News

One day this spring, J.T. Colfax crossed the line. He’s been on the edge before. The time he papered a New York City wall with stock shots of actors who’d been cut at an audition and labeled them “rejects.” Colfax made the New York news with that one. The time…

A Mutant Point I was struck by the volume of mindless, vitriolic mail from slavering mutants published by Westword in the May 15 issue. Hey, this is our paper! If you militant hatemongers don’t want to get your sensibilities in an uproar, I suggest you return to your regular reading…i.e.,…

In February 1994, the United Food and Commercial Workers union, Local 7, got a second chance. The previous spring the state’s largest labor organization had made a bid to unionize the Alamosa City Market’s one hundred or so grocery workers. But Local 7 had lost the 1993 campaign for new…

Buying a box of crackers at a supermarket in Grand Junction would ordinarily be uneventful. But these days even a humble cracker is the stuff of controversy, as the City Market checkout clerk is happy to explain. “I never got sick from eating them,” she reassures an anxious customer. “The…

Abortion doctor Warren Hern is used to seeing protesters outside his Boulder clinic. He just doesn’t expect them to come from the pro-choice ranks. In April, Bill Baird, a nationally known abortion-rights activist, and Margie Wait, the Colorado state director of American Atheists, picketed Hern’s Boulder Abortion Clinic. They claimed…

Here’s a brainteaser for you: A half-dozen thugs chase down and beat up repo man Robert Bradbury, who’s confiscated their tow truck. They stomp on him and punch him–leaving him with a cracked rib and a concussion–before taking back their truck and racing off. Concerned citizen Andrea Anders, a 31-year-old…

Hoping to cash in on the “American dream of home ownership” with minimal effort, a Littleton company is holding an essay contest to give away a $150,000 house. There’s just one catch: The house doesn’t exist–and neither does the $150,000. In a scheme that has already drawn the attention of…

It was a deal only a utility could dream up: The state would give US West $25 million to help extend the company’s network throughout Colorado’s public schools, locking up a lucrative market. And the phone giant almost got away with it. Earlier this year, Governor Roy Romer announced that…

A fine body of work: The man busted earlier this month for allegedly defiling cadavers was none other than performance artist J.T. Colfax, who’s appeared in this column numerous times. Denver native James Michael Thompson had changed his name to honor his hometown’s longest street before he headed off to…

Put Up Your Dukes Scott Yates’s article about Charles Duke (“Final Analysis,” May 8) really is nothing more than a cheap shot. Are you ever going to do the same to loony left-wing legislators? No, I think not. Why is that? The only reason I can think of is Westword…

The white Nissan pickup backed slowly down the dirt road toward the irrigation ditch just as the sun began to rise. Rocks and dry grass crunched underneath the tires as the truck neared the water, effectively obscuring any sounds from the truck bed where a man, his voice muffled by…

Eighty-two-year-old Valjean Joshvema leans forward in his chair and sings a Hopi prophecy that has come to pass. The ageless Hopi lyrics foretell of an era when the Hopi will wander the high desert mesas they and their ancestors have occupied for more than twelve millennia. According to the prophecy,…

Over the past six months, someone allegedly has committed a string of burglaries at the Monument home of state senator Charles Duke, making off with Duke’s pocketknife, part of his 1996 tax file, a single component from his laser printer and a “tie-clip” microphone the legislator had used to bug…

Mild in the streets: As if to justify Parenting magazine’s recent pick of Boulder as the top place to raise your kids (into spoiled brats), bored white youth rampaged through the town this past weekend, throwing espresso mugs into bonfires and rallying to the cry of “We’re too young to…

In the fall of 1995, Kenneth Allen Coleman made the mistake of his life. Flush with cash from an insurance settlement, the 28-year-old parolee got mixed up with a flashy dope peddler named Andrew Chambers, who was eager to sell him a kilo of cocaine for $16,500. When Coleman showed…

None of the regulars at the Trackside Bar on the outskirts of Holly has seen the Virgin Mary on Yolanda Tarango’s bedroom wall. Most have seen the TV reports, though. A few even saw the news helicopter land. And no one is shy about throwing their two cents in. “I…

It’s Their Party Regarding Ward Harkavy’s “God’s Own Party,” in the May 1 issue: I am not surprised that churches are wanting to take over politics and have ties to right-wing nut groups. How many more people will die in the name of their “God”? I doubt their God even…

Lights flashing, the vehicle sped toward the intersection, hurrying to an emergency call. But approaching fast from a side street came another car, this one driven by a seventeen-year-old about to run a stop sign. The two vehicles collided not in Denver, but in Grand Junction on December 28, 1993…

The Rushing family’s mobile home stands alone off U.S. 34 on the arid plains southeast of Greeley. Speeding past on the two-lane highway, motorists are likely to miss the trailer. They’re equally likely to miss the town, identified by a solitary highway sign as Dearfield. As has always been the…

For two decades Al Meiklejohn was Mr. Republican in Arvada. His state Senate seat was safe, and Republicans themselves were safe picks for voters looking to speed up business and slow down social change. Meiklejohn is one of those Republicans who ally themselves with chambers of commerce. They used to…