds. As she faded from consciousness, she could hear the whump, whump of a rescue helicopter and the frantic shouts of paramedics, and she said to herself, “I’m not ready to die. I have…
Rage Before Duty Regarding T.R. Witcher’s “Hell on Wheels,” in the December 3 issue: The failure to properly define the term “road rage,” and its all-encompassing use to define every conceivable traffic infraction, has led to even greater misunderstandings. Its misuse has diminished drunk driving by making it a version…
He isn’t saying it was a miracle, that an angel of God guided him to a particular place at a particular time and said, “Here she is.” He’s not saying that at all. But he’s not saying it was entirely coincidental, either. After one coincidence leads to another, and then…
Michael Garcia must have known he would die in prison. But no one expected that his death would come so soon, in front of so many people. When he was seventeen, Garcia did something so terrible that a Denver judge gave him two life sentences without hope of parole. Although…
This weekend the kids will head to the mall–where else? But when several dozen members of Students for Justice drop by the new Denver Pavilions at noon Saturday, it won’t be to do any Christmas shopping. Instead, they plan to protest the $24 million in “corporate welfare” sucked from taxpayers…
Think big: The biggest winner in this fall’s election was the Independence Institute–former director Tom Tancredo moved on to Congress, former-former director and founder John Andrews snagged the Colorado Senate seat left vacant when Mike Coffman became treasurer, and current director Jon Caldara defeated Referendum B just before he took…
At least this much is clear: Somebody entered the Payless Drugs pharmacy on South University Boulevard early in the afternoon on October 9, 1995, and tried to refill a prescription for the painkiller Vicodin. The pharmacist thought the guy looked “Arabic.” She also suspected his prescription was being refilled prematurely…
The finest professional athlete in Colorado will earn less than $15,000 this year. He has no sneaker contract (always goes barefoot) and will never be bothered by autograph hounds (couldn’t catch him if they tried). On December 2 he celebrated his second birthday, but by this time next year, his…
Somewhere in all the historic hairdo magazines is that one article that will remind Ethel Gomez how to build a beehive. Here, under the candy dish? There, by the invoice for the faux Titanic jewelry sitting in the display case next to the Kewpie dolls that double as air fresheners?…
Attitude is everything, these kids agree. Although they can’t prevent cops from stopping them–they accept that–they know that too much attitude can make all the difference after you’re pulled over for some minor thing, but really for “driving while brown” or “driving while black.” Juan Hernandez made the mistake of…
