Six months ago, I received an impassioned e-mail from a woman in south Chandler. She was responding to a column I had written a week earlier about Bishop Thomas O’Brien’s long history of coddling and secretly transferring priests who had molested children. In the e-mail, the woman told the story…

Eliza Ranger felt the poison before she smelled it. She was half-dozing while watching the evening news in her living room when her heart started racing and skipping beats. She figured she was having a heart attack. She looked to her kitchen and noticed black smoke seeping through her windowsills…

Two months ago, Mike Schatz thought his boss, Gary Carpaneto, was a pretty good guy. Carpaneto had generally been cordial for the three years Schatz was able to do the heavy work Carpaneto demanded of him. Carpaneto owns Bedrock Stone Company in Glendale, a landscaping company with 20 or so…

My son’s baseball coach, although a wonderful shortstop, is a remarkably bad pitcher. The 9- and 10-year-olds standing around him can throw more strikes. When Coach tries to reach 55 miles per hour, the standard for competitive 10-and-under teams, more balls bounce across the plate than fly. As we heckled…

You’re wearing nothing but shorts and a shirt when police arrive at your door. The police cuff you in front of your children. You are hauled off to jail on 10 felony charges. You’re told you’ll spend a decade in prison. In jail, you are forced to stand nude while…

Last week I told you the story of how Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his chief deputy, David Hendershott, settled a political score by citing Joe Arizona for impersonating a highway patrol officer. Quick recap: Hendershott was at Tom’s Tavern at noon on Halloween. Joe Arizona, a.k.a. actor Nick Tarr, walks…

Like a serial killer, Joe Arpaio is getting cockier and dumber with each hit. This time, Arpaio cited Joe Arizona, the pitchman for Proposition 201, with a class 1 misdemeanor for impersonating a highway patrol officer at a downtown restaurant on Halloween. Arizona, whose real name is Nick Tarr, was…

I am thinking about the East Coast man who kills from afar. I am thinking he’s an outcast who fantasizes about being a Marine sniper. I am thinking he is a man in love with the taste of power over human life, a power that can taste divine. It is…

St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa should be fired. He should be fired for threatening gang violence. He should be fired for inciting a riot. He should be fired for basically putting a hit out on a fellow human being. It’s only fair play. A local radio DJ was…

If you’re wondering how your state could spend so little on critical services yet still collapse into a budget crisis, look no further than this little phrase in Arizona tax law: “. . . and common areas used as an airport.” This line will cost you and other Arizonans hundreds…

Cops call it “building the jacket.” If you’ve got a guy you want to ruin, you start throwing crazy allegations at him or start listening to crazy allegations about him. Then you conduct sham “investigations.” Then you make sure the allegations and investigations start piling up in his personnel file…

Advice columnist Amy Alkon had a delicious secret. In her spare time, she’d been actively insulting the owners of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) with an inspired piece of performance art. This past spring she wrote about her one-woman campaign in our sister publication in Los Angeles. The column ignited a…

The young lovers came from different sides of the tracks. Brian Buck (his real name) was a hardworking, hard-partying member of Arizona State University’s naughtiest fraternity, who appeared destined for greater things in ASU’s student government. Calli Cox (her stage name) was the hardworking, hard-partying member of the porn industry…

Alfredo Gutierrez is one of Arizona’s greatest living statesmen. In contrast, Janet Napolitano, his rival in the Democratic primary for governor, has a nice résumé. Gutierrez grew up in the Mexican-American shantytowns of the mines around Globe, an experience that forged his resolve to dedicate his life to fighting for…

He was a hellion in his teens and twenties but has since grown into a solid husband and father. He served in the Marines, which helped steel him for his current job as a crackshot paramedic for Mesa General Hospital. Mark Kennedy has a right to be defined as a…

Bob Clapp says his testicles are perfectly plump, thank you, and his wife of 44 years back in the kitchen is willing to attest that he is far from impotent. I won’t make him verify testicular health because above and below those testes ripple the most chiseled, menacing muscles I…

David James is a black man. Ginger Mattox is a white woman. In the fall of 1998, Phoenix police officers pulled over Ginger Mattox as she drove near her home in the historic Story District near 16th Avenue and McDowell. The officer pulled over the professionally dressed woman, checked her…

In a stunning and welcome reversal, Bishop Thomas O’Brien is now apparently cooperating with the Maricopa County Attorney’s investigation of the alleged sexual misconduct of Father Patrick Colleary, whose sins you first read about in this column. The Phoenix Diocese not only agreed to comply fully with a grand jury…

QUESTION: When a monsoon comes and floods the roads, should I drive through the water? ANSWER: Yes. Your vehicle is equipped with flotation equipment made mandatory following Ralph Nader’s investigation of the Disney hit Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. If you are heroic enough to drive into the flooded area, you…

The road began from Highway 60 as an inviting blacktop, with the greasy coal black of new asphalt and a tight, bright yellow line down the middle. My 9-year-old and 5-year-old boys were giddy with the thought of spontaneous exploration. This is what dads do on camping trips. They provide…

Imagine the western United States without power for six months. No computers, no phones, no air-conditioning, no refrigeration, no manufacturing, no American Idol. The devastation to the U.S. economy would make September 11 look like a fender-bender. Al-Qaida likely has the technology and know-how to make this nightmare real, says…

July 4. Independence Day. At Bank One Ballpark, the World Series champs will take on home-run king Barry Bonds and his San Francisco Giants in a battle of National League titans. Forty-five thousand fans, easy. Forty-five thousand suckers, easy. Suckers? What other sort of spineless sots would let their lovers…