I’m OK, You’re Hokey Regarding Kenny Be’s September 19 Worst-Case Scenario, “It’s OK Not to Play Football”: Give it a rest, Kenny! Even Dan Rather was more original when he went after Newt Gingrich. Bruce V. Bracken via the Internet Homo Neurotic After reading your piece on Paul Cameron (“Fatal…
Be careful what you wish for. You may get it. On October 1, five years to the day after gambling became legal in three Colorado mining towns whose finances were as shaky as the abandoned houses that dotted their hillsides, the city council of Central City convened in its new…
Paul Cameron was about four years old, he recalls, when a young man accosted him in an apple orchard and ordered him to perform oral sex. The memory makes him chuckle. “I must have been a beautiful and charming little boy,” says Cameron. “But I didn’t like it much. He…
The road to Leyden, Colorado, isn’t much wider than a trail. A simple sign on Highway 93 a few miles north of Golden points east, directing motorists onto a narrow gravel road that twists through a break in the dun-colored rock formations of the hogback. For more than two miles,…
Colorado’s governor and lieutenant governor have waded into the fight over the proposed Animas-La Plata water project in southwestern Colorado. And some of those opposed to the project see the move as a step toward a pared-down version of the oft-delayed government endeavor. After Governor Roy Romer sat down with…
Growing up in the 1950s on the outskirts of what was then east Aurora, Robert Michael Pyle discovered a child’s paradise a short walk from his home: a wide ditch brimming with muddy water, its banks covered with thick weeds and stately cottonwoods that sheltered magpies and butterflies. As a…
As far as US West is concerned, no news is good news. The telephone monopoly is asking the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to deny public access to information on the number of delays customers are experiencing in getting new service, as well as information concerning the salaries it pays top…
That takes the cake: The sordid details continue to pile up in the sorry saga of Spicer Breeden and Peter Schmitz–the two occupants of the car that killed Rocky Mountain News reporter Greg Lopez on St. Patrick’s Day. After popping into several LoDo bars early last week, Schmitz, facing vehicular…
It’s curious how the prospect of jail can make a rich man find his wallet. What’s even more curious is how Evergreen-based homebuilder Clyde Hoeldtke lost his again. This tale of a here-today-gone-tomorrow checkbook began about four years ago, when Gail Conolly, an assistant statewide prosecutor in Florida, began pursuing…
To the immutable rules of life mandating romantic fidelity, high-quality whiskey and early knowledge of the multiplication tables, it might be wise to attach the following: The moment you turn twelve, stop seeking autographs. This comes to mind in the wake of an announcement last week that Michael Lasky, founder…
Taken for a Ride In the September 26 “A River of Money Runs Through It,” Patricia Calhoun is right on the money…our money. I voted for the 1989 bond issue. I bought the argument “Vote for Elitch’s–It’s Denver.” Now it looks like what I really bought was a break for…
Drive to Pagosa Springs, then south through the sloping ranchlands of south-central Colorado and across the Rio Blanco on Route 84, one of the few paved roads in Archuleta County. About five miles shy of the New Mexico border, you’ll see the Chromo Mercantile, where Fitzhugh Havens has been the…
The other Staabs are in the restaurant business. Twenty-nine-year-old Gary likes his critters much older–and colder. He is a paleo-reconstructionist, which means, in extremely introductory terms, that he builds big models of dinosaurs, using real bones and fossils to guide him. There are others who do this type of work,…
Twelve years of research and close to $3 million of taxpayer money have made scientist Mark Laudenslager’s monkey project a sitting duck for national animal-rights activists. Opponents of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center researcher’s experiments on 120 macaques have picketed the medical center, written scores of letters demanding…
Soar losers: Another lousy week for former Denver mayor Federico Pena. Largely overlooked these days–reportedly on purpose–by the Clinton administration, the Transportation secretary nonetheless appeared on Ralph Nader’s radar screen. The Green Party presidential candidate has called for Pena’s resignation, along with that of two other top regulators, because of…
The U.S. Postal Service wants to deliver a nice little centennial birthday gift to the tiny mountain town of Ward: a brand-new post office. And what do the people of Ward say? Return to sender. This century-old burg, which rests in a bowl west of Boulder just off Highway 72,…
C. Lodge, executive director of Adult Care Management, considers himself an innovative guy. He talks about breaking away from “the patriarchal relationship between provider and consumer” in the health-care field, about “empowering the client,” about setting up “virtual offices” and flex time so that employees who are single mothers can…
How about a nice hand for Hideo Nomo? Better yet, how about skipping the usual courtesies and immediately installing Hideo Nomo in the Hall of Fame? On September 17 the Dodgers’ high-kicking, skyward-gazing right-hander waited out a two-hour pre-game rain delay, then threw the third no-hitter of the 1996 baseball…
“A miserable yellow melancholy stream”–that’s how Mark Twain saw the Platte River. In his book Roughing It, Twain described his first encounter with the pathetic little trickle, which fellow travelers had the nerve to say was “up.” If that was so, Twain replied, he’d hate to see it when it…
Screen Gems Regarding Chris LaMorte’s “Tune In and Turn On,” September 12: What was your reporter on when he picked out the “news babes”? Marcia Neville a news babe? Far from it. Let’s see the Women of Westword! Derek Mooneyham via the Internet A Ted-Letter Day I enjoyed Robin Chotzinoff’s…
Seven years ago, the Colorado legislature passed a law designed to put the bite on convicted criminals. The concept was sterling: to force lawbreakers who had money to reimburse the state or the county for the cost of their incarceration. In theory, such a bill would offset the cost of…
Ruth Blackmore leads a few of her south Boulder neighbors on a field trip, down a path she’s taken many, many times before. The excursion begins in a vacant field a few blocks from her home, where the trail is hemmed in by knee-high weeds and skittering grasshoppers; crosses a…
