Rogue Columnist

John F. Long, a builder of modern Phoenix, dies at 87

It is a sign of the cluelessness of the children hired by the Arizona Republic that its headline online says, "Valley philanthropist John F. Long dies at 87." It's a little like saying "Former cowboy actor Ronald Reagan dies." Fortunately the obituary is in the hands of one of the few graybeards that haven't been run out by "the information center," Chuck Kelly.

John F. Long was a towering figure among the giants who built Phoenix from a small farm town into the nation's fifth largest city. With Maryvale, he not only brought affordable, pleasant suburbia to post-war Phoenix, he paved the way for thousands of ex-GIs to own their homes. He was an innovator of national consequence, but unlike some who followed him in Phoenix development, he stayed close to his roots. He was a civic steward, city councilman, a man who loved to tend his burros in retirement and whose life was rich in stories and lore. And yes, he was also a philanthropist.

Long's life also paralleled the rise and decline of the post-war automobile suburb.

Stagflation may be the least of our worries

Stagflation is the worry of the moment. Talk about a '70s flashback. The term refers to the combination of high inflation, high unemployment and weak growth -- trends that weren't supposed to go together. As Robert Samuelson has pointed out, the current troubles likely won't be a repeat of the disco age, unless the Fed overreacts. Recessions are natural economic phenomena and sometimes trying to avoid them can make the eventual reckoning worse.

But we shouldn't stop thinking there. As long as the popular conversation is on stagflation and the 1970s, it's a chance to follow those themes to some provocative and disturbing questions.

Apportioning blame for miserable cities

Forbes has published its first list of "miserable cities." Like all such magazine lists, it's fairly arbitrary, somewhat silly and, in the case of Forbes, informed by its ideology. Thus, "high" tax rates help make a place "miserable." The deferred infrastructure, education, healthcare, environmental and social costs of such low-tax sprawlbergs as Las Vegas and Phoenix are not included.

If those places are so great for business, why do "miserable cities" like New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia remain capitals of commerce, culture and talent? I'm waiting for Wall Street, rather than some bottom-feeder related to the housing industry, to move to Phoenix.

No matter. There are some things to be learned in the misery list.

Are Sooners chasing a dream past its prime?

Oklahoma City is the latest place to pin its hopes of becoming a "big league city" on a taxpayer financed arena to land a professional sports team. The team is the Seattle Supersonics, acquired by an Oklahoma ownership group that has barely concealed its intentions to move the team, especially after Seattle balked at another taxpayer-financed renovation of Key Arena.

These are two cities passing each other in the night.

Saturday roundup: Cheerleaders, Cindy, Mecham

Two great letters in today's Republic. In one, Barry Cohen outs the newspaper's mandated cheerleading. He imagines how the paper would have covered some of the big stories of history:
"Atomic bomb fails to deter enthusiasts at Hiroshima sushi festival."

In another, Kit Miller slams Cindy McCain for trying to shame Michelle Obama for the "proud of my country flap."

Meanwhile, Evan Mecham RIP. The former Arizona governor did incalculable damage to the state, embodying the racism, ignorance and anti-modernity of the right. At least he was straight-forward bout it. Little Mecham clones still run the Legislature. In many ways, Mecham was a sad figure, way over his head, but bullheaded about his damaging policies. Beyond the MLK embarrassment, Mecham began the Republic war on education that has set Arizona so far back. Similarly, his followers happily oversaw the degradation of the environment for profit, and the tribalism that keeps Arizona divided and distracted from its real challenges.

Mecham's ascendancy marked the end of the old Arizona Republican party. Leaders of the '60s such as Gene Pulliam, Barry Goldwater et al were happy to use the maniacal "John Birchers" embodied by Mecham's supporters -- they were so full of energy and passion -- even if they found most of their views extreme, and the "Birchers" themselves low class. In the end, of course, the "Birchers" took over.

Renzi indictment is tip of land-swap iceberg

Arizona Republican Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted for conspiracy in a case involving a federal land swap. These land swaps of the public lands to developers, which help increase the risk and cost of forest fires as subdivisions pop up in the national forests, have been one of the great scandals of recent years in Arizona. As developers reap huge profits, the people's forests are looted.

The Renzi case also figured in the politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys. Paul Charlton was fired in 2006 as his office was looking into the Renzi case. (If you're a WSJ Online subscriber, here's the story that first blew the lid off).

