The Purrfect Crime Where there’s smoke, there’s ire: I’ve got a great idea. Let’s get a gallon of gasoline (we’ll all pitch in) and some matches, and let’s light Kenny Be on fire. We’ll call it the Kenny Be-B-Q. Westword thought that burning a cat was so funny, let’s watch…
The three judges entered the Denver courtroom crowded with public defenders, prosecutors, death-penalty activists and friends and family of the victim. They had all gathered this March morning to hear if Donta Page would be sentenced to die for the murder of Peyton Tuthill. The crime was brutal. Page had…
It began, as all marriages must, with trust and hope, and ended, as all too many do, in resentment and suspicion. Their story begins in 1983, when Ron and Anne met through a mutual friend in college and agreed to go out on a date. “We didn’t see eye to…
Ann Schneider has worked for Xcel Energy for 27 years, and she remembers the days when the company once known as Public Service was both a good employer and a dependable provider of gas and electricity. Workers at the Denver-based utility would stay on for decades, confident that they had…
Baring some skin for the cause of animal rights two weeks ago, Cynthia Lieberman, a Denver resident and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals volunteer, showed up in a cage in Shreveport, Louisiana — where the Ringling Bros. circus was about to hit town — wearing nothing but a…
Newspaper lore is filled with tales of grizzled reporters whose wealth of experience and seen-it-all demeanor endear them to readers and colleagues alike. But such anecdotes will likely be in short supply at the Boulder Daily Camera if a new buyout proposal targeting employees over fifty — without regard to…
The Master Race World-class or world clash? As a fan of hip-hop and someone who works with youth in Denver, I thank Todd Witcher for “After the Fall,” his excellent story in the May 31 issue on Mix Master Mike and discrimination against the city’s hip-hop community by the police,…
The white wood house at 1795 Quince Avenue in north Boulder used to be a hive of activity. Young children came to visit their grandparents. Florists made stops there on birthdays and Mother’s Day and Easter. Doctors and massage therapists, community volunteers and musicians all came and went. The home,…
“I feel that the state of Colorado is trying to ban hip-hop, for obvious reasons,” began Mix Master Mike Brown, resting his large hands on the table. “They want it to go away.” The obvious reasons, explained the DJ and promoter, were these: Denver-area officials didn’t want huge crowds of…
Over the last decade, dozens of small brick bungalows in the Cherry Creek North neighborhood have been torn down to make way for expensive townhomes with faux European facades, and residents have gotten used to seeing entire blocks transformed every few weeks. While some regret the changes, everyone agrees that…
In the New Testament, Saul of Tarsus journeyed to Damascus to persecute Christians. On his way, he was blinded by the image of a risen Christ and underwent a dramatic conversion, becoming the Apostle Paul. What happened to local artist Lawrence Childress on the road to tiny Mt. Carmel Baptist…
They’re the good girls, the inseparable sisters who separate only to sit quietly in their middle school classrooms, completing assignments without complaint, smiling shyly, working diligently while others chatter and tease. Esperanza and Estephania Chavez: the quiet ones. Until you get to know them. Then they bubble up like a…
The Beat goes on and on: Back in the spring of 1951, Jack Kerouac sat down in a New York apartment and in twenty days typed out the manuscript of On the Road, which stretched 120 feet on a single scroll of paper, and fifty years (and counting) in literary…
The Gold Club trial taking place right now in Atlanta features what Rocky Mountain News sports columnist Dave Krieger wittily describes as “the sacred troika of modern news: the mob, sex and celebrities.” Furthermore, one of the luminaries linked to the yarn — Denver Broncos running back Terrell Davis –…
Another Opportunity Blown The plane truth: Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “Blowing Boeing,” in the May 17 issue: Everyone in town was blowing Boeing, all right. It just never came! Jay Brown via the Internet The Kreme rises: In the May 17 issue, Calhoun’s column and Kenny Be’s Worst-Case Scenario did a…
Lauren Murray’s easy smile and trim figure give no hint of the years of life-threatening turmoil she’s endured. The 41-year-old Denver woman has built a successful career in marketing, and her colleagues rarely suspect that anything might be seriously wrong with her. But Murray has struggled with severe mental illness…
For a casino in Colorado to demand that its housekeepers stop speaking Spanish on the job would seem as plausible a management decision as requiring poker dealers to wear mirrored cufflinks. Even so, the management of Colorado Central Station Casino stands accused of enforcing an illegal “English-only” policy in the…
Judging from the Denver dailies, the Governor’s Columbine Review Commission completed a masterful bit of finger-pointing last week. Following the long-awaited release of the commission’s final report at a Statehouse press conference on May 17, both newspapers featured front-page photos of Governor Bill Owens stabbing a forefinger at the cameras…
Beef. It’s what the West University neighborhood doesn’t want for dinner right next to their homes in the now-empty lot at the corner of South Franklin Street and Evans Avenue. The space, which had been a gas station for 44 years, was leased in the fall by the Galardi Company,…
On Wednesday, May 16, Westword was honored by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless at its fourteenth annual statewide conference, receiving the Coalition’s media service award for its coverage of the state’s homeless. Among the specific pieces cited by the judges were Patricia Calhoun’s “The Bum’s Rush,” her April 27,…
What do President Dubya, Hustler magazine, the Securities and Exchange Commission, AT&T, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, Boulder and women’s sex organs all have in common? They’re each part of a delightful letter just penned by the Reverend Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, criticizing Bush’s…
I became a writer because I like to write. But I also did it for the attention. At one point, I wanted to be just like J.D. Salinger — but when it turned out he was a recluse, I dropped him. I would make a terrible recluse. On the off…
