We sat on the stone steps outside the Durango women’s jail. It was late afternoon. Mike Black, the attorney, kept looking through his briefcase. Lawyers always make themselves look busy. The sun was coming at us from an angle and the shadows were deepening. But it was hotter now than…
We were driving Route 101 south along the Oregon coast. A light rain was falling on the windshield of the rented car. It is an area where the only radio station you can get is National Public Radio. We’d spent the first night in a Portland hotel of fading grandeur…
Here are thirty reasons Charles Keating deserves to be drawn and quartered at a public ceremony in Patriots Square. 1) Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan failure will be the largest bailout in history. 2) In order to clear up the mess Keating’s greed caused at Lincoln, taxpayers will ultimately pay…
Lawman Ralph Andrew Lawrence was primed to kill on that spring evening in 1986. In his mind, his enemies had conspired to ruin him–starting with waitress Sharma Bethel, an ex-girlfriend from the southeastern Arizona town of Willcox. Lawrence had figured his troubles with Bethel were ancient history. That stuff had…
Smile, Brendel! Luckily, the photographer who snapped this shot just happened to be wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, an ensemble that never fails to elicit an impressive display of this Siberian tiger’s dazzling dentistry. “She’s not angry; she’s frightened,” explains Dean Harrison, owner of Out of Africa, a big-cat…
Looks as though the honeymoon is over between Phoenix politicians and the citizens who helped them win last year’s hugely successful bond election. The love affair ended with the Phoenix City Council’s rejection last week of a citizen-backed spending plan for $18 million from those bonds. The city chose instead…
You can’t help it. Chat with Valley moms Susan Fitzgerald and Lori Drinkard, and all you can think is, “There but for the grace of the fertility gods go I.” As you may have noticed, I spend a lot of time bellyaching about the difficulties of raising one kid. Just…
The way Bill Parks sees it, if eight is good then ten must be better. The councilmember who represents northeast Phoenix is overwhelmed by the growth of his district since the district system was first enacted a decade ago. His territory runs from Sunnyslope to Carefree Highway, with an estimated…
With 800 people about to be laid off at Salt River Project, Marlene Dibble of Gilbert is updating her resume. She enjoys her work as a customer service representative who negotiates the electric needs of small businesses, but Marlene is afraid that because Arizona’s economy is disintegrating, she may be…
Tens of thousands of raw-footed hikers who’ve trudged into the Grand Canyon to Phantom Ranch know what a relief it is to finally collapse in the shade of the famous campground’s giant cottonwood trees. Until last fall, though, no one realized that the trees themselves could use a little relief…
The battle over fundamentalism in Valley schools has claimed another casualty with the forced resignation of a Phoenix principal who spoke out against ultraconservative pressure on his school. New Times has learned that Richard Boyer, a 31-year veteran of the Washington Elementary School District, was forced to resign midsemester after…
When Fat Albert is working, he floats on a tether 10,000 feet above the border. But he’s more of a buffoon than a balloon. A few months ago, a Sierra Vista cop was driving over the San Pedro River on Arizona 90 when he saw a low-flying airplane zigzagging into…
Burt Kruglick is a good learner. During the 1986 gubernatorial primary, the state GOP chief blasted Evan Mecham for negative campaigning in the primary against Burton Barr. But Mecham won handily with his mudslinging campaign that attacked special interests and portrayed him as a man of the people. Now Kruglick…
The doctors who control the Mutual Insurance Company of Arizona are more than willing to compromise–but only when they get their own way. And their antics during the latest session of the legislature show they know how to use their friends to do just that. Last year Governor Rose Mofford…
One minute is such a relative length of time. For example: Stick a frozen turkey in the microwave, hit the high button, and sixty seconds later you’ll still have a frozen turkey. Do the same thing to, oh, a live frog, and you’ll alter its molecular structure. All over your…
Michael Goldman will always be haunted by the faces of the students he met in Tiananmen Square. Goldman, twenty, a graduate of Phoenix Central High, visited the square in Beijing hours before the Chinese Army started killing. He spent his junior year of college studying at Chinese University in Hong…
Dr. William Bartel has already pleaded guilty and faces ten years in prison. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents found 81 pounds of cocaine in his home. Dr. Bartel will be a government witness. He’ll need protection until the case is over and perhaps for the rest of his life. The…
After last week’s column about Dr. William Bartel, the Paradise Valley dentist, there were some interesting phone calls. Dr. Bartel, 46, has, of course, pleaded guilty to being involved, along with his wife and sister, in a cocaine conspiracy. He faces ten years in a federal prison and a $4…
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:…
The insurance industry and its allies in the GOP leadership could have won, if they just hadn’t been so greedy. They could have come up with a bill to revamp Arizona’s automobile insurance laws that would have satisfied enough Republicans–and maybe even a handful of Democrats–to get the necessary votes…
Some things surprise us. We never expect talk-show hosts to behave with class or to display genuine insight into human behavior. That’s why Jami McFerrin’s dignified farewell to local radio last week was so astonishing. “I’m walkin’ out the door with my head held high,” McFerrin said on the air…
When planning family vacations, the normal course of action is to sit down months in advance, scan road maps, study travel guides and wrangle tips from anyone who’s ever been outside the city limits. But parents, in their haste to decide where they’ll have fun, invariably forget to ask the…
