Leave Us a Loan Congratulations to Patricia Calhoun for cutting through all the crap the mayor’s office has been handing out about Denver International Airport (and Denver’s daily papers and TV stations swallow). Her March 23 column, “Loan Sharks,” was the only honest piece of journalism I’ve seen on this…
Julie Ireland storms into rehearsal, late, her long dress and long hair streaming behind her, her bare feet stomping along. “These guys are very, very fast,” she says of the comedy group she is about to direct. “Anything you teach them, they suck up like a sponge, although there’s quite…
The municipal judge in Edgewater is a convicted felon and former mental patient, but he’s considered an improvement over his predecessor. That judge reportedly was fired because he couldn’t seem to make it to court on time. The town’s police chief carries out “reverse stings,” in essence importing criminals to…
Pew-nitive damages: “Go thy way, and sin no more without consulting us first.” That was the word handed down from the Church of World Peace (whose international headquarters is located in Denver) to Tonya Harding and Michael Jackson, both of whom received plenary indulgences for their sins–perceived or real–from the…
This March Madness thing now has two lunatic faces–one male and one female. It wasn’t always so. Just a generation ago, the only women you saw around college gyms in the spring were waving pompons or cheering for their boyfriends. Through no fault of its own, women’s basketball was cause…
Construction delays at Denver International Airport have grounded a key DIA side project: the “Air Train,” the city’s sole attempt at providing efficient mass transit to the distant facility. “Definitely the fact that we’ve rescheduled the opening has put the Air Train on the back burner,” says Mike Dino, an…
A city bureaucrat’s pet pig has given new meaning to the term pork-barrel politics. In 1992 Carol Moran, the administrative assistant to current Denver City Council president Dave Doering, brought a Vietnamese pot-bellied piglet home to the Capitol Hill apartment building she owned with then-friend Karen Christiansen. Louise, as the…
The Girl Can’t Help It I read the “The Girl Next Door” by Andrea Barnett in the March 16 issue. Being a former racist, I understand the white pride issue. I am white and am very proud of my race. I think everyone should be proud of who they are…
To anyone who has ever lived in a small town, the characters are as familiar as Main Street: The judge with the smudged reputation. The curmudgeon who criticizes everyone in a public position. The inveterate writer of letters to the editor whose conspiratorial diatribes seem to contain a grain of…
Pat Rossiter is contemplating taxi-driver etiquette. It would be permissible, he thinks, to yell, “Hey, pal, your iambic pentameter stinks,” over the radio. Something truly vulgar, however, would not be. And should a cabdriver ever attempt to interrupt a live, on-the-air poetry recitation–well, that would be a “capital offense.” These…
Lance Clem can talk for hours about what’s wrong with the way millions of dollars designed to help people infected with the AIDS virus are being spent in the Denver area. But talk like that, he says, cost him his job as the executive director of the Governor’s AIDS Council…
Brooke Wolff doesn’t stand out from all the other blue-eyed, sandy-haired, fair-faced seniors pictured in the 1993 Highlands Ranch High School yearbook. But while other graduates’ names are followed by lists of activities–band, color guard, honor roll, swimming–Wolff’s stands alone. “My high school is like Beverly Hills 90210–there’s cappuccino and…
Melting down: Rocky Flats’ contamination isn’t limited to the Jefferson County facility. Washington lawyer Jonathan Turley is plenty hot over the Denver Post’s “Perspective” section, particularly its editor, Al Knight. Last month Turley was invited to speak about environmental crimes and, not incidentally, his most controversial clients–the Rocky Flats grand…
Let’s tear ourselves away from the war in Bosnia and the Tonya Rodham Clinton scandal for a moment to discuss something important–starting pitching. If your Colorado Rockies are to (dare we whisper it?) contend in the Nouveau National League West this season, their starters will have to throw something smaller…
His Gala Friday From reading Patricia Calhoun’s “The Party’s Over” in the March 9 issue, I can only assume that her upset with Denver International Airport was caused by everyone’s failure to invite her to the party. My real question: If she’s so upset with everything here, why did she…
Platteville veterinarian Tim Thompson has seen his share of beastly behavior, but the news that he’s working closely with the Antichrist himself comes as a bit of a shock. “Well no, I wasn’t aware of that,” he says. “Wow.” To understand exactly how his veterinary research ties into the imminent…
Rap star Hammer has confronted a sea of troubles over the last two years–sagging popularity, concerts marred by violence, allegations of rape lodged against members of his entourage. Now add to the list a recent judgment against a group of Hammer-owned companies in a lawsuit brought by Englewood’s Great-West Life…
The 500-channel future of television begins at Chatfield High. In a downstairs classroom of the Littleton school, home of the Chatfield Chargers, teacher Ron Gabbert and about twenty students in his advanced television- and radio-production class watch a just-completed program about the school wrestling team’s season. Mike Jones and Rich…
“I reckon being ill is one of the great pleasures of life,” Samuel Butler declared, “provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.” Yes, but Sam never had to contend with the modern hospital–or the hospital bill. Although car dealers talk about…
part 2 of 2 In February 1992 Casey went to live at another Utah-based program, Sorenson’s Ranch School in Koosharem. At Sorenson’s, Casey lived in a rustic cabin set in a high mountain valley. Like every youth there, he received a horse in order to learn responsibility. It would have…
part 1 of 2 Casey Collier’s quicksilver moods–kind and gentle one moment, unruly and obstinate the next–puzzled the people around him from the time he was a preschooler. He landed in therapy before he was ten, in a mental hospital at age twelve. The explanations for his actions seemed to…
Rush to judgment: Ouch. Not since the Broncos lost their last Super Bowl has Denver taken such a drubbing from the national press. In reporting the delayed opening of the “huge and controversial $3.2 billion” airport “28 miles from downtown,” the March 2 Wall Street Journal noted that the postponement…