Of course they have gone unexamined by the sleepy local media. Renzi got a free ride in his re-election bid. Oh, and he is McCain's national co-chair.

McCain watch: a lobbyist-heavy campaign, FEC shock

A possible affair between John McCain and a lobbyist (a younger clone of wife Cindy) is the least important part of the stories published in the New York Times and Washington Post. The reports detail McCain's close ties to the lobbyists that decide the fate of American society, behind closed doors, in private jets, on sumptious yachts.

Christy Hardin Smith digs deeper into this in an article on Firedoglake.com (read them here and here). McCain is more tied to lobbyists than any other candidate. I'm struck by how much McCain's committee green-lighted the kinds of mergers that killed thousands of good jobs with benefits, while enriching the CEO class that employs the lobbyists. These mergers are key elements behind the pressure on the middle class and the loss of good corporate jobs in cities around the country, not to mention their damage to competition.

Meanwhile, McCain faces yet more trouble from the Federal Elections Commission, which is saying he may be forced to stick with a spending cap for the next six months.

Good news and bad news for the Luhrs buildings

As is so often the case with downtown, there’s good news and bad news.

Hansji Urban of Irvine, Calif., will apparently renovate the Luhrs Tower and the Luhrs Building in the block on Jefferson between Central and First Ave. These are among the few large buildings left from old Phoenix. The Luhrs Tower is a wonderful deco baby skyscraper. Phoenix might have had more if the Depression had not intervened. Afterward, the city was cursed with horrid international boxes.

The bad news? The developer apparently has the right to tear down the arcade that connects the two, and an adjoining building that faces Central.

Dreaming of more sprawl in Arizona

For as long as anyone can remember, the Arizona Republic has been part of the big booster engine in Phoenix. Lately, under pressure from falling revenue and corporate owners, the paper’s bosses have demanded that the news “say something positive about the area.” So it wasn’t surprising to see a Feb. 18th article pimping the Williams-Gateway hinterlands, nominally a part of Mesa, as a “brand new city” on the way.

Jim Tinson, identified by the article as a Yale-educated, New York-based architect and urban planner working on the project, said “This is an opportunity of international significance.” The idea is to create an “aerotropolis,” with the city surrounding the “maturing” Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.

The article goes on, “Planners stress that the current economic downturn and housing slump would not affect the overall long-term vision, which they expect to unfold over decades and through multiple economic cycles.”

Of course, the planners have no stake in telling unpleasant truths to the power that pays them.

The strange media romance with John McCain

Breaking up is hard to do, particularly with a lover you've idealized to the point of pathology. So what if the reality is as jarring, even dangerous, odds with the ideal? So it is with the mainsteam media and John McCain.

We were treated to this once again in the Sunday New York Times. A front page story described how this "maverick," "insurgent," "one of the most disruptive figures in his party" and "rebel" is now trying to be a standard-bearer who can unite his party. There was mention of his "volcanic" blowups, but in an admiring way.

On the op-ed page, Nicholas Kristof writes, "Even for those of us who shudder at many of John McCain’s positions, there is something refreshing about a man who wins so many votes despite a major political shortcoming: he is abysmal at pandering."

Such is the scary fog of McCain worship that envelops even smart people writing for the best newspaper in America. The reality is quite different.

Ground zero in the illegal immigration nightmare

For the second time in two weeks, the New York Times has produced major stories on Phoenix and illegal immigration (read the stories here and here). It's about time the nation took notice of Phoenix's second largest industry (after house building): people smuggling. Many of the immigrants that staff the chicken plants of North Carolina and the meat-packing plants of the upper plains states came through Phoenix.

This industry has caused a low-intensity war to be fought on the streets of Phoenix and its suburbs for several years, recently leading to the gunning down of a police officer. Of the millions who have gone through the city, many have settled. A third of the city is officially Hispanic, but the real numbers are probably far larger and many are illegal. Meanwhile, the Anglo population, whether from the Midwest or from Arizona, has increasingly rebelled against the influx. Arizona has passed some of the most draconian laws against illegals, and the state is full of anti-Hispanic sentiment, much of expressed in the most thuggish manner (check out any blog or story comment on the Arizona Republic if you doubt me).

But the situation is complex and contradictory. It's not rocket science. It's much, much more complicated.

The problem with the Clintons

In a different world, with different Clintons -- the idealized ones, not the real ones -- Hill and Bill might have given more serious thought to their current endeavor. If she's elected, her husband would not only be the first first gentleman, but a former president carrying the influence and power of that position.

