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It's still not too late to get Mom a belated something special. From experience, she probably expects too little too late as a matter of course. So, in order to make for your perpetual tardiness, you're looking for something beyond the usual brunch out, card and flowers, all the stuff you normally forget to do on time, because all that seems so empty anymore. So you start thinking creatively. You start coming up with what you think are fantastic ideas—practical stuff, but maybe a little on the expensive side, the indulgent side, something Mom would never get for herself, but just might secretly want. But be careful. Since you've already blown the Hallmark-mandated deadline, your need to overcompensate in the gift arena can take you down a road to giving gifts that carry meanings that are worse than doing nothing at all. Here are five of the worst:

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The May 10 column by Rocky Mountain News editor/publisher/president John Temple focused largely on a speech he gave to graduates of the University of Colorado Boulder's School of Journalism and Mass Communications. But in the midst of anecdotes and observances about the address, he casually mentioned that RedBlueAmerica.com, a project launched with much ballyhoo in January by E.W. Scripps, the Rocky's parent company, had already gone south.

It's hardly shocking that the concept failed to fly. In a More Messages blog from January that dealt with false rumors of the Rocky's impending demise, I described the notion as "a boondoggle in the making," and I wasn't alone in this view.

Still, there's no denying that RedBlueAmerica.com was well-intentioned. In his January 19 announcement about the site, Temple described it as a meeting place for readers of every political persuasion as overseen by two impressively credentialed moderators representing divergent ideologies: red stater Ben Boychuk and blue-man Joel Mathis. (In the accompanying Rocky photo, Boychuk stands to the right of Mathis, appropriately enough.) A week later, conservative media observer Dave Kopel declared the site to be "off to a promising start."

Too bad that beginning was followed so closely by a distressing conclusion.

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As media outlets everywhere are increasing their new-media presence, KHOW radio, at 630 AM, revisits the old school via a direct mail magazine that's scheduled to start arriving at metro-area addresses on May 14.

The cover boy on the mag's inaugural issue is Tom Martino, who's been down this road before. The June 6 Message column, which concerned a Channel 4 investigation that revealed creepy problems with a business Martino endorsed in his online referral list, noted the then-recent debut of Troubleshooter.com, described as a direct mail quarterly. But later that same month, in a Message followup, Martino confirmed that his national syndication deal with Westwood One had come to an ignominious end, throwing many of his projects, including the magazine, into limbo -- and indeed, no more editions made their way to my address, anyway.

Of course, that could have been just a lucky coincidence.

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With our Wild West tradition, it’s not surprising that horses play such a big role in the public art around here, an interest that underscores our worldwide image long ago established by old Hollywood Westerns. But surprisingly, this local taste for art about horses is not limited to historic pieces like the Pioneer Monument of 1911, by Frederick MacMonnies, at Colfax and Broadway. It continues to this day with “Mustang,” by Luis Jimenez, which was finally installed out on the lawn at DIA more than a decade after it was commissioned.

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All too often, the passing of a radio veteran goes unremarked upon by stations where the personality previously worked. So give KOA credit for tipping its hat to the cranky yet widely beloved Gus Mircos, who died on May 11 at age seventy.

Reporter Jerry Bell, who's been with the station for years in a number of capacities, assembled a fine tribute accessible here, complete with reminiscences from a slew of area personalities who've moved on to gigs with other radio or TV broadcasters -- among them Steve Kelley (now with Channel 31), Ed Greene (who delivers weather info on Channel 4), Carol McKinley (a reporter for Fox News) and even Keith Weinman, who's currently exiled to Fort Collins' KCOL radio. (Recall that Weinman left KOA after being arrested for assaulting his wife, Gail Fallen, in 1998. Fallen reportedly suffered two cracked ribs in the incident, for which Weinman served a six-year deferred sentence. Now, however, Weinman's KCOL co-host is... his now ex-wife, Gail Fallen.) In addition, KOA's Mike Rosen played Mircos' entire recitation of "Casey at the Bat," which station personnel would have loved for him to deliver on an annual basis -- but he was too curmudgeonly to comply.

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Summer is almost here and Spring is in full bloom. And what better way to celebrate this time of rebirth and renewal than with the gathering of retooled hearses that each, in their day, hauled countless dead folks to their graves and crematoriums? This weekend saw Hearse Con 2008, an annual event that draws some of the most spectacular converted death-mobiles on the planet (we presume). Click on the photo to see a slide show from Hearse Con 2008 by Aaron Thackeray.

Also,

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Slide show by Aaron Thackeray

It's truly inspiring to see a group of people so (seemingly) obsessed with death living their lives more fully than your average couch potato. The ambition and dedication it takes to restore, recraft and maintain these classic deathmobiles is remarkable. Here are some scenes from Hearse Con 2008.

