part 1 of 2 “I have received your letter and one from your unfortunate boy. I am very sorry for you.” Over the past 120 years the paper has yellowed with age and the ink has faded to a light brown that is barely legible. The author, Miss L.M. Swenson…
part 2 of 2 By 1988 the situation at Mitchell had worsened. Dropout rates had continued to climb, as had drug use and gang activities–much of which Delia blamed on the nearby apartment complexes. Kids told her they were actually afraid to come to school. She asked superintendent Ken Burnley,…
Mark our words: When the city announced last week that warnings from a New York bond-rating firm had forced it to back away from $30 million in publicly financed loan guarantees for fiscally shaky MarkAir, one question was left unanswered: Why did it take so long for the city’s beautiful…
In the years that we’ve known and loved Bill McCartney, one absolute has been clearly established: Nothing the man does should come as a surprise. Yet when McCartney announced his resignation following the Buffs’ regular-season-ending victory over Iowa State, it was as if Newt Gingrich had thrown his support behind…
Bursting Her Babble Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “The Power of Babble,” in the November 23 issue: Methinks the lady doth protest too much. It is she who babbles. What would Calhoun have us do–give a medal to the pot-smoking lawbreaker? With people like this advising Clinton, it’s a wonder that any…
You would think that developer and financier Larry Mizel would have bigger battles to fight. Mizel, who has an estimated worth of more than $100 million, is chairman of M.D.C. Holdings, Inc., the largest real estate developer in the Denver area. Three months ago he sold his interest in Omnibancorp…
The tiny Denver Rock Island Railroad doesn’t have a cowcatcher on its lone diesel locomotive, but it may need one soon. The obscure, thirteen-mile-long railroad is engaged in a ripsnorting feud with the National Western Stock Show, which the Rock Island’s operator accuses of trying to put him out of…
Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton won attention and re-election this fall with the help of slick TV ads touting her crime-fighting skills. One such commercial, implying that Norton keeps our streets safe by personally contesting felons’ appeals, featured mug shots of some of the state’s most heinous criminals. As the…
When Denver attorney Jeff North sued Baker & Hostetler earlier this year, the prestigious downtown law firm tried in vain to keep from airing its dirty laundry in public. The firm, which had lured North away from the upper echelons of the federal Resolution Trust Corporation and then kicked him…
Linda Carlson watches intently as Rob Manierre’s three Arabians canter about the small corral, their tails aloft and sailing behind them like banners in a breeze. When the equine trio finally stops, Carlson, owner of the Boulder firm Equi-Sense, makes her way through the mud and manure to the seven-month-old…
part 1 of 2 In a two-week period beginning in mid-October 1993, Spencer Day went on a crime tear that was as remarkable for its workaday brazenness as it was for its repugnance. On October 19 he pulled an eleven-year-old boy off Wood Street in Fort Collins and forced him…
part 2 of 2 Most people know of aversion therapy through Anthony Burgess’s book, or Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 movie by the same name, A Clockwork Orange. In both, the leader of a gang of violent thugs is conditioned to become physically ill at the sight, or even the thought, of…
Timothy Wacker represents perfectly the conflict that mental-health professionals continue to face over the treatment of sex offenders. He started raping his sister when he was twelve, an activity he continued for several years. “The only time it was really hard was the first time,” he says. “After that, rationalizing…
The white stuff: Denver is no better at predicting blizzards than it is at predicting airport openings. After the flurry of prognostications that called for a big dump last weekend, the city canceled the first official flight into Denver International Airport–a United Airlines Stapleton-to-DIA charity deal that was set for…
As Bill McCartney can tell you, if you’ve ever been to a football game in Texas–any football game–it’s like full immersion at the river bend. Texans take their football as seriously as their cattle, or their oil wells, or their ancient dislike of Oklahoma. If you don’t walk the walk…
Bully Button This letter is in response to the November 16 column by Patricia Calhoun, “Benson’s Bully Pulpit,” about the media and Bruce Benson’s loss. I think the media is just too damn nosey, not just about Bruce Benson but about the entire public. The media went on and on…
City work crews are unearthing hundreds of century-old paving stones as part of street resurfacing projects in booming lower downtown. They’re also digging up trouble. Area merchants and residents accuse the city of going back on a promise to save the “pavers,” which advocates say were handcut by stonemasons in…
Conflicts between Boulder street people and police on the Pearl Street Mall are sparking attempts to set up a watchdog panel to review allegations of police misconduct. The Boulder chapter of the ACLU and the Colorado Legal Eagles, a Nederland group affiliated with the modern-day-hippie Rainbow Family, plan to bring…
Earlier this year, when Boulder attorney Peter Rogers lost a routine child-support case for client Richard Kosnar, he appeared to go out of his way to make amends. Not only did Rogers write Kosnar a profuse letter of apology, according to court records, but he even offered to make Kosnar’s…
Park Hill businessman and his wife have received a six-figure, low-interest loan from the City of Denver even though they have a long history of financial problems and until recently owed the city treasury almost $60,000 in delinquent real estate taxes. Johnny and Bernice Copeland, owners of the Holly Shopping…
Richard Iannacito sells nothing but tomatoes at his family business on Cook Street. After years in the trade, he still answers his own phone and scrambles to stay competitive in the volatile produce industry. So when he learned in the spring of 1989 that one of his largest customers was…
part 2 of 2 The Clinic, Politics, and Wes Kennedy By the late Eighties it was clear that the AIDS epidemic could not be dealt with as other epidemics had been in the past. Polio and tuberculosis, for example, affected people in specific ways that could be addressed by a…
