Michael Hester awoke January 21 inside an Arizona state prison, where he’s been for the past eight years. The 54-year-old Vietnam veteran is doing time — lots of time– for selling about $50 worth of crack cocaine to an undercover cop. Talk inside the prison at Florence that morning concerned…
One of the hottest topics in Arizona these days involves the case of Claude Maturana. He’s the man who was convicted of murder and sentenced to die, until state doctors declared him mentally incompetent. The doctors refused to medicate Maturana and make him mentally competent — just so he could…
Patty Whack Snack attack: James Hibberd’s story about Arizona State University student activists taking on their food service provider (“Big Mac on Campus,” March 8) is noteworthy as much for its incisive writing as its convolution of certain salient details. In particular, Hibberd repeatedly conveys the sense that these are…
Al’s CapperThat human stealth fighter, Albert Gore, slipped into town under the radar on Friday to thank a group of core supporters for their assistance in his failed presidential bid.About 30 people attended the gathering at the Phoenician’s Canyon Center, including such state Democratic luminaries as Attorney General Janet Napolitano,…
In blooper scenes included on the soon-to-be-released gay porn feature Behind the Set, we see a decidedly mirthful 19-year-old Christian Valentino dancing and clowning about, all smiles as he bounces his flaccid penis off the heads of other actors. The reel also reveals another side of the Phoenix-based Valentino, a…
Weddings and funerals rarely share the same spotlight. Yet when Frank Jacobson, president of the Scottsdale Cultural Council, emerged from the darkened wings of the Scottsdale Center for the Arts’ Virginia G. Piper Theater one evening last month, to introduce a lecture by Time magazine’s renowned art critic Robert Hughes,…
When he closes his eyes, Heinrich Palmer can still see Phoenix from his home in Münster, Germany. “It was for me a very strange place,” he says, his accent thick. “Hard to forget, because of the bright sunlight every day, all that sandy dust, and the big cactus that looked…
George Parsons has inspected apartments that are so bad, he wouldn’t let his dog sleep in them. One place was so bug-infested, he watched a mother pull cockroaches out of her baby’s nose. At another rental, a man lifted up the carpet and asked his downstairs neighbor to pass a…
Introducing Matt May, campus hell-raiser.Last year, the English major organized student activists to protest Arizona State University’s $7 million collegiate apparel contract with Adidas. May demanded that ASU join the student-run Worker Rights Consortium, an anti-sweatshop organization that sponsors independent monitoring of human rights issues at clothing factories. May kept…
Source SpotSpeech impediment: I am writing in response to the judge’s decision regarding the shield law (“Strong Shield,” Patti Epler, March 1). I am very glad he ruled in favor of the journalist. In short, it is imperative that our journalists, newspapers, magazines and other media be protected from law…
On a September evening in 1991, 26-year-old Gregory S. Dickens and his teenage lover, Travis Amaral, drove east from Yuma on Interstate 8 and stopped at a rest area. When a car entered the westbound rest area, Amaral grabbed a .38-caliber revolver and strode across the freeway. There, Amaral robbed,…
Bondage ‘R’ UsOpportunistic dot-communists are now making a buck off Sheriff Joke Arpaio’s gulag.Since July, the Web site crime.com has offered live security shots from inside the Madison Street Jail. There are four vantage points — a provocative shot from “Search Area,” a grainy panorama from “Pre-Intake,” the grim “Holding…
If you listen closely, beyond the din of new megamalls, hockey arenas and football stadiums, you’ll hear the rumble of an approaching wave of culture. To the east, Mesa is expanding the Arizona Museum for Youth at a cost of nearly $3 million and adding a voter-approved $92 million arts…
A long-simmering bitterness surrounding one of the nation’s most successful college baseball programs at Arizona State University is erupting into full-scale warfare as the university prepares to name its baseball field on March 3 after legendary coach Bobby Winkles. No one is saying Winkles is not worthy of the honor;…
Gilbert Gripe’hood winked: How was the land surrounding the SRP San Tan plant ever zoned for residential neighborhoods? This is shocking (“Shock Treatment,” Robert Nelson, February 22)! Was it the City of Gilbert or Maricopa County zoning that allowed this to happen? If it was done by the city, it…
Only the wise possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed by them. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge The modifier “Quixotic” is a too-convenient label for the benignly touched, the daft but determined, the delusional, the obsessed, the prophet of the hopeless cause. Even before Cervantes gave the condition a…
Who’s on Beck? Spotted at the Jeff Beck show Saturday night at the Web Theatre: Randy Johnson. The Flash knows, because the Flash was sitting right behind the Big Unit, which meant that the Flash had a primo view of Beck’s receding hairline, and little else. It stands to reason…
The Photo Lady emerges from a corner of the venue dressed all in black. Her salt-and-pepper mane is pulled back into a tail off a softly weathered face. “I gotta fish,” she announces, eyes all wide behind buglike specs. The urgency in her voice suggests something big, as if she…
Pamphlets for the new Phoenix Family Museum ask folks to “imagine . . . a place to engage the minds, muscles and imaginations of people of all ages.” “Imagine a place with all hands-on exhibits. Imagine a place where you can build magnetic cars, dance in costumes from around the…
The historic Phoenix Union High School buildings and Tovrea Castle didn’t make the cut to receive money from the upcoming bond election when citizens’ committees drew up a list of projects to put before voters. But thanks to last-minute action by the Phoenix City Council, millions of dollars of bond…
Journalists in Arizona have a clear right to protect their sources, even if the source is a criminal, a Superior Court judge has ruled.”This is not a close question,” Judge Frank T. Galati said in rejecting a state request that New Times staff writer James Hibberd be forced to turn…
Arizona’s first merchant plant will fire up this summer near Kingman. If this plant is any indicator of things to come, Arizona is in deep trouble.Mohave County is on the verge of bankruptcy, thanks, critics say, to incentives and tax breaks given to the new Griffith power plant. The county’s…
