Rogue Columnist

Rogue open thread

Conversation starters (feel free to add your own):

Nice to see ASU moving baseball to give new life to Phoenix Muni, after spring training all but abandoned the city, also good that the Sun Devils will play at Chase Field rather than send hundreds of buses to Glendale (Ariz.) and play at the cotton field (University of Phoenix Stadium). Light rail pays off (WBIYB).

Nearly half of New York City residents live at or near poverty — and the city measures. I'd love to see a comparable census for the city of Phoenix.

Almost anything Clyde Prestowitz writes is top-notch. Here he departs from his trade expertise, but his Japan/Asia expertise is on full display.

Tucson is giving its city employees a 55-cent raise, and grudgingly. Amid all the hate directed at government workers, it's interesting to note that nobody in Boston was begrudging their unionized public employees after the marathon bombing.

Days after the explosion in West, Texas, Gov. Rick Perry was trying to lure business by boasting about the state's weak regulations. A model for Brewer?

Jeff Flake was caught in his background check double-talk. Even wealthy Republican Sen. John Sidney McCain III voted for them, but not Flake, R-NRA. And here's an interesting question: Why does America lose its head over "terror" while ignoring its daily gun deaths? Here's a running tally since Newtown.

 

Magical thinking

James Hamilton on the Econobrowser blog recently offered a post titled, "The Death of Peak Oil." It pivots off an article by Colin Sullivan wondering if it has "gone the way of the Flat Earth Society." Sullivan continues, "Those behind the theory appear to have been dead wrong, at least in terms of when the peak would hit, having not anticipated the rapid shift in technology that led to exploding oil and natural gas production in new plays and areas long since dismissed as dried up."

Hamilton does a capable job of dismantling Sullivan. Comments from the expert readership of the Oil Drum do excellent mop-up. Still, the exchange seemed an opportune time to re-examine where we stand on several fronts amid what I had termed the Great Disruption. This blog shouldn't be a church. It is not a prisoner of any closed-loop ideology. I don't have all the answers. We should always remember the exchange John Maynard Keynes had with a man who demanded to know why his position on a certain issue had shifted. Said Keynes, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

After all, no less an authority figure than the President of the United States has assured us that America has a one-hundred-year supply of natural gas and his administration is fast-tracking all manner of fossil-fuel production. Approval of the Keystone XL pipeline to bring tar-sands oil from Alberta to the refineries of the Gulf Coast seems a given. The housing industry is coming back, even in the overbuilt suburbs of places such as Phoenix and California's "Inland Empire." The recession slowed "job sprawl," but hardly stopped, much less reversed it. New freeways are being built. American life is going on much as before 2008. Could it be that all the notions of a "great reset" in the wake of the crash were magical thinking?

A note to readers

Since this blog was launched in January 2008, I have attemped to do two columns a week, generally one for national readers and another focused on Phoenix for the thousands of readers I left behind at the Arizona Republic. For now, I can't keep up that pace. Too many other obligations are slamming me: My Seattle Times Sunday columns and daily blog; appearing on radio, including KUOW, the local NPR affiliate; speaking engagements; my journalism posts on the blog of the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at ASU, and my novels.

I've always prided myself on being an iron man, a writer like my character in Deadline Man, who never freezes. But for now at least, I am going to have to generally cut Rogue back to one column per week. I hate this, and will hate the toll it will take in the site's steadily rising traffic. But it must be done. Rogue Columnist offers readers many features: The Front Page with new news you might not find in your daily newspaper or on television; the City Desk which aggregates news on urban issues; Arizona's Continuing Crisis; the Best of the Front Page archive, and the Climate Change/Energy page. All these are to be found to your right and are updated throughout the week. In addition, there are five years worth of columns in the archives, especially the Phoenix 101 history series.

Even at one a week, I hope you'll continue to click on Rogue. And keep spreading the word.

[UPDATE] I like the idea of an open thread. So let's try that. I'll set up the open thread with a few links to get the conversation started. Also, guest Rogue posts are always welcome if they require little editing on my part and fit into the mission of the blog.

 

 

Phoenix 101: Why they came

Washington Street in Phoenix, 1890. The trees and adobe buildings of 1870 were mostly gone from this view.

My grandmother, Sarah Ella Darrow, was born in 1889 in the Chickasaw Nation, Cumberland, Indian Territory. Her parents had come to I.T., as the postal address read for today's eastern Oklahoma, as Presbyterian missionaries. Then they ran a small store. Earlier, on the Texas frontier, her mother (my great-grandmother), Emma Caroline Hulse, had been scalped as a baby during a Comanche attack after troops were withdrawn for the Civil War — she survived and went on to marry my great-grandfather, Francis Marion Darrow. Indian Territory, home of the Five Civilized Tribes, was fine country for farming and timber, well watered, with growing towns and new railroads. But whites couldn't own land and that was Darrow's dream. The Chickasaw governor (chief) loved my great-grandfather and wanted to adopt him, but, Darrow declined. Then the store and their home were destroyed by a tornado.

They went west, to Arizona, to the Salt River Valley. They and hundreds like them came for relatively cheap land and good farming. Like much of the West, Phoenix was heavily publicized to draw settlers. One thing was even true: This was one of the world's great alluvial valleys, fanning out in mostly flat, irrigable land from a river that flowed year-round, or so it seemed. Here the Hohokam had created the most advanced irrigation system in the New World, with 200 miles of canals, before that civilization faded. The Pima, likely the descendents of the Hohokam, had moved south to the Gila River and beyond, partly to escape raids by the Apache. In the late 1850s, Charles Trumbull Hayden noticed this vast, mysterious valley with its tree-lined river while hauling freight to Tucson. He would be back. He would name his son Carl.

By the 1890s, the phoenix was stirring from the ashes. The Apache had been subdued by the U.S. Cavalry. Thousands of acres were under cultivation, especially for wheat, barley and fruit trees. Anything would grow in this soil, provided water was added. The project of clearing out and extending the old Hohokam Canals was well along by then. Phoenix as a settlement was more than 20 years old. The first railroad had arrived on Independence Day, 1887. In 1890, the Census Bureau declared the American frontier closed. By the time my family arrived, the chance to start fresh and live the Jeffersonian dream of yeoman farmer was fading most places. Not here.

Nowhere man

It's been less than three months since Barack Obama was sworn in for a second term, and yet it feels as if he's fading from the scene. About the best thing I can find in his proposed budget is $40 billion for passenger rail over the next five years. That would be about the same as the U.S. was, until recently, throwing away every four or five months in Afghanistan. And it's contingent on getting through a House of Representatives with the usual anti-rail Republican fetish. But it's something.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama wants to begin what will no doubt be a series of cutbacks to the social safety net. If Nixon can go to China, the Democratic heir to Franklin Delano Roosevelt can begin dismantling Social Security. As yet another attempt to prove reasonable and make the Republicans like him, this will fail, as Paul Krugman eloquently points out. Indeed, he is a Robert Rubin Democrat: He's been aiming at "entitlements" for a long time. Meanwhile, expenditures on the military are essentially unchanged.

I don't know if this is the power of the Military-Industrial Complex or a Democrat afraid of looking weak on "national security," but nobody seems willing to concede that a nation cannot be powerful without first and foremost a strong economy. The private sector is either poleaxed by the financialized economy and the powers of monopolies and cartels — or among the latter and sitting on record profits and cash but doing no hiring of Americans. So this would be the point where an energetic and sensible federal government would embark on a 21st century infrastructure project and "Project Apollo" to create the technologies to address climate change — but nothing from Mr. Obama. He seems content to see America becalmed for the next three years. The suffering unemployed and poor, after all, won't affect the chief executives he lunches with, or his fellow Ivy Leaguers, or the parents who send their children to Sidwell Friends.

