While most Coloradans are busy planning how to spend the state tax refunds they will receive thanks to our booming economy, residents of Huerfano County are anticipating the opposite: Homeowners in the southern Colorado county could actually pay higher taxes this year to make up for money their local government…
The only person charged by police in connection with last summer’s “Ghost Bridge” crash in rural Arapahoe County that killed two young girls has become something of a phantom herself. When 21-year-old Jennifer Lynn Wambeke, whose younger sister was one of the two killed in the June 21 accident, failed…
Steel yourself: The Denver Broncos may have gotten the last laugh, but not before Pittsburgh had a few yuks at our expense. Last Friday the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette offered its “Top ten reasons to be extra thankful for home-field advantage,” some too filled with Pittsburghian lingo to translate, but others easily…
Super Bowl, Stupor Bowl. I’m thinking ballpark. I’m thinking ballpark food. Baseball-park food. I’m thinking cornmeal-crusted red snapper on a pink plastic plate with the bulging eyes staring at you, and a huge heap of something unnamable piled next to him as a bonus. What are these things? Look like…
Steer Clear! Yee-haw. I wouldn’t have thought that Kenny Be could top his “politically corrected” guide to the Stock Show on the cover of the last issue–but then I saw his Worst-Case Scenario about “high-speed skier safety headgear.” I’m sure you’ll get complaints from all those tasteful folks out there,…
When Suzanne Harris and Peter Ludwell quit their full-time jobs to become crusaders in the fight for health freedom, they expected to draw fire from critics of their conspiracy theories regarding government and big business. But it never occurred to them that their life’s work would go up in flames…
Derek Cianfrance, the local filmmaker headed for the Sundance Film Festival in a few weeks with his first feature, Brother Tied, had good reason to become unhinged during the process of making the film: At one point, his landlord locked him out of his editing room. The solution? Equally unhinged…
A man who tried to push Governor Roy Romer out of office by running against him is now trying to push him out by suing him. “I don’t want to send Romer to jail,” says Dick Sargent, a Republican candidate for governor back in 1994, “but I filed this thing…
It’s my party, and I’ll die if I want to: Colorado was the center of the universe in 1997 and proved it by ending the year with Michael Kennedy’s death in Aspen–an anti-advertisement for skiing that could set Colorado Ski Country back years. It didn’t help that skiing snagged another…
Boulder law enforcement agencies neglected to take care of their Christmas shopping early last year, and rampaging students at the University of Colorado made them pay for it. When riots broke out last May in the area known as The Hill in Boulder, local cops felt they didn’t have enough…
There was a day when working men in America carried hod or baked bread or laid bricks or descended into the hell of the mines to blacken their lungs and die young. In scant off time, such as it was, working men visited houses of worship and toted blocks of…
Was it good for you? A year ago, Colorado was barely a blip on the political map, a handy way station where national candidates could drop in to stuff their pockets on cross-country junkets, a state more notable for Monkey Business than real money business. But that was before Colorado…
I Am Furious, Yellow The January 1 Year in Review cover may have been intended as a parody, but with it, Westword showed its true colors: yellow, for yellow journalism. You people are as trashy as any of the tabloids you mock. Ginger Foster Denver Hello, Denver. As a former…
Colorado was all the rage in 1997. We had road rage. We had Ramsey rage. We had ragin’ Caucasians. We raged against the injustice of it all when John Denver splashed into one more drink off the California coast. We were frazzled, irked, incensed, piqued, miffed and generally ticked off…
It was a sad state of affairs. Their Mother, “Butt Breath,” Could Not Be Reached for Comment “Dumb Face,” a female grizzly bear at the Denver Zoo, died of cancer at age 26. She was survived by her brother, “Fat Mouth.” The Lost World For the third year in a…
They may be fools, but they’re our fools. BILL McCARTNEY Occupation: Hot-for-Jesus love machine Coach Mac wasn’t content to have other guys get together in big, sweaty masses and talk about how bad they’d been to their women. He had a deep need to punish himself, too–and he gave himself…
First and last, 1997 marked the golden anniversary of Jackie Robinson, hero. Otherwise, the sublime and the ridiculous kept bumping into each other. Tiger Woods, age 21, chewed up the Masters field by a record twelve strokes, while Mike Tyson chewed on Evander Holyfield’s ear. Jeff Gordon dominated the Winston…
That Was Zen, This Is Now If I lived in Boulder, I wouldn’t worry so much about what’s being built on the land as what might be in the water. Judging from everything from the Ramsey case to Eric Dexheimer’s “Karma Crash” (great article!), in the December 18 issue, something…
It’s 10 p.m. and two weeks from Christmas, and a father and his two young boys are standing before the monster-sized gumball machines at the front of the store. “No, you can’t get any of that crap, goddammit,” the man says through his teeth. “You haven’t even bought your presents…
There are no moments of luxury in the life of a horse-abuse investigator. It’s a world of hiding in bushes with video cameras, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes while staking out some lonely pasture, looking for signs of animal mistreatment. Danger? How about escaping from a rake-wielding horse owner or…
A group of Highlands Ranch homeowners is not exactly thrilled with the hum of progress and has filed suit against Public Service Company of Colorado, saying that the company should bury its noisy power lines. The lines were recently upgraded to provide added juice to Park Meadows mall and the…
Dem bones: Henry Solano, Colorado’s U.S. Attorney and a former Roy Romer cabinet member, may be headed for Washington. He’s been nominated as the Department of Labor’s next solicitor general, the agency’s No. 3 job, which would put him in charge of hundreds of lawyers. If his nomination is confirmed…
