It might be just one of those things, a total fluke, like getting the flu on the morning of a major history test you forgot to study for anyway. Or, the 10 percent spike in graduation rates in Phoenix Union high schools could be a harbinger of things to come,…
I Spy a Stupid Mistake Those hepcats at the formerly funny Spy magazine have outdone themselves with their list of the 50 Most Annoying States. Arizona ranked 48th. That’s right–every state in the union except Maine and New Jersey (?) is more annoying than Arizona. Texas was most annoying, due,…
On April 25, Glendale police arrested Dennis Earl Bryley on charges of shooting a security guard during a burglary last July. The arrest came months after police had booked another man, Eli Balkcom, on attempted-murder charges in that case (“Bad Blood,” May 2). Now, authorities are scrambling to explain why…
A 25-year-old professional skateboarder is sitting on the floor of his Tempe apartment saying this to me: “We don’t have any footage of them actually penetrating anything, but they appear to go into the ground, they appear to come out of the ground; I think they would go right through…
Stars and Gripes Forever I can’t wait to read the letters from the inbreds regarding the sidesplitting piece about the flag exhibit (“Flag and Country Bumpkins,” May 2). I have yet to see the display myself, so I’ll refrain from any “Newtonian” squalling. I will, however, say this (and forgive…
Where to begin? Goldstein is a learned man–a Harvard-educated lawyer. Moreover, as an Orthodox Jew, he spends each Saturday–Shabbat–studying Jewish teachings. But even Goldstein has difficulty describing the notion of an eruv, an imaginary boundary–something like a safe zone in a kids’ game of tag, a force field protecting the…
At first glance, the East Valley slackers who call themselves Timmy and Roberto wouldn’t seem likely candidates to appear on a TV talk show. Both high school graduates, the young men apparently possess the normal number of chromosomes. As far as anyone knows, neither has been romantically involved with a…
Glendale Police Sergeant Frank Balkcom steers his cruiser into a narrow alley. It’s past midnight on a Monday in April. He’s only a mile from the postcard-perfect downtown of Glendale, Arizona’s fourth-largest city. But this is a different world, one with which Balkcom, who is of Hispanic and German descent,…
Fife’s Legal Defense Fund Isn’t Flush Money isn’t exactly pouring into Governor J. Fife Symington III’s legal defense fund, set up last winter to defray his staggering legal bills. In a voluntary statement filed April 26 with the secretary of state, Gubernatorial Legal Defense Trust executive director Chuck Coughlin reported…
Some Mesa residents say they expect to have power lines within five feet of their properties because a Tempe city councilwoman doesn’t like an alternative plan that would put the lines within 100 feet of her condominium complex. Construction of the Price Freeway is forcing Salt River Project to move…
New Times staff members once again swept the highest honors handed out by the Arizona Press Club. Staff writer John Dougherty was named the 1995 Virg Hill Journalist of the Year for the third time in four years. Kathleen Ingley of the Arizona Republic/Phoenix Gazette was first runner-up; New Times…
Governor J. Fife Symington III’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy case is moving further from the public eye with each passing week. Agreements to seal documents from public review are increasing as Symington prepares for an expected hostile deposition later this month by his largest creditor, a consortium of union pension funds…
Give It Arrest Tony Ortega’s diatribe about Sheriff Joe Arpaio (“Mutiny at the County,” April 25) is a first-class rendition of yellow journalism. Very typical of New Times: “El Flasho” took his pot shots (Flashes, April 18) and now it’s Ortega. Page after page of innuendoes, half-truths and outright lies…
April 19, at approximately 8:50 a.m., I set out to become an Outdoors Woman. I never made it. I drove all the way to Friendly Pines Camp outside Prescott. I brought a sleeping bag. I brought a pocketknife. I brought a long book (a biography of William Tecumseh Sherman). I…
My parents were the sort of folks, God bless them, who taught me that it is not very polite to poke a sharp stick into the eye of a handicapped person, unless of course you are jabbing a farmer or one of his kin. Dad, a suspicious, big-city greaser, didn’t…
Maricopa County taxpayers have paid for the training of 2,694 badge-carrying men and women who make up Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s posse. They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train 800 of those posse members to shoot straight. Yet only 21 warm bodies fill chairs this morning at the…
In John Griffin’s visions of the future, it is always do or die. They are visions probably not unlike those of his counterparts in the amateur Arizona Ironman Football League: It is a must-win situation, and he is playing for some pro team like the Minnesota Vikings, and the other…
It took only a few minutes for the Phoenix City Council to deliver what some would consider a $40 million gift to the growing empire of Phoenix sports mogul Jerry Colangelo. It was easy. There was no public opposition. No impassioned speeches by councilmembers. No outrage over an apparent giveaway…
Three New Times staffers are finalists for the top awards given by the state’s largest media organization, the Arizona Press Club. If the previous sentence inspires a feeling of deja vu, there is good reason. All three staffers were finalists for the Press Club’s highest honors last year. Staff photographer…
A Great Reason to Reprint This Photo The two eldest sons of Governor J. Fife Symington III last made news in 1995, when it was revealed they had been ticketed by Scottsdale cops for urinating in public. Now, apparently, they’ve zipped their flies and gone entrepreneurial. With Dad in bankruptcy…
The living room of Florence Vanosky’s central-Phoenix home is filled with pictures of family, but for years Vanosky’s only roommate had been her dog–a purebred golden retriever named Scooter. Now Vanosky lives alone. On April 9, an investigator for the Arizona Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals removed…
Mariano Albano entered this life 44 years ago on a pool table in downtown Phoenix, a few yards from where America West Arena now stands. Two decades or so after that auspicious debut, Albano joined the Phoenix Police Department as a skinny rookie patrol officer. Last week, the incurable iconoclast–who…
