Rogue Columnist

Palin in Scottsdale

Just when we thought the Arizona Freak Show couldn't get any more grotesque, Sarah Palin buys a $1.7 million house near Hayden Road and Dynamite "Boulevard" in north Scottsdale. Apparently the title release came through a robo-signed (fraudulent) procedure. The Kooks write better real-life material than I could invent. The New York Times did a whimsical piece on "neighborly advice for the Palins," including wear sunscreen and watch for rattlesnakes. But it made north Scottsdale sound like a real community, which it's not. In fact, she'll fit right in with the white-apartheid culture there, where people don't want to know their neighbors, fear going south of Bell Road, shout down opposing views in city council meetings and live somewhere else for most of the year. The shocker would have been if she had bought a hundred-year-old bungalow in the Phoenix historic districts.

She will find simpatico "neighbors" who believe the banking panic was caused by the socialist Community Reinvestment Act, that America is under siege from Mexican immigration, which somehow just happened despite the resistance by the God-fearing Anglos, and the Patriot Act is too politically correct. Her motorcade can take her to outer-belt chain book stores for signings. Maybe Russell Pearce can get an audience. Maybe she can get an audience with the Badged Ego. One must wonder what Sen. John McCain, R-Fox News, must think. From the authoritative reporting of the presidential campaign, it seems the two didn't get along. McCain is rarely in the state anyway. Not for nothing did daughter Meghan flee to a bachelorette pad in west Hollywood.

Will Palin run for Jon Kyl's Senate seat? She could win it, no question. She's with her base now, far more than in Alaska where her half term as governor left much bad blood. Will she use Arizona as a base from which to launch a presidential campaign for 2012? Why should we care? Alas, we must. She is able to galvanize the white-right in a way no other Republican can. The fact that she has no accomplishments and plays up her arrogant ignorance makes no difference (here's a recent example). Far from being a liability in today's America, it is an asset.

Tornado country

I taught at a small college in Oklahoma years ago, then started my journalism "career" there. One of the first things I learned is that Oklahoma, along with Singapore, has the most intense thunderstorms in the world along with their attendant tornadoes. Nearly every day in the spring and early summer, they form atop New Mexico's spookily beautiful Caprock bluffs and then move east. So many days I would see a black line along the horizon in the morning. In the middle of the day, the darkness might be so complete that the streetlights would come on. Tornado watches were routine; warnings and sirens things to dread. Drenching rain, golfball-sized hail and then violent wind were commonplace during the season. People watched carefully for the formation of a funnel — if they could see the sky in the darkness and rain. Major damage was more rare in the rolling woods of the eastern part of the state; west of I-35, watch out. The movie Twister, for all of Helen Hunt's considerable charms, doesn't even begin to capture the terrifying majesty of an Oklahoma storm.

All the old-timers had Tornado Alley lore. About pieces of straw driven through telephone poles. About the freak contingency of the storms: How one side of a street might be leveled and the other look as if nothing at all were amiss. About cars picked up and put down yet the occupants lived. And the little towns that once existed before being swept off the map. Every town has a section that is prone to get hit. Soon you learned your own storm wisdom, such as the strange color of the sky after a twister-laden front had moved past. Before coming to Arizona Territory in the late 19th century, my great-grandparents lived in Indian Territory, the eastern half of what became the state of Oklahoma. A tornado was my grandmother's earliest memory: Of being carried into a shelter before the monster leveled the little settlement, killing one of her sisters.

I think about this in the aftermath of the Joplin, Mo., tornado. The region suffers through the occasional bad year, where the most intense level of tornadoes can even destroy brick buildings. The so-called "super outbreak" of 1974 is the prime example, where 148 twisters struck 13 states on April 3 and 4. There was Terrible Tuesday in 1979, when an EF-4 — reportedly five-miles wide at one point — lethally struck the suburban edge of Wichita Falls, Texas. It was part of a storm that ravaged the Red River Valley, coming way too close to the little college town where I lived. Now we're living through another super outbreak year: Nearly 1,000 tornadoes and 500 dead. Or we're entering something different.

Centennial blues

So it has come down to this. Arizona will mark the centennial of its statehood in 2012 by leaning on schoolchildren to "shine" the territorial capitol dome (always on the cheap, Arizona never built a real state capitol building). It will do a $7 million "streetscape renovation project" on Washington between downtown and the capitol. "Plans call for that stretch of roadway to be 'transformed' with wider, more-decorative sidewalks and crosswalks, enhanced street and pedestrian lighting, benches, shade canopies, bike lanes and displays that feature historical and cultural information about Arizona's 15 counties," the Arizona Republic reported. Something will honor the indigenous tribes whose land we stole, without putting it that way, of course. I can imagine the outcome: Gravel, concrete and shadeless palo verde trees in a no-man's-land of vacant lots and soulless state office buildings. Too bad the leafy neighborhood of Victorian houses and territorial-era apartments that once stood there couldn't have been saved, and no reinvestment in this precious historic area happened. The truly historic mining museum was kicked out for some nebulous "five Cs" museum. And that's it.

