Patricia Calhoun of Twin Falls, Idaho, is a very generous woman. Particularly with my phone number. Last Wednesday, my direct line at Westword started ringing before eight in the morning, and it didn’t stop all day. “Why did you send me this money?” asked a woman in Kentucky. “What am…
Dear Mexican: Has the 1965 Immigration Act proved to be a good thing or a bad thing for America, and has the recent unprecedented flood of immigrants (both legal and illegal) been an overall good thing or bad thing for America? Please fully explain your answer and include economic, cultural…
I have a date with Steve Horner. In court. Horner was already spurned there last month, when Denver County Court Judge Ray Satter tossed one of his complaints against the Proof nightclub and sent the other back to square one. But Horner does not take no for an answer. He…
Talking to Steve Horner, you can see that he has a slight — very slight — point about ladies’ nights, although he’d be wise to stop his complaint at the disparate drink prices rather than use them as the start of an explosive screed like the one he delivered the…
Dear Mexican: I was going through a local state college’s academic program the other day and found that it offers a bachelor’s degree in Chicano Studies. My question is, in what field of work would someone with a bachelor’s in Chicano Studies land? Here are a few jobs I came…
Dear Mexican: I have no problem with immigrants. My grandparents were Dutch on one side and Irish on the other — but they came here legally, through Ellis Island. What I can’t stand are a bunch of fence-hopping, river-wading illegals telling me I owe them a free education, free health…
Dear Readers: Gracias, gracias, gracias to ustedes who bought the Mexican’s book last week (deportation for those who haven’t). I’ve done mucho national press, and e-mails have invaded my inbox as a result, which means I lost the first question I wanted to answer this week. A Seattle reader had…
Order in the court! It took less than a month to try and convict Joe Nacchio in U.S. District Court. But meanwhile, another case involving his former boss, Phil Anschutz, drags on…and on…in a Los Angeles courtroom, where opening arguments were made weeks before the freshly toupeed Nacchio stepped into…
Did you know there’s a swingers club in the basement of a gallery up by Pirate?” a Westword writer asked one day in early 2006. “No way,” I replied. “We would have heard. But I’ll call Chandler Romeo. If anything is happening in that neighborhood, she’ll know.” That’s because in…
The 3600 block of Navajo Street was dry last Friday night. Very dry. Because liquor had come up in her case against Scottie Ewing — who’d produced photos of Pirate’s Day of the Dead donation-for-beer box — Chandler Romeo sent a note to her art-gallery tenants alerting them to the…
Dear Mexican: I’m a gringa married to a mexicano, and we have a three-year-old son. His family is wonderful for the most part, and they adore my son, but as he is getting older, his tíos are trying to “toughen him up” and make him more macho. So far, they’ve…
The few. The proud. The desperate. After four years of slogging through the quagmire of Iraq, the United States military is desperate to find a few hundred thousand good men — and women. But does a fifteen-year-old qualify? In the spring of 2005, when the war was just two years…
On Denver’s yawner of a mail-in ballot is one interesting question: Measure 1A, which would extend the term limit for a Denver district attorney to three consecutive terms. Back in 1994, Colorado voters approved a constitutional amendment that imposed a two-term limit on all non-judicial elected officials but permitted voters…
Dear Readers: The Reconquista has arrived! On May 1, ¡Ask a Mexican! comes out in book form, gracias to the literary madmen at Scribner. Expect more of the same, but más: more essays, more illustrations from Mark Dancey (the gabacho who created this column’s logo), and more questions. Below are…
With Sam Waterston (Executive Assistant DA Jack McCoy) and Fred Thompson (DA Arthur Branch), the political realm has already snagged two of Law & Order’s biggest names. But that leaves plenty of other characters in the L&O franchise who might jump into the fray. Here’s how they’d run, from no…
Here in Denver, plans are well under way for next year’s big, big, big political convention. No, not the Democratic National Convention, which will bring 5,000 delegates, 10,000 of their closest friends and family members, and 20,000 pesky journalists to town in August 2008 (exactly one century after the Democrats…
Dear Mexican: Have you seen the e-mail flying around, allegedly from country-rock star Charlie Daniels? What’s your reaction? The Mexicans Went Down to Georgia Dear Gabacho: I love it. For ustedes readers who don’t know what we’re talking about: In April 2006, one-hit has-been Charlie Daniels posted an essay on…
Pondcrete. The word echoed off the marble walls of the U.S. Supreme Court, the bedrock of a legal system that’s lasted well over two centuries, with the eight judges considering the case of Rockwell International Corp. et al. v. United States et al. (Justice Stephen Breyer had recused himself) possessing…
Dear Mexican: What do Mexicans think about President Bush’s grandfather having a hand in getting the guy that robbed Pancho Villa’s head out of jail? Kruising Klassily in Kennebunkport Dear KKK: Ah, Villa’s stolen skull. No macabre Mexican legend is more mired in intrigue, distortions and looniness — and in…
Dear Mexican: Why should Mexican nationals have more of a right to stay in this country than Chinese, Somalis or others who can’t cross an open-land border and must thus wait on the bureaucracy like everybody else? 700 Miles Isn’t Long Enough Dear Gabacho: ‘Cause this land once belonged to…
“A quarter of a century later, John Elway sells food; Stapleton is a neighborhood, not an airport; the 16th Street Mall is going strong — and so is CRL!” That’s how Maria Garcia Berry (pictured) begins the announcement that her political/lobbying firm is marking its 25th birthday. The announcment goes…
“If you have an ugly girlfriend and she changes her name, she is still ugly.” Yes, Sean Ford, mayor of Commerce City, said that while arguing against a proposed name change for his town — and he stands by the comment. “Changing the name doesn’t change anything,” he says. Not…
