INVISIBLE RAYS THAT CONTROL OUR FEEBLE MINDS: Our nomination for the worst radio commercials during the current political season goes to Pima County Board of Supervisors candidate Vicki Cox-Golder--and not because we think she's just another sleazy political insider, either. Which, of course, she is (See "The Real Dirt," Tucson Weekly, October 24). The dumb-as-toast husband and wife characters Vicki's got supposedly discussing the issues over the airwaves would seem to reveal her belief that voters are just plain blithering, simplistic morons. This sort of approach must work, though--have you ever noticed how stupid the characters are in all those fast-food commercials on television? Obviously millions of not-very-bright people identify with those characters and eagerly suck up all that crappy junk food. Otherwise the large corporate purveyors of greasy sludge wouldn't spend the millions they do year after year painting their customers as brainless bozos. And while Vicki merely portrays her supporters as drooling simpletons, incumbent "Special" Ed Moore takes the game one step further: Last week he sent out mailers entitled "Pin The Tale," in which he offers a $500 reward to anyone who can prove Ed's recent attempts to smear Vicki contain untruths. Ed, you pathetic old bag of crap, everything you said about Vicki knowing people who might have been involved in shady dealings may be utterly true; but, unfortunately for you, it's also utterly irrelevant. Most of us know people who've screwed up. We bet you do, too. So friggin' what? Apparently everybody understands that but you. Meanwhile, you're clinging to your ridiculous trash-Vicki strategy like Baby Woo-Woo to his fuzzy widdle blankie. And we bet you think you're so clever, too. Well, just keep that blankie over your head a tad longer, you pickled old cadaver, and maybe someone will come along to beat the crap out of you, politically speaking. We only hope it's Sharon Bronson. She's the one candidate in that race who hasn't farted at the voters and called it campaign rhetoric. BALLOT BALLET: Let's see...When all is said and done, the candidates and their various supporters in the race for Pima County's District 3 supervisor's seat will have spent probably more than $250,000 in their attempts to secure a job that pays $52,000 plus a car, health insurance and assorted minor bennies. That should tell you what's really at stake here--as the rich and powerful Growth Lobby's Vicki Cox-Golder battles controlled-growth candidate Sharon Bronson for the seat now held by the politically demented Ed Moore. Given the Growth Lobby's massive monetary interest in controlling the Board of Supervisors, we're beginning to worry about the integrity of Pima County's voting process. After the big screw-up in the primary, election officials are saying that due to incompatible systems, they're going to hand-count absentee ballots in the process of merging them with the regular ballots. Don't worry about a thing, though--we're sure you can't trust 'em. VICKI'S LAME RESPONSE: The Tucson Weekly and even the Tucson Citizen took note of the 12-page, two-color tabloid dropped on all Amphi School District residents at an expense of $8,500 two weeks before the November election. The tabloid contained puff photos of all school board members, two of whom just happen to be up for re-election. It also contained five photos of board member Vicki Cox-Golder, who just happens to be a candidate for Pima County Board of Supervisors. Cox-Golder sloughed off charges this was sleazy electioneering with taxpayer funds. She said the Amphi District always sends its newsletters out in October. Well, gee, Vicki, mind if we ask: How come you picked October to send 'em? Isn't that always the month before the election? Give us a break. AND SPEAKING OF VICKI'S RECORD AT AMPHI: Democrat Sharon Bronson got an interesting fax earlier this week from Andrés J. Morales, president of the Amphitheater Education Association, which read: This is to inform you that the Amphi Education Association has NOT taken a position of support for the candidacy of Vicki Cox-Golder for county supervisor. In fact, we have taken no position in the race.... I feel it is necessary to clear up any possible misrepresentations of any candidate who may have chosen to claim that they have the support of "teachers." I understand that the former Amphi EA president may have endorsed Cox-Golder, but he did so as an individual. Likewise, my endorsement for your candidacy is purely on a personal level and does not represent the wishes of our organization as a whole. My personal concerns in regards to the candidacy of Cox-Golder deal with the direction and action, or lack thereof, she gave to the Amphitheater School Board. You don't imagine Cox-Golder was twisting the truth again, was she? SPEAKING OF AMPHI: While we don't officially endorse candidates