Drunkablog exclusive! NorthDenverTribuneWatch

In a hardhitting new feature, Drunkablog aims a hairy eyeball at the North Denver Tribune, the biweekly newspaper that claims, implausibly, to have been "Serving Northwest Denver Since 1934."

Today, and every other week, Drunkablog's NorthDenverTribuneWatch will keep tabs on the venerable Denver newspaper--critically reading its news coverage, opinions, letters, even its ads, and reporting the good--and the bad--news about the paper exclusively for Drunkablog readers.

Last week's Tribune headlines

Good a place to start as any, seeing how the new issue isn't out yet.

Aug. 4-17 front page: "NHS returns to big stage." Story hails North High's production of the student-penned One Love: A Hip-Hop Theater Joint ("on the heels of its infamous 2004 near sell-out engagement of Zoot Suit Riots at the Buell Theater."). The young actors, the unbylined reporter says, wrote "a play that would reflect their diversity, love for their individual cultures and love for themselves."

Page 2: Second of a three-parter on North Denver's early "Little Italy," a remnant of which, in a Denver holiday tradition, still holds a parade every year on Ward Churchill Appreciation Day.

Page 3: Even Cesar E. Chavez has a period after his "E.": "Cesar E. Chavez Park to be named." (Turns out it's just going to be named officially, because it already has a name: Cesar E. Chavez Park.)

And finally, the news they tried to hide: "No Wheel Fun at Sloan's this year," at the bottom of page 17:

A courtesy hearing was held [by the Denver City Council] during which residents [of the Sloan's Lake area] and boaters decried the proposal to grant Wheel Fun concessionaire Geno Wasilewski a permit to bring paddleboats to the boat harbor area [of the lake]."[. . .]

Motorboat operators stated concern for the safety of swimmers who might come in contact with motorboats. Joe Anderson, a Sloan's Lake resident and motorboat operator, held up an effigy of a small child with severed limbs as a visual aid to accompany his testimony that motorboats could severely and even mortally injure a swimmer. [. . .]

The contract was defeated 0 to 11.

Questions

Do you believe there exists a person called "Wheel Fun concessionaire Geno Wasilewski?"

Do swimmers often "come in contact" with motorboats on Sloan's Lake? Swimming hasn't been allowed there for decades. so I'll guess no. Then Joe must be referring to the thousands annually who would inevitably fall out of those rickety paddle boats and bike path buggies, right into the water where their limbs would be severed by his motorboat.

But who was going to argue at a city council meeting with a "motorboat operator" who brings an "effigy of a small child with severed limbs" to a city council meeting? No one on city council, that's for sure. "Come, come, Sir," one with courage might have chided, "stop waving that bloody doll haunch around." Instead every one of them acquiesed to the tactics of intimidation and fear. And the North Denver Tribune accepts this unquestioningly. Sickening.

Update: That's NorthDenverTribuneWatch. N-O-R-T--oh yeah, I just spelled it.