Rogue Columnist

The big opt-out

Well, that was over fast. The real or supposed national outrage in America over the airport body scanners was supposed to create a backlash, culminating in a "national opt-out day." Travelers would refuse to go through the new scanners, creating huge lines at airports and...what was supposed to happen from there, I'm not sure. David Carr of the New York Times argues it was a creature of media hype, but he's the media columnist (and, god knows, he wouldn't be the first such scribe desperate for a column idea). I never thought this opt-out would happen, and not because Americans had the wisdom to set aside media-wrought hysteria.

For one thing, we don't have many travel options. It's pretty much fly or drive. Six decades ago, we had the finest passenger train system in the world as well as the best airline service. We had far more intercity trains going to more destinations on the eve of Amtrak in 1970 than we have today. And this is just conventional rail, not the high-speed lines in operation and being expanded all over the world — and competing very well against airlines on many city-pairings. We opted out. Now, not only are we left with far fewer travel options, but we are an increasingly backward nation in transportation.

Encanto Park in old Phoenix

A city such as Cincinnati built great parks, from the showpiece Eden Park, home to the Cincinnati Playhouse, Cincinnati Art Museum, Kron Conservatory and Mirror Lake Fountain, to the exquisitely designed Ault Park near the tony Mount Lookout and Hyde Park neighborhoods. Eastsiders who won't venture beyond the "Sauerkraut Curtain" may not even know about Mt. Echo Park, one of my favorites with its awesome views of downtown and the Ohio River.

The Queen City of the West had the good fortune to come of age in the golden age of park design and have the wealth to pull it off. Phoenix, a modest farm town at this time, built only one: Encanto. That makes it all the more a civic treasure. This Saturday Encanto Park will celebrate its 75th anniversary.

I write this not to take away from the city's achievement with desert parks, especially South Mountain Park and Papago Park. But they are what they are, often stunning preserves of the Sonoran Desert for hardy hikers and, more often, drivers.

Encanto was different, built as an oasis of shade and grass and City Beautiful Movement design, meant for people, picnics and strolling. Now more than ever, you can feel the instant cooling of the park and golf courses when you drive south of Thomas on 15th Avenue on a summer night. It's not like the Midwest — for that kind of lush greenery, look to Cincinnati. It lacks the size and resources that Los Angeles could put into Griffith Park. Encanto, inspired by San Diego's grand Balboa Park, is its own enchanted feat. It is a capsule of old Phoenix, a magical refutation of those who say "Phoenix has no soul."

Republic of delusion

Thanksgiving week rolls around with the national conversation more about the Pilgrims' conversion from "socialism" than any of the real and present dangers facing America. A measure of our mass delusion can be found in Phoenix, where Greg Vogel of the Real Estate Industrial Complex was talking about "the Valley" growing from 4 million to 8 million people over the next 35 years. This was not a conversation from 2006 but from last week. Just where the 1) water; 2) the people; 3) the capital will come from in post-crash/climate change America he doesn't say. His only concession to the current unpleasantness is to move the timetable to 35 years instead of the old 20. Ain't gonna happen. The old growth machine is broken and "the Valley" still can't imagine a Plan B.

(I put "the Valley" in quotes for several reasons. For one thing, it's a moronic-anodyne concession to the suburbs when Phoenix is a beautiful name for a city, and other real cities use their names to encompass suburbia, e.g. Chicago. Also, the metro area long ago spilled out of the real Salt River Valley, e.g. Cave Creek is not in that valley, nor is Maricopa. And "the Valley of the Sun" is a dated tourist slogan that will assume ever more sinister connotations with climate change).

In any event, Phoenix is hardly alone. The International Energy Agency's new annual report concedes that conventional oil production peaked in 2006. This little bit of news that will change everything about our lives and national security in the years ahead received barely a mention in major news outlets. Bristol Palin (remember when women had attractive names like Susan, Linda and Kathy?) on Dancing with the Stars was deemed more important.

Tom and Mike

When Michael Ratner passed away this week, Phoenix lost one of its true heroes. He bought the revived Tom's Tavern downtown in 1992 and never stopped fighting to keep this landmark going. Tom's played a big part in my personal history: It's a setting in many of the David Mapstone books, and Mike played host to the launch party of my first mystery, Concrete Desert. For years, he had my books for sale at the tavern. On our columnist lunches, E. J. Montini, Richard Ruelas and I sometimes went to Tom's. Tippling happened.

