On Sunday, when Colorado returns to using its own employees to check the backgrounds of prospective gun buyers, the state will become the first to drop the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NIX) since the program began last November. The decision–made by Governor Bill Owens amid a swirl…
In the wee hours of the morning, an electronic signal beams out of the heavens and splashes into satellite dishes mounted on 12,000 schools across America. Later in the day, hundreds of TV monitors within each school switch on automatically and students’ eyes lift to the screen in unison to…
Earl Dodge could use a drink. That is, if he believed reports that a daily alcoholic beverage or two drastically reduces the risks of coronary artery disease. But Dodge, who is recovering from multiple bypass surgery, is the last guy to have a cool one for his health’s sake. “Alcohol…
Pity poor Montreal. In that northern outpost, you can hear the vendors pouring Molsons up in the third deck while everyone waits for hockey season to begin. And Baltimore. On the shores of Chesapeake Bay, another expensive chemistry experiment has blown up in manager Ray Miller’s face. While Will Clark…
Right Schwing Hey, Dan: This may seem like a naive question, but where in New York can one take a friend for a discreet lay? Central Park? The city appears to be specifically designed in order to prevent privacy (most frustrating: the Ramble). My place or hers? We are each…
Ted Carpenter is a sore winner. “I find it depressing that the Denver Art Museum did what they did and the press either protected them or stood aside,” he says. Underlying that blanket statement is a peculiar saga that says a lot about the way museums and collectors did business…
Sam on Wry In regard to Patricia Calhoun’s July 22 column, “The Answer to a Riddle,” I’m glad to see that Sam Riddle is taking some heat! I’ve heard Tom Martino and Peter Boyles speak their minds about Sam, but it was nice to see a lengthy and thoughtful editorial…
In northwest Denver, you wake up, rub the sleep from your eyes and straggle toward Common Grounds at 32nd Avenue and Lowell Boulevard. There you wave to a friend, breathe in the aroma of espresso and order a muffin or scone and a large coffee. You grab a table, scan…
This two-story house in a cozy subdivision just northeast of Boulder, with its bountiful flower garden, shutters and gables, and a kid-sized bike propped up on the broad front porch, doesn’t seem like the home of a starving child. But for the first five months of her son’s life, Sharon…
Overexposure: On the 15th Street side of the Denver Dry building, a dusty Waxman’s window display showcases the city’s Kids, Cops and Cameras program, started back in 1992 by Denver police officer Steve Rickard. Working in conjunction with the photo store and the Denver Housing Authority, Rickard, then a technician…
Denver’s newspaper wars are going bilingual. Even the New York Times took note of the vicious fight-to-the-death between the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post in a May 31 story, duly reprinted in the local press. But while the Big Two continue to scratch each other’s eyes out over…
Hold On for the Ride Denver District Judge Michael Mullins ruled on July 12 that Deborah Lee Benagh, who claims she was injured on Six Flags Elitch Gardens’ Mind Eraser, will get her day in court (“Twists and Shouts,” June 17). Elitch’s had asked the judge to dismiss the suit,…
John Sadwith sees a neighbor up ahead and lets his foot off the gas, bringing his gold Toyota Camry to a stop in front of a split-level house in Denver’s tony Crestmoor neighborhood. “We won!” he yells out the window. “Won what?” the woman asks. “Ambrosia Bistro,” Sadwith explains. “Oh,…
For the twentieth century, it’s suddenly the bottom of the ninth with two outs, and that fact has unleashed a wave of nostalgia in the nation’s baseball fans unmatched since, well, since Big Mac hit number 70. For instance. Prior to last week’s All-Star Game in Boston, current players from…
Two guys, one with a walker and the other with a cane, sit at opposite ends of a long table at the boarding home. “Hey, there. How are you doing?” “Getting along. Getting along.” “Better than me.” “Oh, I don’t know about that.” The guy with the walker is William…
Last Friday night was not Sam Riddle’s finest hour–on or off the clock. But his arrest for disobeying a lawful order and mouthing off at a pair of Denver police officers–followed by a sobering night in the slammer–was just the capper on what had been a truly lousy week for…
A Word to the Wives Juliet Wittman’s July 15 “Dead Reckoning” was an excellent story. Well-researched and very evocative as to person, place, time and the circumstances of both women’s lives. I loved how a “rough-and-tumble” life such as Robson’s was still presented in the context of her value as…
By the beginning of this year, Deanna Furlong had been thinking about divorcing her husband, Michael, for over two years. On the afternoon of January 5, she left work early and returned to their Longmont home, intent on getting him to sign divorce papers. By evening, she lay dying at…
There was a time when Louis Colaiannia gave up playing the piano. The decision to quit came shortly after a large, drunk and clearly unhappy patron of the arts tried to heave one on top of him. This was twenty years ago, in the decade of wide lapels and Earth…
No lawyers, jurors or judges are in this small room in southwest Denver, but a seventeen-year-old boy is about to be sentenced for spray-painting four buildings along Federal Boulevard. Minutes before he is led into the room by his father, five community members–including the store manager of one of the…
Out of Focus: You’d never mistake Peter Boyles for a member of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family broadcasters. Although the KHOW talk-show host boringly believes we all must take responsibility for our actions–he makes no secret of the fact that he’s been sober for well over a decade–Boyles is…
Here in Rocky the Leprechaun’s converted Evergreen garage, Mark Speck has reached ground-zero for his Y2K doubts. He eyes the display of thirty No. 10-sized cans of Mountain House freeze-dried foods. Rocky looks on. “I only carry main dishes,” says Rocky. “Mmmm. Chocolate,” says Mark, before turning his attention to…
