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In the two years since Westword first profiled Nate Ybanez, top, and Erik Jensen (“Headed for Trouble,” July 7, 2005), their story has gone national with pieces on Frontline and in Rolling Stone that inspired support from around the globe. But the two remain locked up in Colorado state prisons,…

Here’s a brief look at some of the items Americans are desparate to learn about today: Don’t tase me, bro This story has been all over for days. A guy asks a screwball question to John Kerry at a speech and gets arrested and tasered for it. Ask a weird…

Winston Churchill had a saying: “Arguing over the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics – even if you win, you’re still retarded.” Well, maybe it wasn’t Churchill who said it, but any web surfer who’s suddenly found themselves spending hours crafting witty cyber comebacks over topics such as…

Day One: New Socks Two weeks into the three-week summer program, I get a call from one of my creative writing students. She’s running late and she needs directions. “I just got off the train at Colfax, which way do I go?” I instruct her to walk southeast. She doesn’t…

On Friday, September 21, at Shove Chapel, on the Colorado College campus, a memorial will be held to remember Mario Valdes, the man largely responsible for turning Colorado Springs’ KRCC-FM into the city’s foremost public radio station. He died of lung cancer on September 14. He was just 54. As…

Jonathan can’t fold his socks into pairs. He can match one with its partner, but he physically can’t unite the sock mates into a ball of cotton. “Will you show me that again?” I pick up two white crew socks, one in each hand, line then up straight and tuck…

Everyone complains that the Emmy Awards—heck, most Award shows—are staid, over-long affairs that just don’t earn their three-plus hour block of prime time anymore. Viewers (not to mention reviewers) look for anything that’s remarkable—whose dress sucked (Hayden Panettiere), who made the best unscripted quip (Elaine Stritch), and who brought the…

Hotel Colonial Grenada, Nicaragua Subject: The Nicaraguan Pistol Team “Do you want to shoot an AK-47?” I was perusing the racks of brochures in the hotel lobby here in Grenada, about 45 k’s south of Managua, when the man asked me this question. He was obviously a “Nica”—a local—but his…

Here’s a brief look at some of the items America is desperate to learn about today: Spiral Frog Free music that won’t get you slapped with an RIAA subpoena! This ad-supported service promises unlimited downloads of music from its 700,000 song library. It works for TV, so why not? Of…

Another week, another game, another chance to fake your way into Bronco fandom with a few choice lines. Try getting the lonely guy in the Broncos cap at the bar chatting with these lines and see if it doesn’t get you a free drink. It’s worked for me more than…

So I was driving this weekend when Great White popped onto my radio — specifically its cover of the highly enjoyable Ian Hunter song “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” which became the band’s only top ten hit in 1989. Given how many times I’ve heard the tune over the years, I…

Mike Shanahan is an asshole — but he’s our asshole. The whole notion of icing a kicker about to attempt a game-winning field goal likely goes back to the days when the pigskin was actually covered in a pig’s skin. But no one’s ever timed a time-out more irritatingly, and…

Channel 12 personality Aaron Harber may be many things, but he’s not Barbara Walters — so landing a one-on-one with General David Petraeus the very week the military man made his long-awaited report to Congress about the American adventure in Iraq was quite a coup. The interview, first reported in…

Tech geeks have lately been calling Denver one of the most detailed 3D cities around. Probably thanks to Mapquest being based here (not to mention a new in-town Google office) our fair city has become one of the testing grounds for fancy new three-dimensional map environments. What does that mean…

One spring night in 2006, Evan Makovsky and his wife, Evi, walked the 16th Street Mall from the Residence Inn on Champa Street to California Street on their way to a fundraising dinner at the towering new Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center. The couple, who live in…

Pedestrians are the key to downtown Denver’s future, which is why they’re such a big part of the new Downtown Area Plan, a twenty-year growth strategy released in July. “Every decision is focused on how to facilitate pedestrians and bicycle usage in downtown,” says John Desmond, vice president for urban…

Animal abuse is alive and well in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I learned this firsthand while strolling through that clustered web of streets and alleyways. It was Saturday, late morning, and Chinatown was hemorrhaging Asian hordes. I was floored. Denver just doesn’t have Asians like this. Sure, we have a few,…

Whatever grand plan developer Evan Makovsky comes up with for Block 162, construction won’t start for several years, at least. In the meantime, the Downtown Denver Partnership has launched the “Ultimate Urban Space” initiative. The non-profit organization is asking community members to e-mail suggestions for creative temporary uses — including…

With its 21-cents-a-mile fee, the E-470 tollway doesn’t exactly sound the siren song of the open road. Still, a new ad campaign features Coloradans waxing poetic about the thoroughfare. The promotion, dubbed “ME-470,” is the result of an American Idol-inspired contest that asked the toll road’s users to write stories…

Although the Democratic National Convention doesn’t open in Denver until August 25, 2008, press coverage in these parts makes it seem as if the balloons are just about to drop. There’s hardly an edition of a local daily newspaper or a nightly newscast that doesn’t include some tidbit of DNC…