We go along thinking there are no surprises left. We think we have seen it all. And then a baseball coach like Jim Brock comes along. Without sermonizing, he teaches us a whole new definition of courage. Jim Brock was an uncommon man. He was not, however, a private man–and…
Ena McGuire remembers the morning after the main building at Castle Hot Springs burned to the ground. The fire took place in December 1976, only days before the resort was to open for the season. Ena McGuire delivered the mail up and down the road the hotel was located on…
Operating problems continue to mount at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. It seems Arizona Public Service Company engineers have had a difficult time keeping a diesel electric generator running, let alone all three nuclear reactors at the power plant. APS manages the plant for a consortium of utilities. The…
When it comes to collecting samples of airborne radioactive dust, more is not merrier for the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. Internal documents discarded at an abandoned workers’ dormitory in Tonopah (Secrets of the Palo Verde Inn,” June 1) indicate that Arizona Public Service Company concluded in 1985 that a…
A Maricopa County prosecutor faces demotion and a salary cut because she told a grand jury foreman to rein in jurors who had pursued their own line of questioning. County Attorney Rick Romley last month asked another agency to determine whether criminal jury-tampering charges should be filed against Sandra Canter,…
Nothing like it has ever occurred in Arizona. Last Thursday, Judge Stanley Goodfarb stood in a courtroom, stripped of the familiar comfort he usually takes from his black robes. Ushered before the Arizona Supreme Court in the civilian clothes of the accused, Goodfarb stood charged with making racist comments and…
It’s the waiting, you keep thinking. That’s what will wear on Congressman Danny Rostenkowski, at least until the cell door finally closes. But I find it hard to understand all the frenzy. Sure, the government lawyers, all decked out in their nice, conservative suits, are bent on destroying him. But…
Early last Wednesday morning, a determined caravan of workers from Arizona Public Service Company trundled into the dusty, decrepit desert town of Tonopah on a special mission. The crew, led by the utility’s cellular-phone-toting public relations chief, had been urgently dispatched to retrieve thousands of internal APS documents that the…
The point where southern Arizona’s San Pedro River crosses Interstate 10 is not a memorable sight for passers-by zipping merrily along to Los Angeles or El Paso. At the crossing, marked by an almost ironic sign, the riverbed is little but a thin band of tan dirt and stream cobbles,…
Not all of the Palo Verde Papers obtained by New Times contain sobering information about the nuclear plant’s problems. Some APS files offer less serious, though not necessarily less revealing, insights into the people who run the biggest nuclear power plant in the country. Keep an Eye on That Pesky…
No matter how hard they run for Congress by bashing it, once they’re on Capitol Hill, representatives learn quickly that in dealing with fellow lawmakers, kid gloves are required accessories. It is not kosher to meddle in the affairs of another member’s state or district. And unless there’s opportunity for…
The Don Juan we’ll call Mr. X wasn’t just torn between two lovers–he was ripped. Parked in one corner of his heart was the fiercely independent “Dominique,” a vain shrew cursed by bad dentistry and even worse boudoir techniques. In another corner lounged the beautiful “Brenda,” a syphilitic yuppie who…
Dear Charles, This is the perfect time for you to retire from the National Basketball Association. Your stock both as a player and a publicly revered personality will never get any higher than it is right now. Those of us who watched you perform for two seasons with the Phoenix…
There has to be a certain amount of pride that goes into what you do. Someday, you’ll all be as old as I am now, and I don’t want you to look back and think you didn’t make the most out of this. This all goes by very, very fast…
What do you do when a loved one is reduced to an unsavory housekeeping problem? Even the world’s best-known authority on cleaning is scratching her head over that one. “[Homicide and suicide cleanup] is a real-life issue,” volunteers Heloise, the syndicated “high-priestess of household hints” whose column appears in 500…
Even before he reached the front porch of the death house, Dale Cillian knew he had his work cut out for him. “I could smell it halfway up the driveway,” says Cillian. “Not a good sign. I’m telling you, that place was ripe.” “Ripe” seems woefully inadequate to describe the…
As of last Sunday, Deborah Laake’s book Secret Ceremonies sat at No. 11 on the New York Times Bestseller List for paperback nonfiction after nine weeks on the list. Laake is a staff writer for New Times and an executive managing editor for the five cities in which New Times…
The Communications Technology department at Metro Tech Vocational Institute took a giant step toward the future this month when it acquired a satellite dish to capture television signals. It promises to be a powerful, cutting-edge teaching tool for the vocational school. So when the $2,000 device finally arrived, department leaders…
For Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the spirit of Camelot never died. But we went too far. We deified Jackie. No one understood her exalted status after the president’s funeral better than she did. It was an event she had successfully orchestrated. She knew that from that point on, no one would…
In March 1989, freshman Representative Robert “Bob” Burns, Republican-Glendale, was better known at the Arizona State Capitol as a lobbyist than as a lawmaker. Before his election to the House of Representatives, Burns, who then owned two child-care centers in the Valley, had been a ferocious advocate for the Arizona…
When the chieftains at the Arizona law-and-lobby firm Fennemore Craig learned in 1992 that their partner Marc Spitzer intended to run for the state Senate, red flags unfurled. Could Spitzer serve in a legislature whose decisions were influenced by his own firm’s lobbyists? Fennemore Craig maintains a hefty roster of…
When the wind blows in Bisbee, some little children run indoors. It’s simply too dangerous for them to breathe the air in this old, southeastern Arizona mining town, says Anjelika Johnson, a Bisbee travel agent and the mother of a 12-year-old girl. The wind blows gritty chunks of dirt and…
