Rerunning Mates

With Sam Waterston (Executive Assistant DA Jack McCoy) and Fred Thompson (DA Arthur Branch), the political realm has already snagged two of Law & Order’s biggest names. But that leaves plenty of other characters in the L&O franchise who might jump into the fray. Here’s how they’d run, from no…

Party On!

Here in Denver, plans are well under way for next year’s big, big, big political convention. No, not the Democratic National Convention, which will bring 5,000 delegates, 10,000 of their closest friends and family members, and 20,000 pesky journalists to town in August 2008 (exactly one century after the Democrats…

Mexican Stand-Off

Dear Mexican: Have you seen the e-mail flying around, allegedly from country-rock star Charlie Daniels? What’s your reaction? The Mexicans Went Down to Georgia Dear Gabacho: I love it. For ustedes readers who don’t know what we’re talking about: In April 2006, one-hit has-been Charlie Daniels posted an essay on…

Carved in Stone

Pondcrete. The word echoed off the marble walls of the U.S. Supreme Court, the bedrock of a legal system that’s lasted well over two centuries, with the eight judges considering the case of Rockwell International Corp. et al. v. United States et al. (Justice Stephen Breyer had recused himself) possessing…

Head Case

Dear Mexican: What do Mexicans think about President Bush’s grandfather having a hand in getting the guy that robbed Pancho Villa’s head out of jail? Kruising Klassily in Kennebunkport Dear KKK: Ah, Villa’s stolen skull. No macabre Mexican legend is more mired in intrigue, distortions and looniness — and in…

Beauty’s Only Skin-Deep

Dear Mexican: Why should Mexican nationals have more of a right to stay in this country than Chinese, Somalis or others who can’t cross an open-land border and must thus wait on the bureaucracy like everybody else? 700 Miles Isn’t Long Enough Dear Gabacho: ‘Cause this land once belonged to…

Steady as You Go

“A quarter of a century later, John Elway sells food; Stapleton is a neighborhood, not an airport; the 16th Street Mall is going strong — and so is CRL!” That’s how Maria Garcia Berry (pictured) begins the announcement that her political/lobbying firm is marking its 25th birthday. The announcment goes…

The Ugly Truth

“If you have an ugly girlfriend and she changes her name, she is still ugly.” Yes, Sean Ford, mayor of Commerce City, said that while arguing against a proposed name change for his town — and he stands by the comment. “Changing the name doesn’t change anything,” he says. Not…

Should He Stay or Should He Go?

Dear Readers: Muchas, muchas responses to my March 8 column asking whether I should keep the gold-toothed, mustachioed, sombrero-wearing fat Mexican logo and, if so, what should I name him. The overwhelming majority of ustedes support amnesty for the wab, but a few folks also made articulate arguments in favor…

Funny Money

Marva Livingston Hammons Marva Livingston Hammons, head of the Colorado Department of Human Services under former Governor Bill Owens and one of the primary culprits behind this state’s benefits mess, collected quite a goodbye gift on her way out: Eight hundred twenty-three hours of unused vacation time, which netted her…

Fashion Statement

Dear Mexican: I’m perplexed. I just saw a middle-aged wab wearing tight pink stretch pants with the phrase “Pink Taco” emblazoned across her misshapen buttocks. In my experience, Mexicans of the Mexico-born variety seem to wear a lot of clothes with odd/tacky slogans. My question is simple: Do wabs know…

High Fidelity

The Colorado Legislature may not have known that “Rocky Mountain High” references drug use (ha!), but John Denver sure did. Because here are his lyrics for another song, “Poems, and Prayers, and Promises”: And I have to say it now It’s been a good life all in all It’s really…

High Anxiety

In today’s New York Times piece on the Colorado Legislature adopting “Rocky Mountain High” as a second official state song — “Colorado Has Song in Its Heart, and Not Drugs on Its Mind” — reporter Kirk Johnson offers this gem: “A lot of people probably think it’s already the state…

Coors, of Course

Wow — dope really does affect your memory. Because in all the yapping over making “Rocky Mountain High” a second official state song, no one at the Colorado Legislature mentioned a potential snag. Back in 2005, Coors Brewing Co. bought the rights to the song — the lyrics and music,…

Denver…Why I Love Her

Rounding the corner at DIA Monday morning, I ran smack into artist Gary Sweeney, who moved from Denver more than a decade ago, but left plenty for this city to remember him by. “America…Why I Love Her,” for example, the airport’s most beloved public-art piece, complete with a map of…

Star-Crossed

Dear Mexican: I have a major crush on a worker with the Mexican Consulate aquí en Tucson. But I fear that, like two star-crossed lovers, we’re destined for doom. I’m a gabacha yaktivist and against governments in general. He represents the PAN or PRD or PRI or whatever Mexican political…

Pennies for Peace

Give PeaceJam a chance. On March 8, a handful of celebs — including Nate Corddly and Martin Sheen — will launch Refunds for Good, which aims to take $20 billion collected over the past 108 years through a federal telephone tax — the “War Tax” — and redirect it to…

Its a Steal

Dear Mexican: I grew up with Mexicans who stole things just to steal. As an adult, I see much of the same behavior from adult Mexicans and their children. And I don’t mean just the poor Mexicans. Why is it in their nature for Mexicans to steal? Larcenous Lester Dear…

Denver Restaurant Week, Day 1

Denver Restaurant Week, Day 1 (an eyewitness report from Patricia Calhoun) Saturday, February 24: The numbers are staggering. Restaurants participating in the third annual Denver Restaurant Week, which starts tonight, are booked solid. At Prime 121, a Cherry Creek steakhouse that hasn’t exactly been packing them in, they have reservations…

The Governator

Dear Mexican: Why does Arnold Schwarzenegger keep putting his foot in his mouth and talking smack about Mexicans? To my understanding, his wife Maria is of Mexican descent. He’s not only humiliating nuestra raza, but his wife, too. Deep Sea Angler Dear Wab: You’re confusing your degenerate Catholics, cabrón: Maria…

Don’t Be An Ash!

The controversy came out of almost-thin air. After Barack Obama announced that he would give up smoking, The Hill asked other presidential contenders about their vices. “I smoke the occasional cigar,” said Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo. And then, in passing, he told the reporter a funny story — about how…

Ladies’ Plight

Steve Horner leans in for a hug. But I do not hug on a first interview. Not even if the subject of the interview has already left me a lengthy voice-mail warning that I, and this newspaper, “have been totally insensitive to the needs of this egalitarian society” — not…