On the talk shows, the right-wing zealots pretended they were not responsible for Dr. David Gunn’s murder. Over in Mesa, a place made famous by the incredible number of conservative pit bulls in residence, they brag about raising a defense fund for the admitted killer. Why not, they say? After…
Arizona State University men’s gymnastics standout Paul Bedewi is about to attempt a final, strength-sapping trick on the horizontal bar before dismounting. Standing nearby, ASU head coach Don Robinson talks his senior co-captain through it. “Own it, own it,” Robinson says, urgently. “Stick it.” His chiseled, five-foot-six frame shaking with…
When Governor Fife Symington killed an enormous toxic-waste project in 1991 near Mobile, he was hailed for ending an environmental nightmare. It was the new governor’s first public relations coup. But the political climate that allowed Symington to put a halt to the toxic-waste facility wasn’t created by the governor,…
:Your credit card: Don’t leave home without it. Especially if you’re driving to Mexico for a little spring-break partying. The Mexican government has imposed several restrictions on taking a vehicle beyond border towns, including a peculiar requirement that the owner of any vehicle must present a major credit card–VISA, American…
When we last heard from Wilda Heil, she had been unceremoniously dropped by her health insurance company for having the misfortune to develop cancer and actually using the benefits she had paid premiums for (Those ‘Unprofitable’ Cancer Victims,” February 5, 1992). Heil was a victim of a common insurance-industry practice…
It’s easy for me to remember the Phoenix Suns’ opening-night game this season. It was Charles Barkley’s first home appearance in a Suns uniform, and America West Arena was packed for the occasion. I hadn’t seen the Suns play in person for a couple of years. I became bored with…
It was none other than Bill Denney, the television sportscaster. With a great deal of nonchalance, Denney sauntered up the center aisle of Judge Norman D. Hall’s courtroom. He took his seat in the witness chair. Max Dunlap, the accused killer of Don Bolles, nodded his head like an avid…
Airline passengers leaving Terminal Four at Sky Harbor are greeted by a series of large-format photographs of saguaro cactuses. This is only appropriate, since the saguaro is more a symbol of Phoenix than that flaming bird on the city seal. But these cactuses are unsettling. They are vastly different from…
You may not remember their names, but almost everyone has heard of Arizona’s cactus cops and what they did: bust cactus rustlers. Perhaps the most famed (and feared) cactus protector was Richard Countryman, the original native-plant-compliance chief for what was then known as the Arizona Commission of Agriculture and Horticulture…
Greektown, 539 East Glendale Avenue, Phoenix, 279-9677. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Dinner, Monday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 4:30 to 10 p.m. In fancy restaurants, big shots impress the maitre d’ by telling him who…
One thing you should know, but probably don’t, about the mighty saguaro cactus–universal symbol for desert life–is that its scientific name is borrowed from industrial magnate Andrew Carnegie. That’s right, dust breath. The world’s eggheads know Arizona’s greatest cultural icon (aside from Alice Cooper, of course) as Carnegiea gigantea. File…
Despite what you might have heard or read, the giant saguaro cactus is not dying off. There are plenty of genuinely endangered environmental victims around this big, bad world, but Carnegiea gigantea isn’t one of them. Joe McAuliffe, director of research for Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden, makes that point in…
Each July, in an ancient derivation of the traditional Native American rain dance, the Tohono O’odham people drink gallons of wine made from the fruit of the saguaro cactus. They chug with a purpose: to vomit the wine back onto the earth in an act of personal cleansing and a…
Giant saguaros–vegetable pillars rising over the Sonoran Desert. You might see them as admired brethren. Like us, they can be poetic, grotesque and wacky. Like us, they stand upright, seemingly alien survivors on the parched landscape. But, of course, looks are deceiving. Without canals and freon and air conditioning, we…
It is not difficult, during the time of day normally categorized as “Happy Hour,” to view a stand of saguaros silhouetted by the setting sun and assign those plants supernatural features. Saguaros are naturally spooky–tall, thorny, touchdown-signaling water tanks. The plant’s lore is accordingly rich, and its symbolic power is…
Dan Quayle, move over. Jeff Cohen wants to talk about the real “media elite”–big business, whose scions, he says, are engaged more in cover-ups than in coverage. Cohen, executive director and founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a New York-based media-watch organization created in 1986, will speak Tuesday…
Football coach Wayne “Chief” Hall is spinning a yarn about his friend, onetime Arizona State University quarterback great Dennis Sproul. In the mid-1970s, Hall–a former ASU assistant under head coach Frank Kush–had convinced Sproul, a California high school all-American, to become a Sun Devil. He and Sproul became close during…
An Arizona man captured by a flying saucer as six witnesses look on? Surely, the 1975 UFO abduction of Snowflake woodcutter Travis Walton had to be the most incredible event in the annals of UFOdom. Either that or the most elaborate variation on the old “my dog ate my homework”…
After suffering through ten years of what he calls an “ongoing vendetta” by former Phoenix police chief Ruben Ortega and other powerful law enforcement officials, Pat Cantelme has fired a $1 million countershot. Cantelme, president of the Phoenix Firefighters Union and a frequent political foe of Ortega’s, last week filed…
Max Dunlap’s chair was squeaking. He signaled to the courtroom bailiff, who immediately came over and squirted WD-40 into the wheels. Then Dunlap, impeccably dressed, sat down again. You could see the whites come up on his knuckles as he gripped the chair’s arms. It was 9:12 on the morning…
MDRV leave ecrb until Rubin confirms all changes. thanks, cj February 22 noon MDNM @body:The page-one headline in the Arizona Republic was a doozie: “Two held in kidnap-maiming plot. Ring threatened to cut off boy’s arms. More arrests likely.” The February 21, 1992, story described how FBI agents had arrested…
You can smell the pheromones, palpably sense the rut vibes, feel the radioactive burn of eye contact. One thousand single people, male and female, circle the fountains at Concord Place for Lynda Johncock’s Singles Networking Party, a pre-Valentine’s Day bash. Lynda is president of Arizona’s Most Eligible Singles Directory, a…
