Suspended Sentence I don’t think I have seen a sentence diagram fired in anger in 40 years (Flashes, February 15), but the diligent teachers at P.S. 69 did their work well because I was able to decipher the diagram, then quibble over it, in short order. The real defect in…
As the stylishly draped litigator who ran Attorney General Grant Woods’ staff of 301 lawyers, Rob Carey was the most powerful prosecutor in Arizona. Carey is cocky, urbane and intellectually intimidating, attributes that might have hung more gracefully from the frame of an older, less ambitious man; having taken over…
The headquarters of the international Space Access Society is a four-by-nine-inch bin at a Mailboxes & More in Ahwatukee. Henry Vanderbilt, the society’s executive director and lone employee, has good reason to keep his physical address a secret. Over the years, Vanderbilt’s been a magnet for every kook from here…
The homes were castles. The idea that they could be free from taxes was too much for the county assessor to believe. So Pete Corpstein started questioning the tax-exemptness of the nonprofit agencies that installed their clients in such homes–groups like Homeward Bound, which used homes in Scottsdale and Ahwatukee,…
The same day Richard Romley announced he would seek reelection as Maricopa County attorney, one of his subordinates was looking into a case that may prove to be an election-year headache. After New Times reported that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio had used public funds to hire outside counsel (“Joe…
The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System soap opera gets curiouser and curiouser. Federal investigations of AHCCCS continue to narrow their focus–and after a year of ignoring a scandal that could cost Arizona $200 million, the state’s largest daily newspaper may actually get around to mentioning it. Part one: the…
Just read the headlines. I know I do. It’s a jungle out there. No, it’s more than a jungle, and it’s not just out there. It’s in something hiding its bacterial calling card–courtesy of chemical preservatives–right there in the rear of the bottom shelf of your fridge. It’s in that…
Horror has an emotional shelf life. The remoteness of the Inquisition or the Diaspora makes these episodes of history less likely to stir up rage and sorrow in modern people than the Holocaust, many of whose victims are still among us. Ted Bundy and Charles Manson still make us shudder,…
Jarred As a club owner and a New Times advertiser for 16 years, I know that one bad apple doesn’t spoil the entire basket. However, I feel that the column written by David Holthouse was unfair toward the Mason Jar and me (Coda, February 8). First off, I received no…
Geraldine Dodson’s body was found in a seated position on the living-room floor, near a bowl of uneaten cereal. On that morning–July 25, 1990–family members discovered several empty bottles of prescription medication tucked away in various corners of Dodson’s west Phoenix mobile home. Later that day, the Maricopa County Medical…
In addition to performing its licensing functions, the Arizona Board of Medical Examiners is supposed to protect the public from “unlawful, incompetent, unqualified, impaired or unprofessional” physicians. Just how well is Bomex monitoring and disciplining Arizona’s 7,900 doctors? Although national groups say the board is among the most active in…
Larry Stam finished his graveyard shift at a Phoenix convenience store last September 7, showered, and drove to the county courthouse. He was headed for a hearing before Superior Court Judge William Sargeant III. The hearing concerned Mitchell Vanorsby, with whom Stam had shared a brief, unforgettable experience. “That guy…
For at least a year, a freelance writer known as Sidney Phillips has been covering the Arizona State Legislature for Tucson Weekly. Sidney Phillips’ stories, which sometimes share a byline with Tucson Weekly senior editor Jim Nintzel, frequently ridicule conservative lawmakers, including those who promote laws that groups such as…
It’s an hour after serial knockout artist Julio Cesar Chavez has made Mesa’s Scott “Pink Cat” Walker his latest victim. Walker is wandering around Caesars Palace in Las Vegas with his girlfriend, looking little the worse for wear. He tries his hand at a $1 slot, but his luck with…
Each legislative session, Arizona lawmakers pore over thousands of pages of impossibly complicated bills, eventually wading through the technical language and past the nagging lobbyists to pass hundreds of laws. But now a two-page bill designed to simply cross-reference all exemptions to Arizona Public Records Law–without changing public policy–is stuck…
Paul Don’t Rite So Good The Flash had to scrub in the shower after reading last Sunday’s column by Arizona Republic editorial windsock Paul Schatt. It wasn’t enough for Schatt to parrot the doomed and primal yearnings of Arizona’s crispiest Phil Gramm crackers–Governor J. Fife Symington III and U.S. Senator…
Lisa had an abortion yesterday, and her parents don’t know. Lisa’s only 15. She’s the cute young girl next door with long brown hair, a ninth-grade honors student. She’s got everything going for her–except, until yesterday, she was pregnant. She’s still confused about the abortion, and having it was not…
Somewhere, those kids are snickering. You can bet that they are–whoever they are–getting quite a kick out of this whole thing, their adolescent, pimply faces breaking into grins of vandalistic glee every time a news account of their devilish handiwork appears in print or on TV. God knows, they’re high-fiving…
Lady of the Rings Dewey Webb’s “Lourdes of the Rings” (February 8) was most interesting, even and well-done, except that it gave a misleading, two-dimensional profile of Kay Torrez. For a half-century, Torrez has been an ardent, effective, respected neighborhood and community activist, much of it in the cause of…
Surveying the New Age happening unfolding on the grounds of her Hyder Valley ranch one recent Sunday afternoon, Kay Torrez makes the understatement of the millennium. “If you don’t know what’s happening out here, I guess all this does look kinda far-out,” concedes the 73-year-old grandmother. To say the least…
Glendale Mayor Elaine Scruggs walks along the driveway that loops around her city’s latest acquisition–a weather-beaten, 98-year-old Victorian Queen Anne Revival home. There’s actually enough foliage to lower the temperature here, in this little corner of the desert where the tall date palms turn the shaded grass a deep, lush…
When Sheriff Joe Arpaio sued the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in 1994, challenging its authority to cut his budget, the action was widely viewed as a publicity stunt. Not so, argued the sheriff, assuring the public that he was entirely serious. Besides, Arpaio pointed out, taxpayers wouldn’t pay for…