with any kind of Tucson Weekly Stamp of Approval--mostly because we've been too disgusted by their actions once they get into office--we will say that if we were voting in the Amphi School District, we'd vote for just one candidate: Nancy Young Wright. A smart, capable candidate who will look out for kids, Wright first got sucked into the political process in the fight to save Honey Bee Canyon. Given the recent stonewalling by Amphi when we tried to dig into the records of the district's real estate deals, it would seem the board could use someone like Wright to begin to clean out an moribund administration. AND AS LONG WE'RE GIVING ADVICE: The state Attorney General's Office determined last week that Jim Irvin, the megawealthy Republican on his way to buying a seat on the three-member Arizona Corporation Commission, violated campaign finance law by failing to disclose that he'd loaned his campaign $105,000 way back in December of last year. Had this wealthy creep bothered to inform the Secretary of State of the loan, Democrat Barbara Sherman, who is facing Irvin, would have had a chance to try to match Irvin's loan. But Irvin didn't bother filing the proper paperwork until the end of September, limiting Sherman's fundraising ability. Irvin is the same plutocratic scumbag who also tried to buy the Secretary of State's office back in '94. He's hoping his wallet alone will land him a job as a watchdog for consumers. We hope Arizonans reject this gold-plated piece of crap. ETHICAL SWAMP: Democrat Brian Fagin, who has made ethics reform the cornerstone of his race for one of two House seats in northeastern District 13, seems to have an ethical problem of his own--a tendency to twist the truth. Fagin recently mailed out an excerpt from a Tucson Citizen editorial that reads as if the afternoon nearly-daily endorsed him. Well, they did, sort of--but only in the Democratic primary. In the general election, the Citizen went with Democratic incumbent Andy Nichols and Republican Scott Kirtley. Fagin has also said he began a private law practice in Arizona in 1988, which we find curious, given that he wasn't admitted to the bar in Arizona until December 19, 1995. Sorry, Brian, but when you want to lay into others with your ethical bullshit, you're holding yourself up to a higher standard--one which you don't seem to be reaching. ANNEXATION SCAM--PRELUDE TO ROCKING K: The annexation bureaucrats of the City of Tucson, in their never-ending quest to extend borders and enrich developers, have injected a new twist in the process. They're about to rezone a piece of property while it's still in the county! It's a scam designed to get the property owner to go along with the annexation. City annexation czar John Jones is offering the deal to the current owners of the old Sunset Dairy on Sunset Road west of Interstate 10. This lovely addition to our fair town will include a gravel pit, cement plant, and landfill--all on 128 gorgeous acres. The bureaucrats say they need this piece to complete a 351-acre chunk that would have Tucson's border abutting Marana's. This one has lots of Pima County officials howling, including supervisors Ed Moore and Raul Grijalva, and the concept has yet to be tested in court. But it will be--and it looks like one lawsuit we'd favor. Because we're betting this is a prelude to the annexation of legendary land speculator Don Diamond's massive Rocking K development. After months of haggling, the Pima County supervisors gave Diamond his current zoning. Now, if the city wins this court test, granting Diamond an even better zoning deal will be the price he'll try to extract for city annexation. And expect the four pro-growth and annexation council members to roll over for him. They'll be the same ones who'll buy into the Sunset Dairy deal--George Miller, Michael Crawford, Janet Marcus and Shirley Scott, all of whom believe these annexations are somehow beneficial to the rest of our town. Expect the sane council members--Steve Leal, Molly McKasson, and José Ibarra--having the good sense to vote no. NICE WORK, JENNIFER: When Jennifer Katleman began reporting on the Pima County beat for the Tucson Citizen, we were pretty tough on her and some of her stories. But after reading her coverage of the Board of Supervisors races, we've observed some real improvement. She's actually gone beyond the "he-said, she-said" crap most dailies produce and tried to reveal some of the BS floating in these campaigns. Thanks, Jennifer. And if you keep it up, you can probably look forward to working for a real newspaper someday. TUCSON HELD HOSTAGE: A while back we noted the poor service we've gotten from U S Worst, the corporate stiff that passes for a phone company in this burg. Of course space does not permit us to reprint the flood of letters that ensued, but we wish to thank those who were ticked off enough to vent in writing. In light