News

Dispatch From Newsweek Every once in a while, especially during a slow news cycle, you can count on someone from the liberaleasternmediaelite to parachute into Arizona and look into natives’ goings-on. These reports from the front invariably read like a bad anthropology field study, marked by cliche, condescension and misinformation…

In a 180-degree turnaround, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has decided to prosecute a man who allegedly raped, beat and choked Kim Boyden in her Scottsdale home last August. And not just in city court, as Boyden was once told. Mike Logan will be tried in Maricopa County Superior Court;…

I am standing in a house at the end of a dirt road within shooting distance of the Superstitions, holding a pair of Elvis Presley’s sunglasses in my hand. They are plated in silver and gold, the glass is tinted a light purple. The letters “EP” are molded between the…

Salient citations from recent shows Regarding Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano, who is openly gay: Now this is a guy that could take some hairy-rumped individual out to the garage, bend him over, and do whatever these kinds of people do to each other. And in the paper, he’s wonderful. *…

If Montini’s spy is listening,” John Dayl says as he opens one of his weekend radio programs, “he’s going to be disappointed, because I probably won’t say anything today that will result in a Montini column.” The KFYI-AM (910) talk-show host then launches into one of several topics, none of…

On December 15, the Arizona Republic published a story by reporters Eric Miller and Bill Muller headlined “Arena Profit Proves Elusive for Phoenix.” The thesis: The City of Phoenix likely will receive only a small percentage of the $128 million in shared profits promised by the Phoenix Suns, because profit-sharing…

Second of Two Parts The traditional Hopi knew all along. For nearly 50 years, their pleas to the federal government to prevent mining in the heart of their homeland on Black Mesa have been ignored. Hopi religious leaders, the Kikmongwi, beseeched President Harry Truman in 1949 to forbid such atrocity…

Let’s say you’re an environmentalist–and not just the kind tooling around in some gas guzzler with one of those cute license plates. You’re the real thing. Maybe you’ve chained yourself to an old-growth tree, or plopped down before a bulldozer. One morning, you scan your newspaper to see what Arizona’s…

If you should ever find yourself on the third floor of the Senate building at the state Capitol, take a close look at the bronze bust in the lobby. Chances are, you’ve never met A.V. “Bill” Hardt, the longtime Democratic senator from Globe who stepped down last year. But if…

Why the Sonics Rule Contrary to the popular rumor, it’s absolutely not true that when his grandchild was christened, Jerry Colangelo offered the ceremony to relatives on pay-per-view. But The Flash certainly understands how Phoenicians might suspect it to be true. If you’ve followed the Suns’ first-round playoff showdown against…

Across the street from the house where 8-year-old Lee Holmes lives, there is an empty doghouse, presumably built by a neighbor who has since moved. Scrawled on the doghouse is this epithet: “Bear the Shithead.” The doghouse sums up the ugly vibe I get from Lee’s central Phoenix neighborhood. This…

Puff Puffery Amy Silverman’s smokin’ piece about the trio of terrorists taunting teenagers to trash tobacco is terrific (“Mrs. Good Retch,” April 24)! The lead protagonist, Amy Dominy–backed up by Dave Robb and Shawn Eichenauer–deserves a carton of credit for her creativeness. And the Department of Health Services is entitled…

Bob Hartle first found out he had an evil twin in April 1994. His mother, who was living in Phoenix, was in the hospital to have a leg amputated because of diabetes. Hartle had been calling her from his home in Iowa every night, and one night, his brother John…

First of Two Parts Eighty-two-year-old Valjean Joshvema leans forward in his chair and sings a Hopi prophecy that has come to pass. The ageless Hopi lyrics foretell of an era when the Hopi will wander the high desert mesas they and their ancestors have occupied for 12 millenniums. According to…

Many states around the country have launched antitobacco campaigns, but none has captured the imagination–or turned the stomachs–of television and radio audiences like the one sponsored by the Arizona Department of Health Services. Who could forget these great moments in antismoking propaganda: A Dr. Frankenstein-type sniffing the lungs of a…

Coyote Ugly Cool Futures, which touts itself as a group of Scottsdale residents committed to building a practice ice rink for the Phoenix Coyotes on a 15-acre site near Pima and Bell roads, is baring its teeth. In a deposition taken earlier this week, Donna Vizcaino, one of Cool Futures’…

The text of the radio spot “Pus.” Guy (junior high): I found it by smell: a half-eaten bird, buried under my bed behind a dirty pair of underwear. The cat must’ve dumped it there at least a month ago ’cause it had started to rot. There were bloody pieces hangin’…

Road Bloc I think the public better unite to defeat the toll roads before we are stuck with them (“Carr Wrecks,” Howard Stansfield, April 10). I have yet to hear anything but praise from the Arizona Department of Transportation about the concept; has anyone from ADOT contacted you, the taxpaying…

A troll named Turkll asked a human couple named Marilyn and Thomas Twintreess to put on Festival. When he made this request, Turkll was speaking–as he often does–through Marilyn’s body. “Turkll told us that Spirit would like to have Festival,” says Marilyn, speaking, at the moment, through her own body…

Nearly 30 years after “weird” Mr. Green moved away, people who live in Cheri Stalmann’s Central Corridor neighborhood are still intrigued by the strange Cold War legacy he left in the backyard of the house where he once lived. “It’s really not much to see,” says Stalmann almost apologetically as…

Early in February 1988, House Majority Whip Jane Hull paid an unofficial visit to the office of Secretary of State Rose Mofford to warn her that, given the anti-Mecham mood in the Legislature, Mofford was about to become acting governor. Hull was right. On February 5, the Arizona House of…