Separated by a sturdy little Plexiglas window but with a small slit in the wall so they could exchange paperwork, the two men stood in their little cubicles and argued. It was an uncomfortable situation, but Steven L. Brown was so angry he actually was glad he was not in…
The Kuwaitis were smiling and gesturing grandly as they led us to the bodies. Half a dozen reporters who had arrived in newly liberated Kuwait City the night before wanted to see evidence of the atrocities inflicted by the Iraqi army during its final, frantic hours of occupation. The locals…
These two guys sit down at a table in the basement of the Memorial Union at Arizona State University. They’re young, kind of geeky, probably freshmen. They pull McDonald’s hamburgers from paper sacks. It’s 12:30, lunchtime, Friday afternoon: Showtime for the Farce Side, ASU’s student-run comedy troupe. Loud rock music…
At her first court appearance after she became famous for a new reason, Senator Carolyn Walker enraged the public that had once adored her. She said hardly a word as she did so. Standing tall in a jewel-green suit, she allowed the wavy-haired Richard Gierloff to request that she be…
The haunted face of Bob Simon, once a self-assured and cocky CBS correspondent, tells us all we need to know about the senseless cruelty of war. Simon and the members of his television crew appeared on 60 Minutes this past Sunday. They had just been released by the Iraqi army,…
They finally elected Bill Veeck to baseball’s Hall of Fame. I don’t pretend to know how that honor would sit with him, though. Even though he was an owner most of his years in the game, Veeck was always considered an iconoclast. While most owners have always thought a baseball…
People keep asking me if I think Arizona’s two senators will get away with it. I tell them I don’t think so. Everyone tells me I’m wrong because by the time elections come around everyone will forget. But this time, I don’t think people will forget the strange alliance that…
The competition over who shall rule east Phoenix–its developers or its neighborhoods–is shifting into overdrive as the City Council prepares to vote this month on a hard-fought plan guiding future growth around the area’s commercial core at 24th Street and Camelback Road. As the council’s March 20 vote approaches, the…
Since there are more people outside the world’s prisons than within them, I guess it’s safe to assume that most child-rearing methods work, no matter how nutty they seem. But sometimes you wonder–like when you spend three days playing host to house guests from the What, Me Worry? School of…
It is midafternoon. As a shrill electric bell signals the end of another day of classes, a tall, middle-aged man in a dark blue suit and a red tie leans down to talk to the young woman walking by his side. Dr. Roger Romero, superintendent of the Wilson Elementary School…
Representative Don Kenney, the public servant best known for his ability to fit $55,000 in cash into a gym bag, was a very noticeable defendant at the group arraignment last week. For one thing, he came alone, unlike some of the accused, who were accompanied by friends and spouses. For…
It never ends. You’d think the breach of public trust would bottom out in this state. You’d think the tales of political corruption at the Arizona State Legislature would inspire the other players in the public arena to show some integrity. What with our first gubernatorial run-off election only days…
It’s the most important decision you have to make whenever you enter a grocery store: Which brand of sugar-frosted, honey-coated, chemically colored, artificially flavored breakfast cereal should you purchase for your kids today? Once again, let’s join hands, gaze skyward, and thank God I’m here to help. Originally, I planned…
Among the stubby commercial buildings that surged northward along 16th Street when Phoenix started booming after World War II, there is one in the 2600 block that catches the eye again and again. It is part of a cinderblock row of storefronts patterned, like much of the street, by odd…
The elderly woman in the TV-show audience pleads with the shadows on the screen to give up the gang life and stop terrorizing her neighborhood. Sitting in a studio with a hundred other people, the woman describes to them how her fourteen-year-old grandson was shot down in a gang incident…
After four weeks of Operation Desert Storm, American airplanes have made more than 50,000 sorties over Kuwait and Iraq and have dropped more ordnance than was used against Japan in all of World War II. Although Pentagon spokespersons say “smart bombs” can make surgical strikes against military targets–with sufficient accuracy…
Dressed in his pale yellow golf sweater and jogging shoes, Bob Anderson, a seventy-year-old retiree from Chicago, fits right in with the other retirees in Carefree. Like his neighbors, he has golf on his mind. But there’s a difference. In the world of Arizona water politics, the retired real-estate lawyer…
These days it takes a blood lust to run for public office. In time, the candidate must forsake time-honored virtues. He must lie. He must cheat. Sometimes he must do both. Three weeks ago New Times ran an investigation of Fife Symington’s real estate empire. Like many others, we wondered…
There is no limit to the sacrifices parents will make for their children. Sometimes they are forced to kill. Sometimes they are forced to die. And sometimes they are forced to attend Walt Disney’s World on Ice. Actually, I was excited when my wife told me she’d purchased a family…
Just when I was beginning to tire of CNN’s coverage of “attrited” warehouses in Iraq, Phoenix Police Chief Ruben Ortega unwrapped his million-dollar sting of state legislators. Is this hilarious? I feel like I ought to send out postcards across the country that announce, “Hey, I’m from Arizona, where people…
Senator Carolyn Walker stuffs $5,600 in cash into her purse. She smiles. She rises from her chair and heads for the door. “Sorry I have to take your money and run,” Walker says. But there is not the slightest note of apology in Walker’s tone. Instead, she seems absolutely gleeful…
On the morning after the indictments came out, Representative Jim Meredith came to his state capitol office at his usual time. He wore his newest three-piece suit and a cautious smile. He was determined to brazen it out. I was surprised to hear that Meredith had actually stopped briefly when…