Phoenix's new normal

Let's take a random walk through the "news from home." Much rejoicing must have come to the Real Estate Industrial Complex from the recent BusinessWeek story headlined, "A Phoenix housing boom forms in hint of U.S. recovery." Maybe it's even real and Homey was wrong when he predicted that the old growth machine — with championship golf! — isn't coming back. If so, a new housing boom would be the worst possible event in the long run. Any chance to learn the lessons of the crash will be lost, along with the opportunity to reset for a more sustainable future.

I suspect the bluster of a "boom" cloaks a recovery from a very deep bottom, so naturally the percentage gains will look impressive. In addition, we don't have the research to indicate the subdivisions that are being abandoned to "investors" — or just abandoned — as qualified buyers snap up the new stuff from the likes of Pulte. Population has increased, but not at the rates of the 1990s and 2000s. Also, the labor force for the metropolitan area is only slightly larger than it was in 2006, hardly the spectacular growth seen in the previous decades.

Some macro realities will not go away: most Americans are much poorer after the recession; wages are stagnant and have been falling on average for years; unemployment remains high and many may never find work again; "consumers" are still carrying more debt than historic norms; changing tastes and demographics, with talented young people and many boomers preferring real cities, not Sun City; Phoenix still has a low-wage economy. All these factors will be headwinds against the triumphal return of the Growth Machine.

Hair on fire

The conventional wisdom holds that North Korea is mostly bluster, the young dictator trying to solidify his power and distract his starving subjects, gaining negotiating leverage, and about the worst that might happen is the Crazy Aunt in the Asian Attic will have one of her periodic violent outbursts, deadly perhaps but contained. The "saber rattling" might be a sign of a troubled regime in Pyongyang. The United States will project a "show of force," along with a promise to deploy more missile interceptors (of dubious reliability) in the coming months and years. And the situation will cool down.

I'm not sure much of this is true.

David Kang and Victor Cha, writing in Foreign Affairs, are among the few to challenge the view that North Korea isn't that dangerous. A Stalinist state with one of the world's largest armies, and a capable one at that, attains nuclear weapons of a sort and launches a satellite — in other words, achieves at least the beginnings of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Then its leaders make it repeatedly clear they intend to attack South Korea, Japan, Guam and the continental United States. Just the same old-same old, sixty years after the armistice that ended the Korean War? Prepare to be surprised.

Eddie Basha, an appreciation

Editor's Note: Eddie Basha, the last of the hometown merchant princes, died last week at age 75. The following article was originally published in 2008 but captures Basha well.

By Jack L. August, Guest Rogue

I answered the cell phone as I headed north on I-17 en route to Prescott. "This is Raul Lopez," the caller said in a heavy accent, "and I saw you on that Channel 8 program Horizon last night, Dr. August." Not knowing the caller I mumbled something about the then-host Michael Grant, but was interrupted with a string of criticisms about my discussion of former senators Carl Hayden, Barry Goldwater and Dennis DeConcini and, to add insult to injury, Mr. Lopez offered, "I don't like that moustache either." I tried to recover but the mystery called moved forward without pause: "The Haydens, Goldwaters and DeCincinis were not responsible for Arizona's growth and development but instead," he continued, "the miners and laborers in the copper mines of Morenci, Miami and Globe, should receive a lot more credit than those three politicians." He was contentious and irritated and I tried to find a diplomatic way to diffuse the situation. This Lopez character, though, seemed unbalanced and out to insult me at any cost.

He then said I could afford to lose a couple pounds and told me to wear a blue shirt and red tie the next time I was on television because what I wore that night had hurt his eyes. Finally, I exploded, asked him for his location, because I was going to turn around, head back to Phoenix, and confront him. I was furious and angrily terminated the call after hurling a few pejoratives of my own. The mystery tormentor tried three more times to call back but I refused to answer. Later, after I arrived in Prescott, I listened to my voice messages and heard, "Geez, Jack, this is Eddie Basha. I didn't mean to piss you off." He got me. I was the next in a long line of innocents caught in the Eddie Basha world of phone pranks.

Divide and rule

What is are these "entitlements" I keep reading about? Just today, Rupert's Wall Street Journal had a headline that stated, "White House targeting entitlement limits." This must be a good thing, because, really, feeling entitled is an unattractive trait. If applied to our tax dollars, a sense of entitlement is downright unpatriotic.

Are they the $1.8 trillion given to defense contractors since 2006, including $400-billion-and-counting for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, intended as as an "affordable" mass-production jet that is now 70 percent over budget? Are they the huge subsidies that the fossil fuel industries receive from American taxpayers? (Worldwide, burning up the planet is being subsidized at a rate of $2 trillion).

Speaking of entitlements, don't forget the $3.4 trillion in corporate profits that are allowed to be parked elsewhere. This allowed these companies to avoid paying taxes that maintain the commons which allowed them flourish in the first place. Public policy tilted to make the rich richer, rather than encouraging them to create companies and jobs? Don't forget carried interest for hedge-fund financiers. And it's not just the rich — our entire society is tilted to heavily subsidize sprawl and single-occupancy vehicles traveling on roads that do not pay for themselves in basic ciphering, much less their costs in climate change. Surely these and more are what is meant when we hear of "entitlements," "cutting entitlements" and "entitlement reform."

Phoenix 101: What killed downtown, Part III

Central and Van Buren in 1972.

Part I and Part II of "What Killed Downtown Phoenix" were the most popular posts in the history of Rogue Columnist. So much for the notion that Phoenicians don't care about the center city. Now it's time to bring the story to a conclusion.

By the mid-1970s, downtown was in a freefall, despite the construction of the Phoenix Civic Plaza, Hyatt Regency, new Hotel Adams, new Greyhound bus depot and skyscrapers housing the headquarters of the state's three big banks. Unfortunately, in the process many historic buildings were demolished, including a priceless red sandstone multi-story building at Second Avenue and Washington. Block-long parking garages and assembly of superblocks created long, empty spaces along sidewalks where once there were dozens of shops. Several valuable territorial-era structures were demolished to create the desolate, sunblasted Patriots Square (workers discovered an "underground city" from frontier Phoenix that had housed opium dens and gambling parlors, protected from the heat in an era before air conditioning). These and others lost were precisely the kind of buildings rehabbed in downtown Denver into Larimer Square.

One of the greatest calamities was the demolition of the Fox Theater, the finest movie palace downtown. This happened without a peep of protest. On the land, the city built a "transit center," which was little more than a Maryvale-style ranch house "station" and parking stalls for city buses. The Paramount somehow survived, running Spanish-language films. Another calamity was the Westward Ho, which closed as a hotel and only avoided the wrecking ball by being turned into Section 8 housing. The smaller San Carlos, thankfully, was saved as a historic hotel.

The debt chimera

By Emil Pulsifer, Guest Rogue

I recently shared a table with a stranger.  He was mature, educated, and gets his news from a variety of sources including MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, and others.  We discussed a variety of topics ranging from the need to address climate change, to the development of alternative energy sources and campaign finance reform.  Yet, when it came to budget policy he could do no better than to repeat the common wisdom that in order to address the "$16 trillion debt" a mix of spending cuts and tax increases are necessary, and that tax increases could not target the wealthy exclusively because "even if you confiscated all of the income of the rich it wouldn't be enough to fix the problem."  Medicare would have to bear the brunt of the spending cuts, he said.  These claims are all elements of the meme promoted by "responsible" media organizations, but in many respects they happen to be wrong.

There is certainly room for spending cuts in the current budget, in particular the bloated Defense Department.  In 2011, "national defense" spending totaled 4.7 percent of the U.S. economy. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Clinton era "peace dividends" reached their peak, national defense spending was just 3.0 percent of GDP.  See Table 8.4 of this report.

The Cold War is over: The Soviet Union no longer exists, and China has irrevocably converted to gung-ho capitalism. There is simply no excuse for this level of "defense" spending. In 2011, U.S. GDP was $15 trillion dollars. If national defense spending had been at Clinton era levels as a percentage of GDP, the savings in that year alone would have been 1.7 percent of GDP or roughly $250 billion dollars. Extend this over 10 years and the savings would total $2.5 trillion, or slightly more than the $2.4 trillion total savings touted by Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles in their new debt reduction plan. And because we're talking about defense spending as a percentage of GDP, and GDP is expected to grow, this actually underestimates the dollar savings by about a third. Sure, there is already supposed to be some savings in coming years from the military drawdown in Afghanistan, but Congress may not allow this: Already there is a bipartisan movement afoot to restore the much smaller $43 billion in military sequestration cuts due to take effect this year. 

