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Seldom is the legal rule of innocent until proven guilty so ignored by the public as in cases of ethnic and racial hate crimes. The charges are toxic enough to begin corroding the accused immediately, and for a crime that is enormously difficult to prove–was he a black victim, or…

Lord of the manner: Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich apparently likes rules–and lots of ’em. When the House recently hired a “protocol adviser,” Congresswoman Pat Schroeder joined a dozen other Democrats in protesting the “wasteful and embarrassing use of funds” and then, predictably, took it a step further. “Now…

Al Pallone bought his 1975 Pontiac Grand Ville four years ago. Pallone, who had just made the change from industrial sales rep to middle school physical-education teacher, felt the car might make a nice change from the “sedate metallic four-door” his former company had provided as a perk. “I bought…

In October 1991, Coors Field was still just a blueprint, and the talk of the town was about the lease of the unborn diamond to the Rockies ballclub. The hoopla went something like this: After taxpayers were cajoled into shouldering a $161.3 million share of the $216 million ballpark, the…

Snitch, Snitch, Snitch After reading Karen Bowers’s article “Say Anything,” in the July 26 issue, I had to ask myself why my tax dollars are being wasted keeping two pieces of shit like the Rodriguez brothers alive. Steven Lee Hart Denver Women and Children Last Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “Girl Crazy,”…

part 1 of 2 Stan Dillard stares hard at a drop of rainwater that has worked its way through the roof to the ceiling. It hangs for a moment, then plunges to the thin carpet covering the floor of the Fraternal Club of Dining-Car Waiters and Porters. “Got a leak,”…

part 1 of 2 The little girl on the videotape pulls on her ponytail and tries to remember all the things she misses about her Daddy’s house. After all, it’s been a year since she’s been there. “My friends, and going around the neighborhood, and saying `Hi!’ to the old…

part 2 of 2 “Clare’s book is poorly named,” says Mark Everson, director of the Program on Childhood Trauma and Maltreatment at the University of North Carolina. “She calls it Children Speak for Themselves. But her approach is not to put any weight on what the child has to say.”…

part 2 of 2 The elder Cousins was the epitome of self-discipline. He’d purchased his first home in Atchison, Kansas, when he was seventeen years old and had it paid off by the time he was eighteen. Then he moved to Denver to work for the Pullman Company, selling the…

Prose and cons: Back in ’93, local Independence Institute activist David Kopel co-wrote an op-ed piece with a fellow named Theodore H. Fiddleman that accused the federal government of a “coverup” in the Branch Davidian debacle. The only “coverup” that can be proven so far is that Theodore H. Fiddleman…

This week marks a potentially momentous shift in how the poor and uninsured receive their health care in Denver–and, possibly, in the way all hospitals try to attract patients in Colorado. Fanning the winds of change is a new Colorado HMO called Community Health Plan of the Rockies and its…

One of Colorado’s most powerful law firms has gone face to face with the tiny Moffat Tunnel Commission–and the lawyers blinked. Earlier this year, the attorneys at Brownstein Hyatt Farber & Strickland sent the tunnel board a bill for $28,000 for sixteen days of work. Among other things, the law…

Pickup basketball is a physical sport, as evidenced by the playground rule “No blood, no foul.” But when the guy who gets smacked is a Denver cop, the rules change. What began as a friendly game of hoops last fall has evolved into a nine-month court battle in which a…

Beat It Regarding Robin Chotzinoff’s “Beat Cop,” in the July 19 issue: Malicious. If this wasn’t a perfect example of the type of borderline-libelous and creatively sensational writing that gives journalists a bad rap, I don’t know what is. Simply put, it was completely one-sided, vicious and damaging. If the…

part 2 of 2 Chris started informing on other inmates almost immediately after arriving back in the joint. He once allegedly turned in another inmate for smoking pot in return for a promise that he could make a few phone calls. His propensity to tattle was common knowledge among the…

part 1 of 2 Chris Rodriguez pops up from his plastic chair and begins to pace the length of the interview room at the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City. His voice ebbs and flows as he walks the three steps from the window to the door and back again,…

Of all the screaming, revving multitudes at the Malibu Grand Prix Race Track, only thirteen have made it into the Elite 49, a club that celebrates the 49 seconds (or less) it takes them to drive one lap of the half-mile Malibu track. Members of the Elite 49 get their…

Poll faulting: If it’s summer, it must be time for the City of Denver to go after Channel 9 again. Last year Mike Musgrave, then manager of the Denver Department of Public Works (and now one of the handful of mayoral appointees whose post-election resignations have been accepted by Wellington…

It’s not a common goal, or even a popular one these days, but to Eugene Duran it was real: He wanted to be a labor lawyer. And for seven years he was, negotiating higher wages and fighting against unfair firings for Teamsters Local 435. Last year the labor lawyer and…

A controversial black gay AIDS activist has been run out of town with a bloody nose–assaulted by an apartment manager, he says, a convicted drug dealer who worked for his former employer and arch enemy: the Urban League of Metropolitan Denver. The dispute, which took place in an apartment complex…