I don’t get the adrenal cascade of rage much anymore, and I can’t even remember the last time I saw the thin veneer of civil society collapse before my eyes. I’m guessing that’s why it was so invigorating to sit in line for an hour last week in 105-degree heat…
As the criminal trial against abortion doctor Brian Finkel entered its first trimester last week, this became clear: When the time comes, Finkel’s lawyer is going to have to tie the accused sexual abuser into stirrups, then drug him to keep him off the witness stand. Finkel was in his…
Fire Alarm Promises, promises: My compliments on your recent column regarding Rural/Metro (“Deadly Politics,” Robert Nelson, August 14). I experienced a 13-minute response time. My child of 11 months did not survive. Rural/Metro mismanaged the call, sent the wrong station. I was a major part of the “yes” vote in…
If Governor Janet Napolitano isn’t a lesbian, I’ll eat your hat. She is a walking, one-woman LPGA tour all by herself. It may be the thing I like best about her. I’ve known Attorney General Terry Goddard almost from the first moment he entered politics, and I’ve never known a…
Arizona and Utah authorities plan to join together for the first time in an effort aimed at curbing the widespread sexual abuse of minors within a Mormon polygamist enclave that straddles the border between the two states. Law enforcement officials have agreed to open a sheriff’s office substation close to…
Thank God I’m having 40-weight coffee with Phil Gordon at Starbucks. Because taken straight, Gordon can make a guy awfully sleepy. The position to which Gordon aspires apparently has the same effect on Phoenix voters. Of the 1.3 million residents of what soon could be America’s fifth-largest city, only 125,000…
“We are under attack,” declared fundamentalist Mormon Prophet Warren Jeffs from his pulpit in Colorado City during an August 10 sermon. “We need the Lord’s protection,” he warned members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS). Utah authorities are investigating Jeffs for allegedly having sex with…
When Colby Lingenfelter sits in the bar and drinks his beer, he drinks it faster than most people would. It’s one big gulp, rest, repeat. Impressive work, really. But then again, he is a member of the United States Beer Drinking Team. The team was organized a year and a…
More than a year into a federal investigation of alleged abuse of children in his agency’s custody, Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections Director David Gaspar has resigned. Neither Gaspar nor Governor Janet Napolitano, who accepted his resignation last week, mentioned the investigation or other problems that have plagued the agency,…
Un-PC Red light, green light: In the article “Geeks Gone Wild!” (Jimmy Magahern, August 14), I think the writer might have been somewhat overly sympathetic to the “geeks.” So they were not watching the road, going through an intersection, when they were almost broadsided by a truck “running” a yellow…
Rusty Chiles is halfway through executing a left turn on the corner of Seventh Street and Ash in Tempe when he and his buddy Slipnode, riding shotgun in Chiles’ white Nissan Altima, experience a simultaneous “onosecond” — cyberspeak for that split second in time between decision and consequence when you…
The call came into the Phoenix alarm room at 6:38 p.m. last Monday. Within seconds, Phoenix notified Rural/Metro Fire Department to respond immediately. A mother had just found her 2-year-old girl floating face down in a pool in the 16600 block of West Hilton Avenue in the far West Valley…
In early 2000, Don Elliott gambled his retirement savings on the life expectancy of five AIDS patients. The Chino Valley retiree invested $112,000 in viaticals, a type of an investment that allows the terminally ill to cash in their life insurance policies while they’re still alive and spend the money…
Ward Games Dens of iniquity: In my opinion, Arizona and Utah must look seriously at custody cases, sending or keeping little girls in polygamous organizations whether First Ward or Second Ward. A look at the Stubbs family reveals just how many girls in one family can be underage victims (“Eyes…
Sheriff Gets Poll Axed When W. Steven Martin announced that he’d try to unseat Maricopa County’s longest-running embarrassment — Sheriff Joke Arpaio and his stale “I’m tough on criminals” routine — the most hopeful sign that the radio commentator knew what he was doing was his creative slogan. “If you…
Culture Shock Prophet margin: A very strong case can be made that the polygamists of northern Arizona and southern Utah are, at their core, a criminal cult subsidized — in large part — by tax dollars (“Dirty Tricks,” John Dougherty, July 31). It is a truly shocking and generally underexamined…
“This is laughable,” scoffs Cindi Nannetti, Maricopa County’s sex-crimes bureau chief, as she finishes reading a three-page report prepared by the Colorado City Police Department — an agency controlled by fundamentalist Mormon polygamists along the Arizona-Utah border. The report briefly summarizes more than a decade of sex crimes by Dan…
Six days a week, a large group of teenagers quietly leave their homes before first light for a predetermined location in Tempe. By 4:30, they have gathered directly under the Loop 202, near Mill and Curry avenues. The teens — almost all of them girls — chat for a few…
An Arizona Department of Public Safety investigation has linked a call to former independent gubernatorial candidate Dick Mahoney’s cell phone to forged state Attorney General’s office documents circulated to the press last September. The The fake documents appeared to be internal AG memoranda strongly suggesting that then-Attorney General Janet Napolitano…
On a recent Monday night in a strip mall parking lot on Camelback, Jeremy Kinison takes a swig of lighter fluid, then holds it in his cheeks as rain extinguishes the small torch in his left hand. He fumbles for a lighter and flicks it repeatedly as fissures of lightning…
Our Town Philadelphia story: I for one thought when I read the cover of New Times this week — “Robrt Pela compares notes with that Philly columnist who dissed Phoenix” — you were really going to lay into Don Russell and give him many of the reasons we Phoenicians are…
A parade of pedestrians streams down Roosevelt Street on a warm First Friday evening in April, bringing life to an urban stretch that is desolate on most other nights of the month. Like colorful spring blossoms sprouting up from barren plots of desert, the dusty sidewalk and parking lot next…
