Fast and Furious Regarding Tony Perez-Giese’s “Pulling a Fast One,” in the September 3 issue: George Orwell, here we come! It’s not enough that local and state governments in many cities around the country feel the need to put cameras in public areas to “protect” us. Now they want to…
If she’d followed her heart instead of her mother’s orders, Antonia Figueroa del Sol could have been famous. As it happened, though, she married Ernie from the old neighborhood, moved to Denver and wound up packaging chicken thighs, T-bones and hamburger meat at King Soopers. Now and then, whenever a…
When Bill and Jack Swets decided to plant a maze in their cornfield an hour and a half north of Denver, they thought their biggest problem would be finding a way out once they stepped in to enjoy it. Designed by a Utah agro-artist, it’s a complex work of wonder,…
The way he tells it, Robert Francis Sylvester became an instrument of God one day in the spring of 1988. He was sitting in a jail cell in Arapahoe County at the time, serving a sentence for check fraud and reading a brochure about a place in Vermont called Dismas…
Denver’s decision late last month to inaugurate a potentially controversial photo-radar system comes just as four other Colorado municipalities are suing the state for cracking down on how they have used photo radar. An estimated 200,000 motorists in Denver may be more than a little interested in the topic, as…
He-e-e-r-r-re’s Johnny: It turns out that voters in state House District 1 will have failed statehouse candidate Johnny “Gonzo” Gonce to kick around some more. That’s because Johnny just won’t go away–and he especially won’t shut up. Despite having gone down in flames in last month’s primary to GOP rival…
Even though the journalism profession suffers from a low public opinion, there are advantages to the business. Reporters, for instance, enjoy more legal rights than the average person: Thanks to so-called shield laws, they generally are not required to reveal their sources of information–even in the course of a lawsuit…
For three-year-old Rachael Septon of Denver, the classic childhood food peanut butter can be a deadly substance. Rachael has a potentially fatal allergy to peanuts. If she ingests them in any form, she breaks out in hives, her eyes swell shut and she has trouble swallowing and breathing. Rachael’s parents…
Alley Oops Two homeless men who were charged with felony criminal mischief after they threw a beer bottle at Denver Post photographer Brian Brainerd’s truck (they also kicked the vehicle) were released from Denver County Jail last month after a Denver jury found them not guilty. The two men, Jose…
Once upon a time, in a game far, far away, a princess named Chris Evert started collecting U.S. Open tennis titles like charms on a bracelet. Her racquet was wooden, her dress was snow-white, and her words were measured–if she spoke at all. When the announcers at tournaments called her…
Here is the gospel according to Miss Hill: “You have five seconds to make a good impression. It’s packaging. You don’t buy things in a yucky package, do you? And perhaps you’ve bought inferior products because they were in a nice package, haven’t you?” I have, I now realize. And…
Saving Private Calhoun Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “Private Lives,” in the August 27 issue: What happened–did Ms. Calhoun take a nice pill last week? It’s difficult to believe she actually has a family, much less can write movingly about one of her ancestors. But once I got over my shock, and…
Forty-seven-year-old cop Ken Storch can barely contain his enthusiasm this Monday morning in August. Dressed in shorts and a T-shirt that reads “Aliens are Real: The Government Doesn’t Exist,” he revs the engine of his RV in the Bear Valley Mall parking lot. He’s itching to get going on Colorado’s…
The surgical team gathers early one Saturday morning, not exactly hiding what they’re doing, but not advertising it, either. The procedure is still in its experimental stages, and who knows how people will react. Dr. Stanley Biber stands beside the operating table, white light shining down, the patient’s chest rising…
This case really smells. The first deal went down on April 8, 1997, in a Kmart parking lot at 50th and Federal. Dennis and Mona Mohan arrived in their BMW and were met by a man who called himself “Earl” and had the product in a Foley’s department store bag…
Ramsey tough: This week’s revelation that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gail Schoettler’s husband Donald L. Stevens was a college buddy of John Ramsey’s at Michigan State University has prompted the usual blast of conspiracy theories about the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. More mystifying, though, than Stevens and Ramsey’s status as former…
The Rocky Mountain News expects to soon be an official sponsor of the Jefferson County public schools under an agreement that calls for the newspaper to provide everything from high-school journalism workshops to commencement speakers. In return for $95,000 a year for the next five years, the News will get…
Licensed practical nurse Velma Gilbert says that on June 20, when she began working for Caring Hands, a home-health-care company that provides services for the Cherry Oaks Retirement Community in metro Denver, she was promised a $1,500 signing bonus. She never saw the bonus. During the next six weeks, Gilbert…
My grandfather was too old to fight in World War II. He went anyway. (He lied to get into World War I, too–but was booted after recruiters learned he was underage.) In 1943 he was an orthopedic surgeon, his practice finally taking off after the Depression, when patients often couldn’t…
Suicide Botch I read Patricia Calhoun’s August 20 “Suicide Mission” with great interest, as I have worked in the psychiatric field for ten-plus years and have evaluated individuals for lethality. If the documents in this case regarding aftercare instructions are true, West Pines should probably be prepared for a settlement,…
On the last day of May 1985, on an isolated nine-acre patch of land in the middle of a former wheatfield 25 miles northeast of Denver, Gary Antonoff created his own personal government. It didn’t have an army, or even any citizens to govern. But it had all a government…
This is how Department of Corrections spokeswoman Liz McDonough describes the events of last June at the Colorado State Penitentiary, during which close to a dozen inmates were forcibly “extracted” from their cells and charged with offenses ranging from disobeying a lawful order to assaulting staff and engaging in a…
