Jefferson County just doesn’t get the message. When confronted with bad news, Jeffco inevitably decides to kill the messenger rather than contemplate the message. Which, almost as inevitably, is this: Someone screwed up. Again. The most recent screwup involves more leaked documents coming out of the Columbine investigation (the grand-champion…
Both Channel 9 and the Rocky Mountain News have produced plenty of reports of late about Ocean Journey, which will close its doors on April 2 unless a rare form of aquatic life — a well-heeled sucker — decides to donate many millions of dollars to a joint that’s gone…
Before last week, I regarded the game of cricket as a stodgy ancestor of our baseball — as a peculiar English obsession no less mystifying than the love sonnets of Sir John Suckling or those gray clots of mutton you sometimes find on your dinner plate in London. That has…
Ready, Fire, Aim The Rifleman: As a member of the National Rifle Association, I read with interest David Holthouse’s “Living in Exile,” in the March 21 issue. I knew it would only be a matter of time before the bleeding hearts would come out of the woodwork. The tagline on…
On February 14, Denver mayor Wellington Webb made Tom Strickland his valentine. At a press conference at Civic Center Park, Webb presented the former U.S. attorney turned Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate with a glittering endorsement. In praising his many efforts as Colorado’s chief federal prosecutor, the mayor paid special…
Thirty-six and a half months per bullet. That’s what Joseph R. Morrison got when he was sentenced March 1 to five years and three months in federal prison for illegal possession of two .308-caliber rifle rounds. The details of his case are as follows: On June 21, 2001, Morrison contracted…
Colorado’s Ocean Journey made headlines this week when the aquarium revealed that it plans to close on April 2 after being unable to find a way to pay off millions of dollars in debt. A more modest announcement earlier this month barely rated a mention in the city’s news media,…
Six-foot-four, 300-pound “Big John” O’Brien cooks up “big ass” burgers. He drives a “big ass” bus. And that’s fitting, say his ex-employees, business partners and landlords, because O’Brien — a legally besieged Denver restaurateur and fugitive from justice — is truly a big ass. O’Brien, 49, first began making a…
It doesn’t have the Hollywood hook of The Lion King, the critical acclaim of Tantalus or the Big Apple bite of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change!, but Almost Heaven: Songs and Stories of John Denver — the story of the late John Denver’s life and work, told in…
The people have a right to know — but public officials have a slippery grasp on that basic tenet of democracy. On Monday, Attorney General Ken Salazar and Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas convened the first meeting of a task force designed to clear the air around Columbine –…
Jackie Selby certainly isn’t a radio novice. A native of Scottsdale, Arizona, she’s been a disc jockey since the ’80s and has held high-profile roles at stations in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Vail. This trend continued after her 1994 move to Denver, where she was heard first on the Peak…
Stiff Penalties Boy toy: I was appalled by what I read in Julie Jargon’s “Playtime Is Over,” in the March 14 issue. I cannot believe that any psychologist could think it is appropriate to use adult sex toys with children in therapy! It is not enough for the state to…
Dallas is sitting on the larger of two blue leather couches in Dr. John Dicke’s office, quietly eating a chocolate chip cookie. The little boy seems content and comfortable here, but there is something unfamiliar in the room this week, and its presence intrigues him. “Why are we taking pictures?”…
Ralph Fisch, who co-founded the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Institute (CAAPI) with John Dicke in January 2000 and has supported Dicke’s use of adult sex toys in the treatment of children who have reportedly been sexually abused, will likely lose his teaching job because of his association with the therapist…
Four years ago, the race for Jefferson County sheriff attracted about as much attention as a quilting bee in Punkin Center. The campaign, which pitted a powerful Republican county commissioner against a little-known Arvada police commander running as an independent, produced few fireworks and had a predictable outcome. This time…
“Shame on you.” Like monkeys and reporters, state lawmakers can be a shameless bunch. But that didn’t stop Randy Brown from heaping shame on members of the House Civil Justice and Judiciary Committee last week. After four hours of emotion-charged testimony, including pleas by Brown and other parents to seek…
Last spring, staffers at the Rocky Mountain News were aghast when the paper’s logo was removed from one side of its landmark 400 West Colfax Avenue headquarters and replaced with the words “Denver Newspaper Agency” — the entity created by a joint operating agreement to handle business operations for both…
The Denver Post has gotten a lot of attention from public officials lately. And much of it has been far from positive. Examples? On March 5, the paper published a letter written by state senator Ed Perlmutter, who condemned a February 26 Post editorial lambasting an amendment he’d put forward…
What disorder compels a man to neglect his accounts, shun his family, starve his dog and inflate his bar tab so that it looks like the U.S. defense budget? What terror binds the victim to couch or barstool, gazing at multiple boob tubes for twelve- or fourteen-hour stretches, day after…
Bored Stiff The battle of the bulge: Well, I enjoy clever penis references as much as any other stiff, and Patricia Calhoun and Westword obviously are interested in giving rise to them. So out comes Westword, unzipped and all, to extend El Dildo Bandido’s fifteen minutes of fame and spin…
On a Monday in early January, Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Deputy Jim Taylor was finally brought to account for the strange and disturbing story he’d been telling about the Columbine massacre for nearly three years. Summoned that morning to a meeting with internal affairs, Taylor admitted that the story was, in…
Rumors of the zip code shuffle started bubbling through parts of Sloan Lake and West Highland — north Denver neighborhoods that had been happy with their 80212 label — a few months ago. Then came the special-delivery surprise: Not only was the United States Postal Service proposing to move some…
