Letters From the Issue of Thursday, October 5, 2006

Living in Sin Now the sky only sags: Regarding your feature on Satan’s Angel, or whatever her name is (“Hell’s Belle,” Benjamin Leatherman, September 28), what has the world come to when New Times considers it a cover story to profile an aging stripper? I remember when New Times only…

In for a Bean, in for a Burrito

I got a bumper sticker at a street fair in Mexico that was a play on the “Hecho en México” export logo with the eagle graphic. Mine is the same but says, “Hecho un Mendigo.” My Mexican friends think it’s funny. Problem is, we can’t really explain the joke to…

Hell’s Belle

Cecelia Walker has a hot pair of breasts, literally. As the thumping congas of Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice” pump from the Paper Heart’s loudspeakers, the scantily clad 62-year-old burlesque dancer stands onstage at the downtown Phoenix performance venue, preparing to light her size 42D boobs on fire. Walker, who’s known by…

Career Death

Keep your mouth shut, keep your job, keep your career. That’s the lesson officers of the Arizona Department of Public Safety can take from the case of a rookie who was fired after a supervisor spiked one of his tickets. Brent Wyatt, an ex-West Virginian with a military haircut and…

Making Babies

I have a stupid, unemployed, 16-year-old gang-bangin’ cousin who already dropped out of school, and I’m pretty sure most Mexicans are related to somebody who fits that description. About eight months ago, he knocked up a girl around his age, so last week I was dragged to their extremely festive…

Letters From the Issue of Thursday, September 28, 2006

Borne Again In the other guy’s shoes: I enjoyed the cartoon story by Jim Mahfood and Stephen Lemons (“The Passion of El Cristo,” September 14), maybe because I spent 20 years on the west side of town in an area that was 95 percent Mexican. I met a gentle migrant…

Da Mayor’s Debacle

The Bird’s been crowin’ like a rooster after an all-nighter in the henhouse over the spanking Scottsdale voters gave the pro-Proposition 401 crowd on September 12. The absurd anti-lap-dance law bit the canvas like a bum boxer, with 52 percent of the electorate essentially telling Mayor Mary Manross and the…

Border Cross

I am a gabacho who is dating a spicy little seorita. We’re going to Mexico so I can meet her father and his side of the family. I’m a rather alto y flaco fellow, and I wasn’t blessed with the dark complexion Mexicans enjoy. I speak some Spanish, but what…

Letters From the Issue of Thursday, September 21, 2006

Saviorman Keep your eyes on the road: My daughter, who’s an ASU student, read your cartoon story on Jesus as an illegal immigrant to me while we drove from Tempe to Paradise Valley (“The Passion of El Cristo,” Jim Mahfood and Stephen Lemons, September 14). I can tell you we…

I Dunnit

James Mullins is talking for the first time publicly about why he confessed — falsely — to killing a 19-year-old woman in Tempe a year ago. His case made headlines for days this summer after Phoenix police revealed a link between the so-called Baseline Killer and the September 2005 shooting…

Campus Strife

A conservative pro-life organization at Arizona State University, best known for displaying 18-foot, graphic images of aborted fetuses on the campus mall last spring, is suing ASU for requiring the group to pay an insurance fee before the exhibit, claiming the charge violates its First Amendment rights. If this case…

The Passion of El Cristo

Starring: Jesus Cristo as Himself Danny DeVito as God, a.k.a. “Big Poppa” Sheriff Joe Alzheimer’s and his deputized Posse of Alter Kockers Senator Jon Kyl as “Satan” Redneck Minutemen Loads of Illegal Immigrants Mayor Phil “I know I look dark, but I swear I’m not a Beaner” Gordon as Judas…

Farrakhan Follies

Are the Navajo Nation and the Nation of Islam goin’ on the warpath together? That’s the scenario this carping canary initially imagined when it heard that none other than part-time south Phoenix resident Minister Louis “Lightning Rod” Farrakhan addressed the Navajo Nation Council at Window Rock, the Navajo capital. Farrakhan,…

History Creating Itself

I see Jews, Asians and Persians making something of themselves and conducting safe, walkable communities. Of course they’re not perfect, but I don’t see high Jew-crime communities, either. I see these people sticking together and helping each other out instead of envying their own. Why can’t Mexicans get their act…

Letters From the Issue of Thursday, September 14, 2006

Sentence Fragment Criminal element: I read the article on Dan Coleman, and I’m completely disgusted that this man has never been prosecuted (“Killer Candidate,” Sarah Fenske, September 7). On May 14, 2006, my sister, Nicole Traxler, was murdered in her home by a convicted felon who was released from prison…

Killer Candidate

Three years ago, Dan Coleman shot his girlfriend’s sister point-blank in the face with a .38. She died that night, and within a week, he was charged with first-degree murder. And so it is more than a little odd that Dan Coleman is now having lunch at Macayo’s in downtown…

Loose Screws

“Don’t portray us as a bunch of wackos,” 9/11 “truth” activist Kent Knudson warned this Walter Winchell of warblers during a recent interview. “We have our facts. We have evidence. We have witnesses. The government has nothing.” Nothing but, like, some science ‘n’ stuff. Knudson’s one of the main wacktivists…

Letters From the Issue of Thursday, September 7, 2006

Grime Is the Word Times, they are a-changin’: New Times, you really know how to ruin my day! First I read longtime investigative reporter John Dougherty’s piece about how he will no longer be turning over rocks and looking under them in Phoenix (“Vaya Con Dios,” August 31), and then…

Wet Kisses

My gabacha friends and I marched in the May pro-amnesty rallies and wanted to show our support on our chests as well as our feet. We wore tee shirts that read, “I only (picture of big, juicy lips) mojados” on the front, and “Yo solo (lips) mojados” on the back…

Rappin’ Radical

“They killed Malcolm, Martin, Guevara, Lennon, Marley, Pac, Biggie, Tookie, Jam Master Jay, John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Fred Hampton, Huey Newton, and even God’s son too/So fuck the Bible, I get my basic instruction from Sun Tzu.” Onstage at the infamous Club Congress in Tucson last April, a DJ…

Juicy Taco Hell

The Bird chortled its freakin’ tail feathers off the other day watching Arizona’s daily press get played like a $2 harmonica by billionaire hucksters Peter and Harry Morton, and their PR butt boy Jason Rose, who by now should have about the same aura of believability as the kid who…

Vaya Con Dios

We set off minutes after dawn to begin our descent down the North Kaibab Trail and into the depths of the Grand Canyon. I have lived in Arizona for 32 years and never hiked to the bottom of the canyon, let alone rim-to-rim. Now was the time — in the…