I suppose you would have to be on foot, or very bored, or have a sense of observation verging on desperate to notice it. It is another hunk of American refuse–a great, big, ugly, dead thing sitting there at 12th Street and McDowell, as relevant and as fascinating as a…
Water Whirl I was concerned about the recent article about groups objecting to the water use andthe city’s efforts at the new Sumitomo plant(“Sumitomo Wrestling,” Dave Plank, December 7). First, the information was highly exaggerated and wrong. The groups contend that the plant will “devour 2.4 million gallons per day…
Election night, 1995. Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza is beaming. Though it is the lowest-turnout municipal election anyone could remember, voters have given Rimsza a sizable victory over three challengers. In his victory speech, flanked by supporters, His Honor chalks it up to the confidence and sense of good stewardship he…
PATTY: Let’s go, Snoopy, up and at ’em. It’s a magnificent day for chasing rabbits. The air is clear, the sun is shining, the fields and woodlands lie open and inviting. SNOOPY: If it’s such a magnificent day, why spoil it for the rabbits? –from You’re a Good Man, Charlie…
Say Cheeseball! The pension funds that Governor J. Fife Symington III stiffed for $11.4 million are turning up the heat in his federal bankruptcy case. Attorneys for the union pension fund managers, San Francisco-based McMorgan & Company, have mailed more than 15 deposition notices. Formal subpoenas will follow. Pension fund…
The .38-caliber “snake shot” ripped into the back of Bayard Horton’s left hand on that night in August, leaving more than 50 metallic pellets embedded in his fingers, hand, wrist and lower arm. The close-range gunshot blast tore away skin and exposed tendons and ligaments on the hand that Horton…
In three weeks, the law firm that provides most of the free legal aid to Arizona’s poor people will quit filing class-action lawsuits and slash other legal-aid services. Two of the state’s most politically powerless groups of poor people–farmworkers and urban Indians–will be especially hurt by the cuts. Community Legal…
If you’ve walked down the ever-expanding boulevard of bland that is Mill Avenue in Tempe, you’ve probably seen them. They stand out in sharp contrast to the tourists, retirees and well-groomed, jolly ASU students; they don’t blend in with the giggling packs of teens or white-coated security forces. Their look…
Pet Peeve Was there a purpose to Amy Silverman’s article about the evils of PetsMart finding homes for unwanted animals (“Who Pooped on the Scoop?” November 30)? I could not tell what point, if any, the writer was trying to make. Conflicting phrases such as “possibly unsanitary conditions (kennels are…
There is nothing terribly offbeat about Becky Ruffner Tyler. She drives a Volvo. She’s fashionably slim, and her thick blond hair is stylishly coifed. She wears tailored clothes. She is the founder of a school popular with parents who are lawyers and doctors and architects. She serves on important statewide…
When Suzanne Ellis was awakened by the phone at 2 a.m. on July 7, she knew her son Tommy was in trouble. The voice at the other end of the line was her ex-husband, who had taken Tommy into his home two months earlier. “I can’t keep him here,” she…
Here’s a tip about Arizona for visiting Deadheads: Local authorities are very uncool about pot smoking at big rock concerts. Here’s another tip: Don’t plan on enacting your usual tailgate-Woodstock ritual this weekend. The preceding public-service announcements were brought to you because the Grateful Dead, one of the world’s oldest…
A great deal has already been said about Arizona’s failure to pass a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and most of it has taken the form of pronouncements. On some days since the election, the Arizona Republic has contained little but the wallowing and finger-pointing of every self-impressed columnist from…
Patrols of cheery individuals in bright blazers will soon leaflet downtown Phoenix announcing that the homeless are no longer with us. These civic boosters will be hired from a security agency and their primary purpose will be to tell potential shoppers that there is no longer a threat downtown from…
“It’s a goddamn racist state and no one will say that. It just pisses me the hell off.” That’s the opinion of Rick DeGraw, the Democratic consultant who ran the grassroots portion of the campaign for Proposition 302. He’s not speaking on a hunch, either. In 1988, DeGraw worked against…
A great deal has already been said about Arizona’s failure to pass a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and most of it has taken the form of pronouncements. On some days since the election, the Arizona Republic has contained little but the wallowing and finger-pointing of every self-impressed columnist from…
According to the results of an informal neighborhood poll, I am the only parent alive who has no desire to see his kids become professional models, star in their own breakfast cereal commercials or topline a weekly television sitcom. Hell, it’s hard enough to evolve into a normal human being…
When a black Labrador named Moose lost his life last month after eating a bowl of antifreeze-laced cat food, the Arizona Republic was there. The front-page coverage–including a huge color photograph capturing Moose’s last moments with his wheelchair-bound mistress–was so touching that Republic readers responded by the thousands. But Republic…
Rick Ross is describing how Arizona’s cults use mind control to exploit their members. He warns about 70 people gathered at Arizona State University’s Memorial Union that they are prime targets for groups that tend to prey on university students. The Moonies have a house on North Central. Scientology has…
Media access to fires and other breaking stories in the city of Phoenix–the meat and potatoes of the local mainstream press–has been thrown into doubt by a trial that ended November 20. KTVK (Channel 3) van driver Jim Cox was found guilty of disobeying a police officer at the scene…
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. … It’s a plane. … It’s Santa Claus?!” Technically speaking, no. But don’t try telling that to the thousands of motorists who’ll risk fender benders, stiff necks and sunburned tonsils while cruising past the intersection of Central Avenue and Clarendon over the…
On October 27, Governor Fife Symington wrote a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opposing the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf to Arizona on grounds it would bring on a rabies epidemic. The missive also questioned the scientific studies backing the wolf project, worrying that its target…
