Buffaloed Soldiers

An Arizona group honoring historic black U.S. military units says the National Football League reneged on an agreement to let the organization present the American flag during Super Bowl XXX pregame ceremonies. “We were going to be the color guard forthe pregame-show national anthem,” says former U.S. Marine Corps colonel…

Going Underground

Manufacturing and mining interests plan to push for legislative changes that could render the state’s underground drinking-water supplies vulnerable to a wide variety of pollution. The proposed changes are detailed in a document prepared by industry lawyers and marked “Confidential” and “Not for Distribution.” The document was passed out to…

Letters

On the Breach Lisa Davis’ “The High Cost of Education Reform” (Breach of Contract, December 28) assumes that pupils are damaged by limiting the increases in Arizona education spending. In reality, there is no relationship between expenditures and results. For example, a 1989 study I conducted for Richard L. Harris,…

Where There’s Smoke

The UnMarlboro Cowboy holds up a photograph of what was once the inside of someone’s mouth–a row of badly stained lower teeth, cancerous gums and the swollen base of a tongue. The bloody, disembodied mess is part of a brochure meant to shock teenagers about the dangers of chewing tobacco…

The Homeless Cafe

5:15 a.m. Central Phoenix stirs, measures the darkness and slips back into one last dance with its dreams. But just west of downtown, a tiny corner building is busily stretching to life. Outside the pink brick walls, people mutter and gather up bedrolls and sleeping bags. A man scavenges a…

One for Me, None for You

Pay raises are rare occurrences for most Arizona state employees, who rank last in the nation in average salary. So it is understandable that many of the state government’s 40,000 workers have been closely watching $3 million in salary increases tossed their way last year by the Legislature. That appropriation…

Flashes

Do You Call It Ham or Serb? Political advertising has produced many a visual image with unintendedly scary undertones. Who will ever forget Michael Dukakis riding in that tank? Sam Campana’s campaign for mayor of Scottsdale, however, has moved to the technological forefront of frightening voters by accident. The Flash…

Letters

Club Meditation It seems to me that a few bad apples spoil the bunch when it comes to, as one obviously racially ignorant person says, the “dark element” at clubs (“The War on HipHop,” Michael Kiefer, December 21). Come on! Whites are fighting as much as blacks. My guess would…

Quit Polluting Our Aquifers. Please. Pretty Please.

Ed Pond was more than a little insulted. No company should have the kind of constant, easy access to high-ranking environmental administrators that the American Smelting and Refining Company seemed to. Pond figured the company was trying to get him fired from his job at the Arizona Department of Environmental…

Money for Nothing

Fife Symington has long trumpeted himself as a conservative Western governor who also believes in preserving the environment. He has repeatedly claimed he supports efforts to protect the environment, so long as they do not needlessly burden the economy. Yet the public record provides scant evidence that Symington-style reform protects…

The Health-Care Mirage

Anthony, who doesn’t want his last name used for reasons that will soon become obvious, is not just a guy sitting at a bar in Flagstaff. Make some small talk, buy him a couple of beers, and the burly, mustachioed construction worker will tell you why. Anthony is a mother…

When Revolution Meets Reality

When congressional Republicans explain their ambitious plan for reforming the federal government–the Contract With America–they often use state governments as examples of the change to come. In fact, the notion that many federal programs would be more effective if they were moved–or devolved–to the state level is inherent to the…

Welfare That Doesn’t Work

This is a time for action. It’s a time to move beyond rhetoric and cosmetics. It’s a time to take bold steps to ensure that children get whatever help they need to grow physically, emotionally and mentally into healthy and happy adults. My vision is of an Arizona that leads…

The High Cost of Education Reform

The Republican revolution has a cure for the troubles of primary education in America, and it can be summarized in one word: competition. After more than a decade of dubious reform efforts, conservative Republicans are looking to change public schools from without, rather than from within. Their proposals have shiny…

Mrs. Phelps’ Kids

In December 1990, New Times profiled Glenna Phelps’ fourth-grade class at Hamilton School in a story headlined “The Real War on Drugs.” Staff writer Paul Rubin interviewed many of Mrs. Phelps’ students at that time for the story. Five years later, Rubin tracked down Mrs. Phelps – who retired after…

Whats the Cost of Elk? Maybe $10,000.

Since late September, a media-shy collection of ranchers, legislators and sportsmen (that is, hunters) has met with Arizona Game and Fish commissioners and staffers in a basement room of the House of Representatives. The group has been discussing whether the state should pay ranchers to compensate for the forage that…

Letters

Dial Tone Having been with a division of the Dial Corp for 45 years, I found New Times’ six-page writings cheap, nasty and unnecessary (“Dial’s Dirty Laundry,” Paul Rubin, December 14). Why doesn’t Rubin come down and write six pages about the glorious things the Dial Corp does for its…

Another Story About a Stripper

A lot of people swear they are going to do a lot of things when each new year rolls around. Promises of drastic life changes are ritually made and ritually broken: Money will be saved, bad habits will be curtailed, more attention will be paid, etc. Miss Candy Cantaloupes has…

Rave Review

Rave I: Ghost in the Machine, Icehouse, November 4, 1995 The beat. The beat. The beat. I can feel it through the concrete and steel from 300 yards away, like the pulse of some adrenalized titan going wild within the walls of the warehouse before me. It’s jackhammer fast–at least…

The War on Hip-Hop

After 1 in the morning on May 1, as the off-duty police officers moonlighting as security guards cleared the parking lot of the Roxy, as 100 or so mostly black youths filed out of the club, there was a fluttering of automatic gunfire and a squeal of tires. When the…

The Mouse That Bored

If trophies are ever awarded for pointless web sites on the information superhighway, Arizona State University freshman Dan Siegel’s home page would seem to be a shoo-in for a Golden Speed Bump. The cyber equivalent of melatonin, the 18year-old broadcast major’s web page appears to be nothing more than a…

No Fowl, Some Harm

Every year, famed chef Nick Ligidakis’ efforts to feed the Valley’s needy on Thanksgiving are gobbled up by holiday-drunk newspapers and TV stations. Owner of Nick’s Cuisine of Southern Europe and its offspring, Nick’s on Central, Ligidakis creates an annual mass-feeding machine that is large and well-meaning and swaddled in…