Phoenix 101: What killed downtown, Part II

Downtown was still busy in the late 1950s, at Third Street and Washington. Even though this was part of the Deuce, note the variety of businesses and pedestrians.

In the previous post, we left downtown Phoenix in 1940 as the vibrant business and commercial center of a small, relatively dense city, surrounded by pleasant neighborhoods, served by streetcars, and dependent on agriculture. World War II brought massive changes to the Salt River Valley. Thousands of troops were trained here. Phoenix was still a frontier town, wide open to gambling and prostitution, and governed by a shady city commission. At one point, base commanders declared the city off limits to troops. This began a reform movement that eventually led to a council-manager form of government and the decades of "businessmen's government" from the Charter movement.

The Battle of Britain and the threat of strategic bombing made a deep impression on American war planners. So in addition to wanting to move plants away from the vulnerable coasts, they also widely dispersed new war industries and Army Air Forces bases around the valley. One example was the Reynolds Aluminum extrusion plant built at 35th Avenue and Van Buren, far from the city center. Dispersal brought the first Motorola facility, but not to the central business district. This set in place a habit of decentralization that continued after the war when city fathers set out to bring new "clean industries" to the city. They failed to land a Glenn Martin Co. guided missile venture for the vacant Goodyear plant in its namesake town. But Goodyear returned in 1950, eventually building airframe components there. Garrett's AiResearch, which also had a plant outside the city during the war, returned after a vigorous Chamber of Commerce effort, to a site near Sky Harbor. No thought appears to have been given to locating the city's new industries near the core.

After the war, America embarked on a massive economic expansion and migration, both benefiting Phoenix. Demand had been pent up from both the Depression and wartime rationing. By 1950, Phoenix entered the list of the 100 most populous cities, at No. 99, with 106,818 in 17 square miles. Many servicemen who had trained here fell in love with the place and moved back as civilians. Air-conditioning became widely available and was installed in every house built in far-flung subdivisions. Downtown was still the state's unrivaled retail and business hub. But by the end of the decade, it had begun a decline that was not unstoppable — but few tried to prevent it or even knew how.

While America slept

I knew a young woman in the early 1980s who was a Trotskyite, or so she said. Even then, at the dawn of the Age of Reagan, a real political spectrum existed in America. The remains of the New Left were there. Both parties had conservatives, centrists and liberals. Compromise and rationality still produced legislation that got the people's business done. The quiet coup of the oligarchy was in its infancy.

Where we stand today? I had finished my regular stint on the local public radio station and heard the NPR program To The Point begin. It was all about the budget deficit and federal debt. And not really about that, but concern over whether President Obama's "charm offensive" to reach out to Republicans would succeed. That the GOP has been captured entirely by extremists was never mentioned, nor that the House members in safe seats would never compromise no matter how much Mr. Obama tried to "meet them halfway," the holy grail of our opinion makers and elites. That the deficit and debt are far from our most pressing issues was never debated. Didn't we just have an election that supposedly settled this matter? And this is the intelligent media.

I can understand most Americans tuning out. The nation is asleep, being date-raped after imbibing a cocktail of plutocratic-engineered ignorance, reactionary dogma, economic hard times, media malpractice and electronic distractions. The "center" is far to the right. "Progressives" are largely trying to conserve the basic social compact from the 20th century, once embraced by the mainstream of both parties. Few of them are seeking real change. The Occupy "movement" — who? Totskyites are all gone, too, but reality is sneaking into our national Arizona Room carrying an ice axe much more potent than the one that did in Leon Davidovich.

Phoenix 101: What killed downtown, Part I

Downtown Phoenix in the 1930s, a view facing south.

When you see downtown Phoenix today, be kind. No other major city suffered the combination of bad luck, poor timing, lack of planning, vision and moneyed stewards, as well as outright civic vandalism. The only thing missing was a race riot, which happened elsewhere in the city during World War II and is not spoken about. First, definitions. Downtown runs from the railroad tracks to Fillmore and between Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue. Any other definition — even though much of the local media are oblivious to this — is ahistorical, inaccurate and, as my sister-in-law would say, just wrong. Twenty-fourth Street and Camelback is not downtown. Central and Clarendon is not downtown.

If one were going to site the center of Phoenix today, one would pick Arcadia, with majestic Camelback Mountain nearby. But that was not the case with the original township in the 1870s. The town was centered in the great, fertile Salt River Valley, soon to be reclaimed by revolutionary waterworks from the Newlands Act and connected by railroads to the nation. It was here that downtown grew and for decades flourished. But Phoenix was small and isolated. It did not grow from 10,000 in 1910 to more than 185,000 in 1930 like Oklahoma City. In 1930, Seattle's population was more than 386,000 and Denver nearly 288,000. Phoenix held 48,118 souls in the same year and was far from any other metropolitan area.

It's a fascinating counterfactual to wonder what might have happened in downtown Phoenix if not for the Great Depression and World War II. The decades before 1940 were the golden age of American city building, including art deco architecture and the City Beautiful movement. One can see it in such buildings as the Luhrs Tower and Luhrs Building, the Professional Building and the Orpheum Lofts (and, north of downtown, in the Portland Parkway). Conventional wisdom holds that the Depression didn't hurt Phoenix much, but this is not true. With deflation and little building happening, it stopped downtown dead. This was continued by the material shortages of World War II. By the time the economy began the long post-war expansion, downtown was facing too many obstacles and didn't have many of the grand bones of the other cities I mentioned.

Because of a rise in spam attacks, I have been forced to make two changes to the comments section: 1) Commenters will have to enter a code to post their work, and 2) Posts will be closed to comments after one month. You can always comment on a previous post in a live post. Or, if the comment has historical value (e.g. Phoenix 101), email it to me and I will try to post it on the relevant column. Sorry to do this, but the trolls have been extra busy lately.

 

Filibuster

Whatever his other "out there" political views, Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster was thrilling. It was thrilling merely as a civics lesson: This is how filibusters were done before the 1980s, where a senator had to take and hold the floor, maybe with the help of other senators, maybe alone. Sometimes it was in the service of an immoral cause, as with Strom Thurmond's epic 24 hour and 18 minute stand against the 1957 Civil Rights Act. Others acted in the interests of republican govenment, as with Bernie Sanders' filibuster opposing extension of the Bush tax cuts. Even if you think Paul's was a stunt, it showed how we should insist that senators actually take the floor and defend their position, rather than telling the Majority Leader they will deny him the 60 votes for cloture and calling it a filibuster.

It was thrilling because, if only for a few hours and largely on social media, it broke out national spell of stupid. President Obama, our constitutional-law professor, has taken as casual an approach to civil liberties as his predecessor, perhaps even more so. Paul wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him about the drone program and whether it could be used by the president, without due process, to kill American citizens on American soil. Instead of a simple "no," Holder, who has refused to extend the rule of law to the big banks, implied that the president indeed held this power. This is an outrage. It is fundamentally unconstitutional. Where the hell were the supposed "liberal Democrats"? It was left to the usually kooky Rand Paul to actually act like an American senator in the best tradition of the office.

Finally, it was interesting in the way it scrambled the usual hard partisan lines and momentarily forced open some minds, revealed character. Paul's support and criticism came from across the spectrum. Chief among his critics were wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III and his cocker spaniel Lindsey Graham. Why do these men have any standing on any topic, especially national security? Both remain unapologetic supporters of the war in Iraq, apparently still believing those "weapons of mass destruction" are still there, somewhere. John McCain is the best the Republican Party has as a senior statesman? It's a sick joke.

