My wife’s question at the dinner table gave me pause. Like everyone else, we’d been discussing the outrageous events swirling around state Superintendent of Public Instruction C. Diane Bishop. The police had been summoned on April 21 to a downtown condominium by neighbors who reported a bloodied and battered woman…
Mayor Paul Johnson thinks he may have found a new way to keep spring training alive in the Valley while enabling Phoenix to score its own major league baseball team–all with one swing of the fiscal bat. While the Arizona State Legislature ponders a proposal to levy a quarter-cent sales…
Kenneth Thompson couldn’t help but hear the taunts when he walked down Buckeye Road, past the windowless social clubs with signs that read “No One Under 21 Allowed,” past the vacant lots where men gathered beneath the Arizona ash trees and warmed their hands over fires in barrels. He heard…
ACTION HIGHWAY “Action! Chases! Danger!” Speed traps, collapsing bridges and head-on collisions made this battery-operated racetrack more fun than your average Sunday drive. Drive-by shootings and homicidal hitchhikers not included. MYSTERY DATE “When you open the door, will your date be a dream (sigh!)–or a dud (groan!)?” Juvenile jezebels vie…
Forget about those two front teeth. Back in the early Sixties, little Billy saw a TV commercial and immediately knew what he wanted for Christmas: King Zor, the Fighting Dinosaur. While primitive by today’s standards, the black-and-white commercial got the job done. Filmed from low camera angles to make the…
Since July 1989, the City of Phoenix has spent about $35,000 on bottled water for its employees. If our tap water is safe to drink–and there’s no evidence that it isn’t–how do city workers rate so much of the fancy stuff? That’s approximately the question Thelda Williams asked at a…
It’s easy for adults to rationalize their most self-destructive weaknesses in the company of other adults. But throw a kid into the picture and the process becomes damn near impossible. “What did you do in school today?” I asked my five-year-old son one recent afternoon, expecting to get the usual…
Don’t get me wrong. Don’t sit there and assume I’m astonished that the Phoenix Suns pay Tom Chambers $2,060,000 a year for halfheartedly bouncing and throwing a round ball. I’m not astonished by a salary that makes Chambers the most overpaid man in all of professional sports. I am amazed,…
The white Acura pulled into my driveway and slammed to a halt. David Ramras, the lawyer, leaped from behind the wheel. “Here’s the tape,” Ramras said. “You’re going to be surprised how good this fight turned out to be.” Ramras, an extremely knowledgeable sports fan, was talking about the championship…
Second of a series You might say that Ambrose McCree is obsessed with the beating handed out to Rodney King by the Los Angeles police. A retired California truck driver, McCree spent March 14 at the Los Angeles City Council’s open forum investigation of the videotaped assault. “I just, I…
Charlie Humme spends his Wednesdays handing out flowers to passersby beneath the wood-slat hood that covers part of Heritage Square. Not just because he’s a nice guy, which he seems to be. And not just because he’s a purveyor of pesticide-free herbs at the city’s Farmers Market. “I love the…
Phoenix’s curbside recycling project is a smash hit–with the public, that is. It may well be the most popular conservation program yet launched by Phoenix City Hall, judging by the response from the 10,000 homes selected to participate. The experimental program seemed to have a little bit of everything going…
Who’s the Laughing Boy? Why, it’s Keith Turley, soaking up the Suns from his prime courtside seat. You can’t blame the guy for relaxing; he was so busy last decade. Turley became Arizona Public Service Company chairman in ’81 and set up Pinnacle West Capital Corporation to play with the…
In the unforgiving world of the Coffelt housing project, even the little victories are hard to come by. The 1,000 or so people who live in the public-housing project a mile due south of the Arizona State Capitol can’t just say no to poverty. Rudolph Valentino Buchanan, the coordinator of…
Back when he was running for governor, real estate developer J. Fife Symington III refused to divulge financial details of his business empire, even though he campaigned as the guy with the “business mind” necessary to rescue Arizona from its economic crisis. His reasoning for not talking about his business…
Annette Morris lines up an eight-footer on the third hole at the Arizona Acres golf course in east Mesa. “Just about the same one as that little guy had, Ian Woosnam,” the sixtyish native of Canada says, referring to the new Masters champ’s winning putt of a few days earlier…
The key to successful superparenting, of course, is time management. In order to have children, a career and a life (or simply enough free time to peel yourself from the walls), modern moms and dads must take a hard look at their daily schedules and trim the fat the way…
“Criminals develop the panic disease,” Joseph Charles Stedino says. His remark is greeted by silence. Murray Miller, the criminal attorney representing ex-Senator Carolyn Walker, sits across the table from Stedino. Next to Miller sits Walker, facing Stedino. Their faces display no emotion. They are at the start of three days…
True or false? Reverend Oscar Tillman is a civil rights opportunist in the flamboyant tradition of New York’s Al Sharpton. Yes or no? Phoenix Police Chief Ruben Ortega looks the other way when his officers abuse Valley blacks. A six-week investigation by Phoenix city manager Frank Fairbanks was supposed to…
As it turns out, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office was right when it tried to involve Senator Alan Stephens in AzScam as though he were a dangerous man. Not right that he was guilty of racketeering, as became clear last week when Judge Frederick Martone ordered that Stephens’ name be…
Shopkeepers at the Camelback Esplanade–the jewel in the crown of developer-turned-governor J. Fife Symington III–are willing to admit the newly elected Arizona leader may be a good politician. But they insist he is a lousy landlord. They’ve endured two years of anemic business traffic through the Esplanade’s twin towers and…
This year, there isn’t much of a garden around the little house in the quiet northwest Phoenix neighborhood. The lone iris sprouting beneath Judy Brownstein’s bedroom window seems more defiant than beautiful. The rosebush in the driveway is a scraggly survivor. “How can I garden if I don’t know from…
