What’s the Buzz?

For years, the uninitiated have roamed the aisles of adult boutiques, wondering what possible uses anyone could find for the bevy of battery-operated rubber-and-latex pumps, prods and plungers dangling from the walls. In recent months, however, sex-shop customers have been baffled by an even stranger mystery. Namely, what’s so erotic…

It’s Hard to Thai One On

Valley guzzlers of Bud, Coors and other brews won’t be crying in their beer over the scarcity of Singha, an imported malt liquor from Thailand. But for Thai-food lovers, it amounts to a gastronomic crisis. Panange curry without Singha is like cookies without milk. Singha is no longer distributed in…

Trickle-Down Theory

Who will pay to clean Arizona’s contaminated underground drinking-water reserves? Polluters? Or taxpayers? The state Superfund law says polluters should pay. But that may change soon. A state-appointed group in which lobbyists for water-polluting industries vastly outnumber laymen may try to shift the burden onto taxpayers. The Groundwater Cleanup Task…

Flashes

Is Going From C&L to S&L S&M? Coopers & Lybrand officials say a great opportunity prompted the firm’s former Phoenix managing partner, Mike Marrie, to leave the Big Six accounting outfit to take a job at Phoenix powerhouse law firm Snell & Wilmer. Others quietly say Marrie’s sudden departure last…

Letters

Fund With Dick and Jane I read with great interest Terry Greene Sterling’s article “Old School Ways” (May 30). We are grateful and acknowledge the $141,000 we received for building acquisition from the Arizona Heritage Fund administered by the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office/Arizona State Parks Board. The article, in…

Bawdy Language

Swapping. Swinging. Hookers. Johns. Group sex. Adult situations. Good God, could it be true? And all going down in a defrocked VFW lodge on Apache Boulevard in Tempe? And next to a bowling alley at that–what a slap in the face of wholesomeness! What sort of wicked whore lords would…

Investor, Teacher, Caretaker, Spy

Chester, who says he once killed someone but can’t remember why, has requested peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. The owner and operator of the Rainbow Valley Boarding Home honors Chester’s request. Eighty-one-year-old Izora Hill, probably the state’s oldest active proprietor of a fully licensed supervisory care home for…

The Shadiest Guns in the West

Joe’s Kickback Style It’s August 1989, and travel agent Joe Arpaio is sweating bullets. His contract to coordinate travel for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is up for rebid, and Arpaio must convince a four-person panel that his company’s proposal is better than the other two finalists’. If he fails,…

Educator Reprimanded

School administrator Judith DeWalt joked with a friend and her attorney Monday as she arrived for a hearing before the Arizona Board of Education. When she left an hour later, she was in tears. In a stunning 6-1 vote, the board censured DeWalt for “unprofessional conduct” in failing to report…

$285,000 Points of Light

George Leckie’s fund-raising expertise helped put J. Fife Symington III in the Governor’s Office. Leckie is once again seeking donations, but this time it’s in an attempt to stay out of prison. With his federal criminal trial scheduled to begin July 23, the former gubernatorial aide is quietly soliciting cash…

Flashes

One Spirited Adversary Jerry Colangelo and his partners may want to consider voodoo economics. Remember Beatrice Villareal, the frail, elderly woman who lived in a meager home on the future site of Bank One Ballpark parking garage? Who can forget? She had lived on the site for more than 80…

Letters

Dirty Pool I’m appalled at John Dougherty’s article about Olympic swimming not being what it used to be (“Slow Strokes,” June 13). It saddens me when Americans such as Dougherty bash our nation’s best. Gary Hall Jr. is one of our nation’s most talented, and, according to Dougherty, it sounds…

Aloha Again, Naturally

The song begins almost imperceptibly, two notes of languid bass wafting in, back and forth on each other. Then, from somewhere off in the distance, comes a high tenor voice bearing a soft chant in some mysterious, romantic tongue. It’s joined–just barely–by a native chorus and a steel guitar line…

The Smutty Professor

YOU ARE HEREBY INVITED TO ATTEND the celebration of the completion of our first ASU Law School semester. It will be the “Mother of all 1L Post-Exam Parties” (herein known as the “Mother”). This “Mother” will be held on Wednesday, December 14, 1994, commencing at 11:30 a.m. You, along with…

Once More With Feeling

Wade Hutchins’ day of reckoning has arrived. The former teacher was to be sentenced June 19 for molesting more than two dozen boys at north Phoenix’s Cactus View Elementary School. A long prison sentence is a certainty. The incarceration of a criminal–especially in such an emotion-charged case–often marks a turning…

Flashes

Hey, Anyone Can Have an Off Decade The Flash has been accused of being an uncompassionate, callous guy–probably justifiably–but even he can’t help but feel a twinge of pity for our pathetic, indicted, bankrupt Governor J. Fife Symington III. Let’s face it–the Fifester is refusing to quit his job because…

The Governor and the Lawyer

Aftershocks from Governor J. Fife Symington III’s 23-count federal indictment are shaking foundations at the state’s most powerful law firm. Phoenix-based Snell & Wilmer already has confirmed its long-term relationship with Symington is under federal criminal investigation. Now, records obtained by New Times reveal that Snell & Wilmer senior partner…

Letters

RoxSand in Your Face Having read the positive review of Morton’s of Chicago by New Times, it came as quite a surprise to pick up the June 6 issue and find RoxSand Scocos’ vitriolic slap at our restaurant and staff (“Menu for a Small Planet”). Obviously, Morton’s of Chicago is…

Castle Creep

In chess, one player may be able to position his pieces to win in a set number of moves, regardless of the countermoves made by his opponent. Once this position is reached, skill and experience are meaningless. There is simply no way the opponent can protect his king from capture,…

Ain’t That a Shot in the Head

It had not been a good month for Bob. First it was the woman, his girlfriend of a year and a half, who gave him the heave-ho. Then his truck broke down. Then somebody shot him in the head. That was eight months ago. Ask him about it now, and…

Governor J. Fife Crook III

The 23-count federal indictment of Governor Fife Symington is a positive step for democracy in Arizona. The trial will make public, and notorious, business dealings that prosecutors have exposed in grand jury confidentiality. The only thing better than the indictment will be Symington’s conviction. Do not be misled by the…

An Indictment Primer

At 11:45 a.m. on Thursday, June 13, the sound from four knocks on the inside of a wooden door bounced down a long hallway on the seventh floor of the U.S. District Courthouse in downtown Phoenix. They were the sounds of destiny. Outside the door, three assistant U.S. attorneys had…