“We pulled it, we checked it, we put it back.” And with that, a Bashas’ employee provided the final word on last week’s biggest bone of contention–a crackpot controversy over whether the videocassette packaging for Disney’s The Little Mermaid bore the image of a penis. Last Thursday, the supermarket chain…
Back in the days before the Federal Bureau of Investigation started snooping around, a lot of people remember that Tom Connelly and Bill Reeves were pretty good friends. The two met quite by chance four years ago, right after Connelly hired on as a criminal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s…
Do female food servers have any business working in a fine-dining establishment? When a reporter from a national food-service magazine posed this thorny question to Chicago restaurateur Nick Nicholas five years ago, few words were minced. “Broads are a pain in the ass to work with,” proclaimed the outspoken restaurant…
You’re Bob Barnes, and by now running for governor of Arizona has taken over your life. For you, it has become an obsession. You are running dead last in the polls but have become so taken over by your dream you no longer remember a time in your life when…
Sam Steiger made the switch from Libertarian to Republican, and he wants the rest of Arizona Libertarians to do the same. Although the fiery gubernatorial hopeful has moderated some of his traditional Libertarian positions since his race for governor under the party banner in 1982–including backing away from support of…
If you haven’t bought Phoenix Cardinals season tickets, you might not want to bother, local sports analysts are gossiping. But local sports fans seem to know that already. Fans are passing on season tickets despite lower prices and a major advertising campaign to boost sales. According to the Cardinals front…
The yellow caution flag is out. The Phoenix Grand Prix, considered by city officials to be their best ticket to drawing national and international tourists and development, may be heading into its last laps, New Times has learned. City officials are back at the bargaining table, telling race promoter Bernie…
“Ric Rankins did not die in vain,” the speaker shouted last Sunday night. “His death has created a new spirit in this community.” The crowd packed into the low-ceilinged meeting hall of the church on Broadway and 19th Street cheered. Seated in the front row were black political leaders state…
The dark clouds appeared suddenly from the north last Saturday night. The winds, gusting to sixty miles per hour, followed soon after. Through the gathering darkness, I could see the wind whipping the long limbs of the three ancient Chinese elm trees at the back of our house. They kept…
The coroner’s report said it all; Ric Rankins’ death on July 10 was a “homicide.” A scrawny 144 pounds, Rankins had his voice box crushed by a choke hold. Unnamed employees of Smitty’s grocery chain killed the 43-year-old black man in a west-side parking lot. Three days later, the Arizona…
Nelson Mandela may not be welcome to visit the Navajo Reservation because he is a “Communist.” On the other hand, the black South African leader may be embraced with open arms as a respected civil rights leader. It all depends on which of the leading candidates for tribal president is…
Cable television is coming to the Westward Ho. A tentative deal has been reached with Dimension Cable that’s leaving smiles on the faces of the 300-odd residents who live in the once-ritzy downtown hotel that’s been converted into a government-subsidized home for the aged and infirmed. As New Times first…
For a while there, you could scarcely pick up a magazine without seeing Lloyd Cole hawking high-priced liqueur in his series of “Amaretto di Cole” ads. One of the recent slick endorsements was set against a neon-lighted New York backdrop and had the singer-guitarist brooding into a cigarette while slumped…
State environmental officials, whose current tests of the popular Salt River tubing area can’t detect a deadly bacteria that cost a young Phoenix man his leg, say they plan new tests this summer to seek out the bacteria. First, officials say, they will try to determine if it was an…
The contents of the letter left George Coppock trembling with fear and anger. “We have received a report that Michael has possibly been abused,” the curt note from the Arizona Department of Economic Security started. Coppock recalls feeling helpless when he read those words three years ago. “Here you are…
The Arizona Supreme Court now tells us that Evan Mecham is once again free to become our governor. How ridiculous can you get? I always presumed that judges were appointed to the Supreme Court because they were strong and independent enough to make an unpopular decision when called upon. I…
Earlier that evening, J. Fife Symington III went on television. He seemed superbly confident as he quipped that Evan Mecham was like a schoolyard bully who needed a punch in the nose. Leon Woodward, one of Mecham’s staunchest supporters, was startled by Symington’s boast. Woodward picked up his phone a…
Jerry Foster, the former Channel 12 helicopter pilot and weather forecaster, is famous statewide for his flamboyant flying, daring live-at-five rescues, numerous appearances with Valley schoolchildren and an occasional brush with the Federal Aviation Administration. In the Maricopa County process servers’ office, though, he’s famous only for his bad attitude…
A week before Bishop Thomas J. O’Brien admitted that yet another Catholic priest in Phoenix is being investigated for sexually abusing children, the bishop issued the local Diocese’s first policy on how to handle such allegations. In a June 22 cover letter that accompanied the ten-page document, the bishop, who…
If you’ve never boiled over at the incompetence of state and county environmental offices, now’s the time. If you’ve never been frightened that their lazy attitude could endanger your life, now’s the time. Just ask Ed Whitehurst. He’s an ordinary Arizona guy who did the most ordinary thing to seek…
It seemed odd to be talking about paid sex on our honeymoon. But the conversation in this water-drenched Jamaican bar had decidedly taken a turn. Sometime during the continual drumbeat of nine hours of rain, the talk had proceeded from a failed snorkeling trip for newlyweds to the island’s thriving…
Young is an idyllic little village perched in the central Arizona highlands just below the Mogollon Rim. It’s almost too idyllic–just the quiet, cozy sort of place Alfred Hitchcock might have used to make a scary movie about, say, grasshoppers driving the villagers mad. Well, last summer in Young, grasshoppers…
