Sammy Writes Bull The Spike loves mail from jail. In fact, The Spike may now have a complete set of those Sheriff Joe Arpaio postcards he makes available so prisoners can help promote his re-election effort — Joe playing around in the middle of a pile of puppies, Joe standing…
Michael Coleman lost his right eye when he was a baby. As an adult, he was turned down for a job as a Navy nuclear propulsion specialist because of his monocular vision. He couldn’t join the Air Force. And, even though he holds a commercial driver’s license, the state of…
The Barrs Factor Facts over principle: Rick Barrs’ recent diatribe, “Politics over Principle,” (October 9) contains a couple of statements that cannot go unaddressed. First, Mr. Barrs characterizes a Mormon sect’s forcing underage girls into sexual slavery as “Islam with an X-rating.” On what basis (besides conspicuous bigotry and ignorance)…
Now they are standing, and cheering. Jesus Gonzales is walking — toward the ring and his professional debut as a boxer. The screams and whistles among the 2,600 attending on this summer night quickly merge into collective noise that bounces around the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix. The din gains strength…
Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley is threatening the careers of two veteran Valley drug enforcement cops in a political power play that appears aimed at protecting his own investigator who acted questionably in a recent drug investigation. The controversy, which Romley has been trying to keep secret despite its potentially…
Imagine my shock the other Sunday when I picked up the Arizona Republic and there it was on the front page (above the fold, even): “Polygamist sect target of Arizona-Utah inquiry.” Arizona’s largest daily newspaper was following John Dougherty’s groundbreaking New Times stories on a Mormon polygamist sect in northern…
Ice Burg City slickers: Thank you for that wonderful piece on downtown Phoenix (“Exploding Downtown,” Michael Lacey, October 2). I found myself yelling with agreement while reading it to my husband in the car on our way downtown this morning. I am from New York and he is from Chicago…
New Times is bringing pop-culture luminary Richard Florida to the Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix at 6:30 p.m. on October 21. We expect him to save us from ourselves. You’re invited; tickets are free. Florida was last year’s — “Check out the big brain on Brad” — author of The Rise…
Journalists take it for granted that they can reach professors on the phone for expert opinions. Universities even publish directories to make faculty members accessible to the media. But you can’t just call up Richard Florida, Heinz Professor of Regional Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Ever since…
In this job, it’s difficult not to maintain a mental “coaches’ poll” of the state’s top scumbags. Sociopath Sheriff Joe is a perennial powerhouse in the dirtbag BCS. Former bishop Tommy “Speed Bump” O’Brien has the strong running game and defense necessary to challenge for the title. Russell Pearce, Dave…
Another teenager in the care of the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections has tried to kill himself. On September 21, a boy assigned to the mental health unit at Adobe Mountain School in Phoenix tried to hang himself, ADJC spokesman Steve Meissner confirms. Although he released a few details on…
Cop Rocked Jake the snake: After reading the story about Roy “Jake” Jacobsen and his comments regarding the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, I was appalled (“PLEA Bargain?” Paul Rubin, September 25). First, police officers put themselves in terrible danger every day just by coming to work. They never know…
Last March 11, photographers zoomed in on the disfigured face of Phoenix police officer Jason Schechterle as he sat before a New York State Senate committee in Albany. The officer — whose story of near-death by burning and his near-miraculous (and ongoing) recovery is well-known to most Valley residents –…
Radio Friendly Music man: Thank you, Jimmy Magahern, for your diligent research into the KCDX-FM 103.1 story (“Ghost Radio,” September 18). This station is the best thing to happen to radio around here in, well, since it’s commercial-free, maybe ever! For weeks, no other station has been playing on my…
It seemed at first that a sick, elderly woman had died peacefully in her bed after a memorably full life. When Scottsdale police responded to the home of Katheryn Howard on the early afternoon of June 16, 2000, they got the basics from a close friend of hers named Chuck…
Adam Marsland, an indie rock singer-songwriter who, by his own accounts, spends most of his life on the road, discovered KCDX purely by accident one day while riding in his tour bus across the Arizona desert. “I usually don’t listen to the radio because it seems like it’s always the…
College listeners will find themselves Googling lyric phrases to discover the artists and song titles of all the oddities they hear; older listeners will just go giddily searching for the hash pipe. Below are 50 of the better mind-benders heard on 103.1 recently. In no particular order, which is just…
Last week’s arrest of four skinheads charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder offered another glimpse into a world where, despite the white supremacist gang’s professed beliefs, violence is not limited by the ethnicity of their victims. It appears that anyone who encounters them, whether friend or innocent bystander, is fair…
Congressman Rick Renzi is sponsoring a provision in a defense-spending bill that could provide hundreds of millions of dollars to his father’s business while delivering what environmentalists say is a death blow to the San Pedro River, the state’s last free-flowing desert stream and one of the most important environmental…
Fear Factor As Phoenix incubates an art scene, one thing the players — and the wanna-bes — are learning is that creativity breeds contempt. And nowhere is that more evident than on East Roosevelt Street. Recently, The Spike showcased the artistry — really, the pageantry — of the not-so-nice goings-on…
Jazzed Up “Vee” day: You should have known the “Vee” back in the late ’70s and ’80s when it was smaller and more seedy-looking (“Jazz Rift,” Ilan Brat, September 11). It was The Bomb then. Times have changed and people have passed on, but places like the “Vee” exist more…
Last year, ASU bioengineering grad Jason Wilson was at a friend’s party when he was let in on a secret. He’d found himself talking with Gaynel Hodge, a doo-wop musician and former Valley resident who now makes his home in the Netherlands. Hodge was back in town on a visit,…
