As the co-chair of the Maricopa County Libertarian party, Debbie Norwitz is understandably upset when people talk about “the American two-party system.” She knows better. She knows that there are Libertarians, Greens, New Alliancers, Natural Law devotees, independents and others out there struggling to “open people’s minds” to the possibilities…
I was startled the other day to see Red Barber’s photograph in the New York Times. He had been the voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers when I was a kid growing up in New York City. I remember so clearly his calm Southern drawl helping me to keep my own…
You’re John McCain, who put yourself up for sale from the first moment you were elected to Congress. You were sent there to represent Arizona, but you had larger plans and they included only yourself. Inside, in the place where a man keeps the trophies of his life, you can…
Quick! Name one thing that costs exactly the same today as when it was introduced more than 30 years ago. Here’s a clue: It’s as much a part of the American motel room as the Gideon Bible, the seascape bolted over the bed and the ubiquitous “sanitary” strip that testifies…
Renz Jennings, chairman of the Arizona Corporation Commission, can’t ignore the telephone behind his desk. “We may be the only ones in the building,” Jennings tells his visitor as he grabs the receiver. On the other end of the line is a high school student who wants, at 6 p.m…
Local talk-radio listeners remember Tom Leykis as KFYI’s first and greatest presence, a bomb-heaving provocateur who filled our mid-1980s airwaves with entertaining yak. He left the station early in 1987 because he couldn’t get along with management. Leykis landed on his feet at KFI in Los Angeles, where he became…
Cap guns can pack a mean kick. Ask 12-year-old Gabriel Kerslake of Phoenix, who was convicted of attempted armed robbery and spent 26 days locked up in a juvenile detention facility–all after pointing an unloaded cap gun at a schoolmate and demanding her money. Gabriel maintains it was all just…
Steve the Bartender put up still another round. The group at the end of the bar, standing under the television set, were regulars in the joint. One had actually stood at this same spot at the bar watching the sallow-faced Richard Nixon give his Checkers speech on a black-and-white screen…
John McCain is trying to buy his way into another six-year term in the U.S. Senate. He has raised $1.9 million, most of it from political action committees. But a large amount was contributed by individuals all over this country who have never laid eyes on him. He is running…
Tell the real John McCain story and you indict the entire political system. It is not a pretty story. No one really wants to know. I truly believe that if you spelled it out so people could really understand the McCain phenomenon, few would thank you. Instead, they would probably…
An old college textbook seemed inconsequential when Doug Combs happened upon it about two years ago. Nonetheless, he thumbed through the book on economics before throwing it away. By chance the veteran America West pilot’s eye alighted upon one sentence that gave him pause. Buying stock in a company, it…
Pain is temporary. Pride is forever. –Sign in the locker room of Tempe Mountain Pointe High School Karl Kiefer’s kids kneel around him under the west goal post at Mountain Pointe Field. “Closer, closer,” the coach grunts. “Family. Family. Together.” Three dozen teenage boys form a clump of sweat and…
An allegedly “missing” $80,000 in the Cave Creek School District’s cafeteria budget has sparked an all-out food fight in the northeast Valley over accusations of a government cover-up and of stolen rations of ham and cheese. Amid the finger-pointing–which by now has enveloped the state Attorney General’s Office–nobody knows exactly…
On the heels of Hurricane Andrew, the battered people of south Florida were blasted by a rude mixture of hot air and coldness from Phoenix. Call it Hurricane Lessner–named after the deputy editor of the editorial pages of the Arizona Republic. A column by Richard Lessner that was reprinted in…
New Times editor David Bodney has resigned to resume his law career full-time. He will remain as editor, however, while the search for a successor is under way. In other moves, the newspaper has hired Jeremy Voas as managing editor and is transferring associate editor Ward Harkavy to sister newspaper…
One of the great Arizona political upsets is in the making. I’m talking about Claire Sargent’s steady march to become the first Arizona woman to win a seat in the United States Senate. There are several elements, all equally important to her charge to the top. First, she is an…
Minutes before last Sunday’s debate, Ross Perot picked precisely at a loose thread from the left sleeve of his midnight-blue suit. He stood erectly. There was a tiny, crafty smile playing around the corners of his mouth. Ross Perot was the epitome of the self-assured business tycoon backed up by…
The gloves came in all sizes. There were white nylon gloves and wrist-to-elbow gauntlets and men’s cotton work gloves. For ten years, from 1962 to 1972, a young mother named Patricia Smith would make weekly trips to the warehouse of the Motorola Semiconductor plant on 52nd Street and McDowell in…
On May 6, 1992, New Times began a series of investigative reports detailing extensive groundwater pollution linked to Motorola, an $11 billion multinational electronics manufacturing company that is the state’s largest employer. Among the findings: Motorola’s two flagship plants have been linked to severe contamination of two separate aquifers in…
Twenty years ago, I had a coffee percolator. It was almost impossible to get a decent cup of coffee out of it, so one morning I threw it out the window of the second-floor apartment I was renting in Chicago. I was reminded of this coffeepot over the Labor Day…
Talking about his role as Don Corleone in The Godfather, Marlon Brando compared the “capo de tutti capo” to the chairman of General Motors. Business, Brando said, was business, and the real gangsters resided in the boardroom. David Johnston, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, understands the analogy. Johnston, who…
Three books by current and former New Times writers, on topics ranging from murder to music, have hit the bookstores. American Rock n’ Roll Tour, by staff writer Dave Walker, is a guide to the country’s historic rock landmarks, including the familiar–Graceland in Memphis and the Fillmore in San Francisco–and…
