At age 61, John Mollard likes things consistent. Close. Convenient. And he’s done his best to set up his life so that it stays that way. The same restaurants and the same meals, for example. Most days it’s raw fish here or raw fish there, the sushi not only a…
The Arizona Republic made national news earlier this year when the paper’s managing editor called 60 laid-off employees “fat, lazy, incompetent and slow.” Some or all of the newsroom employees booted in January 1997 likely will sue the company by the end of the summer, sources tell New Times, buoyed…
The Arizona Department of Corrections has fired a sergeant at the Aspen facility in Phoenix after an investigation confirmed reports of misconduct with inmates. Ben Sanders was dismissed April 20 after DOC found he had slapped one inmate, licked tongues with another and may have kissed several others. “This is…
Deborah Ham, the eccentric country lawyer who led an uphill legal battle to keep a copper mine out of Pinto Creek, a tiny forest stream just west of Globe, died suddenly of a stroke on May 13. She was 60 years old. Around 7 o’clock in the evening, Ham met…
A few months ago, John Casas and Tonya Hintz scanned the shelves of a north Phoenix video store for a decent film to rent. They found The Spitfire Grill–a 99-cent investment that ended up sending their lives in a whole new direction. The Spitfire Grill stars Ellen Burstyn as Hannah,…
Revolving Door Only in Arizona could big business and environmental lobbyists be interchangeable. The Flash has learned that Arizona Department of Environmental Quality director Russell Rhoades has hired Marcus Osborn as DEQ’s lobbyist to work with legislators. The 27-year-old Osborn is a former lobbyist for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce,…
Campus Rumpus Since the article in the May 7 issue by Amy Silverman about my book, Policies of Deceit in Our Public Schools and Colleges, sold a few copies, I want to express my appreciation for your publishing the article (“Junior College Confidential”), complete with a telephone number. I found…
It was an ordinary day in Scottsdale, business as usual. Nothing unusual happened. Real estate appreciated. The sun shone. A black guy was viewed with suspicion and got hassled by the cops. Nothing unusual. You could believe it hadn’t happened, if not for all the people who saw it. One…
Most Arizonans have never heard of Ben Friedman, but he belongs in a lineup with Fife Symington and Charlie Keating. Symington ripped off a Japanese bank, and Keating stole from little old ladies. Through the years, Ben Friedman’s victims included local furniture tycoon Murray Goodman and even Jerry Colangelo, but…
There’s a story going around Scottsdale that Mayor Sam Campana is scared of the desert. That’s how slow-growth detractors explain Campana’s support for zoning changes they don’t like. Sam’s a city girl, likes the bright lights, they say. Now what kind of boss is that for “The West’s Most Western…
As one of the few Republicans in Congress to support a campaign-finance reform proposal–heck, he plastered his name all over it–U.S. Senator John McCain has a national reputation as the champion of election reform. But does he deserve that reputation? Last week, organizers of Arizonans for Clean Elections, a campaign…
Wheels of Disfortune The human oxymoron: He postures as a do-the-crime-do-the-time lawman, then talks those evil federal judges he used to rant about into letting him stay out of a federal prison camp that’s much more posh than any cell he would allow in Arizona. He pleads poverty to yet…
When a Scottsdale police officer opened fire on a group of unarmed construction workers at a gas station on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Reservation last September, no fewer than 11 of his fellow officers came charging to his aid like the U.S. Cavalry. Now that officer, James J. Rode,…
Written Off I have compiled a list of sexual phrases and words of profanity found in the April 23, 1998, issue of New Times. I’m not an uptight, far-right suburbanite. Simply a well-rounded 30-something who, by all accounts, can handle just about anything in print. But this, this blatant, profane…
On November 12 last year, it became official: Arizona is not safe for children. In a report released that day by the state auditor general, the Department of Economic Security is found to be failing the abused or neglected children it’s supposed to protect. The report, “A Performance Audit of…
When a college journalist mistook George and Jerry for lovers on the celebrated Seinfeld episode “The Outing,” George offered to have sex with Sharon, the reporter. When a Paradise Valley Country Club assistant golf pro allegedly spread the rumor that member Michele “Missy” Pozgay and her friend Shelly Nixon had…
Tailings are the mess left by mining, what’s left after ore is broken into rock or crushed into powder and the metal has been extracted. It has no earthly use, but it has to go someplace, and so the rock gets dumped into unsightly toxic piles and the powder gets…
They say everyone deserves a second chance. At last count, Dr. Bipinchandra Jadav has had 15. The doctor, a general practitioner in Mesa, has had more than a dozen complaints filed with the state Board of Medical Examiners (BOMEX). He has had his license restricted once, has been ordered not…
New Times staff writer Paul Rubin was named Arizona’s Journalist of the Year, the most prestigious honor bestowed by the Arizona Press Club. Rubin and other New Times staffers captured more than two dozen awards in the reporting and writing categories of the annual competition. Results were announced Saturday. New…
Promotional materials for Jim Martin’s nonfiction expose on the Maricopa Community College District promise the book “reads like fiction.” That’s precisely the trouble, say many of the “characters” in the self-published screed by Martin, who recently ended his 18-year stint as a journalism instructor at Scottsdale Community College. It’s not…
She looks as though she’s going to a prom. Elegant, well-groomed, hair shining in the morning sunlight. The guy she’s with is understandably proud of her, and the spectators are impressed. She’s the hottest little sheep I’ve ever seen. No, this isn’t a sex show for rednecks. It’s the livestock…
Hey you! Mister! Gimme a buck. I need a drink. Christ, I feel like I’ve got gum in my hair. I’m feeling mentally ill and homeless. I’m feeling like Larry Naman. Who wouldn’t after watching our politicians? I’m watching Governor Jane Dee Hull slap the snot out of kids at…