Tom's was one of my hangouts, and Mike always wanted to know how I was doing, even when I paid visits after being thrown out of Phoenix. He was that kind of man, caring about others, not one to dwell on his battle with cancer. He'd sit me at the "governor's table" or the "mayor's table," then join me to talk. Mike was a worrier. Tom's always seemed on the edge, even with its history and location at the foot of the Renaissance Towers close to city and county government. He hung on through light rail construction, creating events for symphony and other event-goers. The Great Recession was another storm to weather.  He lovingly preserved history, from the portraits of past and current leaders to mementos of the tavern's rich past, in a town that has no use for it.

He transcended the era of John Teets, Jerry Colangelo and other bigs who had the vision and means to work for a great city. In his modest way, he was one of the last stewards standing. A great restaurant operator, he could have made big money in Scottsdale or the other 'burbs. He chose to make his stand in the heart of the city.

Phil for Phoenix

Amid the wreckage and inertia that now define the nation's fifth (soon to be sixth?) most populous city, it's difficult to recall the near euphoria that greeted the inauguration of Phil Gordon as mayor. It was 2004, the metro area was booming, at least in real estate, and here in Phoenix, finally, was somebody who "got it." He got city, as opposed to suburbia. He got economic development, especially for the central core. He got the urgent need to diversify the economy. For "ADHD Phil," even his early speeches soared with a grand vision for Phoenix. A great city. A great mayor.

Alas, it was not to be.

If any historian cares to write about Phoenix's collapse, about how it became "the Hispanic Detroit" as the north Scottsdalers say, the mayoralty of Phil Gordon will be an essential chapter.

Tea Party on

If one were observing an ignorant and self-indulgent "consumer" America in the abstract, it would be fun to say, "Go right ahead, enact the deficit reductions recommended by the old right-wing coot Alan Simpson & Co. See how that works out for you." The anti-middle-class, anti-investment-in-the-future tenor of the report is perfectly in keeping with the Tea Party, and apparently the white, suburban vote that the Democrats have lost. And this is a commission appointed by Barack Obama. I'd feel this way if I wanted my country to hurt and fail. But I don't.

"Austerity" is just a con to further enrich the nationless capital markets and the super-rich. Nothing more. The very rich have no interest in the history of America from the 1940s through the 1970s, when a rising and secure middle class, and 90-percent tax rates on top earners, still supported fine lifestyles for the wealthy as well as the world's greatest economy and society. Now we have to lose so they can win yet more. But austerity and tax cuts are the watchword, the intellectual fraud that has taken the day. Somehow the boobs indoctrinated by Fox "News" and rightwing talk radio never think it applies to them. To their 4,000-square-foot exurban houses for a family of four, multiple gas guzzlers and "consuming" from the mall and Wal-Mart — all on credit. Why, that's the American dream. Talk about an unsustainable entitlement program.

Phoenix 101: Midwesterners

The comments section has been busy with musings about the Midwest migration to Arizona and the degree to which it is to blame for the disaster facing the state and Phoenix. I've offered my assessment in previous posts (it's a great deal to blame).

That doesn't mean every midwesterner is at fault, much less that I hate the Midwest. I spent nearly a decade there, in southwest Ohio, and hold it warmly in my heart. I saw it at its best and lately I've seen it at its worst. But no discussion of Phoenix is complete without assessing this huge tide of immigrants and the things they carried.

The first Anglo settlers of Phoenix were a ragtag group of tough adventurers, everybody from "Lord" Darrell Duppa, namer of Phoenix, who was born in England (maybe France), to the father of Tempe, Charles Trumbull Hayden, a Yankee who had worked the Santa Fe trail. The Mormons settled Mesa.

