Antismoking activists were pleasantly surprised when Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza went on the offensive against cigarette manufacturers. In letters made public January 3, the mayor blasted cigarette makers for targeting children in their advertising: “While most of us see kids as our hope for the future, the tobacco industry sees…
You may have heard of Kemper Marley, the late Phoenix land baron, liquor kingpin, political deal maker and cockfighting aficionado long suspected as the mastermind of the 1976 carbomb killing of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles. Before he died in 1990, the famed scoundrel promised to donate $1million to the…
Once upon a time, Betty Dearing would have found it hard to believe that most of the guests at a recent family get-together could wind up lying around with lighted candles stuck into their ears. Of course, that was before a relative of the Phoenix grandmother mentioned a rediscovered folk…
Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew Cover it with chocolate and a miracle or two The Candy Man, oh, the Candy Man can The Candy Man can ’cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good … Oh, that Candy Man was certainly a…
X Mex I reread Howard Seftel’s fantasy-restaurant-week review (“Holiday on Rice,” December 28) just to make sure. Not one Mexican restaurant among his favorite Valley 21! How to account for this absence? Maybe Seftel just doesn’t like Mexican food. Fair enough. Unfortunately for the Seftels of this world, whose eating…
Like most roadside lodges, Florence’s Blue Mist Motel offers all the accommodations a tourist could ask for–an ice machine, a postcard rack, a color TV with AM/FM radio. But this landmark an hour southeast of Phoenix offers amenities you won’t find at any other motel in the country. Half the…
“I used to look at him and say to myself, ‘Now, that’s what I call a white boy!'” wheezes Marcus Hesby, dissolving into a laugh that starts with sheee and ends about 30 seconds later and an octave lower with it. Hesby is an old man now, a retired hod…
An Arizona group honoring historic black U.S. military units says the National Football League reneged on an agreement to let the organization present the American flag during Super Bowl XXX pregame ceremonies. “We were going to be the color guard forthe pregame-show national anthem,” says former U.S. Marine Corps colonel…
Manufacturing and mining interests plan to push for legislative changes that could render the state’s underground drinking-water supplies vulnerable to a wide variety of pollution. The proposed changes are detailed in a document prepared by industry lawyers and marked “Confidential” and “Not for Distribution.” The document was passed out to…
On the Breach Lisa Davis’ “The High Cost of Education Reform” (Breach of Contract, December 28) assumes that pupils are damaged by limiting the increases in Arizona education spending. In reality, there is no relationship between expenditures and results. For example, a 1989 study I conducted for Richard L. Harris,…
The UnMarlboro Cowboy holds up a photograph of what was once the inside of someone’s mouth–a row of badly stained lower teeth, cancerous gums and the swollen base of a tongue. The bloody, disembodied mess is part of a brochure meant to shock teenagers about the dangers of chewing tobacco…
5:15 a.m. Central Phoenix stirs, measures the darkness and slips back into one last dance with its dreams. But just west of downtown, a tiny corner building is busily stretching to life. Outside the pink brick walls, people mutter and gather up bedrolls and sleeping bags. A man scavenges a…
Pay raises are rare occurrences for most Arizona state employees, who rank last in the nation in average salary. So it is understandable that many of the state government’s 40,000 workers have been closely watching $3 million in salary increases tossed their way last year by the Legislature. That appropriation…
Do You Call It Ham or Serb? Political advertising has produced many a visual image with unintendedly scary undertones. Who will ever forget Michael Dukakis riding in that tank? Sam Campana’s campaign for mayor of Scottsdale, however, has moved to the technological forefront of frightening voters by accident. The Flash…
Club Meditation It seems to me that a few bad apples spoil the bunch when it comes to, as one obviously racially ignorant person says, the “dark element” at clubs (“The War on HipHop,” Michael Kiefer, December 21). Come on! Whites are fighting as much as blacks. My guess would…
Ed Pond was more than a little insulted. No company should have the kind of constant, easy access to high-ranking environmental administrators that the American Smelting and Refining Company seemed to. Pond figured the company was trying to get him fired from his job at the Arizona Department of Environmental…
Fife Symington has long trumpeted himself as a conservative Western governor who also believes in preserving the environment. He has repeatedly claimed he supports efforts to protect the environment, so long as they do not needlessly burden the economy. Yet the public record provides scant evidence that Symington-style reform protects…
Anthony, who doesn’t want his last name used for reasons that will soon become obvious, is not just a guy sitting at a bar in Flagstaff. Make some small talk, buy him a couple of beers, and the burly, mustachioed construction worker will tell you why. Anthony is a mother…
When congressional Republicans explain their ambitious plan for reforming the federal government–the Contract With America–they often use state governments as examples of the change to come. In fact, the notion that many federal programs would be more effective if they were moved–or devolved–to the state level is inherent to the…
This is a time for action. It’s a time to move beyond rhetoric and cosmetics. It’s a time to take bold steps to ensure that children get whatever help they need to grow physically, emotionally and mentally into healthy and happy adults. My vision is of an Arizona that leads…
The Republican revolution has a cure for the troubles of primary education in America, and it can be summarized in one word: competition. After more than a decade of dubious reform efforts, conservative Republicans are looking to change public schools from without, rather than from within. Their proposals have shiny…
In December 1990, New Times profiled Glenna Phelps’ fourth-grade class at Hamilton School in a story headlined “The Real War on Drugs.” Staff writer Paul Rubin interviewed many of Mrs. Phelps’ students at that time for the story. Five years later, Rubin tracked down Mrs. Phelps – who retired after…
