Two weeks ago, I bought a portrait of a Chinese woman, a paint-by-numbers of a kid fishing, and a beautiful, hand-colored photograph from the turn of the century of a man dressed in a kimono. I purchased a photo taken in 1918 of a fat woman all dressed up, an…
The state’s largest law firm has been dragged into the federal criminal investigation of Governor J. Fife Symington III’s finances. Phoenix-based Snell & Wilmer represented the governor on business matters for more than a decade before Symington sought bankruptcy protection from creditors last September. The firm–considered to be the state’s…
For almost 20 years, fire captain Gary Pykare had looked death in the eye, chuckled, and gone fishing. But on May 12, the longtime business manager of the Phoenix firefighters’ union died of cancer at his home in Cave Creek. He was 54. On May 15, about 1,000 of Pykare’s…
The Vietnamese advance, firing from the left and right, but the Somalis refuse to yield. The shots keep coming, one after another, until, finally, the defense cannot hold. The Vietnamese score a goal. On the sideline, their dozen or so tee-shirted fans break into an enthusiastic cheer. It is a…
One simple fact has gone unmentioned during the recent furor about the overcrowding crisis at Arizona’s juvenile corrections facilities: The agency responsible for administering those facilities helped manufacture the crisis. State records show that even as U.S. District Court Judge Richard Bilby considered sanctioning the state for overcrowding its juvenile…
As part of its strategy to emerge from bankruptcy, America West Airlines combined its marketing and passenger-flow services with Houston-based Continental Airlines’ in 1994. Although industry analysts said at the time that a merger of the two airlines looked inevitable, America West chairman Bill Franke and Continental chairman David Bonderman…
A judge who was roundly criticized for releasing a shooting suspect has lost his job. Maricopa County Presiding Judge Robert Myers says he decided to remove Walter Jackson from the initial-appearance bench in the wake of New Times’ story about the release of Dennis Earl Bryley (“Who Sprung Alleged Shooter?”…
Jackson Hound has his nose to the ground, sniffing the desert floor. He’s a 70-pound, blond Labrador retriever used to running in the desert, but nonetheless oblivious to trouble on the trail ahead. Just two feet away, a three-foot-long diamondback rattlesnake watches; its head raised, its neck cocked to strike…
In January, a week after publicly excoriating the tobacco industry, Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza threw his support behind tobacco-sponsored state legislation that would have made it tougher for cities to pass strict antismoking measures. After New Times pointed out the duplicity, Rimsza backed off his support of the bill, and…
Sheriff’s Cop Runneth Over The Arizona Department of Public Safety says a Maricopa County sheriff’s deputy was alcoholically impaired when he struck and killed a pedestrian with his car on the evening of Saturday, April 20. But DPS investigators decided that the deputy, Detective Thomas Shorts, wasn’t at fault. After…
Seeing Red, White and Blue Michael Lacey’s diatribe about Salt River Project and the controversial flag exhibit at Phoenix Art Museum was downright appalling (“Flag and Country Bumpkins,” May 2). The article demonstrates Lacey’s woeful lack of understanding and knowledge. Why does this guy continue to spout such slander? Lacey…
Common wisdom has it that a wooden statue cannot actually see anything. But if the Pilgrim Statue of the Immaculate Heart of Mary were to look out from her designated home upon a certain glass coffee table in a certain living room, here is what her eyes would fall upon:…
At bat for the Angels, number 44, Chrissy Sears, the 22-year-old youngster out of New Jersey. Pitching for the Firebirds, number 10, Lexee Emineth. It’s a beautiful night for baseball here at Cholla Park in north Scottsdale. The baselines are newly chalked, the grass grows green under the lights. Silhouettes…
It might be just one of those things, a total fluke, like getting the flu on the morning of a major history test you forgot to study for anyway. Or, the 10 percent spike in graduation rates in Phoenix Union high schools could be a harbinger of things to come,…
I Spy a Stupid Mistake Those hepcats at the formerly funny Spy magazine have outdone themselves with their list of the 50 Most Annoying States. Arizona ranked 48th. That’s right–every state in the union except Maine and New Jersey (?) is more annoying than Arizona. Texas was most annoying, due,…
On April 25, Glendale police arrested Dennis Earl Bryley on charges of shooting a security guard during a burglary last July. The arrest came months after police had booked another man, Eli Balkcom, on attempted-murder charges in that case (“Bad Blood,” May 2). Now, authorities are scrambling to explain why…
A 25-year-old professional skateboarder is sitting on the floor of his Tempe apartment saying this to me: “We don’t have any footage of them actually penetrating anything, but they appear to go into the ground, they appear to come out of the ground; I think they would go right through…
Stars and Gripes Forever I can’t wait to read the letters from the inbreds regarding the sidesplitting piece about the flag exhibit (“Flag and Country Bumpkins,” May 2). I have yet to see the display myself, so I’ll refrain from any “Newtonian” squalling. I will, however, say this (and forgive…
Where to begin? Goldstein is a learned man–a Harvard-educated lawyer. Moreover, as an Orthodox Jew, he spends each Saturday–Shabbat–studying Jewish teachings. But even Goldstein has difficulty describing the notion of an eruv, an imaginary boundary–something like a safe zone in a kids’ game of tag, a force field protecting the…
At first glance, the East Valley slackers who call themselves Timmy and Roberto wouldn’t seem likely candidates to appear on a TV talk show. Both high school graduates, the young men apparently possess the normal number of chromosomes. As far as anyone knows, neither has been romantically involved with a…
Glendale Police Sergeant Frank Balkcom steers his cruiser into a narrow alley. It’s past midnight on a Monday in April. He’s only a mile from the postcard-perfect downtown of Glendale, Arizona’s fourth-largest city. But this is a different world, one with which Balkcom, who is of Hispanic and German descent,…
Fife’s Legal Defense Fund Isn’t Flush Money isn’t exactly pouring into Governor J. Fife Symington III’s legal defense fund, set up last winter to defray his staggering legal bills. In a voluntary statement filed April 26 with the secretary of state, Gubernatorial Legal Defense Trust executive director Chuck Coughlin reported…
