Last Friday at the Phoenix Art Museum, a group of ladies on a tour stood around the infamous U.S. flag on the floor, peering over the edges, their faces frozen in smiles, looking for the emperor’s new clothes. The work in question, Dread Scott’s 1988 “What Is the Proper Way…
A recreational-drug user since the late Sixties, my friend Skippy is a man who likes his pills. So I wasn’t exactly surprised when, grinning from ear to ear, he triumphantly whipped out a bottle of the prescription muscle relaxer Soma. What did surprise me was his explanation of how he…
A woman in a long dress sat quietly on a living-room couch as the clergymen debated how to cope with Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s media machine. The subject was Arpaio’s heavily publicized chain-gangs-burying-the-indigent-and-learning-a-valuable-lesson-while-saving-taxpayer-dollars shtick. On March 14, the first such chain-gang burials had provided the sheriff with a terrific photo opportunity…
This is something you must remember: Giving plasma is a good thing. It helps people. If you are thinking of doing it, by all means, go ahead. Do not allow yourself to be dissuaded by anything that you might read in the following story, which does not stray from fact,…
Hour Misteak New Times needs to be a little bit more careful when it tries to be smug. In March 14’s Flashes, it took a snide swipe at Tom Fitzpatrick for misspelling H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s name in a column. On the same page, however, staff writer Michael Kiefer misspelled the…
Darlene and Jerry Span have suffered so, I am reluctant to write optimistically about them. I fear that if I mention the one uncontestably good thing that has happened to the Spans in the past few years, I will anger the gods of legal minutia, who might then rain dozens…
In the rarefied world of women’s high fashion, the little black dress can cost as much as $1,000, and an evening gown can run as high as $12,000. The difference between a $12,000 and a $1,000 gown is rather like the difference between a Lexus LS400 and a Nissan Sentra…
Say “Adios!” to sombreros, pinatas and tequila. In some circles, at least, the Mexican souvenirs of choice are rapidly becoming tranquilizers, amphetamines and narcotic painkillers. The weird phenomenon–the seemingly legal circumvention of laws preventing the unnecessary prescription of U.S. drugs with recreational potential–emerged from an ever-enlarging loophole in U.S. Food…
Missing documents. Misappropriation of funds. Spin control. All of these things, and more, are swirling around the Maricopa County Stadium District–an offshoot of county government entrusted with overseeing the spending of $253 million of taxpayer money on a stadium for the Arizona Diamondbacks. The problems at the district surfaced briefly…
An Interstate 17 rest stop under cloudy February skies. Tourists get out of cars to stretch their legs and buy snacks from vending machines. Others let their dogs out to squat near a scenic overlook. Nobody pays much attention to the ten militia members conferring at one of the circular…
Lombardi’s Restaurant at Arizona Center is deserted at 3:30 p.m. on a Wednesday, but David chooses a table off to the side, just to be safe. And while he doesn’t normally drink at lunch, he’s already fortified himself with a Royal and Seven. He glances around, picks up a blue…
The aggravated-assault case against 17-year-old Lynn Ivory was full of holes, not the least of which was that the Phoenix youth’s alleged victims didn’t want to testify against him. One of the victims already had recanted his original claim–that Ivory had allegedly pointed a pistol at the two men. The…
Jake Schneiker intends to defend his son’s right to self-defense, even if it means suing the Glendale Union High School District. Greg Schneiker, a 16-year-old junior at Greenway High, was suspended from school for five days in February for engaging in “mutual combat” with another student, who also was suspended…
Republic’s Memo of the Week: No, make that Memo of the Month! The author is Pam Johnson, the managing editor of the Arizona Republic. Date: March 13, 1996 To: Staff Two Metro staffers — Peter Corbett and Doug Snover fo the Scottsdale Bureau — have been suspended for one month…
Greg Swann doesn’t need Court TV. And when he takes his case to the people, he certainly doesn’t need Geraldo, Sally Jessy or Ricki carnival-barking on his behalf. That’s because Swann, a Mesa man fighting a bitter battle for custody of a child, has found a more direct way of…
Prez Release Peter Gilstrap’s column about my presidential campaign was a great contribution to progress (Screed, March 14). I sent a copy to Bob Dole and am sending copies with press releases around the country. Charles Holden Phoenix Whine Country New Times and Michael Lacey are made for each other…
Sometimes, a hole in the crotch can make all the difference. Not to mention a ragged hem, two-tone stitching, a “big E” tag, red lines or an exterior rivet. And being Japanese has a lot to do with things as well. It’s all part of the fast-moving, no-holds-barred, big-bucks world…
Jerry Wiley, outgoing town mayor and volunteer librarian, checks out books the old-fashioned way, by stamping dates onto inside covers. The library in Clarkdale, a north-central Arizona town of 2,500 cloistered at the base of Mingus Mountain, is a busy place on this springlike afternoon. Middle-aged hippies wait in line…
The name Stephen Charles Peterson Jr. is but a blip in the annals of Arizona white-collar crime. But the 54-year-old Peterson has earned a special place as a memorable crook, mostly by dint of his chutzpah. Since 1990, Peterson has used legitimate institutions–city councils, a governor’s office, a large corporation,…
The Grave Truth About Sheriff Joe Several abiding mysteries flourish in the Sonoran Desert: 1. What became of the Hohokam civilization? 2. How did saguaros evolve? 3. Why do Valley media lap up Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s fiction? Take last week’s, er, scoop about the sheriff assigning a chain gang to…
Douglas Lemon–the Arizona State Retirement System’s investment manager and a critic of policies he fears could jeopardize the $13 billion fund–has been placed on administrative leave pending his request for a “normal stress” workplace. Lemon, former executive director of the State Retirement System, says he is convalescing at home from…
John Adams is an unlikely fellow to be presiding over international assignations between lonely American men and lovelorn women from the former Soviet Union. In fact, he looks more like a guy you knew in high school–math club president, maybe–than an impresario of global capitalism trading in that universal currency,…
