All whistleblowers are not created equal. Both reformers and administrators agree that for every whistleblower case that is a legitimate case of retaliation, there are about three of questionable merit. According to former state assistant attorney general Tom Rogers, it is these “whistleblowers from hell” who have top administrators afraid…
What’s so bad about failure, really? Botching, blundering, bungling, blowing it, bollixing it. Faltering, flunking, fumbling, flopping. Nothing. Not a damn thing. In fact, only people over 40 (careful, there), or maybe over 50, see failure as an embarrassment. Those who are living the young, fast-paced turnover of the new…
A Body of Work Creature of habit: Now I know why I keep picking up a copy of New Times every week. Super writing job on “Remains of the Day” by David Holthouse (June 29). Paul Rubin’s piece was also excellent, as was Flashes. No, I didn’t buy any CNI…
Sign Ze Peppers The fur is flying in Superior Court as candidates unleash their lawyers in attempts to knock rivals off the ballot. In one hilarious instance, two incumbent District 6 Republicans — Lori Daniels and Richard Kyle — have been bumped because they failed to turn in the required…
Larry Pohorily thought mortician Mark Eisenhour was playing some sort of sick joke. What Eisenhour told him on the phone couldn’t be true. Pohorily drove to the funeral home, wanting to see the corpse for himself. Eisenhour met Pohorily at the door, then led him back into the embalming room…
In the wee hours of June 17, 1972, G. Gordon Liddy slipped into his bedroom and undressed quietly in the dark, hoping not to wake his wife, Frances. “Is that you?” Frances asked, as Liddy would recall years later in his autobiography, Will. “Yes.” “. . . Anything wrong?” “There…
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…
