A colleague of mine just came back from a romantic trip to Italy and France with a new lady friend. I boldly asked him if he fell in love. He replied, “What is love?” Then he challenged me to\ describe love, because he couldn’t be sure if he would “know it when it happened.”
You wake up before the sun rises and watch the video one more time, to be sure your eyes have not fooled you. The footage is grainy, shot by surveillance cameras, lit by street lamps. The hazy flash of fire takes your breath away.
This week we ponder the greatest mystery in the 110-year history of the Grand Canyon State.
Dead. Last. Good grief, who are the mental giants (idiots) from Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) who ranked Arizona as the worst place to live in our country? Yep, that’s right. Guess we must all be losers for living in this wretched state, with last-place rankings in health care, e…
To the annals of stupid but lucky criminals, let us inscribe the name Matthew Riser, age 57 — and not the brightest star in the sky.
The romance between “The Gray Lady” and the gray-headed occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue appears headed for the rocks.
There are three phrases that let us know summer is officially here: “There’s nothing to do,” “I’m bored” and “It’s too hot to do anything.” Yes, the children are home from school.
Oh Alexa, how did we ever manage without you? “I am not certain of this and have no opinion,” Alexa replies dryly.
Chris Matthews, during the “pre-MSNBC Celebrity” phase of his career, penned an article in 1991 for The New Republic in which he detailed the parentally partisan roles of the two major parties, based on the basic family unit.
The open letter to President Biden, written by hand and released on the Fourth of July, tore at the heart. This is the unfortunate plight of Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner, wrongfully detained for 143 days and counting in a godforsaken gulag 6,000 miles from home.
She was a 12th grader on the afternoon she got the news she was pregnant, in the humid summer days of 1964. The girl was 17, with a beehive hairdo piled to the sky and dreams of going to nursing school. She told her boyfriend the news after he got off work at the bicycle shop. The first of m…
Roe vs. Wade. Three little words. Millions of opinions, celebrations, protests, anguish and jubilation. We have entered a new era, like it or not. Maybe our views on the ruling, pro or con, don’t matter as much as our actions, especially in the days ahead. Political lines have been drawn. Ch…
We live in dangerous times for children in Arizona. In 2020, 838 children died in our state, including 53 kids murdered and 49 lost to suicide. Firearms were to blame in 51 of these fatalities. Fentanyl claimed 57 young lives. In all, substance use was indicated in 157 child deaths.
Shortages. Our new reality. If we could only figure out what is next to be delayed, out of stock or unavailable, it might help us plan our lives.
Arizona and ancient Greece are separated by thousands of years and thousands of miles, but there is one task that makes Greek mythology an Arizona reality in this modern age and season.
Triple-digit temperatures reinforce the reality of a four-letter word widely employed in Arizona at this time of year.
After a few thousand miles this year spent driving Arizona’s interstates, I’ve come to a conclusion: There are two kinds of people left in this fine nation of ours.
What do you have in common with a goldfish? Evidently, more than you could ever imagine.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a “War on Poverty.”
When I moved west in 1995 to be a newspaper scribe, one of the challenges was getting acquainted with the Valley’s geography. The grid system was easy enough, as were major cross streets like Broadway, Southern, Indian School and Van Buren. But the finer distinctions eluded me.
Rod Serling must have written this scene, the congressman thought to himself.
Isn’t summer wonderful? So, are we all ready for donning a swimsuit? Hmm… some of us would rather walk a plank with a gang of blood-thirsty pirates behind us and a bunch of sharks with their jaws wide open waiting for us to jump before going “public” in a bathing suit. About 80% of American …
Did you enjoy this past Memorial Day weekend? The beginning of summer, the remembrance of those who have died in this nation’s wars. Flags flying, memorial services, family gatherings, three-day weekends, bagpipes playing… what better way to start off the summer?
You needn’t worry about a politically correct naming process for the latest malady that might be headed our way — unless a real-life Dr. Doolittle steps forward to translate and advocate for the animal kingdom.
