Big-name sophisticates like Jean-Michel Cousteau and Robert Kennedy Jr. rejoiced when it was announced last year that a controversial salt plant proposed in Mexico had been stopped. As news reports crackled across Japan, North America and Europe, environmentalists celebrated the unprecedented victory that saved the gray whale. The globe-encircling crusade…
Banking northward past the hacked-apart forests of El Ajusco Peak before descending across the sewerless slums of Ciudad Nezahuacoyotl, airplane windows scroll across ecological smut: Xochiaca, a five-square-mile strip of garbage dumps; el Rio Texcoco and her sister streams, sewage conduits all; and monóxido de carbón, dióxido de nitrógeno, dióxido…
Without the fishermen of Punta Abreojos, they had nothing. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) wanted to wage a worldwide campaign against Mitsubishi’s planned saltworks operation in the remote Mexican seaside village of Punta Abreojos. The American environmental groups claimed the project…
Cabin FeverGovernment lacking: “The Money Pit” (Laura Laughlin, November 8) was a terrific article. The Lees should be put in jail and they should pay back every cent. There is no protection for the consumers — the Better Business Bureau and the Registrar of Contractors are useless. Tom Hathaway via…
Last August, Warren Jerrems sat in the former recreation room of the Casa Rosa Care Center, a decrepit nursing home. Jerrems, an accountant, has several nursing homes as clients and was helping close the facility. Jerrems had agreed to meet and discuss his incarcerated friend, Mark Sands. At the time,…
State Senator Tom Smith spent time recently in a Mexican prison. And loved it. Now, Smith (who was just visiting the jail, not locked up in it) and some of his colleagues are clamoring for Arizona to be the first state to use an experimental drug treatment program for prisoners…
Donna Neill is impossible to miss, and even harder to ignore. The west Phoenix woman has become a darling of the public access channel. She lectures at local colleges. She pops up at public events, standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the Valley’s most powerful politicians. She’s considered her…
As reports of anthrax contamination continue on the East Coast, hysterical Arizonans have given authorities everything from a vacuum cleaner to a moldy orange juice can to a copy of Playboy, asking that the items be tested for the deadly bacteria.And the state’s Department of Health Services is complying –…
© 2001 New Times November 16, 2001 7:35 p.m. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is poised to give Jerry Colangelo a $6 million gift on Monday. The supervisors plan to pierce the $238 million cap on taxpayer contributions to build Bank One Ballpark by advancing $6 million to Colangelo’s…
Rock Star RidiculeLimping along: Is it possible for a person to have a life-changing experience?Apparently not (“Marketing Misery,” Bill Blake, November 1). So a dimwit pseudo-angsty rock star is doomed to make dimwit pseudo-angst rock and can do nothing positive except by your standards (“like unloading your bank accounts in…
Robert Zenor is mesmerized by the thought of owning a log cabin in the mountains. So when he and his wife, Lynn, decided to build a vacation home they could enjoy with their children, it had to be log. “You get it in your system and no other home will…
A resounding thunderclap, a brief shower and a swirl of dust usher in the final moments of an epic World Series that will set the high-water mark for decades to come.Arizona Diamondbacks slugger Luis Gonzalez digs in at the plate. New York Yankees über reliever Mariano Rivera, who has never…
My 9-year-old son, Andrew, covered his eyes as the bottom of the ninth inning began Sunday night. I sunk into the couch and looked toward the kitchen. My wife leaned toward the television.”It isn’t over,” she said. “Mariano Rivera,” I mumbled. “That means it’s over.” My son peeked at me…
The Arizona Diamondbacks weren’t the only team to take full advantage of their first World Series appearance. The five-member Maricopa County Board of Supervisors also had a field day.Longtime Diamondback supporter Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox flew to New York City on the Diamondbacks’ chartered jet to enjoy the World Series…
Fan MailSweet but sour: I would like to thank you for last week’s article, “Suite and Low” (John Dougherty, November 1). As a former Phoenician, I am absolutely appalled by the actions of the Maricopa County Supervisors’ office. I think a grave injustice was done to the United Way, due…
It happened in Seattle. And it happened in Houston. But it didn’t happen in Phoenix. The eagerly anticipated Randy Johnson Effect never materialized at Bank One Ballpark. Yes, Johnson racked up the third most strikeouts in single-season history this year en route to winning 21 games in the regular season…
Yankees are angels, Diamondbacks are terrorists, Giuliani says NEW YORK — Faced with flagging national support for his “Yankees Are the Official Team of America’s War on Terrorism” campaign, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani held a pep rally Wednesday at which he announced evidence linking the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team to Osama…
The Valley of the Sun United Way was looking forward to a big fund-raising windfall last weekend by auctioning its luxury suite at Bank One Ballpark for the first two games of the World Series.”We had some major contributors that we thought would come up with a significant auction price…
One of the poorest elementary school districts in the state will have to shortchange its own students because its administration has so carelessly mishandled public money.The Arizona Department of Education is forcing Roosevelt Elementary School District No. 66 to give up $180,000 because district staffers couldn’t explain how they spent…
On a recent Thursday morning at the Royal Palms Hotel, the staccato clip of Italian loafers echoed across the courtyard. Despite the perfect golf weather and the posh resort setting, the 40 or so lawyers who had assembled there weren’t talking about their handicaps or their new sets of Callaways…
The Drowning PoolIn over her head: Janis Perry was stuck between a rock and a hard spot, and that is why she pleaded guilty to negligent homicide (“Murky Waters,” Paul Rubin, October 18). This is all because the “atmosphere” in Maricopa County, and the jury pool, was tainted because of…
No anthrax in the mail this week, but we did get plenty of entries in our “Disguise Howie” contest. Many thoughtful citizens took the time to help Arizona Republic restaurant critic Howard “Howie” Seftel get back to work by creating new and clever disguises for him. (We also got letters…