Billion-dollar baby

Forbes reports that the number of the world's billionaires has reached a new high (1,426) representing a record $5.4 trillion in net worth. What slow recovery? If I were one of these mammals, here's what I'd do with my money:

The long empty lot on the northwest corner of Central and McDowell, in the heart of the nation's sixth largest city, would become a sculpture garden for the Phoenix Art Museum. The catch: It would have to be lushly graced with shade trees and other plants so it is an oasis in the city. A hundred grand would go to bribe the Willo Soviet, which is opposed to everything. One piece of sculpture would soar over Central as a walkway connecting the sculpture garden to PAM (or perhaps a glass gallery running under Central). The CVS drug store would go away. Working south on Central, on the east side toward the library, I would commission my friend Will Bruder to design two world-class buildings: A Phoenix Contemporary Art Museum and a (real) symphony hall.

So much for that part of Midtown. My big play would be between Thomas and north of Indian School.

Sequester this

Jon Stewart has so degraded the usefulness of profanity with his unending use of partly bleeped F-words that I am forced to fall back on the oaths of my parents' generation: Let the goddamn sequester happen. I am so sick of the crazy fanatics called Republicans and their willingness to inflict great damage on the country, really do anything, only to hurt a man they see as an illegitimate president, a man who represents everything they loathe: Intellectual, cosmopolitan, urban, open-minded, tolerant, black and doesn't know his place. I am as sick of the president, who is squandering his mandate, doesn't know how to use it. He continues the Bush assault on our civil liberties, extends the drone war, won't tell the American people the truth and won't bring the banksters to justice. He named one to be Treasury Secretary. And is Chuck Hagel the only Republican he can find to be Defense Secretary? Let the goddamn sequester happen.

Speaking of the Defense Department, why don't we call it by its historic name: The War Department (and, yes, dear careful reader, I know there was also a Department of the Navy and where would the Air Force fit...hang with me)? This would at least be straightforward about its purpose, using serious language that might give us pause. Aside from the damage of the Great Recession, one reason we face the dreaded deficit and debt is two unfunded wars. Mr. Obama is prosecuting imperial ass-whippings around the globe even now, creating more new terrorists than we kill. We are "pivoting" to the Pacific, to pick a fight with our Chinese banker. We spend more on war than the next 13 powers combined. The F-35 fighter will cost at least $396 billion — that alone would expand our passenger rail system by 300 times — and the thing is still not airworthy. Our new $13.5-billion-a-pop Gerald R. Ford class carriers will be target practice for some Chinese kid guiding a missile. We have too many flag officers and too many mooching, corrupt contractors. Even if not a single blade of grass on an officers' golf course goes untended, let the goddamn sequester happen.

Let the sequester happen and keep it going. Ever since Ronald Reagan ran for the presidency, politicians have gotten ahead by claiming "government is the problem." And voters accept this as they accept their Social Security checks, Medicare benefits, safe food and drugs, freeways and roads to drive on, in vehicles powered by gasoline kept artificially cheap by federal subsidies, armies and fleets, live in a Sun Belt made habitable by federal initiatives from the TVA to the SRP, survive airplane flights thanks to government air traffic control...and they think government is the problem. A people this stupid and corrupt deserves the real-life experiment of seeing whether they really are rugged individualists who don't need no gub'ment. Bring it on. I especially look forward to letting the net-taker red states actually live the Ayn Rand fantasy they rave about. I can imagine how LBJ, whatever the statues say, would ensure that all the military cuts befell states that voted against him and especially the districts of members of Congress who defied him.

Arizona bio: part II

A rendering of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, set to break ground on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

A decade after Arizona, and especially Phoenix, embarked on an effort to build a biosciences cluster, this is how things stand. According to a report from the Battelle Institute, "Arizona’s bioscience industry continues to grow at a rapid rate. Industry firms have increased employment by 30 percent overall since 2001 and have even added jobs since 2007, a period which includes the deep national recession."

That said, total Arizona bioscience employment in 2010 was 21,084 vs. 62,386 in North Carolina. The state is a pygmy in research dollars and has birthed no significant bio company. Phoenix is nowhere near being one of the nation's top biotech/biosciences centers. [Updated] A 2012 Jones Lang LaSalle report ranks Boston, San Diego, the Bay Area, Raleigh-Durham, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles and Seattle the top "established" clusters in the Americas. The "emerging" clusters are Westchester/New Haven, Conn., Chicago, Denver, Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Dallas, southern Wisconsin, Florida,  Indianapolis, southern Michigan and Atlanta. The top players are not much changed, aside from relative ranking, from a much-discussed 2004 assessment by the Milken Institute, with one exception. Minneapolis has moved into the "established" ranks. Most of the up-and-comers are new. Arizona and Phoenix are not mentioned.

A glimpse of the competition can be found by the jaw-dropping build-out of the University of California-San Francisco's Mission Bay campus, which is dedicated to bio and went from nothing to a major contender over the same decade. And this was achieved despite California's state budget crisis. It represents one path the Phoenix Biomedical Campus could have taken but didn't. Another is Houston's amazing Texas Medical Center. This is where I center my recollections of the bio effort and what succeeded and failed.

Enough to make you sick

I had grand plans for my recent visit but spent most of my time sicker than I've been in years. Little time was left to catch up, but some observations:

The fabric of the old city continues to be torn away. The block of buildings on the southeast corner of Seventh Street and Roosevelt has been leveled with, of course, nothing to replace it. The last I recall, one building was a llantera (tire) outlet with American and Mexican flags painted on the outer wall. Now only the concrete foundation is left. A little farther south is a 1920s-era gas station, but would even this be preserved?

The demolished structures, which dated from the same era, were part of an actual city commercial streetscape that extended contiguously along Seventh Street. One saw the same on Seventh Avenue, Grand Avenue and Van Buren Street. It's almost all gone now, replaced by dreary new suburban boxes, each surrounded by Holy Surface Parking Lots. Or replaced by blighted empty lots. It is, as Jim Kunstler would say, not a landscape worth caring about and obviously nobody with money and power cared for generations. But the loss of variety, density and urban fabric on these approaches to downtown, along with the absurd widening of these streets, is a piece of astonishing civic malpractice. What a lost opportunity.

In our name

Do you ever wonder about the acts committed in our name and the blowback that will be inevitable? After all, Osama bin Laden didn't spring fully formed as a madman from the head of Jove, nor did the terrorist organizations that continue his work. While their roots are complex, one big cause is that America has spent decades meddling around the world in conflicts it ill understands and whose consequences we rarely think through. Bin Laden was one of "our S.O.B.s" in Afghanistan when we were trying to bleed the Soviets. So were Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Hosni Mubarak, Noriega of Panama and the House of Saud, the latter's extreme Islam helping radicalize the Middle East. What did we want? "Stability." Cheap oil. Anything Israel wants. No matter the long-term dangers or injustices inflicted on millions. When 9/11 happened, we were shocked, shocked. Aren't we always a force for good?

One feels compelled to quote John Quincy Adams at length about what America's role should be in the world: "Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own...She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet on her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind."

Now our march is the worldwide drone war of Mr. Obama. We kill whom we want, where we want, without due process, in violation of international law. Maybe we get a terrorist. We certainly kill women and children, too. Just another day as global hegemon. We could be leading the global effort to stop the worst of climate change. Instead, we're just bumbling imperialists. Someday this will come back on us.

The big merger

Here's Arizona's "positive business climate" at work: The combined American Airlines/US Airways will move its headquarters to Dallas-Fort Worth. That pretty much says it all.

Much is wrong with this deal. It continues the extreme consolidation of the airline industry into four giant carriers, limiting customer choice, reducing competition and damaging local economies. Where do you think the $1 billion in promised "savings" will come from? Largely from cutting jobs and eliminating operations. Anyone who thinks the combined carrier will maintain its existing hub at Sky Harbor, so close to DFW, has spent too much time in the sun. When Northwest merged with Delta, the modern and efficient Delta hub at Cincinnati was closed, resulting in thousands of lost jobs. American's takeover of TWA did the same in St. Louis. In these and numerous other cases, the airlines had leaned on local governments to build airport capacity, only to be thrown away to make the latest numbers work for another merger. These mergers almost never deliver as promised, even long-term for shareholders. For cities and workers, they are a cancer. Good full-time jobs have been killed and not replaced. Airline industry employment today is lower than in 1995 even though passenger revenue miles have soared.

