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Living Off the Fad of the Land Regarding your December 6 issue: The Globeville family that Robin Chotzinoff wrote about in “Globeville Warming” is living a modern version of nineteenth-century village life like that described in a George Eliot novel. It is refreshing to read about people not caught up…

In 1984, then Colorado Republican Party Chairman Bo Callaway set up a charitable corporation ostensibly to fund speech contests for Colorado high school students. The board of the tax-exempt, and therefore supposedly nonpartisan, entity was made up of state GOP heavyweights: Callaway, party vice-chair Mindy Meiklejohn, party secretary Carol Beam,…

Carrying the fear of gangs to new heights in Colorado, the Greeley Mall kicked out a 44-year-old Denver woman earlier this month for wearing a blue bandanna on her head. At the time of her ouster, during a busy Sunday shopping excursion, Theresa Seamster, a supply technician at Denver’s VA…

When the patriarchs of two of Colorado’s most powerful families joined forces over two years ago, it wasn’t for another megamillion-dollar business deal, or a shared sinecure on a corporate board, or even one of those glittering charity events. It was disease that brought Chuck Stevinson and Bill Coors together…

part 2 of 3 When the call went out at a little after 4 a.m.–female brutally raped and assaulted in Silverthorne by white male driving green or dark-colored pickup truck–police officers from across Summit County began to converge on the scene. Among them was deputy Joe Morales, who was asked…

part 3 of 3 In March 1993, Heather Smith was 27 years old and working at her father’s company. She had many girlfriends and welcomed admiring looks from men attracted to her face and a body that had once made her a nationally ranked swimmer. Her friends thought Heather led…

part 1 of 2 The train pulls away from the Broadway Marketplace station with a meek oomph of acceleration, headed for downtown. It ascends above Alameda Avenue, whips through the railyards, leans into West Colfax–no rumbling, no lurching, no clacking, just that oh-so-slight push at the start, like a cat…

Photos by Heather Weiser part 1 of 3 The little girl forced herself to remain still as death. Otherwise he, the thing that waited in the dark of her bedroom, would pounce. She lay in the exact middle of the mattress, beyond reach of any hands coming from under the…

part 2 of 2 Jon Caldara lives on Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder. Every fifteen minutes or so, an RTD bus rumbles by his house. Caldara has never seen more than five people on the bus. “Usually, there’s two,” he says. “We’re talking about a bus that pollutes like a dozen…

Duty and the beast: Establishing a herd of buffalo out by Denver International Airport remains a top priority for the city (see story this page). But the animals themselves might have a beef with that. Buffalo are sensitive to noise, says Southwestern food expert Sam Arnold, and loud sounds can…

Making a Clean Breast of It Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “The Body Politic,” in the December 6 issue: It is typical for Ms. Calhoun to complain when another company is responsible enough to police itself for obscenities while ignoring the smut in her own paper. If only Westword were content to…

As the train pulls into Denver’s Union Station, its massive, red locomotives are veiled in billows of smoke. Appropriately, the vaporous clouds increase rather than decrease as the engines chug to a halt and the passengers disembark. Welcome to Marlboro Country. And welcome to the “Marlboro Unlimited,” a custom-built, luxury…

Daylight inventory of the holiday items decorating the Denver City and County Building: Three miles of lights, unlit. Several hundred yards of faux-pine garland strung through green chain-link anti-vandal fencing. Six red faux-velvet bows, two lopsided. One neon angel, blowing horn. Two large, slightly listing nutcracker men supporting arch. One…

The Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Community Services Center of Colorado (GLCC) embraces all kinds. But when the GLCC hired a straight consulting firm to help run the 1996 Gay Pride festival, some people thought it was taking diversity too far. “It’s like a Jewish organization running the Black Arts Festival,”…

Denver officials are struggling to find the money to build a sixth runway at Denver International Airport. But one longtime political ally of Mayor Wellington Webb has had no problem landing her own DIA revenue stream. Wilma Taylor, a veteran political activist and Webb campaign worker, will soon be appointed…

Buck Oletski is digging carrots in the garden he’s tilled for almost 57 years. When he straightens up, he has a clear view of the house he was brought to as a baby in 1917. And whether he looks left, right or directly ahead, all he sees is Oletskis. His…

John Spearing thinks Colorado needs a parents’ rights amendment because of a self-esteem test Pueblo School District No. 70 gave his then-nine-year-old daughter four years ago. The written test, administered to all third-graders in the district at the time, asked children to answer “yes” or “no” to a series of…

The fight stuff: Whether or not Mayor Wellington Webb succeeds in stopping the “Ultimate Fight” scheduled to hit town December 16, this dueling-palookas business has plenty of politicians on the ropes. Last week, Denver City Council president Debbie Ortega worried that if the fight goes on, people will think of…

You’re an average guy, which is to say, occasionally you like to be tied up and whipped. But you have questions. For example: “How do Colorado’s self-defense laws apply to me if things get out of hand?” Fortunately, there is precedent. Unfortunately, it’s not very encouraging. Say that you were…

There’s a big problem with the recent selection of Jim Monaghan, Wellington Webb’s campaign consultant, to lead a study on why Denver’s seven municipal golf courses are operating at a $429,000 deficit this year: Monaghan & Associates knows nothing about golf. Then again, the current flap surrounding the courses isn’t…