THE STADIUM INDEX

With all the hubbub about the downtown baseball stadium–for which Maricopa County taxpayers are expected to pay up to $250 million–it’s high time for some perspective. With apologies to Harper’s Index, here’s what else could be done with a spare quarter-billion dollars: 1. Estimated number of molestation lawsuits Michael Jackson…

THE TIMES THEY ARE NOT A-CHANGIN’

They bid adieu to Robert Morris, the remarkable law professor, in a simple, elegant service in a downtown Phoenix church recently. Morris, 65, the only black member of the Arizona State University law faculty, had left a request. He wanted his funeral concluded by the playing of one of his…

SYMINGTON’S VAST CARELESSNESS

The politician doesn’t grow more human with age. In the end, he becomes a wharf rat. –Henry David Thoreau The governor spoke at the Republican party’s annual meeting the other day. “The trouble with our prisons in Arizona is that we don’t have the concept of arduous labor,” J. Fife…

SHE WAS ONLY FOLLOWING ORDERS

Thanks to a breach in Governor Fife Symington’s security, I now know the nature of his executive secretary’s testimony before the grand jury last week. Joyce Reibel’s statements occurred behind closed doors and are, of course, privileged. But her testimony before the grand jury was preceded by a government interrogation…

KID PICS AND THRILLS

@day:around @mon:the globe @body:”World Class” Adventures Resume: Kids loved “visiting” all seven of the Earth’s continents during “World Class! A Geographic Adventure in Art,” a themed installation and hands-on workshop series that recently concluded at Arizona Museum for Youth, 35 North Robson in Mesa. The series was so popular, in…

OPEN RECORDS PREVENT A POLICE STATE

I look at police files for a living. So I’ve got a problem with a proposed State House bill that would lock up those reports. And because the police have retaliated against me when I’ve exposed law enforcement corruption, I’m not wild about the idea that, somehow, the behavior of…

PICS HITS AND THRILLS

MDRVRXP: see note below at “Art Films”MDNM @day:wednesday @mon:january @date2:26Martha Graham Dance Company: The most celebrated of all American dance companies observes the 100th birthday of its founder, late dance doyenne Graham, with a performance at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Gammage Auditorium, Mill and Apache in Tempe. It’s also the…

UNEARNED INCOME

You can take this year’s Super Bowl and shove it. Once again, the National Football League is giving us the Buffalo Bills and the hateful Dallas Cowboys. Things are in a desperate state. Is there a more loathsome, irksome individual than Jimmy Johnson, the cement-haired coach of the Cowboys? How…

UNEARNED INCOME

You can take this year’s Super Bowl and shove it. Once again, the National Football League is giving us the Buffalo Bills and the hateful Dallas Cowboys. Things are in a desperate state. Is there a more loathsome, irksome individual than Jimmy Johnson, the cement-haired coach of the Cowboys? How…

UNEARNED INCOME

Stick up a Circle K and take $50 and they’ll ship you down to Florence. Loot a savings and loan of millions and they’ll offer you a membership in the Paradise Valley Country Club.–Anonymous Ten years ago, they were flying high. Mention Charles Keating, Gary Driggs or Billy Bob Burns…

OPEN RECORDS PREVENT A POLICE STATE

I look at police files for a living. So I’ve got a problem with a proposed State House bill that would lock up those reports. And because the police have retaliated against me when I’ve exposed law enforcement corruption, I’m not wild about the idea that, somehow, the behavior of…

OPEN RECORDS PREVENT A POLICE STATE

I look at police files for a living. So I’ve got a problem with a proposed State House bill that would lock up those reports. And because the police have retaliated against me when I’ve exposed law enforcement corruption, I’m not wild about the idea that, somehow, the behavior of…

KID PICS AND THRILLS

@day:around @mon:the globe @body:”World Class” Adventures Resume: Kids loved “visiting” all seven of the Earth’s continents during “World Class! A Geographic Adventure in Art,” a themed installation and hands-on workshop series that recently concluded at Arizona Museum for Youth, 35 North Robson in Mesa. The series was so popular, in…

UNEARNED INCOME

Stick up a Circle K and take $50 and they’ll ship you down to Florence. Loot a savings and loan of millions and they’ll offer you a membership in the Paradise Valley Country Club.–Anonymous Ten years ago, they were flying high. Mention Charles Keating, Gary Driggs or Billy Bob Burns…

UNEARNED INCOME

You can take this year’s Super Bowl and shove it. Once again, the National Football League is giving us the Buffalo Bills and the hateful Dallas Cowboys. Things are in a desperate state. Is there a more loathsome, irksome individual than Jimmy Johnson, the cement-haired coach of the Cowboys? How…

UNEARNED INCOME

Stick up a Circle K and take $50 and they’ll ship you down to Florence. Loot a savings and loan of millions and they’ll offer you a membership in the Paradise Valley Country Club.–Anonymous Ten years ago, they were flying high. Mention Charles Keating, Gary Driggs or Billy Bob Burns…

SHE’S NOT THEIR CUP OF TEA

After hearing so many monstrous things about Carolyne Berry, seeing her is a letdown. Watching the Madison School District board member fidget through a meeting, it’s difficult to imagine how she came to be the object of so much ire. She doesn’t look much different from the rest of the…

SHE’S NOT THEIR CUP OF TEA

@body:After hearing so many monstrous things about Carolyne Berry, seeing her is a letdown. Watching the Madison School District board member fidget through a meeting, it’s difficult to imagine how she came to be the object of so much ire. She doesn’t look much different from the rest of the…