The US Airways that Doug Parker has spent years trying to sell traces its roots to Ed Beauvais' post-deregulation startup America West Airlines. It was very much Phoenix's airline, closely tied to growth at Sky Harbor. And through upturns, downturns and bankruptcy reorganizations, America West persevered even as Parker took over as CEO and used it as a vehicle to buy long-suffering US Airways. Even then, the headquarters remained here.

Open thread

Regular posts will resume as soon as possible.

McCain of Arizona

The last time I saw John McCain in Phoenix he was stalking out of Arizona Center into the surface parking lot that used to stand behind the Arizona Republic building and I was on my way to see a movie at the AMC cinemas. He nodded. I said, "Senator." He stalked on. A good fifty feet behind were Cindy and a couple of his children. It was so shocking to see McCain in Arizona, much less downtown, that it made me momentarily take stock. Then I realized he was not supporting the central city — his local office, after all, is near 24th Street and Camelback. This was one of the few places where he could see a movie and not be bothered by constituents.

Wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III has been on my mind after his vicious attacks on his former colleague, Chuck Hagel,  during the latter's confirmation hearing to be Secretary of Defense. Juan Cole wrote the hearing "was painful to watch because it displayed the tomfoolery, pretense, self-righteous know-nothingism, and embarrassing lack of contact with reality that dominate the landscape of America’s broken democracy. It was like watching a Nebraska ordinary Joe set upon by circus freaks– a phalanx of moral midgets, stalking cat-men, vicious lobster boys and ethical werewolves." Foremost among them was McCain.

Much was written about how the two had been friends and were fellow Vietnam vets. In reality, I doubt McCain has any friends in the Senate, including his fawning pet Lindsey Graham. And Hagel was a mere ground-pounder, an Army sergeant. McCain was an admiral's son, an elite Naval Aviator.

Role models

I didn't start this. An article in the Phoenix Business Journal is headlined, "Why Phoenix should be looking up to Seattle, not Austin." Behind it is the legitimate concern, written about here often, how the city is not attracting anywhere near its share of young, educated and high-skilled talent. In addition, as the article states, "The Texas capital beat out the Valley for a $300 million Apple Inc. campus last year, and General Motors is also placing a new technology center there." Naturally, it contains the obligatory, "Arizona has plenty of positive attributes in its corner: cost of living, proximity to California, business costs and nice winters."

Here are a few reasons why Phoenix can't be Seattle: No major headquarters of global corporations and non-profits; no world-class clusters in aviation and software; no civic stewards who invest heavily in the city, nurture its cultural assets and lead its continuous reinvention; no 24/7 downtown with hundreds of stores, restaurants, Pike Place Market, flagship Nordstrom, etc., and little critical mass in a dense, lively, cool center city. No diversified economy or University of Washington. No reputation for tolerance, progressive politics and long history of attracting world talent, whether for airplanes, software, biotech, world health or game development. We've covered some of this before.

Austin is sprawly, hot and has poor transit. Alas, here are a few reasons why Phoenix can't be Austin: It's not the capital of a state that puts attracting business, good jobs and huge amounts of federal money ahead of crazy ideology and revels in its power. No University of Texas. No world-famous music scene in a relatively dense quarter of downtown and tolerant "Keep Austin Weird" liberalism in the middle of a red state. No oil money. No history of largesse from LBJ (would President McCain have done anything for Phoenix? No.). No first-rate technology cluster, built up over many years, attracting top talent to the headquarters, R&D centers and labs of scores of well-known corporations.

Immigration dreamland

A cabal that includes Sens. McCain and Flake, nominally of Arizona, has proposed "sweeping bipartisan immigration reform" in the Senate. The move for Republicans is as obvious as it is cynical: After President Obama carried 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, party bosses suddenly want to make nice with brown people.

This is an easy pivot for wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III, who in political life has rarely let anything get in the way of his ambition. The aptly named Flake will do as told. But what about all the Anglos from the Midwest and true-red Kooks who actually believed all the heads-cut-off, reconquista Mexi-peril hysteria that has been firehosed across the Arizona public square for years? Tuning in on AzCentral, I read such comments as, "Pretty bad when our own government rewards people for breaking the law"; "Great, another amnesty for criminals"; "I'm really against them braking (sic) the laws of our country -then being rewarded"; "I fought for this great country and I am dismayed that the liberals are trying to run it into the ground with political correctness"; "if they can't work hear (sic) or get welfare they won't come here"; "Round up the people using said documents and deport them."

Actually, the comments are way tamer than I expected, but the site is more difficult for trolls to take over than it once was. You get the point. "WHAT PART OF ILLEGAL DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?!?!?!"

Arizona's children

For years, the state's Child Protective Services has been an easy whipping post for the media. It's gub'ment, after all, which every right-thinking person should oppose, and gub'ment "never does anything right." It's safer to go after CPS than, say, the environmental depredations and political influence/corruption of the Real Estate Industrial Complex. CPS = bad is such a backbeat that one is tempted to not even pay attention.

Still, I saw a story on the agency's most recent report — more reports of child abuse and neglect than ever, but an increase after three years in foster homes — and became curious. The first thing to seem odd is that the Kooks have buried CPS in the Department of Economic Security. Yeah, the unemployment agency. Washington state's child-welfare agency is part of a cabinet-level Department of Social and Health Services. In Colorado, it's in the Department of Human Services. But I suppose this is the "streamlining" of government by the Kooks. Yet the obvious implication is that child welfare is not that important; the agency head is conveniently removed from the governor — unless something goes wrong.

CPS has been more than buried. It has endured years of budget cuts even as population grew and, after the housing depression, the need for social services to working-poor families increased. Some $300 million was cut from these programs over four years by a Legislature not just facing revenue shortfalls, but ideologically opposed to government assistance to the needy. Not surprisingly, children needing foster care rose dramatically. Huge new cuts were being readied last month.

Hidden dragon

Part of the Shanghai skyline.

By Emil Pulsifer, Guest Rogue

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Before China became the leading developing nation, there were the Asian Tigers: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. In the late 1990s a financial crisis gripped Southeast Asia that threatened to spread into a global financial meltdown.

In many significant respects, the parallels with China are eerily disturbing. While it is true that there are important, fundamental differences which preclude an exact replay, there have been other developments since that time, such as growth in the derivatives market and the securitization of debt which have the potential to spread financial contagion. Leverage is a fearsome thing, and risk predictions are notoriously unreliable and often consider only the initial stages: we have only to look at the recent example of the Great Recession, in which a small but very sick portion of the U.S. housing market spread to the national housing market and thence, via securitized and bundled loans, to the global financial system.

Dreams and nightmares

A reader writes, "I'd like your take on the enduring value of MLK's contributions because I don't think they're fully understood or appreciated. Falling on inauguration day is (to me) poetic."

Yes, the second inauguration of our first African-American president is falling on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Most Americans, even black Americans, know little of King or the civil rights era. A better understanding can be gained by reading all three volumes of Taylor Branch's magisterial examination of America in the King years. And reading King's collected speeches and writings. Otherwise, this holiday remains a proxy for feel-good idiocy based on a few lines of the "dream speech," a magnificent piece of rhetoric but one that barely grazes the surface of the man and his message.

