Flashes

Anne Does AZ
The Flash hung with Princess Anne during her visit to the Valley last week. (Don’t believe the pictures: It really wasn’t Prince Charles in drag.)

At the Herberger Theater Center for the Royal National Theatre’s Othello, the Flash sat within whispering range of the Royal Anne and her loyal subject, actress Lynn Redgrave.

Curtsying girlishly (is there another way?), diet maven Redgrave took a seat beside the leggy royal. Lynn, the younger daughter of Sir Michael and sister of Yassir Arafat enthusiast Vanessa, was spectacularly unfazed. She promptly dove into her purse for a compact and powdered her nose. Then, out came the lip liner–a warm russet shade–followed by a quick spritz of breath freshener. The house lights dimmed before she could indulge in a full shampoo, set and blow-dry, but, the Flash assures you, Lynn looked mah-velous.

The Flash was elbow-to-elbow with the Princess at a charity fund raiser at the Arizona Biltmore hotel last week.

Speaking on behalf of the Scottsdale-based charity ChildHelp, Entertainment Tonight TelePrompTer reader Mary Hart introduced some local luminaries. The terminally perky Hart pointed to a grinning gent seated near those of us at the head table. He’s one of those selfless givers “who doesn’t make for good copy,” Hart intoned, but that’s just the way he is. She then requested a large round of applause for Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods.

The Flash nearly gagged on his pork rind, then explained to Annie that Woods isn’t a bad egg, but he’s the Don King of attorneys general, one of the biggest hot dogs on the planet.

Hart then turned to Sheriff Joke Arpaio, “the most legendary sheriff around,” or something like that. “Last year it was pink underwear. Who knows what it’s gonna be this year?” Hart said. (Vivisection came to mind.) Hart carried on about how Joke is a great friend of ChildHelp, blah, blah, blah. It led the glitterati to cheer loudly.

Finally, the former Miss South Dakota introduced another law enforcement leader in attendance.

“Thanks also to Dave Garrett, the Phoenix police chief, for being here tonight.” Flash explained to Annie that Chief Garrett’s first name is Dennis, not Dave, and that he’s forgotten more about law enforcement than Arpaio will ever know.

Annie nodded politely (the Windsors are soooooo well-trained) and asked Flash to pass the Buffalo wings.

Billy Bob Weaver
And speaking of royalty and Mary Hart:
Actor/comedian Billy Connolly, discussing the late Princess Diana on Entertainment Tonight, October 2, 1997:

“When she was talkin’ to me, she was a delight. Not like the one you saw on TV. Much more confident and funny. . . . I thought she was a charming woman.”

Actor/comedian Connolly discussing the very-much-alive Princess Diana in an interview (“Scot in the Act,” August 7) with New Times film critic M. V. Moorhead, July 23, 1997:

“She’s the fuckin’ dodo. Did you ever hear her speak? She talks to people like they’re retarded. Diana’s a fuckin’ trendy on the make, usin’ the press to attack this poor fucker [Prince Charles].”

Federal Bureau of Insulation
Journalists have been salivating over an extensive list of recently released, never-before-seen-by-anyone-but-J. Edgar Hoover-and-his-dressmaker FBI files on hundreds of famous and infamous people. The list, including case numbers, has been circulating on investigative reporter e-mail groups and Web sites.

While The Flash took a pass on old files on Jesse Jackson, a presumably pre-presidential, union-agitating Ronald Reagan, Woody Guthrie and even that instrument of subversion Readers’ Digest, The Flash did dutifully submit an official request for three Phoenix FBI files on the American Indian Movement. This after deducing from the cryptic case number they had something to do with civil unrest or disorder.

Alas, it looks like Flash has just been wasting spit. It turns out that the federal government’s newfound commitment to public disclosure is still a bunch of hooey. (Don’t get me started on the CIA!)

