Almost two months ago, George Chasse, the new face in Phoenix politics, sat down with a well-known Valley leader and discussed City Hall. Chasse explained that he hoped to run against incumbent Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard. Chasse’s confidant was aware that Mayor Goddard had stubbed his toe on several issues:…
Here’s how stupid Phoenix looked in the worldwide broadcast of the Grand Prix by ESPN. After commercial breaks, the sports network used a cartoon logo of the Phoenix skyline. A howling cartoon coyote was identified by the broadcasting boob as “a wolf.” This desert critter was then replaced by an…
Because you find yourself in trouble, you go to see an attorney. For almost two years you pour your heart out, plot strategy and reveal your most secret fears and schemes. Then you discover that your attorney wore a body bug which transmitted the conversations between the two of you…
“You folks don’t need another holiday. What you folks need are jobs,” said then-Governor Evan Mecham to Pastor Warren Stewart. The remark was made in 1986 during a meeting with black leaders who had gathered to persuade Mecham that Arizona needed a holiday to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. The…
Maybe you cannot imagine what it is like to be Robert Usdane. He is a Republican leader who is the key to a Democratic bill to honor Martin Luther King Jr. with a paid holiday. He is a Jew who sits on the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League…
Just eight days ago, on April 25, Craig Malmstrom entered an Arizona State University classroom armed with a semi-automatic 9mm pistol. When he confronted three blacks who were giving a presentation to the class, Malmstrom had one bullet advanced into the chamber and the safety was off. He carried two…
“They were being called niggers and coons, sure, but it wasn’t racial. It was just the basic tension of the fight. Just like if they were from Poland, you’d call them Polacks.” Nineteen-year-old Sean Hedgecock, accused by critics of starting a race riot at Arizona State University, sat in his…
Phoenix hearts pounded with the drama. Carolyn Walker, the only black in the Arizona State Senate, stood to cast her historic vote on April 4, 1988. Media from across America recorded the event as viewers sat transfixed in front of their television sets. Twenty years earlier, on that exact same…
As a kid I suspected that environmentalists did not enjoy life very much. I mean, no one would ever pay cash money to watch Jacques Cousteau dance. Every ecological advocate I saw looked and acted like some weedy refugee who’d fasted a tad too long on groatcakes and carrot juice…
Dedicated to the memory of Ed Abbey, an Arizonan who understood that it is important to litter the asphalt paths of America with beer cans pitched from a fast-moving vehicle. Larry Miller, director of the Regional Public Transportation Authority (RPTA), sat in New Times’ conference room and lied to the…
Some believe Mayor Terry Goddard lost his backbone during his education at Harvard. Others believe a spinalectomy was performed on Goddard during the many years the silver-spooned bicyclist spent unemployed. Yet a third camp claims the problem is genetic, pointing to the mayor’s dad, woolly Sam, the eccentric state chair…
I have never seen John Tower drunk. Am I the only American who can say that? Hell, even Earl de Berge saw Tower bombed on three occasions. De Berge wrote to Arizona’s senior U.S. senator and premier real estate speculator, Dennis DeConcini, to say that he, Earl, had seen the…
We sat in the foothills kitchen of Tracy Thomas as the nanny waited to take his infant son. After our cup of coffee, he would climb into his Mercedes and depart for the men’s grill at the Paradise Valley Country Club. It is a natural thing for a man who…
The hand-painted sign on the wall in St. Joseph’s Hospital reads: “Me llamo Nicolas Ruiz Flores.” When Nicolas was three, his dad was kidnaped and executed. Later that same year Nicolas’ mother was kidnaped and she is presumed dead. The child cannot tell you very much about what happened to…
Jerry Colangelo sued reporters in 1983 when his name was linked with betting activities at a local deli. Bookies, high-stakes wagers, point spreads, he didn’t know from nothing and it was libel if you said he did. But if Jerry Colangelo resented being viewed as a gambler, apparently he has…
