Get the rope: Forget the unfortunate lynching routine with black rodeo clown Leon Coffee at the National Western Stock Show. And ignore–if you can–the inexcusable “Jew down” joke repeated by longtime rodeo announcer Hadley Barrett, even though stock show president Pat Grant had promised in a letter to the Anti-Defamation…
When most people drive by the north Denver neighborhoods strung out along Interstate 70–including Globeville, Elyria and Swansea–they assume the area is entirely industrial and don’t notice the hundreds of homes tucked in between the factories and junkyards. If told that the neighbors are angry because trucks roar down their…
You can take two million dollars out of Dennis Rodman’s checking account. While you’re at it, go ahead and set it on fire. With his endorsements, he’s paid seven times that. Every season. You can also take him off the floor and sit his crazy ass on the bench. Not…
Read and Buried Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “Where the Bodies Are Buried in Boulder,” in the January 23 issue: In a word? Bravo. If you are quiet, you can hear the thud reality makes when it smacks against the heads of those who wish to hide from the truth. Well, unless…
The natives–and even the ex-Californians–were getting restless. Four weeks after the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, the case was still the talk of the town, the state, the country–but there were so few new developments to talk about. Reporters kept rehashing the same old stories, chewing over the same old facts…
Members of the legal community were surprised and angry three months ago, when Gilpin County District Judge Kenneth Barnhill and prosecutor Jim Stanley had the temerity to try a juror for criminal contempt of court after she declined to convict a defendant in a drug case. The action, considered by…
Manual High School students talk about commitment to their school with a religious fervor. Many of them paint a rosy picture. Everyone gets along. Race has been overcome. The basketball team’s integrated. Some teachers can’t even remember the last fight they saw, much less broke up. And the school performs…
For years, car crashes in Colorado have been big business for a handful of doctors hired to perform medical exams on people claiming to have been injured in the wrecks. Members of this small group of “independent medical examiners” were frequently retained by insurance companies hoping to prove the victims…
James Darnell is in a rut. Just days before the 63-year-old Colorado Springs man was slated to go on trial for trying to hire a hitman to kill a woman and her young child, he was arrested for allegedly taking out a murder-for-hire contract on four other people, including a…
Taking stock: Yee-haw! Yep, the National Western Stock Show is in town, inspiring unusually pungent odors in Denver’s air and equally stinky reporting jobs by writers who don’t know bull about their beat. Which accounts for this correction in a recent newspaper: “A cutline in Tuesday’s Denver Post identified an…
Ken Fleck’s former career as an oil wildcatter in Kansas was a series of risky maneuvers–where do you drill and how deep? His present career as a calendar publisher may seem much more tame, but not the way Fleck does it. He’s taken the plunge into slick, specialty products like…
If they look hard enough, Green Bay fans will be able to find bratwurst in New Orleans. When it comes to fulfilling desire, you can find anything in New Orleans. Of course, the Wisconsin snowfolk might do better to sample the piquant local sausage called andouille, which Cajun/Creole chefs put…
The body was found at the bottom of a six-foot-deep pit at a construction site near a Boulder public-housing project. The hole was covered with particle board, marked with cones and blocked by construction equipment. Two weeks later, on December 19, Boulder County Coroner John Meyer ruled the death of…
What a Beaut Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s January 16 column, “Global Warning”: Patricia Calhoun is very defensive. She typically tries to steer the reader away from the real issue. The real issue is reality. Yes, little JonBenet was murdered. Yes, the police are handling the case in a much different manner…
Emily Herrera listened carefully to the first few notes of the aria emanating from the audition hall. The “Caro Nome” aria, she thought. From Rigoletto. The singer’s voice pierced the quiet like a dagger. She’s good, Emily thought. But she’s a coloratura soprano. Emily, a lyric soprano, relaxed. She listened…
Sam Zakhem casts a hungry eye on the milling bodies in the halls of the State Capitol. The press conference room is filling up nicely, but the crowd is mostly made up of well-wishers and business associates. Where are the cameras? “Are any of the TV stations coming?” Zakhem asks…
In an effort reminiscent of the 1950s national crusade to wipe out polio, beginning next fall, Colorado children entering elementary and middle school will be required to receive vaccinations against the hepatitis B virus, the leading cause of liver cancer. The idea is to protect the children from themselves in…
All Ramsey, all the time: The JonBenet Ramsey murder has created a killing schedule for local media pundits discussing the who, what, when, where and whydunit for a national audience. Denver Post columnist Chuck Green has been sighted on Dateline, Tom Snyder and CBS This Morning, where he was tagged…
There are those who think that communes reached their popular peak in the Sixties, but a new style of communal living called CoHousing is springing up in Boulder. These residential developments, which combine private and public living spaces, have helped some people solve their growing feelings of social isolation. CoHousing’s…
In Lyle Johnston’s lone beehive, a drowsy clump of bees staggers across a plastic honeycomb frame. They are in a semi-dormant state, more concerned with survival than with honey or the current queen. A warm, un-wintery buzz hums from the hive, which sits near a grove of old cottonwoods at…
Let’s hope Daffy Duck buys the Los Angeles Dodgers. Or Boris Yeltsin. If the Bosnian government puts together an ownership group, writes a check for 300 million bucks and moves the team to burned-out Sarajevo, that will be fine. Maybe Madonna is interested. For all that it matters, she can…
It’s What’s Up Front That Counts What’s the deal with the penis envy at your office? With all the stuff going on in Denver/Boulder, I would think you could have a better cover story than Eric Dexheimer’s “Growing Pains,” in the January 2 issue. I also saw the little link…
