Life Teen Founder Busted

Monsignor Dale Fushek, once second-in-command of the Phoenix Diocese and founder of the nation’s top church-based program for Catholic teenagers, has been arrested on 10 misdemeanor counts involving sexual misconduct with teenage boys and young men. The charges stem from the accounts of six men who all say they were…

Wisdom of the Ancestors

I first met former Hopi tribal chairman Vernon Masayesva in December 1992, when my then-wife and I were publishing a weekly newspaper in Flagstaff. Masayesva called one afternoon and said he wanted to tell me a story of great importance to his tribe. A few days later, we met at…

Dead Man Driving

Dead Man Driving In one way, the ticket James Hamburg got for running a red light on Country Club Drive in October wasn’t so unusual. He was heading south when the light at University Drive turned red, and he kept going. Woo hoo! The camera snapped his picture, and the…

We Be Buggin’

“Ready to wrap your lips around a hookah, Kreme?” asks the J-Unit as we worm our way through the party people toward the bar at Mythos, this fly Mediterranean joint in Scottsdale that looks like it’s right out of Jabba the Hutt’s throne room in Return of the Jedi, with…

Letters From the Issue of Thursday, December 1, 2005

Music Scene Stealers In his Element: Great article! Element is the man! But I didn’t realize I was shopping or “primping myself” for a major-label record deal until I read your story (“Quiet Riot,” Jimmy Magahern, November 17). I agree about people not paying attention to the locals in the…

Ice, Ice, Baby

Maggie Voss cried as her 7-year-old son, Ryan, received a Student of the Month award from his school’s principal recently. The weeping was a little weird, but the other parents didn’t seem to notice. Some suburban moms tend to overreact to their babies’ accomplishments. That’s a given. It’s better than…

What’s Eating Crow?

Arizona State University president Michael Crow’s stepped up his campaign to turn the most populous main campus in the nation into America’s most sterile institution of higher learning. Having already neutered ASU’s unruly fraternity community and squashed any display of politically oriented window decorations in dorm windows (because college kids…

Letters From the Issue of Thursday, November 24, 2005

Polygamyland On the run: I fully expect to see a cartoon in New Times soon of staff writer John Dougherty — white mane flowing and tape recorder in outstretched hand — chasing tall, skinny polygamist leader Warren Steed Jeffs down that long driveway leading to the polygamists’ new temple in…

Meth and Sex

Nothing about Theresa’s Noxzema-fresh face, curvy body, and just-washed auburn hair reveals the hell she put herself through for more than 20 years. “I know I don’t look like it now,” Theresa says, sipping an iced chai tea at Willow House, a downtown Phoenix coffee house, “but I did some…

Quiet Riot

There’s a party going on Thursday nights at the Shaker Room — if you’re savvy enough to find the dance floor. The club, practically hidden across a patio and up a flight of stairs behind Martini Ranch, is, to begin with, too far back from Stetson Drive to draw in…

Torturous Times

Welcome to America, where our fearless leader’s busy golfing and barely bothered by reports that the CIA’s been hiding al-Qaeda prisoners in secret Eastern European jails formerly operated by the Soviet KGB. Where our entertainment’s provided by Team America’s second-in-command, Dick “Terrorist Your Game Is Through” Cheney, who’s lobbying Congress…

Funktified Friday

“Suck a duck, Jett, you’re getting collard juice all over my brand-new kicks!” I yelp as the AC/DC Gabrielle Union spoons some greens into her kisser. “I just got these K-Swiss at Steven’s Shoes, you crazy chickenhead.” “Mmmm, these truffled collards are delish,” she moans, as if in heat. “And…

Letters From the Issue of Thursday, November 17, 2005

Meth and the City An out-of-reach problem?: I just finished reading the excellent articles on the methamphetamine problem in Phoenix (“The Perfect Drug,” Joe Watson, Robert Nelson and Paul Rubin, November 3). Thank you so much, New Times, for once again being honest with the public. The drug problem is…

Rite to Assemble

It’s getting near closing time at Tempe’s IKEA, and Kelli Quinn is inching farther away from the front entrance. Like some lonely patron in a smoky bar during last call, she’s hesitant to leave. But instead of horny drunks, Quinn is surrounded by screwed-together chairs and heat-veneered tables and polystyrene…

Check, Please

Okay, so it’s a furniture store. But one of the most popular items for sale at IKEA is its two-and-a-half-pound bag of frozen Swedish meatballs, the very same meatballs that customers line up for at the store’s indoor cafes around the globe. But county health inspectors are busy trying to…

Wanted: Armed and Dangerous

A massive stone temple jutting from the crest of an oak-and-juniper knoll pierces the serenity of the broad horizon of the seductively beautiful Texas hill country. The 90-foot-high edifice is topped with a cupola and buttressed by a grand sweeping staircase leading to the main entrance. Circular columns resembling towers…

Lactose Intolerants

Until it saw some stupid cow with her left tit hanging out in the middle of a Target parking lot, The Bird was squawking with glee about the new, just-passed Chandler ordinance allowing mothers to breast-feed in public. This avian thought, “Why shouldn’t moms of every stripe — even ugly,…

Tasty Tuesday

Now, y’all know P-town’s bi-Kelly Monaco and I have both got us a sweet tooth or three, myself being partial to a pocketful of Abba-Zaba, and the Jettster having a thing for the eye candy of both sexes. So it’s a mystery to me why we took so long to…

Letters From the Issue of Thursday, November 11, 2005

Siren Call Telling it like it is: Well, finally somebody told the truth about Pat Cantelme. I can hardly believe New Times had the cojónes to do it, considering his scary reputation (“Ambulance Chasers,” Sarah Fenske, October 27). Your writer really told a compelling story about the ambulance business and…

The New Boss

You would have thought cops were raiding the stronghold of Pablo Escobar. Early on a warm August morning, 38 Phoenix cops, many in black fatigues with automatic weapons, stormed the home of Daniel Watkins, looking for drugs. Instead, after three hours of dissecting the house in northeast Phoenix, all they…

Gomer, You’re Fired!

The Bird’s nested in Phoenix long enough to know that this place has its share of shady, self-important, half-witted yokels. Even so, it’s still occasionally surprised by how Mayberry this backward burg can be. Take our fearful leaders’ recent response to a city council vote that will allow Donald Trump…

Letters From the Issue of Thursday, November 3, 2005

Alien Nation Compassion for migrants: What I liked about your story “Postcards From the Edge” (Jimmy Magahern, October 20) was that you didn’t demonize U.S. citizens who are opposed to illegal immigration. The article was a thoughtful look at the immigration saga through the eyes of young people right out…