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Haji S. Adnan appeared to symbolize everything that was right about the city of Denver’s controversial minority contracting program. Adnan, who died of lung cancer this summer at the age of 67, had come to the United States from Indonesia in the 1950s, educated himself at the Colorado School of…

Hit parade: Even before Horace Mann vice principal (for now, at least) Ruben Perez gave the Denver Public Schools a thwack with the golden ruler, Denver was taking plenty of hits in the national press. The Wall Street Journal took a swing at a familiar punching bag with its November…

Looking back on her standoff with a military helicopter on the plains of eastern El Paso County this fall, Mary Blake wishes she’d had more firepower. “If I’d had a big gun,” says the 49-year-old Blake, “I would have shot the devils, but I didn’t have a big enough one.”…

Coach Potatoes Having read the McCartney article by Teri Thompson (“McCartney’s Greatest Hits,” November 30), it still amazes me as to the amount of fear that she and her ilk are under. One has to wonder whether the half-truths espoused by her will be taken as gospel, or whether the…

In September the reopening of the Oriental Theatre, at 4335 West 44th Avenue, was being touted as a harbinger of good things for northwest Denver–an indication that art, culture and enterprise might soon attract more people to this vibrant but often neglected section of the metro area. But just two…

If Denver International Airport were up and running, Mayor Wellington Webb wouldn’t have to be. After all, the Denver mayoral election isn’t until next May. But Webb, prepping for a second major contest, won’t be sprinting on the sleek new tarmac of DIA. This will be an extremely muddy track…

The pale blond teenager listened intently to the younger but more experienced girl. They stood together on a downtown Denver street watching people file by, looking for the proper one. “Don’t ask older people, because they’ll stop and give you a lecture,” eighteen-year-old Skyler was told. “Don’t ask the high-powered…

part 1 of 2 “I have received your letter and one from your unfortunate boy. I am very sorry for you.” Over the past 120 years the paper has yellowed with age and the ink has faded to a light brown that is barely legible. The author, Miss L.M. Swenson…

part 2 of 2 By 1988 the situation at Mitchell had worsened. Dropout rates had continued to climb, as had drug use and gang activities–much of which Delia blamed on the nearby apartment complexes. Kids told her they were actually afraid to come to school. She asked superintendent Ken Burnley,…

Mark our words: When the city announced last week that warnings from a New York bond-rating firm had forced it to back away from $30 million in publicly financed loan guarantees for fiscally shaky MarkAir, one question was left unanswered: Why did it take so long for the city’s beautiful…

Bursting Her Babble Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “The Power of Babble,” in the November 23 issue: Methinks the lady doth protest too much. It is she who babbles. What would Calhoun have us do–give a medal to the pot-smoking lawbreaker? With people like this advising Clinton, it’s a wonder that any…

You would think that developer and financier Larry Mizel would have bigger battles to fight. Mizel, who has an estimated worth of more than $100 million, is chairman of M.D.C. Holdings, Inc., the largest real estate developer in the Denver area. Three months ago he sold his interest in Omnibancorp…

The tiny Denver Rock Island Railroad doesn’t have a cowcatcher on its lone diesel locomotive, but it may need one soon. The obscure, thirteen-mile-long railroad is engaged in a ripsnorting feud with the National Western Stock Show, which the Rock Island’s operator accuses of trying to put him out of…

Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton won attention and re-election this fall with the help of slick TV ads touting her crime-fighting skills. One such commercial, implying that Norton keeps our streets safe by personally contesting felons’ appeals, featured mug shots of some of the state’s most heinous criminals. As the…

When Denver attorney Jeff North sued Baker & Hostetler earlier this year, the prestigious downtown law firm tried in vain to keep from airing its dirty laundry in public. The firm, which had lured North away from the upper echelons of the federal Resolution Trust Corporation and then kicked him…

Linda Carlson watches intently as Rob Manierre’s three Arabians canter about the small corral, their tails aloft and sailing behind them like banners in a breeze. When the equine trio finally stops, Carlson, owner of the Boulder firm Equi-Sense, makes her way through the mud and manure to the seven-month-old…

part 1 of 2 In a two-week period beginning in mid-October 1993, Spencer Day went on a crime tear that was as remarkable for its workaday brazenness as it was for its repugnance. On October 19 he pulled an eleven-year-old boy off Wood Street in Fort Collins and forced him…

part 2 of 2 Most people know of aversion therapy through Anthony Burgess’s book, or Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 movie by the same name, A Clockwork Orange. In both, the leader of a gang of violent thugs is conditioned to become physically ill at the sight, or even the thought, of…

Timothy Wacker represents perfectly the conflict that mental-health professionals continue to face over the treatment of sex offenders. He started raping his sister when he was twelve, an activity he continued for several years. “The only time it was really hard was the first time,” he says. “After that, rationalizing…

The white stuff: Denver is no better at predicting blizzards than it is at predicting airport openings. After the flurry of prognostications that called for a big dump last weekend, the city canceled the first official flight into Denver International Airport–a United Airlines Stapleton-to-DIA charity deal that was set for…