Kenny Be's "1998 Overloaded Voter Guide," in the October 22 issue, was a perfect summation of this campaign season. I plan to take it with me when I vote, because it's the only thing I've seen that makes sense of these ballot measures. I'm only sorry that Kenny did not also give his opinion of the candidates, since most of them are nothing more than cartoon characters.
Paula Fine
via the Internet
I do not know why Kenny Be had to make fun of a very serious subject. Denver Police Department officers work hard to protect the residents of this city. That is their job. Their job is not to live in the city. The only thing making them live in Denver does is punish them financially.
Rae Connor
Denver
Kenny Be for governor!
Joe Vigil
Denver
This Story Was Murder!
Eric Dexheimer's "Love on the Rocks," in the October 22 issue, was very difficult to understand. The writer used too many names without clearly distinguishing them, using the first name in one section, then the last name later. In short, it was such a poorly written story that I would expect it to have been written by a child, not a journalist. The story line was interesting; too bad it wasn't put together well.
Denise Codding
via the Internet
"Love on the Rocks" was more frightening than any Halloween story! Remind me not to visit any bar that Cynthia Phillips goes to.
Casey Forrest
via the Internet
Dexheimer has a compelling story (who has the film rights?), but the disjointed fashion in which it is laid out is tiring and distracting. Some kind of timeline would have helped.
Mark Smith
via the Internet
The Jury's In
Patricia Calhoun's "The Big Bang Theory," in the October 15 issue, was a great article with a great message. Just goes to show how politics runs the show and sex stories are more important than human health. Hell, if you can read the Starr Report by the light of your own irradiated glow, the Republican Congress has done its job exactly as lawmakers intended. They couldn't win the presidency by vote of the American people, and now they are madder than a swarm of hornets around a nest they busted themselves while calling anyone who doesn't agree with them a "filthy Libertarian." They've hired some pretty intelligent people to do their bidding as well. For example, Santa Monica police recently pulled over an automobile with expired Tennessee license plates. The driver didn't have insurance and claimed that after living in California for five years, she didn't know she needed a California driver's license. One would think that Newt and Trent would have informed Paula Jones that she should at least comply with the basic legal requirements to operate a motor vehicle in the state of California.
Legal, schmegal--since when does a Republican care about legal? And if you don't like it, ya should all go crawl under a rock in some plutonium storage facility, ya stinking filthy Earth- and human-loving Libertarians, you.
Oh, well, this is America, and Congress has finally fulfilled its goal of exacting lawlessness to a greater extent than the IRS. It's starting to look like George Orwell's Animal Farm more and more every day. Amazing how many Americans can only seem to satiate their thirst for a sex scandal by lapping up every drop of fecal matter spewed from the Republican cesspool while turning their noses away from issues of human importance. Actually, though, if you think about it, hiding potentially damaging environmental issues from the American people is a good thing. The more people who die before retiring, the more balanced Social Security will be and the less taxed the health-care system will be: Dead people can't ask for either. Anyone who listens to Rush Limbaugh can see the logic.
The American public and, especially, the people who live downwind of Rocky Flats should have the right to know what the grand jury investigation uncovered and if they might be affected by it. Being downwind of the Bill and Monica story surely doesn't pose any possible health risk to anyone anywhere.
Cal Anton
Redondo Beach, CA
When I was studying our justice system in high-school civics class, I was given the impression that a grand jury report was not to be released to anyone until an indictment was made. I agree that the president is not above the law; however, I also believe that rules of procedure should also apply. If Kenneth Starr can release a grand jury report prior to an indictment for his own personal benefit in book deals and movie deals, why is the grand jury report on Rocky Flats--where an indictment was handed down--still under lock and key?
We need another fund, this one to hire attorneys to sue Kenneth Starr for misappropriation of tax funds for personal vendettas. Yes, Clinton lied; he's a politician. He probably sold state secrets to Japan, China and anyone else with money for his re-election campaigns, and for that, I agree that he needs to be investigated thoroughly--but not for playing with his ding-dong in the Oval Office, for chrissake. What president since Washington has not?
Since Westword takes the risks of informing the public, why not educate the public on the justice system and how it's supposed to work, not how it does work? The grand jury in Boulder has more information and more reason to indict someone than the one Kenneth Starr convened and rushed through to publication so he could make his book-deal deadline.
As Earl says, "Wake up, America." Read The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Ronda Lietz
via the Internet
Check Mate
I have never written to any newspapers, magazines, etc., in my life. But when I read the October 22 letter from Nicole Martinez regarding the unfair treatment her scumbag husband Francisco is getting (Steve Jackson's "Death Takes a Holiday," in the October 15 issue), I couldn't believe it! Didn't get a fair trial! Did Brandy Duvall get one? Does she actually want her kids to know what kind of so-called father they have? And for her to actually admit she's married to a monster like him. There were witnesses to what he did, and he is a reported gang member, and she's proud of that? My God, lady, I hate to see how your children will turn out with a mother and father like they have. If you love your kids, then you would divorce this scumbag asshole and try not to remind your kids of him. They are young now, and when they get older and find out what happened, hopefully they will forget he exists and will live a better life.
Marilyn Garcia
Denver
Straight Talk
Jesse Davis, I feel I need to thank you for one of the most balanced perspectives from either side of the straight/gay issue: your letter published in the October 22 Westword. I know it's not easy to keep emotions from boiling over with such topics as this one, but if more of us (myself included) took a few steps back and tried to tackle this without knee-jerk responses, perhaps the tight-collared bigots would be more open to listen and/or understand.
Dorothy Moran
via the Internet
Cherchez La Femme
I just finished reading Robin Chotzinoff's October 1 column, "Ah, Wilderness!," about Patt Dorsey, who just happens to be a good friend of mine. We worked together briefly at King Soopers in Loveland and stayed friends after I went to CSU grad school. She always tried to get me to go with her on camping trips to nowhere. I declined, which generally pissed her off. Your article has given me some insight, which I lacked way back then, into her love of nature. Oh, she did e-mail me a picture of her holding the bear cub.
Thanks for writing a great story about a great woman hunter!
Howard Wedekind
via the Internet
It's the Veal Thing
I'm quite sure the veal sweetbreads that Kyle Wagner writes about so lovingly in her October 1 Mouthing Off column are truly delicious. I used to enjoy sweetbreads myself until I learned about the incredibly inhumane treatment that veal calves endure in their miserable short lifetimes. Male cows are separated from their mothers only hours after birth, chained by the neck in a 22-inch "veal crate" in which they cannot even turn around. This prevents them from using their growing muscles, which cry for exercise (ever been around a toddler?) and makes their meat soft and tender. Veal calves are kept in the dark in an attempt to reduce "crate struggling," the term for their desperate attempts to escape confinement. They get no solid food, just a liquid formula with drugs that cause diarrhea.
I could continue, but you get the idea. I'm not a vegetarian, but I think I'll skip the veal. I'll find my hedonistic delights elsewhere, thank you.
Anne Allison
Denver
I would like to thank Kyle Wagner for her efforts in giving the residents of the Denver metro area a culinary education. Before discovering Westword, I had countless mediocre, if not inedible, meals around the city. I completely agree with her statement in "Another Roadside Attraction," her October 15 review of 29 Mile Cantina, that "these days, it seems like there are two kinds of service: bad, and then, like, service from hell." It seems clear that the servers around Denver are either not reading the column or not taking the hint.
Katy Eggeman
Lakewood
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