Ready for Blastoff It’s the Rael thing: Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “Space Case,” in the February 17 issue: Mr. Roehr’s evaluation of the whole Ward Churchill controversy is really right on the money. It couldn’t have been expressed more clearly — but once again, it seems that the media have to…
5:55 a.m.: 7600 Broadway They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway…but right before dawn, on the hillside where Broadway begins, the only lights are a hint of orange and pink on the horizon to the east, the beacons of a convenience store a few blocks down the two-lane…
Inmates who joined in a hunger strike at the Colorado State Penitentiary last month were hoping their protest would attract a media feeding frenzy — and put pressure on officials to modify harsh conditions at the state’s supermax prison. Instead, they just got hungry. The official story of the strike…
Get ready for some serious barking. The city’s one-year pilot program for off-leash dog parks will end February 28, and neighbors and pet owners are already baring their teeth. There was much ado about everything last year when the Denver Department of Parks and Recreation floated the idea of creating…
Denver could be showing another art exhibit the door. Jared Anderson, director of The Assembly art gallery, has come under fire from the Denver Zoning Department because his monumental sculpture (below) — it’s fifty feet long by fourteen feet high — could violate a little-known subsection of the city’s zoning…
Every year at about this time, which just happens to be Black History Month, I am seized by sudden anxiety attacks. Questions will race through my skull, causing my eyes to roll back in my head and my lips to tremble. Often I will speak in tongues. What was the…
Talk-show host Ed Schultz apologizes for missing a scheduled interview. He explains that Tom Daschle called, and he “couldn’t get him off the phone.” Schultz insists that Daschle, who was Senate Minority Leader prior to losing in last year’s election, isn’t a blabby pest with too much time on his…
Then those Things ran about With big bumps, jumps and kicks And with hops and big thumps And all kinds of bad tricks. — The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss Just because you enjoy having guests doesn’t mean you have to invite everyone. Every organization has its Things…
Between Iraq and a Hard Place Band of brothers: Laura Bond’s “Iraq and Roll,” in the February 3 issue, was the best article I have read in Westword for months! It gave a real feeling for the horror of war. I’m glad that the members of Lucid Dissent found comfort…
Suzanne Shell raises chickens in rural El Paso County. It’s not the world’s most exciting job, but Shell’s other pursuits — which include working as an author, journalist and documentary producer, running a contentious website called ProfaneJustice.org, offering her services as an expert consultant to parents accused of abusing and…
The Rocky Mountain Progressive Network has undergone some changes in recent months — and, no, it hasn’t recruited Ward Churchill as its new spokesman. To gain a larger national presence, its name has been changed to Progressnow.org; it’s hired the technophile behind Howard Dean’s much-lauded Internet campaign to launch the…
The prosecutor asked for thirty years. Probation officials suggested 24. Under Colorado law, the minimum sentence for knowing and reckless child abuse resulting in death is sixteen years in prison. Last week, Alamosa District Judge John Kuenhold decided to split the difference. He gave Krystal Voss twenty years for causing…
“I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General,” the patter song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, features tongue-twisting lyrics, but they’re never so twisted as when Gene Scheer plays the Major-General. For this past weekend’s Colorado Symphony Orchestra performances, Scheer added a thoroughly modern, and local, twist…
We really ought to add an amendment to the Constitution. I don’t have the phrasing down quite yet, but it’s something to the effect that you should be allowed to say what you want and write what you want, just because. You know what I mean? Maybe it could read…
The creative forces behind Bias, a proposed multimedia venture aimed at young adults, seem convinced that there’s nothing more hilarious than homicide. Among the first items in a sample issue of Bias magazine that’s been shown to potential clients in recent months is “Drink to the Lost,” a feature urging…
George Karl, the Wizard of Westdenver, will get a little breather next weekend when the NBA All-Stars come to town. That’s because none of the delinquents in his just-founded reform school — not Carmelo Anthony, not Kenyon Martin, not Marcus Camby — got enough votes to earn a roster spot…
That’s a Wrap! Stuff it: Okay, it’s official. Westword has become the hardest-hitting, in-your-face reporting magazine on the face of the planet. I mean, who could possibly disagree? With cover stories as hard-hitting as Adam Cayton-Holland’s “Word of Mouth,” in the January 27 issue, we can be sure Westword is…
The control booth at Globalsound Recording Studio in Broomfield rings with artillery fire as the sounds of rockets exploding and rounds firing from AK-47 and M-16 rifles boom through the speakers. In the vacuum of the studio, soundproofed and windowless, it’s a violent, percussive wall of noise. “That’s freakin’ scary,”…
The first thing that needs to be said about 2C-B, the newest designer drug to find favor in Denver’s club scene — or, rather, the old, obscure designer drug that’s newly popular — is that it needs a street name in a bad way. 2C-B sounds like the working name…
For wannabe rock stars, long hair is as de rigueur as trashing hotel rooms and blasting a Marshall full stack. But Tyler Campo, bassist of the Denver indie-pop band Cowboy Curse, has been growing his mane out for a less decadent reason: to donate it to Locks of Love, the…
After Bush staffers used finger puppets and an instructional video to explain to their boss just what, exactly, a columnist does, President Bush ordered Cabinet members to stop hiring writers to promote the administration’s policies. “We will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda,” he said at a rare…
If you think of the four events of an all-around gymnastics competition as musical pieces, then the vault is a single, piercing high note that must be nailed without warmup. During the floor exercise, and on the uneven bars and balance beam, a gymnast has the opportunity to ease into…
