During a recess in the final week of his monthlong murder trial, David Brackney turned to his friends and family members in the gallery and softly said, “It looks like I’ll be bringing cookies to church soon.” Brackney, 47, and his attorneys were convinced they had cause for such optimism…
Story Weaves Bizarre Web There’s a telling quote from a spokesman for Senator John McCain in the February 6 Millennial Arizona Republic. It’s in the story on Humble John’s non-role in a murder, and his non-dalliance with faded starlet Connie Stevens. The campaign flack, Dan Schnur, warned Republic editors and…
Immigrant Song My hat is off to David Holthouse, again, on his near-suicidal venture into Agua Prieta reporting on the departure gate of the illegal immigrant underground railway that ends in Garfield, Wilson, Balsz, Grant Park and the other “communities of first arrival” in downtown Phoenix (“Fresh Game,” February 3)…
“May I smoke?” Agnieszka Holland asks. It’s a gracious request, considering that she’s sitting in her own hotel room, during a recent visit to Phoenix. Of course, her interviewer tells her; after all, where would a Polish director be without a cigarette in hand? “Yes,” she replies, lighting up. “I…
Would United States Senator John McCain be a presidential contender if it weren’t for his marriage to Cindy Hensley McCain, heiress to the Hensley liquor fortune? It’s doubtful. The senator’s wife and — more important — his father-in-law, James Willis Hensley, are very wealthy people. Like his father and grandfather…
There is the sound of packs of hogs. An audible rotary force that grasps the chest and rearranges heartbeats. A thousand speed-addled Keith Moons banging contrarily away on tom-toms, kicks and snares couldn’t top its fanfare. The crooning grumble of pampered hog motors concedes to snappy spitters and spats, and…
Jimmy Creasman was a lucky man. The proof was in the piles of letters, photographs and other memorabilia I found scattered in the alley behind his house in Tempe two years ago. They told about how he’d come home from World War II and lived out the promise of his…
Well-known KTAR broadcaster Howard Pyle had a resonant voice and a sermonizing way with words that made him a radio natural. He was the voice of the sunrise service that KTAR broadcast every Easter from the rim of the Grand Canyon. He was the voice of the station’s popular poetry…
George the dachshund stands just inches tall and weighs 11 pounds. Given up for adoption by a family that rejected him, the 2-year-old dog has found a home in a two-bedroom apartment in east Phoenix. A quiet little pup with big, woeful eyes, he has his own cushion on the…
When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released the eight wolves of the Gavilan pack as part of its Mexican gray wolf reintroduction experiment in eastern Arizona, it thought the wolves were too far from livestock to cause any problems. What the Service didn’t know was that a rancher in…
As ESPN’s annual Winter X Games play out in Vermont, the sports network and a Phoenix webmaster are competing in the legal arena over ownership of a domain name — winterxgames.com. The webmaster, 28-year-old Chris Birchby, registered the name in January 1998 for his snowboarders’ resource directory. He wanted a…
Taking the Cure I read your article regarding the anthrax vaccine (“Shot to Hell,” Laura Laughlin, January 27), and I salute you on a job very well done. Both sides were represented. I was a member of the Michigan Air National Guard. I took the vaccine, four shots. After the…
John McCain is using his Web site to raise millions of dollars in campaign contributions. Now let’s see him use that Web site to let us in on who his contributors are, with full disclosure in a fashion befitting his campaign-reform message. Put your money — or, rather, a record…
Deborah Laake, former staff writer, columnist, editor and executive at New Times, died Sunday in Charleston, South Carolina. She took her own life, ingesting an overdose of pills. Laake, 47, was best known for her best-selling book Secret Ceremonies: A Mormon Woman’s Intimate Diary of Marriage and Beyond. The book,…
UNTIL ABOUT FIVE YEARS AGO, THERE LIVED IN TEXAS AT LEAST one grasping old man with an enormous appetite for pretty young women. His name was J. Howard Marshall II, and for many years, he lived respectably, doing something dull with oil. At last, he diversified his interests. He is…
Brad Christensen is that rarest of public information officers, in that he does what he’s supposed to do — provide good information in a timely manner. From 1993 until a few weeks ago, Christensen served as communications director and chief PIO for the Arizona Department of Health Services. But in…
The legal equivalent of a catfight between two hookers battling over the same turf was the last thing on Tempe pizzeria owner Domenick Montanile’s mind when he distributed fliers advertising an upcoming “Pimp & Ho” costume party at his restaurant several weeks ago. But that’s pretty much what happened when…
Fiduciary Duty I applaud Paul Rubin’s article regarding further exposure of the malfeasance of fiduciaries (“Nancy Drew,” January 20), whether public or private. These crimes against the elderly would be more frequently exposed if the judiciary would do its job and stop rubber-stamping annual accountings when they are presented without…
Agua Prieta, Sonora The sign outside reads Terminal de Autobus, but locals on both sides of the border call the Agua Prieta bus station “The Chicken Coop.” Situated next to an industrial park on the windswept outskirts of town, past the point where paved roads surrender to the desert, the…
Best or Bust If you’re truly concerned about the state of higher education in this great nation, you’ll join the Flash in wondering where to get some o’ them there mind-altering mushrooms the folks at Syracuse University are ingesting. They are, after all, Orangemen. How cosmic is that? That august…
Stories often wind up in the trash. But this one begins there, with letters I found in a Tempe alley two years ago. They were dumped among heaps of books, files and envelopes stuffed with bills and receipts. The discards were too dated to be those of a college roomie…
June 1987. A panel of doctors sits on a stage in the Maryvale High School auditorium and looks down at an audience of several hundred west-side residents. The doctors say there is no reason to worry about the strange outbreak of leukemia that has killed several children in the west…
