Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 35

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 24, 1995 INFANT IN TROUBLE All Oatman is out looking for i stolen baby burro. B2. OBITUARIES, B4. Editor, Steve Knickmeyer 271-8222 Arson spree sets fear flickering over Bisbee FfclULaE. i Ho All Svi J.

MONTH Republic Columnist Tough guys put grandma on canvas By Mark Shaffer Staff writer BISBEE The pain still is fresh for Jill Thomas, even though 30 of her friends gathered in a circle in the ashes of her 1916 miner's shack and serenaded her with encouragement. "This was my sculpture, my art project," Thomas said as she stood amid a blackened porcelain sink and bathtub on a hillside high above Brewery Gulch where her home burned Sept. 12. "I can't believe that someone is doomed to destroying other people's dreams." There's a host of nightmares, indeed, among those who live near the downtown area of this old copper-mining town near the Mexican border. During the past six months, a pyromaniac has pierced the tribal psyche of the counterculture community that populates this area.

Fourteen deliberately set fires, escalating in intensity, have destroyed or damaged homes, storage sheds and city parks. Damage is estimated at $150,000. A recently formed group called Old Bisbee Watch, whose fhshlight-armed members climb hundreds of concrete steps between dark streets each night, attracted 71 volunteers to a meeting last week. Fire trucks and police cars drive slowly through the hillsides all night. Homeowners with elevated views scan the gulch with infrared viewing equipment.

See BISBEE, page B3 Shayna BrennanStaff photographer Jill Thomas sits amid the ruins of her Bisbee home, which was consumed in an arson-caused fire. Just who has been burning Bisbee's old buildings is a subject of much discussion. Celebration of tribal heritage 0 ssssfei Si, ft 'jf A I O'Connor salutes suffrage Justice helps mark 75 th anniversary By Barbara Yost Staff writer Sandra Day O'Connor, the reserved and dignified first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, is not known as a fiery speaker. But in an impassioned speech Saturday afternoon, she had almost 800 women beaming and cheering at a sold-out luncheon celebrating the 75th anniversary of women's being given the right to vote.

Their applause interrupted her keynote speech numerous times, and they swarmed around her afterward, eager to bask in the aura of a woman revered as a symbol of achievement. O'Connor, who had addressed a meeting of the Arizona State Bar Association on Friday night, said she usually keeps her speeches brief. "I'm not going to be brief today," she told the luncheon at the Holiday Inn Crown Plaza. "I have so much to tell you. This is a story that needs telling." After noting that the hotel, then called the Adams, was a frequent meeting site for Arizona suffragists at the turn of the century, the justice detailed the history of the suffrage movement, which can trace its roots to Abigail Adams.

As the fledgling United States struggled with a new democracy, Abigail implored her husband, John, to "remember the ladies." However, the ladies were all but forgotten until Aug. 26, 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, giving them the right to vote. The suffrage movement began in earnest in 1848 at a women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Voting was just one of several issues debated, and it was the only one that did not pass See O'CONNOR, page 84 I i' Mona ReederStaff photographer At an intertribal dance, Patricia Sampson appears skeptical of a featured a parade with Miss Indian Phoenix contestants and bow from fellow dancer Samuel White. The powwow Saturday floats from different tribes.

The event is free and continues today was part of the Native American Recognition Days, which also at Indian School Road between Central Avenue and Third Street. Dark secret in case of missing mom Criminal identity unveiled, husband is arrested I hope you didn't fall for it but I'm afraid some of you did. Maybe even a lot of you. After all, we're dealing with fight promotion on grand scale here. Grand in terms of promotion, anyway, if not fight.

And it works. Call it the Don Kinging of America. The politicians we sent to Washington with our votes and our money have described their struggle to reform welfare as a heavyweight championship bout when it was less than Tyson vs. McNeeley. It was Tyson vs.

Your Grandmother. Tyson vs. Your Kid Sister. Tyson vs. Your Newborn Baby.

The knockout was sure and quick. A body blow here. A head butt (ignored by the referee) there. A left jab followed by a right cross and boom! grandma's on the canvas being counted out, along with all those unwed teen-age mothers and sick people and children. Victory dance Then the bell rang and the new Republican majority rushed outside to stand with their hands in the air on the Capitol steps, prancing about like Rocky Balboa at the art museum in Philadelphia, knowing all along that their fight, like his, was an illusion.

Welfare reform, as they see it, is nothing more than beating up the weak, the undereducated, the infirm and the very young. Talk about your tough guys. The House and the Senate plan to replace Aid for Families With Dependent Children with a block grant to the states, ending the system under which the federal government matches state spending on welfare and any eligible poor person is guaranteed benefits. The Senate also wants to restrict benefits under Supplemental Security Income, which aids old people and those with disabilities. The savings from these cuts a'nd others, they say, will approach $70 billion over five years, for which all Americans let out a hearty cheer.

