The last time the big guns of the National Rifle Association came to town, the blood spilled at Columbine was barely dry. Mayor Wellington Webb had urged the group to cancel its annual convention set for Denver in early May 1999, and when the NRA came anyway, Governor Bill Owens…
You don’t need to listen to Congress’s only veterinarian to realize that all of the muck being thrown around in Colorado’s race for the U.S. Senate is nothing but manure. According to pollster Floyd Ciruli, voters are so turned off by the mud being flung in the multimillion-dollar media campaigns…
First Denver introduced Johns TV, the Channel 8 show featuring the least attractive supporting cast ever seen on television. Now it’s gone and prohibited frequent bedding changes. If it weren’t for the fact that the same Denver Water list banning promiscuous sheet-washing also rules out “washing impervious surfaces (sidewalks, driveways,…
On Sunday, Qwest Communications International announced that it will erase close to a billion bucks in alleged revenue from its books in an attempt to satisfy not just investors, but congressional investigators currently grilling company executives. A billion bucks, gone like that. But Qwest can take some consolation in the…
The Denver Police Department is the gang that couldn’t file straight. Its intelligence bureau should be renamed The Stupidity Bureau. Six months after the American Civil Liberties Union stumbled upon the existence of the DPD’s secret surveillance records of citizens — the so-called “spy files” — the bureau still can’t…
When I moved to Denver, some of the town’s top cops were tooling around in Caddys provided by Elvis Presley, the about-to-burn-out star to whom they’d provided not just security, but honorary police status, complete with badge and uniform. The Denver Police Department was just a decade removed from its…
On September 3, you can learn whether you’re on the city’s most exclusive list: a roster of people and organizations in the Denver Police Department’s intelligence files. Some of those on Denver’s second most exclusive list — the cast of characters considering a run for Denver mayor in 2003 –…
Last month, State Farm sent a memo to its Colorado agents and employees. The subject was Alan Prendergast’s June 27 Westword story, “Hidden Damage,” which followed the insurance travails of Sunserea McClelland — and the trial that resulted in her winning a $1.8 million jury verdict against State Farm in…
“You’re from Denver,” the white-hatted cowboy said as he started searching our bags. “You’re used to this.” Well, not this: “You got a gun in there?” he asked hopefully. At Denver International Airport, answering yes to that kind of question would get a traveler grounded for life. But we were…
Around the Fourth of July, Alison “Sunny” Maynard opened a letter from the Independence Institute. “Congratulations on your candidacy!” think tank president Jon Caldara told the Green Party candidate for Colorado attorney general. “To assist you in learning about the many issues facing Colorado, you are invited to a ‘Candidates’…
The biggest danger we face this July Fourth is not illegal fireworks, not the terrorist threat, but a menace even now confronting us at picnics and in parks across this sweltering city. The lost boys. Those elusive private parts intent on escaping the confines of men’s shorts and going so…
Barry Fey has braved the LoDo crowds still celebrating Colorado’s victory over the Yankees — “I hate Coors Field because of what the scores have done to baseball,” says the concert promoter and sports fan — to try the town’s latest steakhouse. Self-professed steakhouse, that is. “This is not a…
“In the name of Allah,” begins the handwritten pleading filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on April 26, “I, slave of Allah, Zacarias Moussaoui, by self representation for every rational vital reasons set in the memorandum accompanying this motion, move for immediate order directing that…
Telluride may have more publications per capita than any other place on Earth. It may also have more tender egos. And when the magazine 8750 (named for the town’s altitude) entered the crowded market back in January, it immediately carved out a niche for itself by running restaurant reviews that…
Last year, Rick Ashton, the director of the Denver Public Library, strongly suggested that all 500 DPL employees read Who Moved My Cheese?, the still-chart-topping, still completely inane business book that describes how two littlepeople, Hem and Haw, follow mice in their hunt for cheese, and in the process learn…
As you waited in supermarket checkout lines with your hotdogs and chips this past Memorial Day weekend, you could have picked up the Globe and found out how Frank Gifford was banned from his bedroom by Kathie Lee; you could have studied J. Lo’s barely clad backside; you could even…
By the end of an evening of margarita-testing, our teeth tasted like SweeTarts. Gritty, sour and vaguely fruity — a sad reminder of the apple, orange and pineapple juices we’d found bartenders around town inexplicably adding to the standard lime-tequila concoction. Despite the resurgent martini’s amazing staying power and all…
Plutonium lasts forever…or close enough. Certainly the stories surrounding Rocky Flats, the now-defunct nuclear-weapons plant sixteen miles northwest (and that means upwind) of Denver, are never-ending. The most controversial current chapter involves the six tons of weapons-grade plutonium scheduled for transport to South Carolina, so that the last phase of…
Impressive as its thirty-year run may be, the Bull & Bush (see story above) isn’t Glendale’s oldest saloon. That honor would have to go to the Four Mile House Bar (4590 Leetsdale Drive), which started life as a barn back in the days when what’s now Glendale was filled with…
They speak from the bookshelves. “What’s going on?” murmurs Greg Lopez, the Rocky Mountain News columnist killed in a hit-and-run six years ago, when he was just 35. Some of his best columns — and there are many — are collected in a volume whose name echoes Lopez’s trademark greeting,…
All decks on hand: Now that spring is here, patios and decks are springing up at eateries all over town. Pearl Street Grill (1477 South Pearl Street) has been serving on its backyard patio for weeks — and when a pair of restaurateurs on a scouting mission dropped by recently…
Denver remains the Sally Field of cities. “You like us, you really like us!” we cry out in gratitude whenever anyone pays us the slightest bit of attention. Best city for pets? We’re there. Best city for bikes? Ditto. Biggest laundromat? Then-congresswoman Pat Schroeder offered that sop back in the…
