March has gotten off to a lousy start for Maricopa County Schools Superintendent Sandra Dowling. The attorney general is investigating her office. Her school district expects a half-million-dollar budget shortfall next year. And now a disgruntled county schools employee says she will file paperwork this week to launch a recall…
Power Trips U.S. Senator John McCain ought to have a word with his colleague from that other A-state, Senator Frank Murkowski of Alaska. Murkowski is vacuuming up cash on the campaign-finance crusader’s home turf. An article by Ken Silverstein in the latest issue of Mother Jones reports that Murkowski has…
It’s beautiful, it really is. The weather is fine, and so is the irony. It’s Phoenix, a city whose explosion of uncontrolled development has been accompanied by an explosion of uncontrolled violence. All proceeds from today’s carnival are being donated to children of deceased police officers, people who died in…
Lights Out Tony Ortega’s refreshingly sober and objective investigation into the “Phoenix Lights” was in the best journalistic tradition–confronting the differences between what we would like to believe versus what the facts show (“The Hack and the Quack,” March 5). Unfortunately, the other Valley media are listening more to their…
Jim Dilettoso is playing a duet on a piano with a man who has a cross made of his own crusty, drying blood on his forehead. On Dilettoso’s own head is a mass of curly grayish hair. His mane dips and sways with the fluid rhythm he lays down, and…
“Mr. President, Mr. President, you have ignored me again.” The elderly bearded gentleman dances in the aisle like a small boy who has to pee, and he waves his hand contentiously, disrupting an already heated meeting of the Dysart Unified School District governing board. The president summons him to a…
Slots of Accusations Everyone hereabouts knows Herminia Rodriguez’s story: 64-year-old ex-migrant worker wins $330,000 on a slot at Harrah’s Ak-Chin Casino. Casino celebrates with her, then says it won’t pay up because the machine was broken. New Times gets the ball rolling with a story about the snafu. Harrah’s decides…
A sergeant at the Aspen Correctional Facility in Phoenix is under investigation by the Arizona Department of Corrections for possible sexual misconduct. At least four prisoners are involved in the investigation, and one says Sergeant Ben Sanders made sexual advances to him and touched him inappropriately. The inmate also says…
County schools chief Sandra Dowling once called herself the governor of Maricopa County–after all, she was elected by all the people of the county, rather than county supervisors, who were voted into office by a mere district’s worth. The title “governor” may be stretching it a bit, but Dowling does…
Mill Stoners In response to “Meet the Crusties” (David Holthouse, February 26), check out this sob story: My dad abandoned our family in an alcoholic haze when I was 4. I barely remember him. When I was 15, I was kicked out of high school twice for “insubordinate behavior” and…
What should you do if you’re a police officer and you’re called to the scene of an allegedly violent domestic dispute? The answer depends on where you work. If you’re with the Scottsdale Police Department, you’ll probably want to take the victim into her bedroom, rough her up, then subject…
Marina flips open a Styrofoam box and holds it up. Inside are three pieces of California Roll and a red slab of tuna. She curls her mouth into a slack smile. “Sushi’s good when you’re high.” Free sushi, even. Half an hour ago, Marina says, some lady came out of…
For five days this month, Kimberly Boyden and Michael Logan sat in a courtroom where the most personal, embarrassing details of their lives were spread before a roomful of strangers. Logan has difficulty getting an erection. Boyden once had breast implants. Logan drinks in the morning. Boyden keeps condoms in…
Billy’s New Jack The National Football League’s new television contract will rake in $17.6 billion over the next eight years. Think about it. If you stacked up all that cash in $1 bills, it would be 17.6 billion bills high! The new pact could put up to $74 million more…
Fighting Mad Thanks to Amy Silverman for her informative article on extreme fighting (“John McCain Breaks Up a Fight,” February 12). John McCain has been exposed. I wonder if the Anheuser-Busch brewery and the senator’s office will respond to the requests for clarification on these matters, or if they will…
The word “legend” is employed too often by journalists, but a search through a thesaurus yields no word that better describes Marcel Marceau. It’s unfortunate that the world’s greatest mime is the master of an art that’s become regarded as a joke, a favorite target of comedians and vacuous skits…
Nobody’s ever going to mistake a night’s stay at Bisbee’s Shady Dell for a room at the Ritz. There are no mints on the pillow, and forget about daily maid service. If you want to make a call, you’ve got to use a phone in the laundry room that serves…
Bev Tittle-Baker is not a born activist. A single mother most of her life, she owned a construction business in Phoenix, but gave it all up in the early ’90s after growing weary of cutthroat contracting competition. She found a “fixer-upper” home in an old Mesa neighborhood, saw its potential…
Bang, Bang, You’re a Fed Faced with the closure of a firing range on public land in Tucson, Representative Jim “I am not a member of ACT-UP” Kolbe has called out the militia–literally. The Tucson Rod and Gun Club’s shooting area was long a fixture near the scenic Sabino Canyon…
In 1996, the Maricopa County Environmental Services Division launched a bold, new program to computerize its health inspection process. The aim was to provide on-the-spot permits and evaluations to facilities. The division spent $384,745 on 60 handheld computers for use in the field. But then most of the computers sat…
It’s the kind of setting that makes you want to be cynical. I’m trying my hardest, but it’s not working. Friday night, and the Scottsdale Center for the Arts is almost full of people who’ve come to see a bunch of Tibetan monks perform sacred music and dance. Consider that…
Death Fret In Barry Graham’s article “Curtains for Ceja” (February 5), he stated that at the age of 18, he himself had the urge to go to a local bookstore and kill the owner and take the money. Graham wrote, “It wasn’t my conscience that saved him, though I’d like…
