The doctors who control the Mutual Insurance Company of Arizona are more than willing to compromise–but only when they get their own way. And their antics during the latest session of the legislature show they know how to use their friends to do just that. Last year Governor Rose Mofford…
One minute is such a relative length of time. For example: Stick a frozen turkey in the microwave, hit the high button, and sixty seconds later you’ll still have a frozen turkey. Do the same thing to, oh, a live frog, and you’ll alter its molecular structure. All over your…
Michael Goldman will always be haunted by the faces of the students he met in Tiananmen Square. Goldman, twenty, a graduate of Phoenix Central High, visited the square in Beijing hours before the Chinese Army started killing. He spent his junior year of college studying at Chinese University in Hong…
Dr. William Bartel has already pleaded guilty and faces ten years in prison. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents found 81 pounds of cocaine in his home. Dr. Bartel will be a government witness. He’ll need protection until the case is over and perhaps for the rest of his life. The…
After last week’s column about Dr. William Bartel, the Paradise Valley dentist, there were some interesting phone calls. Dr. Bartel, 46, has, of course, pleaded guilty to being involved, along with his wife and sister, in a cocaine conspiracy. He faces ten years in a federal prison and a $4…
Almost two months ago, George Chasse, the new face in Phoenix politics, sat down with a well-known Valley leader and discussed City Hall. Chasse explained that he hoped to run against incumbent Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard. Chasse’s confidant was aware that Mayor Goddard had stubbed his toe on several issues:…
The insurance industry and its allies in the GOP leadership could have won, if they just hadn’t been so greedy. They could have come up with a bill to revamp Arizona’s automobile insurance laws that would have satisfied enough Republicans–and maybe even a handful of Democrats–to get the necessary votes…
Some things surprise us. We never expect talk-show hosts to behave with class or to display genuine insight into human behavior. That’s why Jami McFerrin’s dignified farewell to local radio last week was so astonishing. “I’m walkin’ out the door with my head held high,” McFerrin said on the air…
When planning family vacations, the normal course of action is to sit down months in advance, scan road maps, study travel guides and wrangle tips from anyone who’s ever been outside the city limits. But parents, in their haste to decide where they’ll have fun, invariably forget to ask the…
We live in interesting times. The high rollers fascinate us. Whether it’s in business, crime, politics or sports, we become interested in the players only when their numbers head north above the $1 million mark. That’s when the spotlight clicks on. We feel compelled to learn how these people crossed…
He has watched the battle of Park Plaza apartments from the start. He has kept track of everything. He has it all written down. “Can I trust you?” the old man asks. I nod. He is so tiny. And yet his eyes glow. There is a fierce energy. “Keep my…
Every few weeks, we here on the Di-Gel desk like to go through our junk mail. What letters we don’t pass along to the FBI, we like to print. We do this for two reasons: 1) In most classic mass-communications diagram situations, a vigorous dialogue between sender and receiver is…
People remember Harvey Keith Smith as a world-class gentleman. The grandfatherly, silver-haired real-estate developer always dressed elegantly, commuted to his various Arizona developments in a private jet and drove around Scottsdale in a purring Jaguar. He was a global businessman who traveled extensively–he prized a photo of himself as a…
“You name me one other business where, with nothing in your pocket and no real knowledge of any kind, you can go out on the street and make $40 to $60 within 45 minutes.” When no answer is immediately forthcoming, the boyish-looking young man who calls himself Cliff decides to…
Sun Valley could well be the most flamboyant development scheme ever hatched in a Phoenix high-rise, a 48,000-acre fantasy of limitless possibilities and easy millions just fifty fast minutes west on I-10. Ever since the land was hustled out of public ownership and into private hands in a complicated series…
Border Patrol agent Gary Patrick Callahan has had a reputation in Cochise County as a anti-Communist, drug-hating survivalist during his nearly twenty years on the southeast Arizona frontier. Now Callahan’s really got a reason to hate drugs. Paradise Valley dentist Bill Bartel, who is accused of trying to peddle 81…
Phoenix’s effort to revamp its thirty-year-old zoning code, an undertaking aimed at weaving the city’s haphazard growth into the patterns laid out by the city’s general plan, is running into a not-so-slight obstacle: developers. No group has demonstrated more interest in the code’s revision, and the developers trumpet their enthusiasm…
Tens of thousands of raw-footed hikers who’ve trudged into the Grand Canyon to Phantom Ranch know what a relief it is to finally collapse in the shade of the famous campground’s giant cottonwood trees. Until last fall, though, no one realized that the trees themselves could use a little relief…
Strutting around outside the Holiday Inn ballroom on Saturday night in his immaculate jeweled jumpsuit, Little Elvis appears momentarily oblivious to the trappings that have temporarily transformed the motel lobby into a reasonable facsimile of Heartbreak Hotel. He blocks out the big-screen TV where a braying Shelley Winters is doing…
When it comes to cases of fraud, there’s no question where Dennis DeConcini stands. Arizona’s senior senator has been busy this past week trying to get his colleagues to gut the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. If DeConcini is successful, it will tie the hands of consumers and…
In the New Age capital of Sedona, the great outdoors is a precious commodity. Red cliffs and lush greenery make the land one of the state’s most beautiful spots for tourists and day-tripping city folk. For others the attraction goes deeper. Sedona is world famous as a metaphysical “hot spot,”…
What do you do if the big boys won’t put your TV channel on cable and you’re limited to a low-power antenna on South Mountain? You try to get your hands on a real TV station. That’s what BILL SAURO, president of KUSK in Prescott (CHANNEL 27 in Phoenix) is…
