The acting planning director for the City of Phoenix is under investigation for making racially insensitive remarks to Hispanics attending a meeting to discuss a new ordinance governing mobile vendors. Two Hispanic activists say they were mistreated by longtime city employee Dave Richert when he ordered them to “speak English”…
What has oversize lettuce leaves, tomato and onion slices and a beef patty, all sandwiched between a giant poppy-seed bun? It’s a hamburger with everything — and then some. The extra garnish? A pair of life-size articulated female limbs that allow the six-foot-tall Styrofoam snack to “walk” the length of…
Of Bias and Guilt Worthy discussion: Regarding John Sheehan’s letter to the editor (June 15), which was written in response to Michael Lacey’s June 1 piece, “Bad Dog”: I’ve always wondered whether espousing some crazy right-wing fundamentalist theory in a public forum just to encourage discussion of an unpopular issue…
The Republic of Gannett The Millennial Arizona Republic will soon be the property of Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the galaxy. Naturally, the Flash has been working the phones to determine the ramifications for you, the reader/consumer/stakeholder/demographic mote. Experts, pundits, theorists and other nitwits concur: Beyond a comfortable dotage…
Peering over the lid of a burbling Crockpot inside the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office, Dr. Laura Fulginiti appears for a moment as the housewife she never was, despite the skeleton earrings hanging from each of her lobes. Clutching a pair of metal tongs, Fulginiti tenderly fishes out a human…
“We’ve got to get the boca abreeed,” yells the short, energetic ER radiologist in seventh-grade Spanish, butchering the phrase for “open his mouth.” She chews her gum furiously and adjusts her pale blue shower cap. “You know, I speak French. It doesn’t seem to help me in the ER.” Ten…
Sue Lindley retired from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office last week after 23 years of investigating the most horrific crimes — the sexual abuse of children. But Lindley, a feisty, keen and sensitive woman, still has too much on her mind to leave the past completely behind her.” I still…
Race Scarred Raise standards: You recently published two letters to the editor that were offensive to me, and of little intrinsic value to our community at large. The first letter, “Mutton Jeff” (published May 11), was from an anonymous writer. While taking Jeff Ofstedahl to task for “attacking the messenger”…
A Possible Appearance of Impropriety The journalist sits at a booth in a Phoenix McDonald’s and seethes. He is a reputable and highly decorated reporter for the Millennial Arizona Republic, and he believes his good name has been sullied. Not that I will tell you his good name. He has…
A Maricopa County grand jury has accused the state’s leading private fiduciary of stealing money from clients over a period of several years. The panel indicted 49-year-old Nancy Etta Elliston last Friday on 11 felony charges, including racketeering and 10 counts of theft. The indictment comes on the heels of…
Karla Elling wanted to show her appreciation to the nurses at Scottsdale Village Square who had treated her father with dignity during his final days, as he struggled with dementia. Most people would have sent a fruit basket. Elling sent poets. Elling — a spirited woman with hippie-long gray hair…
Howard Greenfield is hunkered down in the casket-like coupe, hurtling forth at 110 miles per hour in a hot rod whose suspension was made the same year Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein gave alternative horror to Depression food-line gloom. This scene could easily morph into a last-rites processional. Like some heroic machine…
“I have idealism in the face of a huge lie — it’s very American,” says performance artist Tim Miller. He is standing on the sixth-floor veranda of a central Phoenix apartment building, but it seems more like he’s hanging over the edge, clinging to that last shred of optimism as…
Scary Thoughts Self-absorption: We have governors become presidential candidates who rush to execute a person with the mind of a 6-year-old (Clinton in 92) or who cruelly mock an executed woman who had uplifted her life (George W. in 98). If the media slide over such things, can we expect…
Alka-Seltzer, Anyone? Has Howard Seftel, the restaurant critic for the Millennial Arizona Republic, lost his mind? Or is a hacker impersonating him on the Republic’s Web site, Azcentral.com? The “Ask Howard Seftel” message board has contained a couple of hilarious — or troubling, depending on your point of view –…
Argentine artist Claudia Bernardi remembers a tiny tee shirt unearthed from the exhumation site she was working at in El Salvador in 1992 — a spot that harbored the remains of 143 slaughtered children. A small, intact rib cage was hiding inside the shirt. It was so tiny that it…
Some rob you with a gun, some rob you with a fountain pen. — Woody Guthrie Greg Maruda doesn’t know who Nancy Elliston is. Nor does he realize that, in her capacity as his court-appointed financial conservator, Elliston stole more than $40,000 from him by signing her name to a…
A deep bellow and prolonged crotch sniff may not constitute a welcome from an actor with big-screen credits. But Vanilla Fudge, a Harlequin Great Dane, seems oblivious to the social etiquette associated with stardom. Still, the docile giant, who dons a white coat with splashes of black, displayed enough grace…
When Sophia Lopez-Espindola started Mothers Against Gangs in Phoenix, she wanted to stem the gang violence that had claimed her son’s life and to keep her other five children out of trouble.Last fall, when asked by New Times whether she felt she had succeeded in saving her kids from the…
Arizona State University anthropology professor Christy Turner, well-known for his thoughts on cannibalism among the Anasazi Indians, is himself mad enough to bite somebody’s head off. He was savaged in print in a scholarly journal, chewed up and spit out by other archaeologists and then denied the chance to write…
Rabid Dogs Justice denied: Well done, Michael Lacey (“Bad Dog,” June 1). Thanks for pointing out how a repugnant gang from Gilbert needed to be prosecuted as sure as any south Phoenix gang. The slap on the wrist handed down will only encourage more violence in Gilbert. How many random…
Republic to Sell Out — Again So the Millennial Arizona Republic is for sale. This is not big news to the Flash. The Republic has always been eager to be bought off. Still, the tortured scribes on Van Buren are all atwitter about the apparent impending sale. News that Central…
