Pat’s baby was, like the child of Hester Prynne, a pearl of great price. Pat chose to bring life out of an unwanted pregnancy, and for it suffered serious illness, destitution and fear. Unable to call on her parents or the baby’s father for help, with neither education nor a…
No one bothers Socorro Bernasconi anymore as she stands with her protest sign near the Pointe at South Mountain. On most afternoons, the long-time Guadalupe activist and mother of eight stands near Pointe entrances holding a hand-painted sign that says, “Dead Spirits in Live Bodies Build the Pointergeist. A Development…
Many a fried Phoenician has stood under Payson’s Ponderosa pines and marveled at their majesty. There still are thousands of pines to gape at in the town of 8,000 about an hour and a half northeast of Phoenix. But these days, “progress”–most recently in the shape of a sprawling Wal-Mart…
Opponents of the for-profit adoption industry invariably single out Southwest Adoption Center, Inc., the largest for-profit agency in the state, for criticism. But the less-visible Birth Hope Adoption Agency, Inc., which last year sent 28 babies out of state for adoption, has the worst history of legal and regulatory problems…
In nine days, 51 creepy phone calls and death threats were made to Leon and Jeanette Woodward. U S West Communications determined that 43 of those calls originated within state police headquarters or from the home of Department of Public Safety Officer Van Jackson. Subsequent events raise the possibility that…
John Kromko, a Democrat always willing to take up a populist cause, is being snookered by, of all people, his own party. Three months ago Democratic bigwigs were pushing their maverick colleague from Tucson to start an initiative drive to roll back auto-insurance premiums. The state representative wasn’t even a…
Sometime next week a couple of extremely colorful City of Phoenix staff members will haul a big pile of sketches, overhead-projector transparencies and documents into the council chambers at City Hall. Then the councilmembers will assess their options. Then they will vote, and the Valley’s baseball future will be decided…
My wife is psychic. She can always tell when I’ve dressed my son. All she has to do is look at the lad in his green dress shirt, blue swimming trunks, red-and-white gym socks and black patent-leather shoes, and somehow, she just knows that I coordinated his outfit. It’s incredible…
here’s a mad rush on for the Phoenix City Council to approve a $200 million downtown stadium. Between now and Tuesday, councilmembers will be subject to a last-minute razzle-dazzle to try to convince them that the deal–which has yet to be finalized–is really the best the city can expect to…
Earn “big bucks” . . . work in “a nice air-conditioned office” . . . “have fun” selling photocopier supplies over the phone. Little wonder that a certain central Phoenix telemarketing firm promised new employees that they were about to embark on “THE GREATEST JOB IN THE WORLD!” “It was…
It’s a million and ten degrees in the shade and you’ve warned your kids that if they don’t behave, you’re sending them outside until they’re medium to well-done. So they mill around the house, expecting you to entertain them. Here’s what you do. Stick a tray of ice cubes down…
There’s no question that Phoenix sewage plants are dumping toxic materials into the Salt River, at least on occasion. But city officials don’t want to spend the money to install the equipment for a problem they contend occurs only rarely. Instead, they’d rather spend tax dollars in court to fight…
Phoenix is in the clutches of the worst epidemic of backyard drownings since recordkeeping began, but even that’s not enough, apparently, to overcome City Hall’s reluctance to adopt mandatory safety regulations. In fact, anti-regulatory sentiment is adamant inside City Hall, judging from the bureaucrats’ reaction to proposals to require pool…
Last winter, a handful of Arizona State University engineering undergrads and a couple of professors slaved for weeks on a proposal for a solar-powered dream machine they named the “Sundevil Suncruiser.” When the ASU team beat out dozens of other schools from across the country, you’d think state legislators would…
We sat on the stone steps outside the Durango women’s jail. It was late afternoon. Mike Black, the attorney, kept looking through his briefcase. Lawyers always make themselves look busy. The sun was coming at us from an angle and the shadows were deepening. But it was hotter now than…
We were driving Route 101 south along the Oregon coast. A light rain was falling on the windshield of the rented car. It is an area where the only radio station you can get is National Public Radio. We’d spent the first night in a Portland hotel of fading grandeur…
Here are thirty reasons Charles Keating deserves to be drawn and quartered at a public ceremony in Patriots Square. 1) Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan failure will be the largest bailout in history. 2) In order to clear up the mess Keating’s greed caused at Lincoln, taxpayers will ultimately pay…
Lawman Ralph Andrew Lawrence was primed to kill on that spring evening in 1986. In his mind, his enemies had conspired to ruin him–starting with waitress Sharma Bethel, an ex-girlfriend from the southeastern Arizona town of Willcox. Lawrence had figured his troubles with Bethel were ancient history. That stuff had…
Smile, Brendel! Luckily, the photographer who snapped this shot just happened to be wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, an ensemble that never fails to elicit an impressive display of this Siberian tiger’s dazzling dentistry. “She’s not angry; she’s frightened,” explains Dean Harrison, owner of Out of Africa, a big-cat…
Looks as though the honeymoon is over between Phoenix politicians and the citizens who helped them win last year’s hugely successful bond election. The love affair ended with the Phoenix City Council’s rejection last week of a citizen-backed spending plan for $18 million from those bonds. The city chose instead…
You can’t help it. Chat with Valley moms Susan Fitzgerald and Lori Drinkard, and all you can think is, “There but for the grace of the fertility gods go I.” As you may have noticed, I spend a lot of time bellyaching about the difficulties of raising one kid. Just…
The way Bill Parks sees it, if eight is good then ten must be better. The councilmember who represents northeast Phoenix is overwhelmed by the growth of his district since the district system was first enacted a decade ago. His territory runs from Sunnyslope to Carefree Highway, with an estimated…
