Recent Articles

Recent Articles By Jeannette Batz

  • Hard Case
    Marie Clark's group-therapy sessions are a sex offender's worst nightmare. Her down-and-dirty approach gives some of her colleagues the willies too.
  • Wait Elephant
    Flora prepares to pack her trunk once more -- but where's she headed?
  • Class War
    Marty Rochester wages war against the dumbing-down of public education -- even in the best of schools
  • A Matter of Honor
    Vets call on the military's top brass not to fight
  • Who's Afraid of Anthony Shahid?
    He's a hero to some, a pain to others. Either way, he makes people very nervous.

Recent Articles By Melinda Roth

Recent Articles By Richard Byrne

Recent Articles By D.J. Wilson

  • Slayer
    Could the mayor's uncanny habit of making enemies wreck the charter-reform effort?
  • The Worst of D.C.
    Shock jock's found a new way to annoy people
  • Demolition Man
    To save St. Louis public schools, Bill Roberti and his band of hired guns plan to blow things up. Who'll pick up the pieces when they're gone?
  • Don't Go There
    Metropolis' North St. Louis pub crawl could be just the beginning and the season's over for Coach Brady
  • Foul Ball
    Baseball coach Jim Brady has been fighting his bosses in the UMSL athletic department for seven years. And he thought colon cancer was a pain in the ass.

Recent Articles By Thomas Crone

Recent Articles By Safir Ahmed

  • Selling Out
    To save Maplewood, some residents have to go
  • Cleaning House
    The reasons we're resented aren't as simple as President Bush would have you believe
  • The Big Fix
    Public schools are broke all over, so why are only St. Louis and Kansas City getting charter schools?
  • A Black Eye Affair
    A minority firm takes a hit for no good reason
  • Black and Blue
    The conflicting versions of the shooting by police of a teenager widen the rift between cops and African-Americans

Recent Articles By C.D. Stelzer

  • Maybe in Memphis
    Jim Green, ex-con and government snitch, says he and his buddies from the Bootheel took part in the plot to kill Martin Luther King Jr. Trouble is, Green's been lying all his life -- so why should anybody believe him now?
  • Norm the Dinosaur
    Despite nearly a half-century of loyal service, Sinclair says goodbye to one of its finest
  • The Anarchists' Cookbook
    They make bread, not bombs, at the Black Bear Bakery
  • Stalking Back
    Trying to collect a half-million-dollar debt from Floyd Warmann, the hunter becomes the hunted
  • Cementing a Deal
    A giant quarry and the world's largest cement kiln are being welcomed by Ste. Genevieve County. But the operation may leave St. Louis gasping for air.

National Features

  • Cleveland Scene
    Dangerous Liaisons

    Another by-product of the privatization of the Iraq War: sexual assault.

    By Lisa Rab
  • Seattle Weekly
    The DUI King

    Meet Bob Castle, a drunk who always seems to find a way to drive.

    By Rick Anderson
  • City Pages
    "How Can This Stuff Be Legal?"

    Take a toke of Salvia Divinorum and you'll wonder, too.

    By Matt Snyders
  • OC Weekly
    Teacher's Pests

    Targeted by Bill O'Reilly, James Corbett isn't the first educator to face the wrath of OC conservatives.

    By Gustavo Arellano and Daffodil J. Altan

UNBELIEVABLE: It was too good to be true. Believers should be indicted for their naivete; the dealmakers shouldn't be convicted for their sleight of hand. The city was operating Kiel Opera House and Kiel Auditorium at a deficit, while the Arena on Oakland Avenue was funky and not up to the current gold standard for indoor-hockey venues. The solution? A new group, Kiel Center Partners, a subset of the paternally omniscient Civic Progress, would replace the auditorium with a new, glorious Kiel Center, if the city pitched in $35 million and closed the Arena to eliminate competition. And what the hey -- as part of the deal, the Kiel boys would fix up the ol' Opera House. At least that was the public line. But behind closed doors, that "renovation" was limited to $2.5 million; later, the Partners said they'd met their obligation, but the Opera House was nowhere near ready. Cry foul? Well, the city signed a "certificate of completion" saying the Kiel Partners had done their part. Since then, three studies -- two paid for in part by Kiel Center Partners, one by St. Louis 2004 -- have recommended that the Opera House not be reopened. Efforts are being made to reopen the Opera House, but whether the money exists is another matter. There is no smart money in this game, but if you have to bet, place a wager on some sort of museum use for the building and be thankful the one idea from the Fox Associates' study wasn't adopted -- keeping the facade, gutting the insides and turning the Opera House into a parking garage. (DJW)

BLOW IT UP REAL GOOD: Yes, if only John Candy were alive, the city could hire him to show up in February to reprise his old SCTV skit in which, as a bib-overall-wearing film critic, he rated movies by the number and quality of their explosions. On this scale, St. Louis has, as Candy would say, "blowed up real good." Next on the list is the Arena. More than 200,000 people a day pass the edifice on Oakland Avenue. Yes, there are many memories there -- the Blues, the Spirits of St. Louis, concerts by the Who and Bruce Springsteen, and even, in decades past, the Firemen's Rodeo, featuring the Three Stooges. But it appears that this too (the Arena) will pass. Maybe the Arena Angels, the group of unpaid activists who oppose its demolition, are right. Maybe the fix was in for the Arena. With Mayor Clarence Harmon, the Board of Aldermen and local captains of industry all signing off on the deal, it might be time to recognize the obvious, because the dogs are barking and the caravan is moving on. Just watch for that day in February, bring a cooler and enjoy the show. (DJW)

RE-PETE: When it was conceived, KKWK (1380 AM) seemed to offer the fan of fringe talk radio just about everything they could want, with a number of veteran, caffeinated hosts congregating on one convenient spot on the AM dial. Though you could pick favorites from a varied cast that included Onion Horton, Charlie Tuna, Virvus Jones, Hank Thompson, Bill Haas and Mark Kasen, the sound of the world falling apart may have come in clearest during the overnight hours. Pete Parisi, the longtime host of the outrageous cable-TV staple World Wide Magazine, hosted a show that repeatedly punched every hot button. He played old tapes of the Amos and Andy Show. He hung up on other hosts. He pulled in longtime WWM contributor Black Jesus, then had him argue with four or five callers, all live, in a conference call. At moments like that, minidramas played out at 3:30 a.m., all voices competed, often hot-tempered and obscene. It was absolute comedy. Though its run was short, KKWK bristled with a buzz of anger, venom and, importantly, not many commercials. It was talk radio stripped bare, ugly and insightful, a whore not to advertisers but to the egos of hosts and callers. (TC)

OUT IN THE STREETS: On some Saturday nights, you'd get the idea that downtown is back, completely. Cars line the 1200 and 1300 blocks of Washington Avenue, and valets zip around, pulling their rides onto crowded lots. Young people with cell phones stand in long lines, waiting to enter half-empty clubs that keep demand up by keeping people waiting. It's an interesting game, and it's upon us. Washington Avenue -- and the blocks of Locust and Tucker nearby -- has been the area tabbed by many as the next area of downtown to really "break." The arrival of nearly a half-dozen new bars to the scene has certainly invigorated that perception. Now, the district faces the task of integrating other facets of city living into the mix, starting, obviously, with apartments and lofts, coupled with services: copy shops, a Laundromat, a video store. The public and financial interest in the zone has never been higher. That alone is a positive sign -- ideas and money wedded to see the area grow. (

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