Mario Puzo has always insisted that when he wrote The Godfather, he knew so little about organized crime that he had no real Mafia dons in mind as models for Don Corleone. From his writing, it is clear that he regards them as a higher form of life than politicians…
“When it came to a dead reporter,” John Harvey Adamson said, “they just put him in the ground and turned him over to the worms.” I was sitting in a small room with Adamson in the Arizona State Prison at Florence. He was in shackles that held his arms pinned…
We make the mistake of rooting for the underdog. Pretty soon, our hearts cloud our judgment. That’s why I felt so sure the other night that college basketball’s upset of the year was about to happen. I’d read the advance stories about Princeton’s basketball team in the New York Times…
There should never have been a doubt. Those two Smitty’s supermarket workers who allegedly strangled Ric Rankins last July deserve to stand trial for manslaughter. At first I was appalled by the mishandling of the case by County Attorney Richard Romley. His cynical excuse for avoiding the controversial case was…
I am not sending Christmas cards to the following this year: The Circle K clerk who insists on charging me a one-cent tax each time I purchase the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The garbage collector who refuses to pick up my trash cans unless they are…
Rather than write a formal criticism of the Arizona Republic under the regime of its new publisher John P. “Skippy” Zanotti, Tom Fitzpatrick has decided to allow Republic reporters to interview him as they would any other critic. Interviewers: Do you like the way the Republic looks these days? Fitz:…
The expression that came over Robert Bennett’s face each time Senator Dennis DeConcini attacked him was riveting. The special counsel for the Senate Ethics Committee stared straight at Arizona’s senior senator with a contemptuous glare. Bennett remained motionless, his arms folded over his big belly like an irritated passenger on…
In the final seconds, the pass was intercepted. Larry Marmie spun his body completely around with an involuntary motion. If it had been completed, the pass by Arizona State University’s quarterback Paul Justin would have won the game. But it was off the mark and the University of Arizona defeated…
John Madden’s routine is growing more than a bit tired. For the first time, I found it impossible to vote for either candidate in the governor’s race. Riccio’s on East Indian School serves the freshest pasta dishes in town. The Weiss Guys at Camelback and Central is still the best…
I wanted to turn off the television set. Though it was two in the morning, I sensed that Terry Goddard would hold his lead over Fife Symington. Even Proposition 302 appeared safe. I thought the huge effort put in by the business community would pay off. Arizona would finally have…
The first time Dennis DeConcini left home it was to attend the University of San Francisco. As a college undergraduate, he was a wealthy young man who quickly turned playboy in the big city. Poor grades and a plummeting checking account spelled it out. DeConcini’s parents decided he was a…
John McCain can stop running now. The race is over. It’s time for McCain to sit erect in a chair with television cameras whirring and face the Senate Ethics Committee. The long-awaited hearings into the savings-and-loan scandal begin Thursday in Washington, D.C. McCain is the most interesting of all the…
The first thing you notice about James Styers as he walks into the courtroom is how pale and frightened he seems. He wears a dark, multicolored sweater over an open-throated white dress shirt. On his feet he wears white tennis shoes. Styers looks more like a college professor on his…
I went out to Sun Devil Stadium on Saturday and Sunday to get a firsthand look at Arizona’s two professional teams. The big difference is that the Phoenix Cardinals make more money than the Sun Devils. They also seem to enjoy themselves more, too. Both Arizona State and the Cardinals…
Jami Goldman is 21 years old and still trusting enough to think most people are on her side. She’s also a double amputee who is now in the midst of a court fight with the state of Arizona that will determine the future course of her life. For two days…
If it’s Thursday, this must be Oakland. It’s three in the afternoon. I’m standing on the playing field of the Oakland Coliseum watching the Cincinnati Reds take batting practice. It’s so crowded I feel like I have just stepped on to a New York City subway platform during morning rush…
We were driving south from Shannon Airport, heading for tiny Kenmare, in County Kerry, not far from Ireland’s fabled southwest coast, the land of the Ring of Kerry, Bantry Bay, Valencia Island and the isolated but magnificent Dingle Peninsula. Christina the Lawyer had rented a 150-year-old farmhouse on thirty isolated…
I changed planes in Boston last weekend on the way home from my vacation in Ireland. While waiting to catch the plane for Phoenix, I bought both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. I n reading through the two papers, I was astonished at the number of stories discussing…
A writer of fiction most certainly would enjoy a rare literary feast in sitting down to write a novel based on the rise and fall of Senator John McCain. McCain’s life story has all the elements required for the creation of a complex, even memorable, fictional character. His life is…
The punishment of Charles Keating has begun. Even before a jury has been chosen, a California judge, eager to increase his voter-approval rating, sets a bond so incredibly high that it be comes nothing less than an indefinite jail sentence. This preposterous ruling by a judge trying to curry public…
TELLURIDE, Colorado–There are stories so rich in converging dramatic angles that few readers are willing to spend the time to trace them to their conclusion. That had been my first reaction to the long fratricidal war waged by the children of L.S. Shoen, 74, for control of the $1.2 billion…
It’s true. Every hero really does become a bore at last. And now it’s Senator John McCain’s turn. McCain, Arizona’s most charismatic political figure for most of the past decade, has touched bottom. Only a war in the Persian Gulf can save his senatorial seat, which comes up in the…