of recent reports the phone company allegedly has overcharged consumers by $6.7 million, its lack of dedication to quality would seem to be doubly delinquent. Does this sound familiar? One woman writes: "We recently moved here from New York. Upon arriving I called the phone company to set up service. I was given a phone number and promptly called our moving company, which was crossing the country with everything we owned, and which needed to stay in touch with us. I also left our new number on the answering machines of family and friends. After about a week, our phone had not rung once. And I couldn't call anyone back home directly, because our long distance hadn't been hooked up (that's a whole other story). So I called U S West and was told our phone number had been changed! "When I asked when and if they were ever planning on letting us know this rather important fact, the indignant U S West customer service representative replied, 'Well, don't get mad at me! It's not my fault!' After more than two weeks, we finally had our long-distance service straightened out, or so I thought. I've since received two bills for long-distance calls made from the other phone number. They gave that number to someone else and are sending me the bills. The nightmare continues..." AND SPEAKING OF FEEBLE MINDS: Then again, maybe appealing to the lowest common denominator is the way to go, judging by what shows up in The Skinny's mailbox. For example, some pathetic mush-for-brains type in the militia movement recently sent us a nice, thick packet of what passes for hot political dish among the paranoid crowd these days. Among the items: • All U.S. presidents who've been the victims of assassination or assasination attempt (except, oddly enough, Franklin Roosevelt) were really the targets of a sinister, century-and-a-half-long plot by international bankers. • The trillion-dollar U.S. deficit is not the result of our spending more than we earn, but is, instead, due to a sinister cabal of international bankers who own the Federal Reserve System and who ultimately collect all our money. (What they supposedly do with all this money--which by now must include all wealth on planet earth--is never discussed in the wacko literature.) • In the recent presidential primary, Pat Buchanan actually won the Arizona vote, only to have the election victory stolen from him by a sinister conspiracy which may have included--gasp!--the League of Women Voters! (And we thought they were just a bunch of hot babes.) • There is some evidence to suspect U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno is actually in the employ of sinister forces at the United Nations. (What's with all these hot babes, anyway?) • Dynamic presidential candidate Bob Dole may be involved in a sinister conspiracy with "Jewish leaders" to reduce the United States to a third-rate power. (Why, we're not entirely sure, unless it has something to do with Dole and those Israeli studs getting all the hot babes.) • President Bill Clinton may be involved in a sinister conspiracy of drug dealing, bribery and murder which has led to the mysterious deaths of not only Vince Foster, but Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and at least 16 others. (None of whom, we happily note, were hot babes.) • The United Nations is involved in a sinister plot to conduct urban warfare against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. Northeast New Mexico and Colorado are hotbeds of sinister U.N. helicopter activity. Meanwhile, sinister Ft. Huachuca near sinister Sierra Vista, Arizona, is among six military bases with recently activated--and totally sinister--concentration camps. (When they come for us, we'd like to bunk with the hot babes, please.) • The sinister New World Order plans to use as sex slaves--and we quote--"Christians, Patriots, Constitutionalists, the militias, gun-owners, and those who garden and put by food." (There's another pointless hot-babe joke here, too, but frankly, it's simply dwarfed by the very idea of making sex slaves of gun owners--"Put out that smelly old cigar and spread 'em, Bubba!") • The sinister Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is merely a tool of sinister Pentagon stooges working in behalf of the sinister New World Order first described by sinister ex-president George Bush. (Now there's a guy known for his ability to attract hot babes.) • There are "good" Jews and "sinister" Jews, and the latter are more properly called "Mongols" or "Huns" and have, over the thousands of years since Noah's descendants moved north and east out of Israel, intermarried with Europeans for some sinister purpose which may involve controlling television news in a sinister effort to make Americans as stupid as dog poop. And you wonder why we don't trust those hot-but-sinister news-anchor babes.

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