King was not alone in killing Jim Crow and achieving basic rights for all Americans in the 1960s. Students and sharecroppers seeking to register blacks or integrate buses and lunch counters were bludgeoned and sometimes killed by racist Southern cops and white mobs. Among the survivors is Rep. John Lewis, who was a young organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and one of the Freedom Riders. Every American should know the names of such giants as Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Fred Shuttlesworth, A. Phillip Randolph, Ralph Abernathy and Whitney Young. The little girls who died in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing. Lyndon Johnson, willing to lose the South to the Democratic Party (for a generation, he thought) in order to push through civil-rights legislation. All of these and more are the shoulders on which President Obama stands. But King, probably rightly, looms largest in the collective memory. Or at least a version of King.

Phoenix 101: City at night

Helsing's Restaurant, designed by architect John Sing Tang, at Central and Osborn.

The other night an Arizona Republic reporter tweeted desperately for a 24-hour coffee shop in downtown Phoenix. He was out of luck (somebody suggested a donut shop around 24th Street and Thomas, a common lack of understanding about where downtown Phoenix is located). This was not always the case. One (left) was located at Central and Van Buren, near the Trailways and Greyhound bus depots, with a lighted billboard on the roof. It survived until around 1970, when it was torn down for Valley Center, now the Chase Tower. Another, open at least into the wee hours and serving cocktails, too, was across the street on the northeast corner (Chambola's?) — after it was torn down in the '70s, the lot was vacant for decades. Yet another favorite was the Busy Bee on Washington Street, one of the many Greek-owned establishments, which (I believe) lasted until being bulldozed for Patriot's Square. These were not hipster hangouts with free wifi, but the old-fashioned coffee-shops-as-restaurants.

Beyond downtown, a number of late-night and 24-hour establishments were hopping well into the late 1970s. These included two Helsing's on Central, Shaefer's on McDowell at either Third or Seventh Streets and Denny's at Van Buren and Seventh Avenue. They were life-savers when I worked on the ambulance and we might not get dinner until three a.m. Bob's Big Boy anchored the corner of Central and Thomas and was the magnet for participants of weekend cruising on Central. Other popular chains were Hobo Joe's (with the hoho statue out front), Googies and Sambo's (a Sambo's building on McDowell across from the Phoenix Art Museum still stands, most recently a Thai restaurant). Helsing's and some of the others were works of art, but none still stand, unlike a few of their preserved sisters in Los Angeles.

Old Phoenix was not an all-night town. Which is not to say it wasn't a late-night town.

How far will they go?

Humans are cooking the planet into a nightmare out of a science-fiction movie. Nearly four years after the end of the Great Recession, America faces a permanent unemployment crisis, declining middle class, backward infrastructure and the prospect of years of anemic growth. The rich are more powerful than ever, with a historic share of national wealth; the same is true for the multinational corporations — but the wealth is not trickling down. Amidst these self-inflicted troubles, the Republican-controlled House is refusing to pay bills it has already approved. This is the essence of the debt-ceiling standoff. The House appears willing to flirt with, or even bring on default to get its way.

That way would be major steps to repeal the New Deal, Great Society and the domestic programs of the "Commie Dick" Nixon administration. Especially in their NRA-approved gun sights are Social Security and Medicare.

Such is the hostage-taking before which President Obama always bends. This time he claims he won't...blah, blah, blah. But a powerful block of Congress even discussing default is serious; this political dysfunction helped bring on the credit downgrades in 2011. Enjoy this relative stock rally while you've got it. As the debt-ceiling date draws closer, in February, markets will be turbulent. An actual default, which by its very nature would be disorderly, means worldwide chaos and potential depression. It would take the world's leading economy, and a government whose currency and Treasury bonds are the safest in the world, and flush it down the toilet.

DEAR READERS: I'm afraid the week has gotten away from me. Apologies. I will get back to two posts next week. In the meantime, browse the archives.

 

Arizona bio, part I

Someone important asked me to write about the biosciences in Phoenix and Arizona as the effort marks its tenth anniversary. This is fitting because I vividly remember the day I was called to the office of then Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza where he laid out the opportunity that the city had to lure star researcher Jeff Trent and the International Genomics Consortium. As a columnist for the Arizona Republic, I wrote dozens of articles to explain and advocate for this unique chance to leapfrog out of an economy that had become dangerously dependent on housing and population growth, and was falling behind on almost every measure of economic and social well-being. One column was an open letter to Dr. Trent — both of us are natives and this was from the heart — that he later told me played a big role in his decision to come home and establish T-Gen.

With Mary Jo Waits, then of the Morrison Institute, I worked to develop a "meds and eds" strategy to leverage biosciences and education; government, non-profits and eventually for-profit organizations, to create a major bio hub. As Waits repeatedly said, what if we could lay claim to the cure for cancer being discovered in downtown Phoenix? I mention my role for the sake of those who constantly yowl that I "hate Arizona," do nothing constructive, am a "quitter" or some guy in Seattle who spends his time picking on Phoenix.

The Flinn Foundation led the development of a strong strategic roadmap, as well as providing $50 million in funding. Gov. Janet Napolitano was supportive and the Legislature was dragged aboard a statewide push including leaders in Tucson and Flagstaff, as well as the Gila River Indian Community. At City Hall, Deputy City Manager Sheryl Sculley marshaled the bureaucracy to assemble land for the venture on the old Phoenix Union High School campus and oversee its redeployment. More land north was available for expansion; it had been set aside for the abortive attempt to win the NFL stadium that instead went to a cotton field west of Glendale. New ASU President Michael Crow instantly grasped the potential and soon the U of A was planning a medical school on the site. When ground was broken for the T-Gen building, even then Rep. J.D. Hayworth, hater of all things gub'ment, showed up to bask in what appeared to be a moment of history on par with the CAP. Hard as it is to believe now, it was a time of breathtaking hope.

The new center

Have you taken the Pew Research Center's "political typology" quiz? It's fascinating and frightening.

Among the twenty questions, I answered in the affirmative such ones as "Government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public interest"; "The growing number of newcomers from other countries strengthens American society"; "Relying too much on military force to defeat terrorism creates hatred that leads to more terrorism," and "Hard work and determination are no guarantee of success for most people."

In answering yes to questions about too much power being concentrated in in the hands of a few large companies and corporations making too much profit, I am simply responding to well-known facts about consolidation, concentration and record profits as a percent of GDP while per-capita GDP remains below pre-crash levels. How else should one respond? A few of the questions are too simplistic, forcing answers about highly complex issues. Faced with one, I picked a strong military as the best way to ensure peace. Religion is a very important part of my life; I said so.

My results: I'm a "solid liberal" — along with 14 percent of the public.

World-class city

Sackcloth was donned and teeth were gnashed on Facebook with the news that Taz Loomans was decamping from Phoenix for Portland. Loomans described herself as "an architect, a writer and an advocate for sustainable building practices and community-oriented design in Phoenix. I love living in Central Phoenix and taking part in the coming of age of this city." She was one of the people who gave hope to the Resistance. Now, however, she writes:

During this emotionally turbulent year, I have had the privilege to travel quite a bit. In fact, as I write this, I am in the Bay Area on a new years trip. I visited some world class cities this year such as Barcelona, Chicago, Portland New York and now San Francisco.

These trips have also changed me and the way I look at the world. Whereas before I was happy to help build Phoenix into a world-class city, I now want to find out what it feels like to live in a world-class city. Before, I wanted to help bring bike lanes, urban gardens, community and walkability to Phoenix. Now I want to live a life where those things are a part of the culture and are woven into the fabric of the city. In my travels, particularly this year, I’ve found that there are quite a few places in the country, and no doubt in the world, where this is true.

I’m moving not so much because I’ve lost faith in Phoenix, but rather because different things are important to me as I go through a personal evolution...But it’s still a tough place to build on previous progress and get to the next level. The city’s penchant to tear down old buildings and build new ones in their place is a perfect metaphor to how Phoenix always seems to be starting from scratch (apropos, perhaps, because of it’s name), and just can’t seem to build enough sustained momentum to become a world class city.

Your Front Page Editor

Book it: 2012 hottest on record

From the respected site Climate Central:

Global warming is directly linked to only a few weather events and climate trends. One of them, however, is warming itself, which could make 2012 a watershed climate change year in the U.S. More than superstorms, wildfires, and devastating drought, this year’s record-smashing spring and summer heat waves, with their melted airport runways and warped steel rail lines, are more evidence that climate change is real.

