Let’s say you’re an environmentalist–and not just the kind tooling around in some gas guzzler with one of those cute license plates. You’re the real thing. Maybe you’ve chained yourself to an old-growth tree, or plopped down before a bulldozer. One morning, you scan your newspaper to see what Arizona’s…
If you should ever find yourself on the third floor of the Senate building at the state Capitol, take a close look at the bronze bust in the lobby. Chances are, you’ve never met A.V. “Bill” Hardt, the longtime Democratic senator from Globe who stepped down last year. But if…
Why the Sonics Rule Contrary to the popular rumor, it’s absolutely not true that when his grandchild was christened, Jerry Colangelo offered the ceremony to relatives on pay-per-view. But The Flash certainly understands how Phoenicians might suspect it to be true. If you’ve followed the Suns’ first-round playoff showdown against…
Across the street from the house where 8-year-old Lee Holmes lives, there is an empty doghouse, presumably built by a neighbor who has since moved. Scrawled on the doghouse is this epithet: “Bear the Shithead.” The doghouse sums up the ugly vibe I get from Lee’s central Phoenix neighborhood. This…
Puff Puffery Amy Silverman’s smokin’ piece about the trio of terrorists taunting teenagers to trash tobacco is terrific (“Mrs. Good Retch,” April 24)! The lead protagonist, Amy Dominy–backed up by Dave Robb and Shawn Eichenauer–deserves a carton of credit for her creativeness. And the Department of Health Services is entitled…
Bob Hartle first found out he had an evil twin in April 1994. His mother, who was living in Phoenix, was in the hospital to have a leg amputated because of diabetes. Hartle had been calling her from his home in Iowa every night, and one night, his brother John…
First of Two Parts Eighty-two-year-old Valjean Joshvema leans forward in his chair and sings a Hopi prophecy that has come to pass. The ageless Hopi lyrics foretell of an era when the Hopi will wander the high desert mesas they and their ancestors have occupied for 12 millenniums. According to…
Many states around the country have launched antitobacco campaigns, but none has captured the imagination–or turned the stomachs–of television and radio audiences like the one sponsored by the Arizona Department of Health Services. Who could forget these great moments in antismoking propaganda: A Dr. Frankenstein-type sniffing the lungs of a…
Coyote Ugly Cool Futures, which touts itself as a group of Scottsdale residents committed to building a practice ice rink for the Phoenix Coyotes on a 15-acre site near Pima and Bell roads, is baring its teeth. In a deposition taken earlier this week, Donna Vizcaino, one of Cool Futures’…
The text of the radio spot “Pus.” Guy (junior high): I found it by smell: a half-eaten bird, buried under my bed behind a dirty pair of underwear. The cat must’ve dumped it there at least a month ago ’cause it had started to rot. There were bloody pieces hangin’…
Road Bloc I think the public better unite to defeat the toll roads before we are stuck with them (“Carr Wrecks,” Howard Stansfield, April 10). I have yet to hear anything but praise from the Arizona Department of Transportation about the concept; has anyone from ADOT contacted you, the taxpaying…
A troll named Turkll asked a human couple named Marilyn and Thomas Twintreess to put on Festival. When he made this request, Turkll was speaking–as he often does–through Marilyn’s body. “Turkll told us that Spirit would like to have Festival,” says Marilyn, speaking, at the moment, through her own body…
Nearly 30 years after “weird” Mr. Green moved away, people who live in Cheri Stalmann’s Central Corridor neighborhood are still intrigued by the strange Cold War legacy he left in the backyard of the house where he once lived. “It’s really not much to see,” says Stalmann almost apologetically as…
Early in February 1988, House Majority Whip Jane Hull paid an unofficial visit to the office of Secretary of State Rose Mofford to warn her that, given the anti-Mecham mood in the Legislature, Mofford was about to become acting governor. Hull was right. On February 5, the Arizona House of…
The Loan Stranger Staffers at the Arizona Corporation Commission were shocked by what they considered unethical behavior by newly elected Republican commissioner Jim Irvin, who assigns commission projects and analytical work normally given to commission staffers to an outsider–political adviser Jack Rose. Because Rose isn’t on the commission payroll, allowing…
In a reversal, the U.S. State Department has issued a one-year visa to a Mexican businessman with close ties to the family of Governor J. Fife Symington III. The businessman, Alejandro Canelos Rodriguez, has been suspected by the U.S. Customs Service of being involved in drug trafficking. State Department spokeswoman…
Come on, kids, that’s it, gather ’round while I tell you all about the good old days. What’s that? You want to hear about what peep shows were like way back when? Well, when I was a younger man, after a rough day on the loading dock, I’d go downtown…
Flashes in the Frying Pan I was wondering why I was receiving such hateful phone calls concerning my sponsorship of HB 2028. Then someone pointed out the charming piece in New Times’ Flashes column of March 27. I understand why no one was willing to sign the article. Tough public…
Richard Lloyd Carr wants the state to allow his company, Interwest Management, Inc., to build one of Arizona’s first toll roads. As unlikely as tollways sound in Arizona, the South Mountain Toll Road would go one better: It wouldn’t be state-owned. A special district would be formed to acquire the…
One night in March 1987, Mary and Manny Carbajal and several members of their family gathered around a kitchen table at their home in downtown Phoenix. It would be more than a year before their 19-year-old son Michael would become world famous, and his inspirational story had yet to be…
Phoenix City Councilwoman Frances Emma Barwood says her first instinct was to call a press conference in Mayor Skip Rimsza’s office and, in front of the Valley’s media, slug him. She only changed her mind, she says, because it wouldn’t be smart to commit an assault on camera. Barwood says…
Howl He Explain All This? Last week was a busy time for former KTVK-TV Channel 3 weather forecaster Jim Howl. On Friday, news of his gubernatorial aspirations leaked. Then on Saturday, it was reported that Howl had admitted the reason he was fired from Channel 3 after 24 years: alleged…