It's impressive to squeeze $70 billion from those who already have so little. But it's no fight. You want a serious contender? How about $130 billion in "corporate welfare," the direct subsidies and tax breaks given to the nation's most wealthy and powerful industrial barons. For instance, why did the same heavyweight legislators who went after infants and invalids refuse to eliminate a 50-year-old subsidy for tobacco growers worth $43 million a year. The subsidy punch And what about the millions that go to sugar producers and peanut growers and other agricultural interests? According to a Ralph Nader organization called Essential Information, corporations like McDonald's, Sunkist Growers; wineries like Gallo, Sterling and Robert Mondavi; the Dole Fresh Fruit Sunsweet Growers, Ocean Spray Cranberries; Jim Beam Brands Distillery and the North American Fur Producers all have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct subsidies for advertising to compete with foreign producers.

And what about that $4.5 billion credit that was given over five years for producing ethanol fuels as a substitute for gasoline? From what I've read, something like 75 percent of that money is going to Archer Daniels Midland, a conglomerate that may contribute more money to politicians in both parties than any other. Bob Dole, the man who wants to replace Bill Clinton as president, is one of their favorites. Do you figure Dole or any other politician will cut off the flow of cash to the biggest cash cow out there just before an election year? We've spent billions to assist high-tech companies attempt to build a space station. Oil companies get billion-dollar tax breaks. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, has documented 129 federal programs that gave $87 billion from taxpayers to private businesses in a year.

Aid for Families With Dependent Children receives less than half of the $39 billion received each year by agriculture. Nine million children are on AFDC. All of them come equipped with i empty pockets and glass jaws. Taking down a bunch of kids with a single punch doesn't make you a boxer. It doesn't prove you're a heavy hitter.

It's not how you become champ. for that to happen, you've got to pick on someone your own size. an attempted-murder charge and has served time in prison for manslaughter and assault. John Joseph Kalhauser, 41, who went by the name of Don Stecchi, was arrested Monday on a felony fugitive warrant stemming from a 1979 incident in which police say he tried to kill his ex-girlfriend's boyfriend. Kalhauser, who also has been See MISSING, page B4 By Miriam Davidson Correspondent TUCSON It's a fear straight out of a mystery movie: The man or woman who lies next to you each night is living under an assumed name and has a secret, criminal past.

For Diane Van Reeth, the fear has come true. But it may be too late for her to do anything about it. Van Reeth, 35, the mother of two young boys, has been missing since Aug. 10. Last week, her family and friends were stunned to learn that Van Reeth's estranged husband not only has been using an alias for 14 years but is wanted in Massachusetts on life At last! Channel 61 joins the airwaves First new station in Valley since '85 a a mT By Dave Walker Television writer Almost two weeks late, KASW-TV (Channel 61) signed on at 6:57 a.m.

Saturday. First program: Jellybean Jungle. First commercial: Nerf Max Force. First impressions from owner Gregory Brooks, who watched the sign-on Saturday morning with his family: "We were thrilled. We all sat together and hurrah-hurrahed." The first new full-power TV station to fill Valley airwaves since KUTP-TV (Channel 45) first broadcast in December 1985, Channel 61's signal can be received on non-cable connected TV sets that now get UHF stations, like ABC affiliate KNXV-TV (Channel 15) and Phoenix Suns broadcaster KUTP-TV (Channel 45).

It will be added to Valley cable systems over the next two weeks. Channel 61's original broadcast date of Sept. 10 was delayed when a key piece of equipment the 4-ton antenna that tops the new station's 334-foot tower on South Mountain Park remained at its Sacramento manufacturer for testing. The sign-on countdown has stopped and started several times over the past two I See OWNER, page B2 CABLE SITES Where to find KASW-TV (Channel 61) on cable: Starting Sept. 29, Cox Communications subscribers living in Glendale and in rebuilt service areas (Tempe, Mesa, Paradise Valley and parts of Phoenix) will find the station on Channel 18.

Other Cox subscribers will get the station on Channel 13. Starting Oct. 1, customers of TCI Cable of Scottsdale will get the station on Channel 27. Also starting Oct. 1, Insight Cable, serving Gilbert and parts of the west Valley, will carry the station on Channel 6.

Michael ChowStaff photographer Atop South Mountain, riggers (from left) Roy Dever, Sam Quick and Jim George work on the antenna for KASW-TV (Channel 61) earlier this month. The station's debut had been postponed several times because of antenna woes. Programming targets young audience Further cementing the 5.5 million young viewers estab- Carolyn McBurney, who oversaw KASW-TV (Channel 61) relation- lished by Fox in 1990, the Fox Kids the club at Channel 15. ship with its chief target audience is Club had a local mailing list of Though the mailing list is now Kids Club 61, a free fan club for about 130,000 when KNXV (Chan- down to about 67,000 households, young viewers. nel 15) gave up the Fox Children's Part of a national database of Network programs last year, said See FOX KIDS, page B5.