Phoenix has long been considered a developer’s paradise. But a proposal making its way quickly through City Hall would make life hell, say homebuilders, architects and other members of the development community. As early as next month, Phoenix could become the first major city in the country to adopt a…
Little Lives Evaluating CPS: Thanks to Amy Silverman for another great article on child welfare (“Heaven Help the Child,” February 27). She deserves a prize for helping children with her articles. There are two important statements that will stand out to those of us advocating for system changes: “Mang saw…
2003 is shaping up to be the Year of the Child in Arizona. But don’t expect the lives of the state’s children to get any better. It’s only February, and already Governor Janet Napolitano has created a Children’s Cabinet. State legislators have formed a Children’s Caucus. Maricopa County Attorney Rick…
It’s time to break out the pompoms and work on your beer gut, because baseball is back. It is spring training. The time when it is not uncommon to run into a major league baseball player at Safeway. The Spike has been depressed ever since the Arizona Diamondbacks’ postseason was…
Thank God The End is finally at hand. So many tent-show preachers talking the talk, so few evildoers and deities walking the walk. We were beginning to lose faith in the readable parts of the New Testament. After all, we’ve clearly always been partial to the rantings of Crazy John…
I’m looking through the Arizona Capitol Times for some reason, and I see a listing for a legislative House bill that reads: HB 2161 Sports Officials: Assault. Hmm. Sounds like a protected-class issue. Reading on: “HB2161: Assault on a referee, umpire or other sports official engaged in official duties is…
Responsible Behavior Therapeutically speaking: As the pedophile subject of Susy Buchanan’s “Very Bad Thoughts” article (February 6), I’d like to reply to some of the letters published in New Times. I am not seeking sympathy from people. My desire is to point out the complete lack of preventive programs available…
Teenagers are notoriously bad drivers. One out of every three teen drivers will be involved in a collision in the first year after obtaining driver’s licenses, and many will die, according to national traffic safety statistics. So many, in fact, that auto accidents are the number-one killer of teenagers in…
Charlie Collins wouldn’t shut up about how much he hates Mexicans. A crowd within the crowd at Patriots Square Park downtown was gathering around and jeering him, despite the fact that he held a placard telling George W. Bush to: “Go Straight to Hell Instead of Iraq.” The 59-year-old Tucson…
Last year, a Toronto-based video game developer phoned an old pal of his in Scottsdale, Jim Perkins, with a hell of an idea. “John Walsh of Groove Games asked me, What do you think of publishing a Playboy game?'” recalls Perkins, president and chief operating officer of ARUSH Entertainment, which…
Bad Religion God forsaken: When will people understand that there is proof that the various religions are just so much made-up bull designed to explain our situation here on this planet and a way to assuage our guilt as humans for being such assholes (“Peace-Monger,” Tony Ortega, February 13)? The…
Chuck Carlson stands in front of Calvary Community Church holding the sort of sign you’d expect to see at confrontations outside abortion clinics. “PRO-LIFE,” the placard reads in bold red and blue letters on a white background. Carlson appears hopelessly out of place. He’s picketing a church that is home…
School district officials and consultants have a warning for the young families buying up houses in the new developments ringing the Valley: Don’t expect a neighborhood school for your kids. Double sessions, packed classrooms and long bus rides will be a reality in the not-so-distant future if laws for finding…
The cynicism oozing from some members of the legal community about how juries really work was palpable at the Arizona Supreme Court on January 31. The occasion was a meeting of the effusively titled “Arizona Supreme Court Committee on the More Effective Use of Juries,” which first convened in 2001…
A few days before a Maricopa County jury deliberated the fate of Ahwatukee salesman Brian Eftenoff in March 2001, he had this to say for himself: “I can’t see how they can find me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of anything, because I didn’t do anything.” The panel, however, begged…
The Spike was a good kid this week. The Spike didn’t drive drunk. Didn’t steal anything. Didn’t urinate in public. The Spike didn’t even kill anyone. Although The Spike certainly thought about it when the very slick press kit from the State of Arizona’s new CounterActs campaign arrived in its…
A woman in her 60s answers the knock at the door. I ask for Paul Marcinkus. She says he can’t talk. She says he is recovering from hip surgery. I give her my card. Please have him give me a call, I say. She says it is unlikely that he…
Behavior Problem Deeply disturbed: As I’m sure you would expect, I was very disturbed after reading the “Very Bad Thoughts” article (Susy Buchanan, February 6). First of all, it sickens me that people like this exist in our society, and second, we do nothing about it? This guy has admitted…
Derek doesn’t like to let his mind wander he’s been fighting his thoughts for nearly two decades yet it wanders every day. Usually he can hold off his reflections until he’s safely alone in his room with the door shut. That’s when the darkness seeps in, sexual arousal triumphs over…
The Spike is in love. Batty, crazy, deeply in love. With speed. No, not the kind of speed that comes in a little white pill, but the kind that comes in a well-oiled, fine-tuned machine made for going as fast as possible in the fewest number of seconds. Yes, The…
It all started back in ’96 when Michael Lacey called me at the L.A. Times and asked me to meet him at a bar a block away. After more than a few cocktails, he asked me to leave what I thought was the high-and-mighty daily and help him start a…
I turned on the TV sometime after 11 a.m. Saturday. From the disjointed blurbs of the videotape, I first thought Wolf Blitzer and Lou Dobbs had been killed. There’d been a crash. In Texas. A video image of what looked like a meteorite didn’t help. The somber tone of the…
