Dear Mr. Fitzpatrick: I really resent being called stupid and insensitive for my service as a juror on the Martin Mix case. I would like to point out that just because the evidence indicated there had been sexual intercourse between the parties does not always mean the conclusion should be…
As a kid I suspected that environmentalists did not enjoy life very much. I mean, no one would ever pay cash money to watch Jacques Cousteau dance. Every ecological advocate I saw looked and acted like some weedy refugee who’d fasted a tad too long on groatcakes and carrot juice…
Warning: If you aren’t a parent and have no intention of becoming one, read no farther. The following contains information you don’t want to know, wouldn’t understand, and are in no way equipped to stomach. There. Now that the pantywaists among you have moved on to the Puzzle page, we…
Easter Sunday morning. Slowly, you walk into the alley south of Madison Street. It’s still partially dark. It’s 6:35 a.m. A steady rain falls. It’s been raining all night. On the radio, they talk of flash flood warnings. The fat copies of the Sunday Republic make a last-ditch effort to…
If you’re keeping score, utility man KEITH TURLEY is batting cleanup. At the same time the APS mogul is officially luring big-league sports and a domed stadium to downtown Phoenix, he’s helping someone build a stadium in a competing city. SUNCOR, the ailing real-estate branch of Turley’s PINNACLE WEST conglom,…
Editor’s Note: This story was changed from its original version to eliminate the name of the victim. Well, the law has been screwed. And this war is over. A woman, who said she was the victim of a vicious rape by a police officer, has now become a victim of…
Although the losing attorneys won’t admit it, they probably wish now they’d never appealed a Maricopa County judge’s ruling that the chronically mentally ill deserve the services the state has said they should receive. Last week’s Arizona Supreme Court decision which upheld that ruling–a landmark decision that goes farther than…
Can Phoenicians be lured out of their cars? One downtown business has found the answer is yes. But it takes more than just slogans and hoopla. It takes the green stuff. Valley National Bank boasts one of the best records of any Valley company on getting its employees to use…
Cindy Resnick doesn’t think state health director Ted Williams should set himself up as some sort of morality cop. The Tucson Democratic lawmaker is squabbling with Williams over his refusal to record birth certificates when a married woman won’t list her husband as the father of the child. Williams, an…
ValTrans opponents say we don’t need the mass transit system because–and here’s where everyone starts laughing–the air quality in Phoenix is improving. Laugh all you want, the opponents say, we’ve got the statistics to prove it. In fact, in one of the brochures they’re distributing around the Valley, opponents have…
He couldn’t seem to leave town. As Tucson grew larger and more grotesque, he kept talking about going to Moab or Ajo or somewhere. He told me once that Tucson was easy to leave–he’d done it six times. But he never seemed quite able to go through with it, any…
Add Klan-superstar-turned-Louisiana- GOP-legislator DAVID DUKE to the long list of people who’ve beaten BRUCE BABBITT at the polls.Reporter JAMES RIDGEWAY of the VILLAGE VOICE mined that nugget recently, to which a former campaign worker for Bruce snootily replied that Babbitt had already dropped out of the presidential race when Duke…
Flamboyant defense lawyers have always fascinated me. The first one I ever met was Ernie Navarre. I met him long ago in Lima, Ohio. Navarre wore a gold watch and a different suit every day. He drove a big car. But he also regularly undertook the defense of seemingly hopeless…
Dedicated to the memory of Ed Abbey, an Arizonan who understood that it is important to litter the asphalt paths of America with beer cans pitched from a fast-moving vehicle. Larry Miller, director of the Regional Public Transportation Authority (RPTA), sat in New Times’ conference room and lied to the…
It happens, occasionally, in the middle of the night. I wake up screaming in fear that someone might one day mistake this space for some kind of advice column. This has yet to occur, thank God. But it could. If anyone can mistake Alan Thicke for an entertainer or John…
I’m man enough to admit it: My swimsuit column idea has been a total flop, and I can’t say I blame anybody for not getting into it. The plan, originally, called for thousands of you readers to send me pictures of yourselves in skimpy aquatic outfits. Then I would run…
The Rooftops coming-attractions trailer certainly appears to be promoting a dance movie. And because the film is directed by Robert West Side Story Wise and executive-produced by Taylor White Nights Hackford, there seems no reason to believe otherwise. Heck, even the press materials say the thing “explodes with music and…
At least one person in Ann Arbor was unhappy when basketball coach Bill Frieder escaped to Tempe last week. He is Steve Blonder, associate sports editor at the Daily, the University of Michigan’s student newspaper. Not that Blonder loves Frieder. It’s just that the coach made such great copy. “The…
When a spate of screw-ups caused Arizona Public Service to switch off the Palo Verde nuclear plant last week, it was just another dizzy swirl in the giant utility’s tailspin. Bluntly put, APS is in a world of hurt. Its earnings in 1988 fell to only five cents a share…
Michael Swartz is one of those teens to whom parents of other kids point and bemoan, “Why can’t you be like him?” Swartz, vice president of the student body at Barry Goldwater High School, was having what he calls “a really great” senior year. Until, that is, he became known…
Mention any giant of the art world and one magnum opus immediately springs to mind. Whistler had his mother, Da Vinci had his Mona Lisa, and Warhol his Campbell’s Soup can. But Ettore “Ted” De Grazia? Just let the name of Arizona’s most beloved artist fall from your lips and…
Here’s a scoop for you: The most powerful people in Arizona are mostly fifty-year-old white men. And many of them are either politicians, developers or bankers. You’re not surprised? Then here’s some news: Charlie Keating isn’t one of them. And neither is Pat Murphy. These bits of tid come from…
