On a bulletin board in the break room at the City of Phoenix’s Squaw Peak Water Treatment Plant is a notice to all employees: “As an organized employee, you have the right to be represented by your union steward at an investigatory interview.” That advice comes in handy at Squaw…
And Jesus was a sailor When he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching From his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain Only drowning men could see him He said, “All men will be sailors, then, Until the sea shall free them” But…
Bury Graham After reading Barry Graham’s work during the past few months, I was not surprised at all to see him singing the praises of a no-talent literary thief like Kathy Acker (“The Fury of Kathy Acker,” December 18). Only Graham, with his dysfunctional viewpoint on life and minimal writing…
A Convict’s Warning What I do find appalling is that there are a lot of people in here simply for having big mouths and a lack of common sense. I estimate that only 25 percent of the crimes of manufacturing and conspiracy to manufacture meth were actually directly involved in…
“Better Than Hawaii” It’s 3:43 in the morning and Cyndi and Shana are coloring. They’re dressed for comfort in sweat pants and tee shirts; long hair pulled into ponytails. Markers and crayons are scattered about them on the living-room carpet, and it’s easy to imagine them as little girls, playing…
When Jane Hull became governor last September, she quickly announced that she did not intend to have state policies decided in court. “I try not to comment on what was done before,” she says in her middle-school principal’s voice. “My attitude is that we don’t do well in court, usually,…
Meth Roots Methamphetamine is an all-American drug. It should come as no surprise that many embrace a high that can make running errands feel like the quest for the golden fleece. As early as the 1830s, the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: “It is odd to watch, with what…
Maricopa County Superintendent of Schools Sandra Dowling used county staff to help research and write papers for her master’s degree and to work on her reelection campaign on county time, according to depositions taken earlier this year in a criminal case in which Dowling’s involved. The sworn interviews, which are…
Dem View Amy Silverman’s article about the Democratic party in Arizona (“Hee-Haw Politics,” December 4) was right on the nail, with one exception, in my opinion. She surmised that, as Governor Jane Hull had usurped what were traditional Democratic promises, no Democrat had any platform to gain undecided vote. A…
On November 30, a 53-year-old American woman died a cruel death in a Tijuana, Mexico, hospital. Her death has gone largely unremarked upon by the mainstream media, yet she was one of the most influential novelists of the second half of the 20th century. Kathy Acker was a brilliantly original…
Eight simple white crosses, made of PVC pipe, rattle slightly in the wind along a stretch of road north of Flagstaff, just past milepost 440 on Highway 89. They mark the eight who died here, killed in the same spot in two separate accidents last year. The first accident killed…
On Friday, July 12, 1996, the Southwest regional headquarters for the United States Forest Service sent out a press release to announce that it was about to break the law. Charles “Chip” Cartwright, the regional forester, was giving the go-ahead to start cutting trees, even though a federal injunction had…
A breakneck building schedule has resulted in huge cost overruns, design and construction errors and infighting among key players in the Bank One Ballpark project. These problems, spelled out in Maricopa County stadium-construction records, raise questions about whether the taxpayer-financed stadium will perform as promised. Officials are optimistic that everything…
Federal labor officials have charged managers at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center with attempting to illegally prevent employees from organizing a union. National Labor Relations Board investigators allege that the hospital’s management has threatened to fire pro-union employees and drafted overly broad rules designed to prevent employees from promoting…
Howdy, Donors As mayor of Phoenix, he successfully pushed an ordinance designed to keep guns out of kids’ hands. He also advocated having confiscated guns melted down and turned into a memorial. Now, as a candidate for governor, Paul Johnson is putting guns in the hands of kids–his own kids…
America was once a country that had something called the Bill of Rights. Now it’s a country where you have to piss in a cup to get a menial job, where you can be locked up for months on end without having been convicted of any crime, and where freedom…
She Mail The review of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (“Curious Georgia,” Michael Sragow, November 27) contains an error that is becoming increasingly common in written and spoken language: the use of female pronouns when referring to a drag queen. What writers and speakers need to remember…
High noon on a spring day in 1994. The stranger steps through the gates of the Pioneer Arizona Living History Museum, takes one look around and shakes his head. Everywhere, he sees things that don’t belong, from buckskinners clutching cans of Pepsi and eating foodstuffs wrapped in Ziploc baggies to…
The old Democrat answers the phone at state party headquarters. He takes a message for party chairman Mark Fleischer. Ask Fleischer, says the caller, what is the future of the Arizona Democratic party? The old man chuckles. “Sorry, I just had to laugh at the question,” he says, adding an…
For some reason, the gifted actress Kasi Lemmons–she played Jodie Foster’s roommate in The Silence of the Lambs and the interviewer in Fear of a Black Hat–hasn’t become a star. So she’s become a filmmaker instead. Her first feature as writer/director is the coming-of-age story Eve’s Bayou. Set among the…
Passport Scotched? J. Fife Symington III’s globetrotting days will soon be over if U.S. District Judge Roger B. Strand requires the fallen governor to surrender his passport. The Fifester has been sighted on several trips to foreign destinations since his September conviction on seven bank and wire-fraud charges. Prosecutors first…
Challengers in Tempe’s upcoming city council race have been rebuffed in attempts to gain access to the city’s popular Web site (www.Tempe.gov) to promote their campaigns. Tempe’s mayor and six council members all have photographs and brief biographies posted on the city’s Web page, which receives more than 200,000 hits…