Download the full report here, and read the Rogue Columnist Climate Page here.

Happy New Year.

The continuing crisis

I have been hesitant to write about the so-called fiscal cliff for many reasons. It's an over-covered topic, leaving readers in a zombie trance, even if most of the stories shed little real light. I subscribe to the Abba Eban doctrine: "When all else fails, men turn to reason." And the less elegant: Surely, they couldn't be this stupid. But it looks as if one of two things will happen: Either we're going off the cliff/curb/ramp, or President Obama will sell out the middle class safety net to get a deal.

The Bush tax cuts on the rich need to expire. In that word, "expire," we have the answer. They were sold with an expiration date, once already extended. The cuts did not perform as advertised. The Bush years, even at their best, produced the worst job creation and growth in modern American history. Inequality grew as the rich, following the rentier model, used their money to gamble in the $600 trillion derivatives market and other casinos, rather than investing in productive, job creating enterprises. Frankly, taxes elsewhere need to go up. Americans are the least-taxed among advanced nations. And we need carbon taxes and taxes on transactions, i.e. gambling by the Wall Street Boyz.

The sequester part of the cliff/curb/ramp is an artificial creation that grew out of the 2011 budget standoff, to put a gun to negotiators to reach a debt/deficit reduction deal. It could be repealed by Congress in a day. But it won't, so serious, "automatic" reductions will start on January 1. The Congressional Budget Office has warned this will cause a recession

The Sprawl Needle

Once again, it's left to homey to sun on the parade. People will once again conclude that I "hate Arizona."

Novawest, a "boutique real estate developer," has rolled out, let's call it an aspiration, to build a 420-foot-tall observation tower in downtown Phoenix. It is being likened to the Space Needle in Seattle, which marked its 50th anniversary in 2012. More about that in a moment. The developer has no financing. It has completed no project in Arizona. "But Novawest leaders are optimistic." The renderings — and I understand this is to be an open-air affair? — looked really hot, and I don't mean sexy. If every rendering proposed for downtown and the Central Corridor had been built, central Phoenix would resemble a five-mile slice of Manhattan. But let's give Novawest the benefit of a dreamer's doubt and get down to cases. [Jim Kunstler does, after his fashion, naming it the January Eyesore of the Month].

First, the Phoenix skyline is abysmally dull aside from the Viad Tower. But the combined power of the People's Republic of Sky Harbor and lack of capital, headquarters and civic leaders with means has thwarted anything better. Want some visionary skyscrapers? Go see my friend Will Bruder, architect of the central library. He's got some designs that would vault Phoenix's skyline to world prominence. But, again: Capital, headquarters, civic leaders with means. Without that combination, great civic acts are difficult. For example, Viad was built by the old Dial Corp. as a signature world headquarters and a gift to its city. Dial is gone as an independent headquarters, just another office in Scottsdale.

Republicans in retreat?

Since the election, the meme has been that a defeated Republican Party must change or face becoming a permanent minority, a regional party in a changed America. But that's not how it looks in real life. The most substantive legislative victory since November has been the passage of legislation making Michigan a "right to work" state, a staggering Republican victory in a state where the modern labor movement was born.

Meanwhile, the "fiscal cliff" negotiations go on without end, with President Obama almost pleading that he has gone "at least halfway" to give House Republicans "a fair deal." That doesn't sound like the victorious leader of a party of the future. If the election was about anything substantive, it repudiated efforts to roll back Social Security and Medicare, endorsed "nation building at home" and affirmed that taxes on the rich must go up. Why should Mr. Obama go anywhere near halfway, for in doing so he once again betrays the values of those who elected him.

The Republican position on maintaining the Military-Industrial Complex at all costs perseveres unless we are fortunate enough to go off the fiscal cliff. Meanwhile, the president left Susan Rice twisting in the wind amid the despicable character assassination by wealthy Republican Sen. John Sidney McCain III, R-Fox News. McCain, who lost the 2008 presidential election badly, will apparently determine who serves in Mr. Obama's cabinet.

Empire of violence

The eqrsessential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. — D.H. Lawrence

I was raised in Western gun culture. From an early age, I was taught gun safety, including an NRA safe hunter course in the eighth grade at Kenilworth School. My friends and I would go target shooting in such places as the then-empty desert around Pinnacle Peak. My scoutmaster showed me how to fire my first semi-automatic rifle. As important as the shooting was always checking to make sure a gun was unloaded, knowing that if you dropped the magazine (not a "clip," unless it was an M-1 Garand rifle), a round might still be in the chamber. Where was the barrel pointing? How to cross a fence safely. How to carry a shotgun (breach open).

"Don't point a gun at someone unless you intend to shoot them," my mother said. In addition to being a concert pianist, she was an expert shot and would not have hesitated had we been at risk. She did not like handguns. To her mind, a handgun could be too accessible while one was still angry. Through all this ran a thread of deep seriousness: A firearm was deadly, must be treated with respect and care, and its watchful possession was a sign of adult maturity. Needless to say, this culture existed in a West with many fewer people than live there today. Still, I own guns. I like them. If I had the money, I would buy more. I'm not a hunter like my uncle and grandfather. But I do like target shooting.

In the 1960s, liberal sociologists explained rising crime as the outgrowth of "the sick society." Then it included racism and lack of economic opportunity for minorities and many lower-class Americans. But that society was healthy compared with today's. These endless cavalcades of mass shootings — taking place while overall violent crime is falling — are telling us something important. I don't claim to know all the answers, but I have some suspicions.

Phoenix rail: Next steps

Newer readers to this blog might wonder why the parenthetical "WBIYB" is always inserted after the first reference to Phoenix light rail. It stands for: We Built It, You Bastards. A reminder of the hysterical, ignorant and too often thuggish opposition to a transportation technology that had proved successful around the country. I received death threats and demands that I be fired for columnizing in favor of light rail at the Arizona Republic. Well, you bastards, we built it and it is a big success, aside from the distortions that suppress transit-oriented development. Such a big success that Mesa (!) is building the line deeper into the city — and you can thank former Mayor Keno Hawker for having the foresight to persuade his colleagues to help fund one mile into the city; otherwise, Mesa would have been cut off from a system it now embraces.

It's a tough slog. The Legislature and governor are hostile to anything but freeways. The great crash slowed funding from Prop. 400 to a trickle, and even then most of it was going to build transportation infrastructure appropriate to the 1960s rather than today, including the misbegotten Loop 303 and South Mountain Freeway. While these will enrich a few connected developers, they are engines of sprawl, congestion, pollution and expansion of the heat island. Most Phoenicians can't imagine a lifestyle that doesn't revolve around long single-occupancy car trips.

Even so, the 20-mile starter line is expanding not only into downtown Mesa but also toward Metrocenter mall. An ambitious new line is being prepared to run west from downtown to a park-and-ride at 79th Avenue and Interstate 10. The West Line/Capitol Line is widely misunderstood in the media, but it would be an important step to creating a much more robust light-rail system.

Holiday books

I spend all day in front of a computer screen. The last thing I want to do for pleasure is read on a Kindle or Nook. Joe Queenan nicely encapsulates the love of books in a Wall Street Journal article: "No matter what they may tell themselves, book lovers do not read primarily to obtain information or to while away the time. They read to escape to a more exciting, more rewarding world. A world where they do not hate their jobs, their spouses, their governments, their lives. A world where women do not constantly say things like 'Have a good one!' and 'Sounds like a plan!' A world where men do not wear belted shorts..." But however you enjoy reading, here's a relatively short list of books to buy for friends or ask Santa for.

