The official word is that Governor Jane Dee Hull was hospitalized for a week in March with a kidney infection, but I think I’ve learned the truth. The doctors were really implanting a backbone. How else to explain the governor’s personality change? She went into the hospital as Granny Hull,…
Good Riddance If only there were a Rep in the restaurant where I ate today–maybe I wouldn’t be so outraged at poor little fat boy Lance Hawthorne, who died in Madison Street Jail (“109 Degrees of Incarceration,” Tony Ortega, May 6). As usual, New Times blames everything on Joe Arpaio…
Nearly a year after his death, Senator Barry Goldwater’s legacy lives on, continuing to affect his beloved state and its contentious politics through the Goldwater Institute, a think tank to which he gave his name in 1988. Founded on the legendary conservative’s well-known agenda of advancing individual freedom and limiting…
Convinced that cabals of international terrorists want him dead, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has ordered and obtained a $70,000 armored car to assure his safe passage through our mean streets. The car, a special 1999 Oldsmobile Delta 88, was “hardened” by a Canadian company. New Times obtained these top…
A federal grand jury is investigating possible billing fraud at Maricopa Medical Center, the county hospital. It’s unclear how much money may be involved, but a former resident physician and a doctor with MedPro, a private contractor that provides patient care for the hospital, say they have been cooperating with…
Unsportsmanlike Conduct? Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano is furious over the Fiesta Bowl’s last-minute endorsement of Rio Salado Crossing, the $1.8 billion boondoggle-in-waiting that Mesa voters will act on come May 18. “It was like a punch in the stomach,” Giuliano says of last week’s sudden announcement by Fiesta Bowl officials…
In January, the Federal Bureau of Investigation confiscated the financial records of the Posse Foundation as part of the U.S. Attorney’s probe of misdeeds in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Evidence from that probe is currently being presented to a federal grand jury. Posse Foundation board member and treasurer Jerry…
Of the many scenes I’ll take with me from the Phoenix Coyotes’ 1998-99 hockey season, this one first comes to mind: It happened on Easter morning. It was a rainy, cold day, and inclement weather would cause cancellation of the Tradition golf tournament a few miles north of the Ice…
Late on a brassy Sunday afternoon, Celia Putty stands beneath the velvet curtain, loaded on sass and confidence. Stretching diagonally over his frilly shirt and ample breasts is a red beauty queen sash that reads: “Project LifeGuard Phoenix–Queen of Safe Sex ?-1999.” Putty’s black leather shoes are trimmed with bright…
Alice Does Live Here For the record, I would like to comment on your article regarding Alice Cooper’stown (“Go Ask Alice,” Gilbert Garcia) in the April 29 issue of New Times. As the founder of Evening Star Productions, and producing concerts here for 25 years, I have been fortunate enough…
Scott Stanley wants to show you photos of dead Mexicans. Some of the bodies photographed in American deserts are wasted and burned after lying for days as buzzard meat. Others, found sooner, are less unsettling. One is of a 17-year-old girl whose face, except for the doll’s-eye stare, belongs in…
Our state legislators wrapped up their work and went home quietly last week. Some limped. This was a mean session–tears in conference committees, snipes on the House floor, chains on the doors of the Senate. Senate President Brenda Burns and House Speaker Jeff Groscost should be glad to have made…
Through binoculars at night, the corner of Ninth Avenue and Madison Street is a murky scene of people milling in the dark. Yet the few lights in the area radiate just enough to see that the street’s after-hours crowd of about 100 homeless men and women is beginning to stir…
Lance Paul Hawthorne was not a model citizen. When a landlord attempted in 1989 to evict Hawthorne for not paying rent, the overweight, sparsely employed photographer opened fire with a .22 revolver, shooting through his door and walls. After Hawthorne, then 44, was arrested, the converted garage he lived in…
Grandstanding Maricopa County has a critical stadium/arena shortage. Sports venues are few and far between. At least you’d think that was the case, based on the Herculean efforts under way to exponentially expand the number of edifices where a sports buff can drop $50 or $100 or more to plant…
Outside the Center for the New Age in Sedona, Oak Creek babbled like an inner child as rental SUVs on Highway 179 roared like angry parents. Above the din, professional healer Daniel Rain attempted to alleviate my chronic sciatic nerve pain via a technique billed as “didgeridoo chakra realignment,” which…
In familiar, stoic poses, the Duke hangs purposefully among framed moments of bronco busting, ranch landscapes, and flyers publicizing an event called “Bill Williams Steak Fry and Dance.” Juke-spewed country and classic rock thump through the lounge’s dim light and blue curls of cigarette smoke. Men in uniforms chase balls…
Sitting on the couch, Shawndra Lee stretches, bored, as her mom talks about their HMO coverage. Her back cracks with a sound like a rifle shot. The loud snap is one of the only indications that her spine is bent 65 degrees out of shape. To get some idea of…
How Come a Judge? I just finished reading your article on Bonnie Scherer (“Sitting Petty,” Matthew Doig, April 22). Here is a woman who has clearly worked very hard to better herself and get out of the system (as she put it). Then you get some arrogant judge who is…
The date is February 24, but the calendar pages in Steve May’s office haven’t been flipped since January 11, the first day of his first session as a member of the Arizona House of Representatives. May barely has time to read the piles of bills his secretary has stuffed into…
Fossil Creek, a major tributary of the Verde River, doesn’t flow over travertine and river rock, bedrock gorges or deep canyons. It runs through pipes and tunnels, through two power plants and a steel half-pipe that resembles the log flume ride at Disneyland. In fact, woodland yahoos have been known…
The Arizona Department of Health Services plans to study the possible health problems caused by the ASARCO smelter in Hayden, despite officials’ earlier dismissals of any concerns. Researchers from the state met with residents in the area last week. But lawyers in a planned lawsuit against ASARCO charge that the…
