In 1989 the life of fortysomething anthropologist Rebecca McSwain was changed by MTV. “The video of `Dr. Feelgood’ by Motley Crue really struck me,” she says, laughing at the absurdity of her confession. “All the cliches were there–the fire, the cars, the long hair–but it was all new to me…
part 2 of 2 It is a Wednesday evening at the Stony Creek Elementary School library, in southern Jefferson County, and about twenty parents have gathered to discuss what to do about the district’s plan to splinter Stony Creek’s much-praised inclusion program. It is, they agree, just another example of…
part 1 of 2 By all appearances, Dave Spinks is an excellent principal. He moves through his bustling one-story school easily and informally. He greets each child by name and can spin a personal minibiography in a few sentences. His school’s staff-to-student ratio–about one-to-ten–is something that most private colleges can’t…
One day five years ago, Lucien Wulsin was walking down the hallway at the Naropa Institute. By then his white hair had grown out into a ponytail, and he’d abandoned the suits that had seen him through several distinguished roles: attorney, CEO of Baldwin United Corporation, chairman of the board…
Fool’s gold: Colorado author Clive Cussler keeps raking in the bucks–if not the Pulitzers–with his Dirk Pitt thrillers. The most recent, Inca Gold, is the usual yawn of a yarn, noteworthy primarily for three distinctly Cusslerian conceits. One is the author’s inclusion of himself in the action, in this case…
If you’d like a startling new insight into America’s strange love affair with the automobile, try standing beneath one of the underpasses at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway while 230-mile-per-hour race cars scream over the pavement above your head. The sensation is not unlike cozying up to a roomful of tornadoes…
If Jamey O’Donnell builds it, they will come. And that’s what worries political consultant Rick Reiter. “They” are the homeless, whom Reiter envisions flocking to a new Capitol Hill food bank proposed by O’Donnell, a 37-year-old former drug addict who founded the National Organization Against Homelessness less than two months…
In the 1981 cult movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, a Kalahari Desert bushman stumbles onto a Coca-Cola bottle tossed from an airplane. As the bottle passes from person to person, each interprets it as something different and finds a way to use it for his purposes. In Colorado Springs,…
Westword won nine awards at the Colorado Society of Professional Journalists’ 1993 Excellence in Journalism ceremony Friday night, competing for the first time in the big-newspaper class for publications with a circulation of more than 100,000. The only other papers in the class are the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, which…
The Name Is Bond Once again, good work by Westword on the airport. I’m referring to Arthur Hodges’s May 18 story about the bond lawyers, “Gentlemen Prefer Bonds.” The article was very well researched and written. Thank you for taking the time to do it right. Just remember, a million…
Joe from Crest has always been too busy to talk to me. Whenever I am swept into the cyclone of stuff that is Crest Distributing, browsing obsessively, Joe fixes me with his my-hearing-aid-ain’t-turned-off-YET look and says, “I know what you’re up to, don’t think I don’t.” But I keep right…
part 1 of 2 Cripple Creek police chief Ed Stauffer pushes back from the table at Creekers restaurant, leaving his plate of fries untouched and bringing on a lecture from the matronly waitress. He listens politely to her discourse on diet and health, then lights up a cigarette as she…
Last week’s decision by the New York rating company Standard & Poor’s to downgrade Denver International Airport bonds to “junk” status was bad news pretty much all the way around. Mayor Wellington Webb, already reeling from a steady fusillade of embarrassing headlines, suffered yet another blow to his reputation as…
part 2 of 2 The Central City Police Department sits just a half-mile from the site of Black Hawk’s police headquarters. Compared to Black Hawk’s new digs, Central City officers have a modest home. But they’re pleased nonetheless. The officers moved into their headquarters building–a defunct casino–in January, after making…
Their daily bread: The hits just keep on coming, but we’ll wager that Denver’s dailies, which dutifully logged recent national coverage of DIA (and, in the Rocky Mountain News’s case, helpfully corrected inaccuracies), ignore the latest flak. That’s because the current Newsweek takes aim at a particularly sensitive target with…
For a time this month, your Denver Nuggets became America’s Denver Nuggets–the fulfillment of underdog dreams, the hope of every factory worker who ever fantasized about playing in the bigs, wowing the Grand Ole Opry or sailing a yacht in Monte Carlo. Hey, nice piece in Sports Illustrated. Ain’t that…
Bad things are happening to old ladies,” Batman explains. “They’re getting jumped. Their purses are being snatched. You know how it makes me feel? Ticked off.” His eyes narrow like Clint Eastwood’s. “Real ticked off. So I says, `Don’t worry, ladies, I’ll walk the streets.'” Tonight, those streets have led…
In Jefferson County School District, where outcome-based education has been denounced as too radical, you’d expect administrators to be patted on the back for reviving elements of the fondly remembered one-room schoolhouse. But the move to “multi-age” classes has some parents in the state’s largest district angry. Because multi-aging combines…
This just in: Stapleton International Airport has disappeared. That’s the official verdict of the American Automobile Association, and it’s perfectly timed for the start of the summer tourist season. The 1994 AAA map of Denver, produced by H.M. Gousha, shows only blank, white space where Stapleton should be. Denver International…
The Doctor Is In…and Out Thanks for Eric Dexheimer’s well-researched and well-written article on Dr. Medenica and Charles Stevinson’s role in promoting him, “Trick or Treatment,” in the April 27 issue. I know nothing of Medenica but feel strongly that we must allow alternative medicine to flourish or die according…
If she feels at all beleaguered, Jennifer Moulton isn’t showing it. Standing behind a podium in the auditorium of Carson Elementary School, Moulton looks decidedly calm despite the anger and the heat. It is after 8 p.m., and more than 200 east Denver homeowners are in the audience, peppering the…
The beautiful Victorian castle above Colorado Springs where blue-collar bluebloods live out their final days proves that highly skilled manual labor can produce stunning results. But as the people inside the castle can testify, even the finest craftwork doesn’t last forever. Since 1892 the Union Printers Home has been a…