The May 12 edition of the Channel 9 morning news show dealt with the naked truth in more ways than one. As anchor Gary Shapiro reported about a May 11 photo shoot at an Austrian soccer stadium featuring approximately 1,800 individuals posing nude, control-room personnel rolled footage illustrating his words. Most of the images, like the attached Associated Press photo seen here, were shot from such long distances that details were all-but-impossible to see -- although, not having a big-screen HD model, I can't say for certain. However, several seconds of mid-range video displayed plenty of (ass) cheek, most of it distinctly flabby.

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Once upon a time, cineastes had to look long and hard, and expend tremendous amounts of energy, in order to see obscure films. But thanks to the home video revolution and the rise of Internet shopping, intriguing flicks from moviedom's past are readily available -- even those that seem to have been lost forever. The Dragon Painter is one such offering: a 1919 release that studiously avoids the sort of Asian stereotypes that were endemic during that period of American moviemaking, and for long afterward.

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Dwayne Edward Wright, we have your wallet -- the wallet you lost back in the mid-70s, when you were a student at a community college in Texas.

So how did that wallet wind up under a pine tree in Conifer, Colorado?

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The fact that the Denver District Attorney’s Office actually filed aggravated assault charges and arrested Denver Police Officer Chuck Porter on May 8 shows how serious the allegations against him are. The incident on April 18, which occurred in the lower Highland neighborhood near Chubbies on 38th Avenue, sent sixteen-year-old Juan Vasquez to the hospital with broken ribs, a lacerated liver and other injuries -- all after Porter, a gang unit officer, allegedly stomped on him.

The arrest warrant for Porter, released May 9, states that about 9:30 p.m. officers spotted Vasquez drinking what appeared to be alcohol. He ran when officers tried to talk to him, but was quickly caught after a brief chase. Two other officers witnessed Porter jump up and down on Vasquez's back three to five times while the teen lay stomach-down on the ground, according to the document.

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The process of researching virtually every article produces far more material than can possibly fit into the finished piece -- and a lot of the leftovers are every bit as interesting as the stuff that makes the final cut. That was certainly the case for the May 8 Message column, which dealt with cutbacks in travel being made by local news organizations.

Below, find additional information gleaned from conversations with six of the executives who play a big part in determining what news makes its way to you via traditional media means: Channel 9 news director Patti Dennis, who details planned Olympics coverage to be anchored by anchor Mark Koebrich (pictured); Denver Post editor Greg Moore, who expands on his theory about why the paper needs to send reporters to coverage major sporting events even if Denver teams aren't participating; Kris Olinger, director of AM programming for Clear Channel, who reveals the leanness of production teams that cover out-of-town games; Rocky Mountain News editor John Temple, who talks about the differences he perceives between TV sports coverage and the kind offered by newspapers; Channel 7 news director Byron Grandy, who concedes that he's seldom sent his personnel out of state of late; and Channel 4 news director Tim Wieland, who says his decision about whether to put talent on-site at the Olympics has a lot to do with which network has rights to the contests.

The only thing these extras lack is a commentary track:

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It’s a classic, and occasionally overused TV news trick: the secret-camera Gotchya! But in the case of beer-guzzling Fourth Judicial District D.A. John Newsome – who was videotaped by KOAA in Colorado Springs drinking 134 ounces of the sudsy stuff over a five-hour period – the reporting was both newsworthy and entertaining.

Newsome at first disputed the story, which showed him imbibing at least seven beers (two of them twenty-ounces) at a couple of Colorado Springs bars during work hours and then wielding his El Paso County-owned vehicle through town. But he later apologized, saying, “I realize I need to be setting the standard for setting an example, and that's what I'll strive to do."

Colorado Springs police says they can’t investigate the D.A. for DUI since any legal evidence would be impossible to obtain at this point.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t charge Newsome with full-blown shmuckery.

For last week’s Shmuck, click here.

Have you been injured in an auto accident? If so, call attorney Frank Azar, "The Strong Arm." He’s been fighting insurance companies in Colorado for years and he’ll get you a $25,000 settlement. Then, you can turn around and sue Frank Azar (profiled by Westword in 2002) for half of a million dollars, claiming he pressured you to take less than you were due. 40-year-old Shawna Jimenez of Colorado Springs did just that and now an El Paso County jury has awarded her $145,000. Thanks, Frank Azar! " – Jared Jacang Maher

The Rocky Mountain News is hardly the only news organization saving a few bucks by pushing staffers to tackle tasks outside their area of specialty -- the topic of a May 6 More Messages blog. On May 8, viewers who tuned in Channel 4's morning show saw traffic expert Lynn Carey (pictured), who can usually be found standing before street maps in the CBS affiliate's studio, on location in Arapahoe County, updating the latest developments in the trial of Sir Mario Owens, who's facing a first-degree-murder charge in the 2005 killings of Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe.

Clearly, this tale has nothing to do with blocked intersections or road-construction projects. But there's another reason that assigning Carey to cover the story is unusual: She has little background in news reporting.

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