Hey, Mom and Dad! You’d better be good, you’d better not cry, you’d better not pout, I’m tellin’ you why . . . Santa Claus might drop down your chimney with a bagload of these honest-to-God, brand-name Idiot Kiddie Gifts From Hell, available at your friendly, local toy-store chain. Sugar…
On August 12, Louis Bernard Harper was sentenced to fifty years in prison. An unemployed black resident of South Phoenix, Harper had sold a single $20 rock of crack to undercover police officers. It was his first drug offense. The White House, as well as then- drug czar William Edward…
It was George Bush’s first nationwide address as president. When it was over and Bush finally put away the bag of “crack” cocaine, the network correspondents asked, “Just how do you wage a war against drugs–against the `casual users’?” “Go to Phoenix, folks. Take a look at what they’re doing…
Rather than write a formal criticism of the Arizona Republic under the regime of its new publisher John P. “Skippy” Zanotti, Tom Fitzpatrick has decided to allow Republic reporters to interview him as they would any other critic. Interviewers: Do you like the way the Republic looks these days? Fitz:…
The stands around the baseball diamond at University Park in downtown Phoenix are spotted with spectators but no one is playing ball at 10 a.m. on Friday. These people are just sitting, homeless. J.R. Murphy, a veteran of the streets himself, moves among the men stretched out on the grassy…
I am not sending Christmas cards to the following this year: The Circle K clerk who insists on charging me a one-cent tax each time I purchase the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The garbage collector who refuses to pick up my trash cans unless they are…
There should never have been a doubt. Those two Smitty’s supermarket workers who allegedly strangled Ric Rankins last July deserve to stand trial for manslaughter. At first I was appalled by the mishandling of the case by County Attorney Richard Romley. His cynical excuse for avoiding the controversial case was…
Ken Kesey’s bus trip is generally considered the gala grand opening of the hippie era. In the summer of 1964, Kesey and a bunch of friends who called themselves the Merry Pranksters loaded up a funky old school bus (painted in a fashion that inevitably become known as “psychedelic”) and…
It’s 1983. Armed with reams of national publicity spawned by his much-imitated “Men of Arizona State” beefcake calendar, ASU grad Todd Headlee floats into Hollywood and almost immediately sells his tale to the movies. The opportunity of a lifetime? Not for Headlee, who, despite “associate producer” billing, is banned from…
Environmentalists in Flagstaff are having the same nightmare these days: Huge coal trucks rumble into town from Utah–six per hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They drop off their sooty loads beneath a 94-foot-high loading tower east of town. At any one time, as much as 20,000…
On June 1, Alex Edwards became the least popular victim in Arizona. That was the day Alex, a frail, five-year-old boy, won the nation’s largest damage award in an AIDS-related lawsuit. Arizona, at the time, was awash in sympathy for victims. Indeed, the state was on the verge of amending…
Second in a series Jessie and Clara Gillespie, an elderly couple surrounded by transients in the historic Oakland-University Park neighborhood, do not always confront the homeless with pistols and shotguns. When they are not protecting themselves from burglary and violence, they admit they are overwhelmed with questions. “We saw this…
What do babies think? Due to an incredible scientific breakthrough accomplished with the newest and most sophisticated brain-wave analysis devices, it is now possible to literally read the minds of infants. Despite the potential “brain drain” risks reported in a recent Newsweek magazine cover story (one test child was rendered…
John Madden’s routine is growing more than a bit tired. For the first time, I found it impossible to vote for either candidate in the governor’s race. Riccio’s on East Indian School serves the freshest pasta dishes in town. The Weiss Guys at Camelback and Central is still the best…
In the final seconds, the pass was intercepted. Larry Marmie spun his body completely around with an involuntary motion. If it had been completed, the pass by Arizona State University’s quarterback Paul Justin would have won the game. But it was off the mark and the University of Arizona defeated…
The expression that came over Robert Bennett’s face each time Senator Dennis DeConcini attacked him was riveting. The special counsel for the Senate Ethics Committee stared straight at Arizona’s senior senator with a contemptuous glare. Bennett remained motionless, his arms folded over his big belly like an irritated passenger on…
It was only a few months ago that Tom Connelly’s duties as an assistant U.S. attorney in Phoenix included making appearances in federal court to prosecute white-collar fraud. These days Connelly is still summoned to federal court, but not as a prosecutor. Instead, Connelly is being sued for fraud by…
Phoenix insurance agent and wheeler-dealer Dennis Chapman got away with murdering his mom for money–if his father, four siblings and the cops are to be believed. Now, Chapman has been nailed in Oregon for pulling an impersonation stunt that has enraged military veterans. Chapman always proclaimed his innocence in the…
It’s been purt’ near twenty years since Jed an’ all his kin last stood outside the Clampett mansion and said goodbye to fans of The Beverly Hillbillies. But last week, Donna Douglas, who immortalized the role of backwoods lollapalooza Elly May Clampett on the phenomenally popular Sixties sitcom, offered a…
One of the things that will get you thrown out of the Rock Center Motel is if you get loud, which must be difficult to judge. The motel, an old-fashioned grouping of eighteen or so cottages just off grungy Grand Avenue in Phoenix, shares its lot with a rock yard…
John McCain can stop running now. The race is over. It’s time for McCain to sit erect in a chair with television cameras whirring and face the Senate Ethics Committee. The long-awaited hearings into the savings-and-loan scandal begin Thursday in Washington, D.C. McCain is the most interesting of all the…
The first time Dennis DeConcini left home it was to attend the University of San Francisco. As a college undergraduate, he was a wealthy young man who quickly turned playboy in the big city. Poor grades and a plummeting checking account spelled it out. DeConcini’s parents decided he was a…