No matter where you look in 2022, prices have surged. The cost of a gallon of gasoline is hovering at record levels. The prices of household staples like poultry, beef, eggs and milk have shown double-digit increases. And here in Phoenix, the cost of rent has risen by as much as 30%, accordi…
Few things in life reveal character more than heartbreak.
You may have entertained this thought — perhaps in different words or at an earlier point — sometime over the past (soon-to-be) 18 months.
Oh, Rich Strike, how we love thee! The underdog who stunned the racing world! The horse who barely had an opportunity to run in the Kentucky Derby and was only given a spot through default of another horse.
Through the mists of memory comes this observation from the now-retired Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson: “When one side deliberately distorts and misstates the arguments of the other, the intent is not to debate, but to destroy.”
The man who raped and murdered Deana Bowdoin was put to death by the state of Arizona on May 11 at 10:30 a.m. This was 44 years, four months and four days after the homicide in question — or about 44 years too long by my reckoning.
T.S. Eliot made the celebrated observation that “April is the Cruelest Month” in his critically acclaimed poem “The Wasteland,” published in 1922. A century later, a small group of U.S. senators gathered late in that cruel month to formulate a cruel fate for our nation.
She served as Maricopa County attorney for 900 days, the first woman to hold the office.
Mother. One small word. One universal meaning. We are all bound by the shared realty that we had or have a mother. This is a central person in our lives. The foundation of our history. A huge part of our personal journey and earliest memories. She is the reason that we are here and the perso…
Life sometimes presents signs that you have completely given up on your youth. An example: You proudly present your AARP card to request a senior discount at the restaurant where you’re having dinner… at 4:45 on a Saturday afternoon.
Would you marry your pet?
Multi-entertainer Steve Allen should earn posthumous praise as a “20th century Renaissance man.”
Where there is smoke, there is fire.
Let the record show that in mid-April 2022, I became incredibly hip according to the style gods at the New York Times. My secret? The shaved head I have been sporting since I lost a bet in 1999.
Mickey Mouse has turned Leftist Louse…due to circumstances beyond his control, and the long love affair that Disney has enjoyed with almost every American family appears headed for the rocks. The company has chosen to go “woke,” and that decision could conceivably leave the entertainment gia…
Think of him as the “anti-Ike.”
Uh oh, it’s allergy season. “Achoo!” Excuse me, dear readers, because it seems I cannot stop sneezing! And I guess I am not alone.
Two unofficial events have become part of the political calendar every autumn of each election year.
Forbes went to great trouble to assemble its annual list of billionaires, and the rankings received a ton of media coverage, including here in the Valley, where 10 Arizonans made the list.
Are you ready? Because the deadline for filing your taxes is looming, causing quite a few Americans to become upset (if they owe) or happy (if a refund is coming). Since people tend to procrastinate, the ones who owe money usually file at the last minute, request an extension, or rush to the…
“You like me! You really like me!”
Did you watch the fight last week? Oops, I meant the punch (more like a slap) that Will Smith planted on Chris Rock during the Oscars. While I don’t really care too much about award shows, it was a doozy of an altercation between two very big stars. Yikes, then there was the profanity and sc…
My initial response to witnessing Will Smith’s “Slap Heard Around the World” at the Academy Awards was embarrassment for Smith. Not for his absurd display of machismo and profane tirade against comedian Chris Rock but for how woefully ineffective the slap was.
I saw a spider. I went to the bathroom at 2 in the morning and there, sitting on a wall, was a big brown spider. She had eyes like the devil, glaring at me. It so unnerved me that I ran into the bedroom and told my husband, Doug, to please get up. “A spider is in the bathroom,” I yelled. He …
As we head toward April and the Arizona legislative session winds down, the fierce competition for the dumbest idea yet appears to be over. This year’s honors go to Apache Junction Rep. John Fillmore for his tireless efforts to destroy the state’s voting system with his masterpiece, now know…
ESPN is headed for a reckoning.