George Washington was painfully aware that everything he did set a precedent, so he endeavored to set them with care and character. Bill Clinton set off in his usual fashion, the smartest man in the room, too smart for his own good. The Southern intellectual who forgot the redneck's last words: "Hey, y'all, watch this!" With the Clintonian combination of recklessness and carelessness, he alone may have cost his wife the nomination by alienating so many in the South Carolina primary.

The Founders of this Republic frowned on anything smacking of the dynastic. And even when sons have followed fathers -- twice -- it hasn't worked out well. Not for nothing did George H.W. Bush jokingly call his son "Quincy." The Clintons propose something far closer to real dynasty. He will be there, like his wife before him, as buy-one-get-two co-president. And, as usual, they seemed to be unaware of the magnitude of their ambition, and the care with which it needed to be presented to the nation.

Yet this may be one of the lesser problems with Hillary Clinton.

More 'big city cred' from Mexico's president

Prince Andrew visited the Biltmore and the Phoenix media make a big deal. Meanwhile, Mexican President Felipe Calderon is visiting Boston, New York, LA, even Sacramento, discussing immigration and economic ties. Note he didn't come to "the nation's fifth-largest city," even though it has a large immigrant population and is at the epicenter of the debate. His U.S. visit is largely ignored by Phoenix media. Phoenix does itself no favors by being known as a place that hates immigrants and is otherwise of little account in the global economy.

Phoenix in search of 'big city cred'

At the risk of being cruel...

I missed the Feb 4th article in the Arizona Republic headlined "Getting some Big City cred." It starts off, "A major golf tournament, a celebrity-studded auto auction and, most important, the Super Bowl -- these are the markings of a destination metropolis. Yet on the list of America's Greatest Big Cities, Phoenix lags in the sorts of physical, cultural and historical amenities that distinguish the most memorable destinations."

Then it offers suggestions, some whimsical, some apparently serious, about how Phoenix could get, er, "cred": a signature skyscraper, a signature enchilada, a San Antonio-style riverwalk, more gridlock.

The recession this time

Another recession, and for many Americans the post-2001 recovery and expansion felt like one long tough slog. It would have felt worse had they been living within their means, but liar-loan mortgages, bottomless credit cards and cheap stuff from China allowed them to think they were rolling in the good times, just like the hedge-fund managers and CEOs.

Another recession, and it won't be like 2001, when a fraud-driven bubble burst, or 1991, when the savings-and-loan scandal sank the economy. It will have fraud, bursting bubbles and unsustainable finance, to be sure. But it may be far worse than anything we have experienced since 1982, maybe longer.

Plugged into the Matrix, consuming

Be sure to read Anthony Robinson's superb piece on Americans' sad decline from citizens to "consumers."

Lies, damned lies, and withdrawal from Iraq

It's easy to beat up John McCain for wanting to stay the bloody course in Iraq, indeed that America might have troops there for next 100 years. McCain's strategy won't be merely more of the same. It will be a push way down the slippery slope. But there's much wishful thinking and dissembling on the part of the Democrats, too.

If Iraq really were another Vietnam, withdrawal would be without serious geopolitical consequences. Yet we shouldn't forget the moral consequences of our withdrawal, with millions of South Vietnamese facing a brutal takeover and thousands who worked for us facing far worse. Hmong tribesmen who supported the CIA's secret war in Laos are still on the run, abandoned by the superpower that so cavalierly used them. We should have gotten out. We shouldn't forget that the cost was high.

But Iraq is not Vietnam, a fact that should be remembered every time a Democrat drives home from an anti-war rally in his SUV.

Who is this 'maverick' I keep hearing about?

Every time I hear the media say Sen. John McCain "of Arizona" it makes me crazy. McCain has done as little for Arizona as possible and it shows. The state is Mississippi in the Southwest, an Appalachia with golf courses, the epicenter of a brewing socio-environmental calamity. It is a place frighteningly behind in the competitive world of the 21st century, however much it provides a haven for a certain kind of rich person and, until recently, for real-estate players. Arizona was never anything but a national political platform for McCain.

If McCain had been governor, his apathy would be an especially tempting target. Even so, as a senator he has done as little as possible in education, research, transportation, health care, the environment...the list goes on and on. Most days one wondered if Arizona even had senators representing it, rather than trying to be national political figures.