One fad in historiography is that the Red Army primarily won World War II. Rick Atkinson is having none of it in his majestic Liberation Trilogy about the U.S. Army in Europe. An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle are the two completed works and they are the finest military history I've read in recent years. This is the way history should be written, the way that has been beaten our of three generations of professional historians. To give the Red Army its due, check out Thunder in the East by Evan Mawdsley and Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale. A terrific read about World War II in the Pacific is Evan Thomas' Sea of Thunder, about the greatest naval battle in history.

We're coming up on the centennial of the conflict that changed everything, World War I. The must-read here is Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory. Fussell, a World War II American combat infantryman, focuses on the British troops in the trenches of the Western Front and the things they carried, especially the literary influences that reached into the lowest ranks. This is one book every educated person should read: Deeply learned, highly moving, surprising and written with the attitude, as Fussell said, of "a pissed-off infantryman." Two others are both seminal and thrilling: Dreadnought and Castles of Steel by Robert Massie, about the battleship arms race and war.

Phoenix 101: The sixties

Downtown in the mid-1960s, with the new Municipal Building, forefront, and the iconic rotating Valley National Bank sign in the upper right.

Decades are arbitrary things. One could make the case that "the sixties" in Phoenix ran from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. In any case, it was a most consequential time, arguably the decade when Phoenix set the pattern for what it would become, for better and for worse. In the 1960 Census, Phoenix's population was 439,170, making it the 29th largest city in America and 187 square miles within the city limits. This was a startling jump from ten years before, ranked 99th with 106,818 people within 17.1 square miles. Phoenix had quickly become a big city, but unlike most others: single-story, spread out, car-dependent and populated by few natives. It had decisively surpassed El Paso as the dominant city of the Southwest. Yet, as it remains today, its power was like that of a small town.

Nineteen-sixty saw the unveiling of the Wilbur Smith & Associates freeway plan. Although its closest big-city neighbor was Los Angeles, Phoenix had only one baby freeway, Black Canyon. Over the decade, this would curve into the Maricopa Freeway but otherwise the Smith plan was mired in controversy. Phoenicians didn't want to become another LA. The Valley Beautiful Citizens Council worried that freeways would destroy an already ailing downtown. A hundred-foot high Papago Freeway with "helicoils" provoked more opposition. In the end, almost all of the 1960 plan was adopted. But surface streets carried most traffic during this era.

Downtown retail was slowly dying, as was the dense corridor on McDowell between 12th Street and 18th Street called "the Miracle Mile." This included the lush, stately Good Samaritan Hospital campus, replaced 20 years later by the brutal spaceship building that remains today. Malls were flourishing, including Park Central, Tower Plaza, Thomas Mall and Chris-Town, named after farmer Chris Harri. Many of the downtown merchant princes were dead or ailing. Others, notably Goldwater's, moved to the malls.

Permanent war

When Osama bin Laden launched the 9/11 attacks, he hoped to provoke an American overreaction that would bleed us to death with unending, futile military adventures and alienate the Muslim world from the thrashing giant. He dreamed of bringing out our worst.

Mission accomplished.

One of the fascinating aspects of the so-called fiscal cliff "negotiations" — as well as the presidential campaign — is the hysteria surrounding reduced or even stable military spending. We have become such a garrison state, and an economy so dependent on war, that we can't even imagine another reality. Or at least our elites and a large number in the media can't.

Thinking about water

The Central Arizona Project canal snakes through the desert.

The Arizona Republic's Shaun McKinnon did a fine job of using the breach in the CAP canal to provide a primer on the system and some of its challenges (here, here and here). This blog has written extensively on water and Arizona, but while a few people are paying attention, let me make a few essential points:

• The Colorado River is over-subscribed. There are, as the water geeks say, too many straws sucking from the river. When the Colorado River Compact was first sealed in 1922 (with Arizona disputing the allotments, chiefly because it believed it was due more because the Gila and its in-state tributaries flow into the Colorado), the Southwest was largely unpopulated and even Los Angeles' population in the most recent Census was less than 600,000. The river was to be "tamed" for reclamation. Nobody ever imagined Las Vegas, a tiny stop on the Union Pacific Railroad, would become a major metropolis. Critically, the river levels used to make the allotments were around 500-year highs. Now there's simply not enough water to go around. The Upper Basin states, especially the state of Colorado, always felt defrauded by the deal and the subsequent settlement of Arizona v. California. They will be much more jealous of their water resources now. Mexico was shortchanged, as well, with catastrophic destruction of the Colorado delta resulting.

• Climate change will transform all assumptions about water in the Southwest, especially its effect on snowmelt, both in the Rockies feeding the Colorado River, and the Arizona mountains whose snow charges the lakes of the Salt River Project. There will be less water and higher temperatures. We have no historical roadmap for what this will mean, especially because, as Ed Abbey would say, one has established a city where no city should be.

Open thread

I'm working on revisions to the manuscript of the new David Mapstone Mystery, The Night Detectives. So I leave things in your capable hands.

 

Reader feedback, please

I'm having lunch today with Rogue's honorary Page One Editor, so it seems timely to ask what you appreciate on this humble blog, both post topics and the aggregation pages. You can make multiple choices. Feel free to add comments on things the poll questions don't cover.

Parking lot city

"We like our parking lots!" lawyer and Real Estate Industrial Complex apologist Grady Gammage said a few years ago when the two of us were speaking at an event on the future of Phoenix. And how. I've read that some 43 percent of the city of Phoenix alone is empty land. It would be interesting to know how much of the city is surface parking lots.

I remember when Kenilworth School was surrounded by grass and majestic palm trees. It lost part of that to the monstrous Papago Freeway. More was taken away by parking lots. The consequences are even more telling at North High School. At one time, North boasted a beautiful campus with shade and trees — it was the probably the most attractive campus in the state. By the time I got back in 2000, most of it had been paved over. Similarly, the old city-county building, where my fictional detective David Mapstone has his office, was once an oasis of shade trees and grass. Those were ripped out for "authentic" dirt and palo verdes, and recently the parking lot on the south end of the 1929 building was...expanded.

More than aesthetics are involved. Surface parking lots are a big cause of local warming, which has increased nighttime temperatures some 10 degrees in my lifetime, causing the summers to be hotter and last longer, and turning normal monsoon storms into violent affairs when they collide with the heat being released by all these square miles of asphalt and concrete. The lots destroy the fabric of the city and make walkability and convenience much more problematic. Many sit atop former farmland, which will really matter in a future of food shortages. Take a drive, ride light rail (WBIYB) or pull up Google Earth and look at all the parking lots in Phoenix. Interestingly, most of them are largely empty most of the time.

Arizona merry-go-round

I was supposed to be on KJZZ's Here and Now with Steve Goldstein on Wednesday but we were pre-empted by POTUS. So let me run through a few Arizona observations:

As of Wednesday, the state was still counting ballots. If this were happening in a banana republic, it would be one thing...but in a supposedly advanced nation? This affront to democracy is not mere incompetence but a huge opportunity for mischief — not the virtually nonexistent vote fraud the GOP claims, but official vote suppression and disenfranchisement of "those people." Once upon a time, the Secretary of State's office was a sleepy but efficient place, presided over forever by Wes Bolin and his assistant, Rose Mofford. It has become increasingly politicized, especially in 2004 when Jan Brewer was both Secretary of State, overseeing the election, and head of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign. Ken Bennett is no less an ambitious political animal. This is a scandal crying for investigative reporting and reform. Also, how could you re-elect Joe Arpaio? No wonder Gov. Fright Mask is musing on another term.

• • •

For the first time, Arizona has no Democratic statewide officeholder. This is a profound change from what had been a majority Democrat state when I was little to a competitive state for both parties for many years. One-party rule is never healthy, but it is particularly bad when the One Party denies facts and reality. The Big Sort is at work — even progressives who read this blog talk about their plans to leave. So is the outsized organization and leverage of the LDS with no counterweights in the Latino community or elsewhere (Arizona once was a big union state, yes). The Sinema congressional win is fine, but her campaign was hardly progressive. Unless widespread Hispanic voter suppression took place and Carmona stages a win, this election confirms the worst. Arizona is a solid member of the New Confederacy.