Letters

Rage Before Duty Regarding T.R. Witcher’s “Hell on Wheels,” in the December 3 issue: The failure to properly define the term “road rage,” and its all-encompassing use to define every conceivable traffic infraction, has led to even greater misunderstandings. Its misuse has diminished drunk driving by making it a version…

Virgin Rebirth

He isn’t saying it was a miracle, that an angel of God guided him to a particular place at a particular time and said, “Here she is.” He’s not saying that at all. But he’s not saying it was entirely coincidental, either. After one coincidence leads to another, and then…

The Killing Floor

Michael Garcia must have known he would die in prison. But no one expected that his death would come so soon, in front of so many people. When he was seventeen, Garcia did something so terrible that a Denver judge gave him two life sentences without hope of parole. Although…

Mall Rats

This weekend the kids will head to the mall–where else? But when several dozen members of Students for Justice drop by the new Denver Pavilions at noon Saturday, it won’t be to do any Christmas shopping. Instead, they plan to protest the $24 million in “corporate welfare” sucked from taxpayers…

Off Limits

Think big: The biggest winner in this fall’s election was the Independence Institute–former director Tom Tancredo moved on to Congress, former-former director and founder John Andrews snagged the Colorado Senate seat left vacant when Mike Coffman became treasurer, and current director Jon Caldara defeated Referendum B just before he took…

Prescription Grudge

At least this much is clear: Somebody entered the Payless Drugs pharmacy on South University Boulevard early in the afternoon on October 9, 1995, and tried to refill a prescription for the painkiller Vicodin. The pharmacist thought the guy looked “Arabic.” She also suspected his prescription was being refilled prematurely…

Dog Days

The finest professional athlete in Colorado will earn less than $15,000 this year. He has no sneaker contract (always goes barefoot) and will never be bothered by autograph hounds (couldn’t catch him if they tried). On December 2 he celebrated his second birthday, but by this time next year, his…

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Somewhere in all the historic hairdo magazines is that one article that will remind Ethel Gomez how to build a beehive. Here, under the candy dish? There, by the invoice for the faux Titanic jewelry sitting in the display case next to the Kewpie dolls that double as air fresheners?…

The Gang’s All Here

Attitude is everything, these kids agree. Although they can’t prevent cops from stopping them–they accept that–they know that too much attitude can make all the difference after you’re pulled over for some minor thing, but really for “driving while brown” or “driving while black.” Juan Hernandez made the mistake of…

Letters

Nuts to That! Talk about crazy! I never thought I’d see the day when bleeding-heart liberal Patricia Calhoun would bleed for a Republican, much less Tom Tancredo (“Crazy for You,” December 3). Coloradans should be proud of their new congressman, not just because he’s man enough to admit his weakness,…

Hell on Wheels

June 5, 1998 “What you have,” begins attorney Derry Rice, “is a sixteen-year-old, a new driver from a nice family, driving on Broadway and Highlands Ranch Parkway.” The first driver–we’ll call her Pam–and the second driver, another sixteen-year-old we’ll call Cynthia, are both turning left onto northbound Broadway. While turning,…

Jailbait

Every inmate in the Denver County Jail wants to get to 22. As director of jails John Simonet walks through the cell blocks, he’s stopped several times by convicts begging to move. “I gotta get down to the deuce-deuce,” says one convict being held in a tank with fifty other…

Off Limits

Mr. Tancredo goes to Washington: Like the 39 other new members of the House of Representatives, Colorado Sixth District representative-elect Tom Tancredo lined up last week to choose an office. The incoming freshmen–17 Republicans, 23 Democrats –are the lowest men and women on the totem pole and get to pick…

Remember When

Alzheimer’s research is advancing so rapidly that scientists expect to understand the cause of the disease within the next five years. But that’s still in the future. Alzheimer’s patients have already lost much of their past. Family Health West, a small nonprofit nursing home in western Colorado, tries to re-create…

White Man’s Burden

Robert Cunningham, who is white, remembers when the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in his yard. Now he has launched a personal crusade: He wants to get fliers apologizing for slavery into the hands of all Colorado slave descendants. “It’s like building a field and getting two teams to…

Say It Ain’t So, Joe

Joe DiMaggio is dying. The most graceful center-fielder ever to play baseball, one of the game’s finest hitters and a fathomless mystery for six decades, is lying in a Hollywood, Florida, hospital, a couple of miles from the major-league spring training site where he first materialized in 1936. Characteristically, no…

Crazy for You

Tom Tancredo is sitting in the cigar bar at the Brown Palace, puffing on a stogie. The congressman-elect from Colorado’s Sixth Congressional District should be on top of the world: After besting five other Republicans to take the primary nomination in August, a month ago he beat Democrat Henry Strauss,…

Letters

By Hooker by Crook My friend and I passed through Denver and happened to read part one of “Trial and Tribulations,” Steve Jackson’s article on Joanne Cordova. I just read part two, from the November 26 issue, on the Internet. I am writing to offer high praise to Steve Jackson…

A Bird in the Hand

Skittish, tough, this bird is a bullet of feather and bone. Under the shadowy canopy of a high pine forest, it hurls itself from a tree like a two-pound smart bomb, crimson eyes trained on its airborne prey. Midair, it flips, overtaking a smaller bird from below, then forks its…

Off Limits

Beat the clock: No sooner had Denver Post publisher Ryan McKibben announced his imminent departure (he’s outta there November 30) than speculation started regarding when editor Dennis Britton will be disappeared. A Westword pool lays heavy odds on just after the first of the year–and we aren’t the only ones…

Fly Me

Planning your next trip out of Denver International Airport? Here’s some helpful advice: Log on to the Web site www.denverairport.com. You won’t find any information on how to get to Terminal B or where to find a rental car. But you will get to see plenty of tits. “Yes, I’m…

Trial and Tribulations, Part Two

Amy Johnson and her fiance, Jason Sosebe, left their home shortly after six on the morning of May 17, 1997, heading down Old Hughesville Road toward Highway 119. As their truck rounded a corner, they saw a blue minivan with Wyoming plates parked on the wrong side of the road,…