But Southerners and former Confederates were arguably in the early majority, personified by founder Jack Swilling, CSA. This gave the town a peculiar Southern-Western character that persisted into the early 1960s. My family came from Indian Territory and before that the pre-Civil War Texas frontier. Midwesterners arrived in more numbers with the completion of the Santa Fe Railway and its direct connection from Chicago. Among them was Dwight Bancroft Heard, who bought the Arizona Republican in 1912. He was a major landowner and farmer, and was the driving force behind the region's cotton industry. Along with his wife, Maie Bartlett Heard, he founded the Heard Museum.

Other midwesterners of note: Kansan Eugene C. Pulliam, who built a publishing empire including the renamed Arizona Republic. Lawyer Frank Snell was from Kansas City. (His partner Mark Wilmer, the star litigator who won Arizona v. California before the Supreme Court, came from Wisconsin by way of Texas.)

Another former Chicagoan was Walter Bimson who built Valley National Bank into a powerhouse. Heard, Pulliam, Snell and Bimson were city builders. The latter three, for example, in the late 1940s and 1950s, recruited the high tech industries whose fumes the metro area still runs on. All loved Phoenix. It was their home. In every way they connected the health of the city to that of their companies.

Nihilism triumphant

"And for you Democrats looking for some silver lining...I got nothing" — Election-night tweet

Well, that was over in a flash. Our liberal, even socialist-curious, president. Our far-left Congress. And perhaps they reached too far, too fast. After all, President Obama chose as his top economic advisers Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, as well as former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. Inheriting the bank bailout from George W. Bush, he imposed a stringent windfall profits tax on Wall Street which he used to help foreclosed house-owners. Wall Street felt the iron hand of liberalism, with a new Glass-Steagall, big enough to even turn the shadow banking system from speculation into investing in job-creating productive industries. Mr. Obama's Attorney General perp walked dozens of leading banksters. And the stimulus: Instead of wasting it in tax cuts, as some advocated, it was more than $1 trillion aimed at cutting-edge infrastructure, including rebuilding our passenger train system and high-speed rail, not being thrown away on highways. Where did the money come from for this socialist reign of terror? Higher taxes on the richest, making corporations actually pay taxes, and winding down the vast national security/empire economy. We were well on our way to retrofitting suburbia for a high-cost energy future, addressing climate change, moving away from foreign oil. And in doing so, creating millions of high-paid jobs. And many union ones, for these ruthless bastards immediately pushed through the Employee Free Choice Act. No wonder, the forces of reaction reacted...

Of course none of that happened. The quick lessons of the election: 1) When an ignorant, afraid electorate, seeing its living standards fall, must choose between bought-off Republican-lite Dems and real bought-off Republicans, they will choose the latter. 2) Except for the bluest states and most farcical candidates, money buys elections and the liberals can't outspend what John Judis calls "the party of reactionary insurrection." 3) The quiet coup has been completed. 4) The Democratic Party may not be dead, but it should be. 5) Most voters have no memory of a government that works well and fights for average people, and that bodes ill for liberalism. 6) Did it matter that the president is black? To many Americans, it did, and negatively. 7) Arizona is toast.

The magical thinking election

A few last thoughts as we head into what might be a historic election.

In Arizona, the state's largest newspaper wrote an especially tortured endorsement for Gov. Jan Brewer. The "reasoning" of the Arizona Republic is that Brewer is best positioned to help the state's ailing economy (!). And that she can work with dominant Republicans in the Legislature (!).  Of course the latter is true because she will go along with the Kooks. The former is insanity, for Brewer doesn't understand the first thing about economic development. If sunshine, low taxes and "light regulation" were the keys to prosperity, then Arizona would be Hong Kong. So she promises more of the same, especially failure to understand the housing boom isn't coming back. This endorsement is all about appeasing the white-right advertisers and readers in the suburbs, especially the East Valley. Brewer is an idiot, and the stories are legion (e.g., being the first governor in memory to skip out after a very brief appearance at Governor's Arts Awards dinner). A more cogent endorsement came for Terry Goddard from the Arizona Daily Star.

It's said that statewide elections are decided in Pima County. Not this time, alas. If Raul Grijalva is in trouble, then the Arizona Democratic Party is kaput. As with the nation, the red states will become redder; so much for angry Tea Partiers and theocrats voting to "throw out the bums" who caused the disaster. They are the stooges, the useful idiots, of the corporate elite pulling the strings for a "permanent Republican majority."