Rogue Columnist

Arizona still life

The facts about Phoenix and Arizona are so numbingly, depressingly undeniable that I will offer a more impressionist view of the month I've spent there. What infuses everything is the heat. September was virtually impossibly to enjoy because of the constant drumbeat of 105 degrees or higher. Most people here have no memory of the time when the city started to cool down in September, just as they have no memory of the agriculture, shade trees, irrigation canals and much smaller urban footprint that made that cooling possible. So they either slog along, or brag with a bit too much frantic insistence that they don't have to tolerate Ohio winters. I hear people say moronic things like, "There are nine nice months and three hot months." Maybe in 1965 -- Now it's more like five nice months and seven of varying degrees of unpleasantness.

The follies continue at the government of one of the most populous counties in America, a county desperately in need of good government and urban solutions yet won't find them. There's a sense that the entire edifice will soon collapse in the face of federal investigations if not the vengeance of a righteous God. At Phoenix City Hall, meanwhile, absence is the biggest presence. Phil Gordon, who began his two terms as mayor amid so much optimism, is barely visible. City council has descended into a paralyzing partisanship. The economy of the entire metro area remains in a depression, and who really gives a rat's ass if the rich in north Scottsdale are still rich? As a result, every municipal government remains in crisis and can only cut back what were inadequate services even in "flush times."

The hysterical turbocharge from the Jim Crow anti-immigrant SB 1070 has dissipated but not before making the idiot Jan Brewer's election a near certainty. Those debate gaffes that amused America? That's her. And the Arizona GOP. And the Arizonans who will vote them back into office yet again. An electorate of long pauses and no thoughts. All the years of Republican governance here, the low taxes and bare regulation -- the state's fiscal situation is a disaster and the economy is a joke. No matter.

Blue highways

Having business in Phoenix that I was in no hurry to begin, we took the back roads from Seattle. My preference is to take the train, but a funding-starved Amtrak doesn't even go to the nation's fifth most populous city (and Amtrak will probably be killed by the Republicans, should they gain control of Congress). The drive might recall the days when motoring was pleasant, synonymous with freedom in a big country. It might reveal the West as it was when I was younger, before the millions of newcomers, exurban sprawl and Interstate sameness.

Considering timing and the route I wanted, the Interstate couldn't be avoided from Seattle to the Oregon border. Even so, it was showcased the variety of Washington state, particularly the bountiful farmland east of the Cascades and running down to Yakima and Walla Walla. The contrast with Arizona, which is all about attracting new house buyers, could not have been more striking. But the true drive began where U.S. 395 hits Pendleton, Oregon, just below the storied Columbia River.

Pendleton is the kind of real small town that has been largely lost in America, leaving either wealthy yupped-up towns that are imitations of small towns, or, more frequently, places hollowed out by Wal-Mart and de-industrialization, leaving ghost Main Streets and grotesque boxes of fast food and Wally hulking out "by the highway." Downtown Pendleton is blessed with real local shops such as an office supply store (!) that actually serve local customers, as well as a mission for the needy, government buildings, offices, churches, restaurants. They occupy a century's worth of architure, but most of it pleasingly historic and densely close together. Real neighborhoods are nearby. The Union Pacific main line to Portland goes through the heart of town -- it serves the agricultural economy, and once had passenger trains before one of many Amtrak cutbacks. Taken together, the downtown is a delight of scale, walkability and beauty.