Arizona Common Cause — the local affiliate of the national watchdog organization — quietly closed its doors December 1. The abrupt end to the longtime Arizona grassroots lobby raises questions about who really made the decision to close Arizona Common Cause, and, given its lack of effectiveness in recent years,…
Customer Disservice Claim jumper: A brand-new J.D. Power and Associates National Auto Insurance Customer Satisfaction Survey shows State Farm among the top three U.S. auto insurers and the only major national insurer in the top three. This high policyholder satisfaction rating is consistent with the fact that more State Farm…
Chillin’The Flash and entourage are more than fashionably late in arriving at the autoMATIC art and performance space, which is located in an old warehouse at Ninth Avenue and Jackson. It’s a dark neighborhood teeming with dark characters. Ambient derelicts. They meander everywhere, in every direction, as if they have…
Karl Whitmire takes in strays. Cats, usually, but sometimes a dog. Once in a while, even a person. Billy Lyster was a stray of sorts — cute and sweet but not too quick, Karl remembers. And young. That was 13 years ago. Karl was 35, Billy 21. A friend asked…
A few hours after finding his wife dead in their Ahwatukee home, Brian Eftenoff sat down with a homicide detective. He appeared distraught over Judi’s death. “She was blue, like somebody beat the shit out of her,” Brian told homicide detective Joe Petrosino at the downtown Phoenix police station. “I…
Rosa Perez de Lopez is a housewife, mother and criminal alien. But these days, her kids are on their own with homework while she sits in Nogales, Sonora, thinking about the mistakes that led to her deportation.In April, four Immigration and Naturalization Service agents knocked on George and Rosa Lopez’s…
Abiding Faith Hide and seek: We, members of the Christian Faithful, apologize for the lateness of this communication. However, it does not lessen our appreciation of your coverage in New Times of the controversy involving Father Saúl Madrid, Bishop Thomas O’Brien and the Catholic community/Latino parishioners (“Immaculate Heart Break,” Gilbert…
“They misunderestimated me.” — George W. Bush, November 6, 2000The probable ascendancy of George W. Bush is incontrovertible proof that America loves a dolt. This does not mean that Dubya will be a bad president. It’s entirely possible that this great country desperately needs a dunderhead just now — someone…
Castle CashSmall wonders never cease. The Phoenix City Council actually took some initiative on Tuesday, overruling a committee of citizens and asking voters to spend bond money to acquire land around the venerable Tovrea Castle. Part of that acreage, held by a Tovrea family trust, is in escrow for sale…
The frantic call came at 5:36 a.m. on September 24, 1999. “Hurry, hurry! My wife is bruised everywhere! I don’t know what’s going on!” Brian Eftenoff shouted into the phone. A 911 operator listened as he pleaded with Judi, his 30-year-old wife and mother of their two young children. “Baby,…
U.S. District Court Judge Robert Broomfield leans out over the rail on the fourth-floor balcony of the new Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Courthouse in downtown Phoenix and points out the gridwork of a freshly sealed patch of glistening gray terrazzo floor. “That floor is different from every height. If you…
As peacekeeper of one of the most law-abiding towns in TV history, Sheriff Andy Taylor spent most of his time meddling in the affairs of the colorful townsfolk. Rarely did he have the need to throw the book at any bad guys.Instead, he threw the book at the citizens of…
Insure Thing Farm report: We’ve lived through some of these, um, manipulations at the hands of State Farm (“Snake Killer,” Laura Laughlin, November 16). We see these abuses every day, at the hands of many insurance companies. Consumers of my industry’s wares and members of my industry alike are made…
Saxophonist Tony Malaby trudges up the staircase to The Jazz Apartment. He spies an ashtray — a miniature ceramic toilet bowl — sitting on a table outside unit No. 4, his former domicile.”This was here when I lived here,” he says with a laugh, pointing to the knickknack. It hasn’t…
Brit PapThe Flash gets the coolest e-mails. I’m just guessing, but I believe this one had its genesis in Great Britain:To the citizens of the United States: In the light of your failure to elect a new President and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation…
It was a long week for Kim Zilisch. The Motorola accountant had spent three grueling days taking tests at the Phoenix Civic Plaza for her CPA license. On Friday night, she finally got to relax. Her fiancé, Jeff Rosinski, picked her up downtown and drove her to the inaugural concert…
The moral behind the Sunday, November 12, Mass at Immaculate Heart of Mary church was self-sacrifice.The Reverend Saúl Madrid, pastor at both Immaculate Heart and St. Anthony parishes, told his congregation the parable of a destitute woman who gave of her time and won greater favor with Jesus Christ than…
Dinosaur-size ErrorCall me bonehead: My name is Kevin Curtice, brother of the paleontologist, Brian Curtice, you interviewed for the article “A Bone to Pick” (Lunch Meet, M.V. Moorhead, November 9). The picture referenced in the article was cropped from a larger picture of myself, Brian and my sister Gina. Apparently…
Has uncertainty over the outcome of the presidential race sent our republic hurtling toward a constitutional cataclysm?Nah. The sky isn’t falling. The soft money isn’t hardening. This is good fun, and more interesting than the Subway Series. Historians are actually getting face time on TV. Perhaps our electile dysfunction will…
CorrectionThe Flash abjectly issues the following correction(s):Contrary to what was reported in an earlier column, the voters of the East Valley’s District 30 are not “chromosomally challenged retards.” However, this assertion does not alter the Flash’s suggestion, made in the same column, that supporters of Proposition 302, the “Cardinals’ stadium…
North Buckeye — There’s nothing to see here but high-voltage lines and empty highway heading nowhere between ho-hum Sonoran mountain and bone-dry gulch. You are way west of Phoenix without the vision of Robert Burns. In 1986, at the height of the Arizona Land Rush, Burns, a young, brash, multimillionaire…
The air inside the Nashville Convention Center is literally trembling. Sound pressure waves launched by hundreds of bass woofers surge through the room at 1,132 feet per second. The waves combine with each other, bounce off the walls, flutter your clothing and quake through your body. The ambient noise inside…
