TUCSON — First there was a Harvard, then came a “Harvard of the South,” a “Harvard of the Midwest” and a “Harvard of the Plains.” Indeed, great statesmanship in expansionist America was often defined by how quickly the local hayseed college could, without widespread snickering, be deemed the “Harvard of…
Editor’s note: The names of juveniles have been changed to protect their privacy. Last January, Gail Edwards got a message on her answering machine from a nurse at Adobe Mountain School, the state juvenile detention facility in north Phoenix where her son Scott was then living. “Your son was in…
In April 1999, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael McVey sentenced Lucia America Diaz to five years intensive probation on charges that she stalked her onetime gynecologist and fired bullets into his Glendale office. The judge could have sent the Mesa woman to prison for 12 years, but at the…
Adoption OptionsUnfair to family: “For the Love of Jamie,” by Amy Silverman (December 6), was a well-written, informative and flowing article, up to the last sentence. One reason editors get paid is to save writers from themselves. It was mean-spirited. Writers do not have crystal balls. Silverman does not know…
When Kirsten turned 16, a counselor at Black Canyon — the state’s detention school for girls — asked her to make a list of all the things that had happened in her life. “3 or 4 years old — Uncle molesting me.” “4 years old — Mommy was murdered.” “9…
It’s my rule not to write columns based on my mail, because I write only 40 columns and a handful of cover stories annually, and within that limitation cannot possibly squeeze in all the bad deeds and selfish plots afoot among the power brokers. So I don’t use my precious…
Back in the early 1990s, when legislators were craftily passing legislation that allowed taxpayers to pay for a new ballpark, politicos in Tempe got nervous.They feared that a new domed major league baseball stadium might only get approval if it could also become home to the Arizona Cardinals football team…
Child Wonder Tough love: “For the Love of Jamie” (Amy Silverman, December 6) has got to be the best story I have read in New Times in years. Your article was insightful, moving, and a real eye-opener for those of us who think we have it rough in life. Congratulations…
Spaghetti-Os slide down Jamie Moore’s chin and onto his paper-towel bib as he strains away from mom and spoon to get a better look at the television. Jamie is a discerning — if constant — viewer, preferring Barney to the Teletubbies. Like many parents, Cheryl Moore is sick of Barney,…
If you’re thinking of hiring a woman by the name of Connie Zakrajsek to be your attorney, think again. Maricopa County court officials recently learned that Zakrajsek — who has held herself out as a lawyer “in good standing” — is anything but.Now, judges have been warned to be on…
It’s high noon in Bumble Bee, or at least it would have been a century ago. In the sleepy ghost town between the encroaching suburbs of Phoenix and Prescott, a couple of Wild West-style enterprises have found themselves in an old-fashioned showdown over water.The skirmish is between two neighboring businesses…
Back to Baja Scientific integrity challenged: It is unfortunate that Jill Stewart, Michael Lacey and Susan Goldsmith (“Crying Whale” and “The New Economy,” November 22) believed the revisionist and incorrect statements by former Mexican government officials, Mitsubishi and ESSA employees and scientists who were on the Mitsubishi payroll about efforts…
The city of Phoenix called Steve Shepard a slumlord, raided his complex and charged him with hundreds of code violations at his west Phoenix property. Earlier this month, after more than a year of haggling with the city, the former manager of Canyon Square Apartments, whose partners included the mayor…
State lawmakers are completely ignoring a powerful tool that can be used to deal with a massive $675 million state budget shortfall in fiscal 2002 and a projected $850 million deficit in fiscal 2003. Tax increases. Raising revenue to help cover the shortfall in the state’s budget is an option…
Phoenix native Debbie Knight says she’s satisfied with the prison sentence meted out November 9 to infamous “Internet Doctor” Pietr Hitzig. Hitzig was sentenced in a Baltimore federal court to almost four years in prison after his conviction on 33 counts of illegally prescribing medicine, often to patients he treated…
The phone message instructed me to call a different number if I was a member of the “Jew media.”Considering his worldview, Matt Hale probably intended the message to encompass all media calls. As a New Times writer, though, I was actually a pawn of the Irish-Catholic media conspiracy, not the…
False AlarmGreedy greens: I have been reading your articles about the gray whale and the formerly proposed salt plant at Laguna San Ignacio in Baja California (“Crying Whale,” November 22). I have not even finished, but it did not take me too long to realize that I had been bamboozled…
Big-name sophisticates like Jean-Michel Cousteau and Robert Kennedy Jr. rejoiced when it was announced last year that a controversial salt plant proposed in Mexico had been stopped. As news reports crackled across Japan, North America and Europe, environmentalists celebrated the unprecedented victory that saved the gray whale. The globe-encircling crusade…
Banking northward past the hacked-apart forests of El Ajusco Peak before descending across the sewerless slums of Ciudad Nezahuacoyotl, airplane windows scroll across ecological smut: Xochiaca, a five-square-mile strip of garbage dumps; el Rio Texcoco and her sister streams, sewage conduits all; and monóxido de carbón, dióxido de nitrógeno, dióxido…
Without the fishermen of Punta Abreojos, they had nothing. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) wanted to wage a worldwide campaign against Mitsubishi’s planned saltworks operation in the remote Mexican seaside village of Punta Abreojos. The American environmental groups claimed the project…
Cabin FeverGovernment lacking: “The Money Pit” (Laura Laughlin, November 8) was a terrific article. The Lees should be put in jail and they should pay back every cent. There is no protection for the consumers — the Better Business Bureau and the Registrar of Contractors are useless. Tom Hathaway via…
Last August, Warren Jerrems sat in the former recreation room of the Casa Rosa Care Center, a decrepit nursing home. Jerrems, an accountant, has several nursing homes as clients and was helping close the facility. Jerrems had agreed to meet and discuss his incarcerated friend, Mark Sands. At the time,…
