LETTERS

Their Passion Was in Tents
I have just read Patricia Calhoun's August 17 column, "Fold Your Tents," in reference to the airport. Well done! It says everything that needs to be said again and again and again. The whole project from the beginning--there may never be an end--hasn't been well thought out and planned.

Your newspaper is the best--keeping information in front of the public that I'm sure some people would rather have hidden. We're fortunate to have Westword.

Jane Plomondon
Denver

This is in response to Steve Garber's letter last week criticizing Patricia Calhoun because she had said to vote for the airport in 1989. Westword's editor was not the only person who supported building a new airport five years ago; I think a recent poll said that most voters would change their votes if they'd known then what they know today.

But the point is, we didn't know those things then. And if it weren't for Westword, we still might not know what a mess it is out there! I, for one, congratulate Ms. Calhoun for not letting her opinion back then affect the way she writes about the airport now. At least she does not hesitate to tell the truth about the problems at DIA. Up until a few months ago, if you only read the dailies you'd have thought things were going fine! And they still don't seem to be telling the whole story.

Shannon Palmer
Denver

Rome on the Range
Great column by Calhoun about the Department of Public Works and Paula Woodward ("Chill the Messenger," August 24). While Rome (the airport) burns, Nero (Mayor Wellington Webb, Mike Musgrave, et. al.) fiddles around. This empire, too, will fall.

Sam Vigil
Denver

Ms. Calhoun is right about one (and only one) thing: Lots of us would tune in to see Paula Woodward in jail. And they can send all the so-called "journalists" in town, including Ms. Calhoun, along with her. No one would miss them.

H.T. Lassiter
Adams County

Platte Broke
After reading all of Westword's stories about Denver International Airport, I have a suggestion: Forget those plans for the Platte Valley and put the aquarium at DIA instead.

It already smells pretty fishy--and the folks who pushed it through reeled in Denver voters hook, line and sinker.

Henry Hanson
Denver

Denver, as a city beset with conflict and lacking any real sense of direction, could be best characterized as the "Beirut of the West."

I have for some time advocated that Denver should host a World's Telecommunications Fair during the year 2000. The fair--or EXPO 2000--could be held in the Central Platte Valley behind Union Station and would be a catalyst for change, giving the city a new sense of direction, creating a new tax base and new tax revenues and causing a regentrification of lower downtown Denver. If we don't, the Central Platte Valley will soon become "America's Largest Parking Lot."

It is said that Americans make the best dreams, and we know the idea of America is slipping away. Expo 2000 would be an engine of civic rejuvenation to reclaim the city of Denver's proud traditions. Expo 2000 is an opportunity that only comes once.

Norman L. McIntosh
Denver

A Brush With Greatness
Regarding Eric Dexheimer's "Unhealthy Competition," in the July 13 issue:
I certainly enjoyed the article on Brush and Fort Morgan. I grew up in Brush, and my father was a physician there for almost fifty years. He and "Hildy" [Paul Hildebrand] were good friends and worked together. I know nearly all the people you mentioned. Your article brought back many pleasant memories.

Your article was excellently done. I could tell you spent many hours on it, but it sounded as though you enjoyed it.

Brush has several problems that contribute to the rapid turnover of doctors. Brush's athletic achievements are well known; less known are Brush's academic achievements in all fields. While I was in medical school, there were four of us from Brush, three in the same class, and we had one man in dental school at the same time. There were only 75 in the med school class. Just think if Denver had this high a percentage!

Roger Eakins
Denver

A Bum Rap I thought Michael Roberts's "Woodstock Redux" in the August 17 issue was right on the money (literally!), and I couldn't believe those letters last week from irate baby boomers. Hey, it's the Nineties: Wake up and grow up.

Ira Levy
Denver

Regarding Peter Tonks's August 24 letter about "Woodstock Redux":
I would like to thank Mr. Tonks for finally making me realize that one of my previously favorite forms of aural entertainment--rap--is, in reality, comprised of "atonal, infantile jingles epitomizing that boastful human ego's self-deification" that can scarcely even be called music. I now realize that if I had confined my listening experience to cheerful, humble black people, I could have achieved as great a level of socioeconomic success and respect by now as Mr. Tonks and the members of his Woodstock Generation have, instead of being the downwardly mobile, blunt-smoking cretin I am today. If Mr. Tonks would be kind enough as to lend me his collection of Stepin Fetchit CDs, I promise to begin my cultural re-education as soon as possible--before it's too late.