The old joke about ceramics–that muddy array of things made of clay–is that the difference between a pot and a vase is about 10,000 bucks. Not long into the tour of Anne and Sam Davis’ El Paso home, it’s apparent that the Davises, who recently donated about $400,000 in pots…
Every month, about 2,300 Arizonans pay $25 surcharges to buy decorative auto license plates that depict a desert landscape and declare their intent to “Protect Our Environment.” The green message is misleading. A more appropriate logo might be “Protect Our Way of Life.” Environmental license plates sales have generated nearly…
Hog Heavy A plot to kill state Department of Corrections director Terry Stewart may have failed, but the prisons chief wound up in the hospital just the same. Last week, charges were dismissed against supposed New Mexican Mafia members suspected of planning an assassination attempt against Stewart. Based on the…
It’s 2 a.m. on Tuesday, and the Saguaro Mobile Home Park across from Tiffany’s Cabaret on 32nd Street is as likely a venue as any for Whitey the repo man. Tonight Whitey is looking to nab a blue Pontiac Grand Am, a car whose owner is weeks behind on payments…
There’s a rumor going around that Jeff Groscost is brilliant. Yes, that Jeff Groscost–Speaker of the House of Representatives, King of the Mouth Breathers. The guy who was once stripped of his leadership role because he couldn’t be bothered to file his campaign-finance reports on time, the one who wanted…
Mean Streets I’ve enjoyed reading your newspaper for a number of years–until now. Since I do have certain firsthand knowledge regarding the accident that killed Dana Wells, I now know that innuendo and fantasy are the stuff of which some stories are made (“For Reasons Unknown,” David Holthouse, February 11)…
Seven years ago, Leo and Raven Mercado grew tired of living in a converted school bus, so they settled down in ranch country near Kearny, a town of 3,000 located about 70 miles southeast of Phoenix. To reach their hideaway, one must cross the Gila River on a rusty suspension…
It was a short honeymoon, far more fleeting than Jerry Colangelo and the Arizona Diamondbacks expected. The lovefest was supposed to last for years–just like it has in Colorado, where fans still fill the stadium every game to watch their beloved Rockies, a team that drew 4 million fans last…
A popular notion during construction of the Bank One Ballpark was that Jerry Colangelo and his Diamondbacks were hosing Maricopa County taxpayers for millions of dollars while fattening their bank accounts. The unpopular quarter-cent sales tax to raise $238 million was approved by three of the five county supervisors who…
En Garde, Bundgaard State Senator Scott Bundgaard–convicted felon, Freon fan and free-market freak–has apparently misplaced his copy of Emily Post’s Guide to Etiquette. The Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee has been taking shots for introducing a bill tailor-made to plunder the public coffers for the Ellman Companies, employer…
It’s small consolation to Debbie Knight that Pietr Hitzig, the self-proclaimed “father of Fen-Phen,” surrendered his license to practice medicine in Maryland last week. The Phoenix native is convinced that, had Maryland authorities acted sooner, her brother, Alvin Chernov, might still be alive. Chernov committed suicide at his father’s Glendale…
Legendary as it is, the Sunday brunch at El Chorro Lodge has never come close to the culinary excess of the Valley’s more sumptuous spreads. Gluttonous brunchers looking for piles of boiled shrimp, roast beef carving stations and elaborate dessert buffets lavishly displayed around six-foot ice swans have always had…
The New Mexican Mafia put a price on Steve Benitez’s head, but it’s the taxpayers who will have to pay for the Arizona Department of Corrections’ failure to protect him. Benitez’s family has settled its wrongful-death claim with the State of Arizona for $900,000. Benitez, a gang member turned informant,…
Race Cards I am a student at Thunderbird High School and I am writing in regard to Paul Rubin’s article “Pride and Prejudice” in the February 4 issue of New Times. The article shocked and angered not only me, but the staff and students of Thunderbird High School. I believe…
Nobody shows you America up close like Greyhound. –company slogan Glory flashes a yellow, gap-toothed grin and says, “What you need, brother, I got. I got it all.” Glory’s gums are swollen and purple from disregard. He has with him a mangled suitcase that looks as if it contains his…
“What’s in the mountain preserve now?” asked Ruth Hamilton, the octogenarian stalwart of the Phoenix Mountains Preservation Council (PMPC), a citizens’ watchdog group that guards the city’s mountain preserves. She was directing her question at Jim Burke, deputy director of the Phoenix Parks, Recreation and Library Department, who was just…
A few years ago, a pal of mine pointed out a tall, pale man leaning on his walker in front of the Luhrs Building in downtown Phoenix. That’s Neal Roberts, he told me, the guy from the Bolles case. I knew very well who Roberts was, though I hadn’t recognized…
While the state board that regulates medical doctors is still going easy on its own, the board that oversees osteopaths continues to crack down on its doctors. The Arizona Board of Medical Examiners (BOMEX) last week angered Governor Jane Hull when it refused to reconsider its mild treatment of a…
Diary of a Mad House How did you guys get a hold of my real “secret diary” of the impeachment proceedings (Flashes, January 28)? Questioningly, Jon Kyl United States Senator Thanks for your recent satire of Jon Kyl’s “impeachment diary.” I wish you would expose it for what it is,…
Big Red is MIA. We last glimpsed our superheroine–Governor Jane Dee Hull’s tough-talking, get-the-job-done alter ego–in early January, when she gave her State of the State address. Dressed in her favorite color, with every fiery strand of hair sprayed into submission, Big Red vowed to fight for public education, at-risk…
“I’m workin’ tonight,” says the lanky, 30ish man who looks like he hasn’t slept for 60 hours. We are waiting outside the men’s room at Cruisin’ Central, waiting because the door is held shut from the inside, and both of us have to piss. “I can always get some cash…
Jon’s On You’ve got to hand it to U.S. Senator Jon Kyl. With the exception of the impeachment torch-bearers in the House of Representatives, perhaps no other politician has hogged more of the limelight than Kyl. Kyl–who has long grunted in the shadow of eastcoastmediaelite darling John McCain–suddenly is ubiquitous…