The Phoenix AIM files have yet to be “processed,” which means some FBI flunky has to read them, black marker in hand, deleting names of informants, social security numbers, inseam sizes and other material sensitive to national security.

Linda Kloss, the public information officer for the FBI Freedom of Information Act Office, suggested Flash might want to visit the FBI’s reading room in Washington, D.C., and peruse the 17,000 pages of already processed stuff on AIM, mostly, Kloss believes, relating to that dustup at Wounded Knee in 1973. Still, the Phoenix files aren’t among those tomes, so The Flash requested that the FBI continue processing that request.

Get in line, says Kloss. Those recently released files will be in the mail in about four years, which, if you’re keeping track, is in the next freakin’ century! The FBI might have violated the constitutional rights of a whole new generation of radicals by the time we get those 25-year-old files.

And, if the files happen to be about a person–likely in a civil-unrest situation–the Flash would have to get that person’s permission before the FBI will release the file. “The Catch 22,” as Kloss puts it, is that the FBI won’t tell you who the person is so you can seek their permission. That would be an invasion of privacy.

So Flash is now on the lookout for the subject of another Phoenix case on the list of files made “public”: Victoriano Huerta, you’re listed as an escaped federal prisoner. Please call the Flash immediately to authorize the release of your file. We won’t tip the feds. Honest.

Memo of the Week
The City of Phoenix is trying to figure out how best to implement new, lower staffing levels in its Water Production Department, so it’s asked employees to brainstorm. And the boys at the plant had a deluge, according to one subcommittee memo:

T0: Core-start up/plant staffing sub-task committee
FROM: Carl Meyer sub-task committee team leader
SUBJECT: Plant staffing levels

One of the targeted strategies under the Water Production Reengineering Project is to evaluate and recommend the full production, stand-by and shutdown staffing levels at water production facilities. . . . We believe the staffing levels can be met if Water Production and the City of Phoenix are willing to assume more risk and are able to remove the barriers that current prevent Water Productions optimal production levels.

According to Meyer and his committee, some of those barriers include a lack of automation and training. And, under the heading “Enablers,” Meyer includes the following:

Lower the Cities [sic] water quality standards
Change the frequency requirements of lab testing for turbidity, chlorine, flouride, and ph . . .

Be willing to except [sic] the additional risks involved in having full automation.

The Flash’s mind swam with possibilities. Why, think of it: Think of the needless inefficiency that could be eliminated if only people would get past the idea that their drinking water should be sparkling-clean!

But that’s not what the memo meant, even if that’s what it said, Meyer insisted when contacted by the Flash. However, Meyer wouldn’t say why he put the warning in the memo if he didn’t really think it was a risk. And then he hung up.

Meyer’s boss, Water Department director Michael Gritzuk, dismissed any concern over the memo. He’s adamant that water quality will be maintained no matter how many people are working on the new, automated systems.

“I don’t relate a direct relationship between staffing levels and water quality,” Gritzuk said. “If there’s an action that would present any risk, it’s not going to get past [the central reengineering committee]–if it got to that committee.”

Gritzuk says the subcommittee was just spraying out ideas–but that doesn’t mean all the ideas will make a splash.

“They are not wrong,” Gritzuk said, just “empowered on all items . . . to think outside of the box.”

Dispensing Justice and Pez
Maricopa County is losing its chief deputy in the civil division of the County Attorney’s Office to the new Betsey Bayless regime at the Secretary of State’s Office.

Jessica Funkhouser was one of the few county employees to treat public records laws as if they were, oh, say, laws. Also in her favor, Funkhouser has a whole shelf full of Pez dispensers in her office and readily accessible snacks for visitors. She’s leaving the county to head the state’s Elections Services department. Elections will be better, but the Flash holds dim hopes for public access at the county level without Funkhouser around.

On the up side, Funkhouser’s ever-full candy dish is following her to the Capitol.

Feed The Flash: voice, 229-8486; fax, 340-8806; online, flash@newtimes.com