Shift change, San Ramon Industrial Park. Nogales, Sonora. Tuesday, 4:59 p.m. She wants out, the short, pretty girl in the short, pretty sundress. Out of this factory, out of this city, out of this grind her life has become. Right now, though, just out of this factory will do. Forty…
Basketball in Nogales, Sonora, is like football in west Texas, and Hector’s got game. Homeboy busts threes like a blackjack dealer. Sporting a new pair of Gary Payton signature Nikes–$140 in Tucson, “no counterfeit bullshit”–Hector went five for eight from downtown in the city league basketball championship in May. Downtown…
San Luis Rio de Colorado, Sonora There’s a weathered wooden sign across the street from an industrial park where maquila workers toil, making clothes, toys and expensive stereo speakers. Through peeling paint, the sign proclaims this as the future site of 550 dwellings for the maquila workers. But there are…
Empalme, Sonora Does a work force content to live in pallet houses while earning $1 an hour sound like the ultimate boost to your company’s bottom line? But are you concerned about dealing with the red tape, cultural differences and logistical maze of moving production to a Third World country?…
Ensenada, Baja California The road to Ensenada is a jewel. The four-lane tollway cuts free of the industrial labyrinth of Tijuana and turns west toward the Pacific Ocean, where it clings to cliffs jagging into the surf. Snaking its way down Mexico’s northernmost coast, every turn reveals another expansive, soft…
One hundred metal folding chairs sit in neat rows on the stark, tile floor of the Tucson union hall of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Seventy-nine are empty. The rest are occupied by a mix of hard-boiled blue-collar workers, aging hippies and a handful of young activists from the…
The showdown started in high June. Facing off are the top guns of Maricopa County’s two crime-fighting agencies. But instead of six-shooters, County Attorney Rick Romley and Sheriff Joe Arpaio loaded their word processors and fired off nasty memos about the other to the county Board of Supervisors. The latest…
Dr. Ram Krishna delivered the best news possible to Mary Nixon: Her daughter, Billye, did not have cancer. Too bad he was wrong. Krishna, a Yuma orthopedic surgeon and secretary of the state Board of Medical Examiners (BOMEX), thought Billye’s cancer was a simple fracture. But when Mary tried to…
It’s late on a Saturday morning at Phoenix Civic Plaza. Downtown is quiet and hot, and there’s no sense of violence in the air. Until I go inside the civic center. The Grand Canyon State Games are being held here, and the first thing I see is a baton-twirling contest…
A six-month New Times investigation reveals that companies controlled by one sitting Baptist Foundation of Arizona director and two former directors have received nearly $140 million worth of loans in complicated real-estate and stock transactions with BFA. A company controlled by one of those insiders in 1997 reported a net…
Bill Perschetti was typing a letter when he found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. The office manager of Summerville and Associates had heard the front doors of the offices crash open, and someone yelling, “Police! Police!” He thought it was just a joke. Then he looked up…
On a summer day in 1988, Tucson retirees Nita and Chuck Pratt visited an RV resort near Show Low. Juniper Ridge RV Resort sat atop an isolated ridge studded by fragrant juniper trees, a setting that seemed idyllic to the Pratts. They were also impressed by the resort’s country-club-style amenities–a…
I’d like to point out that it’s been a wonderful two weeks for me. I haven’t had quite this much fun since I was interrogated in Hanoi. –Senator John McCain His anti-tobacco bill bombed. He was caught making fun of the First Daughter. The Supremes canned his line-item veto. And…
Arizona State University has exonerated ASU Art Museum Director Marilyn Zeitlin of wrongdoing in connection with allegations of misuse of university funds. Last week, ASU released findings of a four-month internal investigation into the allegations, which had surfaced in a state auditor general’s report last March. The conclusion: More than…
Microsoft’s Man McCain The Flash is frothing at the mouth, anticipating the next Federal Election Commission campaign filings, due out later this month. Just whom has Campaign Finance Reform Poster Boy John McCain (our senior senator, no less) been sucking up to, lo these past tobacco-money-free months? Don’t cry for…
In Arizona, stealing someone’s water is a crime second only to horse thievery. But the people attending the Rainbow Gathering in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest are illegally diverting hundreds of thousands of gallons of the privately owned resource. Property owners and federal officials have opted not to get into a…
The Joke’s on John The first thing Senator John McCain did following the telling of a completely derogatory and vile “joke” at the expense of Chelsea Clinton was to write a letter of apology (Flashes, June 18). If he ever says that about either of my daughters, the first thing…
The press packet makes it sound exciting. Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, it says. That’s the name of the Washington, D.C.-based organization that’s in Phoenix to discuss initiatives aimed at preventing kids from becoming criminals. “Arizona could cut crime–perhaps by half or more–by cutting the enemy’s most important supply line:…
Dr. Kay Rauth-Farley is checking on a toddler named Alex in the pediatric ward of St. Joseph’s Hospital. The 1-year-old has a fractured skull, and he’s whimpering in his bed. “Oh, baby,” she says soothingly. The pediatrician feels for the large mushy spot on top of the baby’s head. Alex…
The Tempe Arts Center (TAC) has always existed precariously. It was conceived by a well-meaning city committee in 1981 to be an independent, nonprofit spot of culture on then-run-down Mill Avenue. It grew into an ad hoc arts center that mounts a wide range of exhibits and sends artists into…
McCain Mutiny? Oops! The first note of disenchantment with Arizona’s mouthy, self-aggrandizing Senator John McCain has been uttered by one of the media mavens who had crowned him their political Golden Boy. In Sunday’s New York Times, op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd unleashed a prickly fusillade at McCain for his tasteless…
John Wilson can’t go straight home in the morning. The city of Phoenix won’t let him. He lives just blocks from where 32nd Street and Shea Boulevard dump all of north Phoenix, north Scottsdale and Paradise Valley’s rush-hour traffic into the north end of the Squaw Peak Parkway. Three years…