The only silver lining to this cavalcade of underachievement and failure that I can find is that the state avoided some brutal piece of post-modern celebrity architecture in a new capitol building. Otherwise, how sad. And don't blame the Great Recession: Any effort to significantly commemorate Arizona's 100th birthday would have had to be started years ago, during the so-called boom. There was no more appetite for it then, either. Public virtues, community virtues, civilizational aspirations: Don't look for them here. It's not that the state lacks the means; at 6.4 million people it is the third most populous state in the West. It just lacks the interest.

Consider West Virginia, carved out of the Old Dominion by the Civil War. It finally dedicated a classic, lovely state capitol building, designed by Cass Gilbert, in 1932 during the depth of the Great Depression. This is a poor, isolated state. Are you telling me growthgasm Arizona couldn't do as well? Instead, we got the horrendous executive office tower in the mid-1970s, which visually obliterates the copper dome of the old capitol and looks very much like a jail. Perhaps that helps explain the series of legal troubles that ensnared Arizona governors. Or consider Chicago's Millennium Park, a magnificent public space. Conservative Cincinnati marked its bicentennial by beginning to reclaim its riverfront with parks and the Serpentine Wall along the Ohio River. For Arizona and Phoenix — nothing. The city lacks even one heroic or historic statue in a public space downtown (even Oklahoma City, younger than Phoenix, has at least one). This despite all the wealth and capital that poured into the state, decade after decade, going into community-destroying sprawl and little else.

The new thought police

The Kooks have caught up with me. The trolls come with the position of columnist and blogger. Still, and even after all those years at the Republic, I'm still struck by their level of vitriol. Someone is never merely misinformed, misguided, or holds a position worth debating on a complex issue. No, to these folks, one is not merely "stupid" and "ignorant," but acting in bad faith and allied with evil forces if not one himself. They learn this from talk radio and Fox "News," of course, and some right-wing organizations actually pay people to post talking-point comments. What's most arresting is that they don't merely want to disagree — they want you fired.

On a recent innocuous economy blog post, I got this comment: "I just read the rest of the comments, I'm glad I'm not the only one that has figured out that Jon Talton is a total idiot... Mr. or Mrs. Editor... This has been going on for a long time now, why is he still here??? Do you not read any of his articles??? He's as white and male as it gets you can fire him in a heartbeat and you won't even get sued..." Again, the rocks come with the farm and the trolls come with the blog. I'm not the shy and retiring kind, and newspapers once didn't want this with their columnists. Columnists run a range of opinions, including many from the right. So why would you want to take away a person's job because you disagree with him? Why would you want to do it in this economy particularly? I paid the price for antagonizing the powerful and Kooky in Phoenix, even when mine was one dissenting voice in an otherwise right-leaning, boosterish newspaper. Take his job. Shut him up. It's a fascinating phenomenon.

So I kind of feel for Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker and presidential candidate. On Meet the Press, he was asked about the Paul Ryan plan to replace Medicare with vouchers. Gingrich responded: "I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering.  I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate." He added that the Ryan plan "is too big a jump.  I think what you want to have is a system where people voluntarily migrate to better outcomes, better solutions, better options, not one where you suddenly impose upon the — I don't want to — I'm against Obamacare, which is imposing radical change, and I would be against a conservative imposing radical change." The attacks from the right began immediately.

Why isn't Joe Arpaio in jail?

That's the question Matt Taibbi would ask, as he did in his famous diatribe against Wall Street. For the more sober purposes of this blog, the question is, Why is Joe Arpaio still in office? The latest reason is Chief Deputy David Hendershott being forced from office with allegations of misconduct, including using the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office anti-corruption unit to smear foes and featherbedding the jobs of his friends. The deputy chief was ousted, too. (And all this from an investigation by the friendly Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeau). As Arpaio adamantly says he will not resign, the question of his lax oversight of his chief deputy/sycophant becomes very much like one that should be directed to the banksters: Were you corrupt or stupid? Which one? There's no other answer, especially for a man who presents himself as so smart, so in charge, so much America's Toughest Sheriff.

The abuses of Arpaio go back many years. No wonder his office is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and a federal grand jury. Real police officers have no use for Arpaio, referring to him as the "Badged Ego." He co-opted most of the media years ago, including the Arizona Republic, where crusading is not part of the Gannett business model. Eugene C. Pulliam would have run him out of office and out of the state long ago. Still, the Republic has done a creditable job on the Hendershott investigation, if not exactly jumping on allegations that those in the law enforcement community had known about for years. Most of the media were played like a cheap fiddle with the chain gang, the tent jail, pink underwear and the "sweeps." One exception is New Times, which has fearlessly investigated Arpaio for more than 15 years. The casual violations of civil rights, cronyism, lack of attention to actually doing the job and high costs to taxpayers are not in question.

Why is Joe Arpaio still in office, particularly when voters twice had the choice of a lawman beyond reproach, Dan Sabin? It says much about the condition of today's Phoenix and Maricopa County.

Amtrak at 40

On May 1, 1971, the private railroads ceased passenger service and it was taken over by Amtrak, the government-owned National Railroad Passenger Corporation. Dozens of trains that ran on April 30th ceased to exist. Hundreds of cities lost their trains. What remained is largely the bare-bones operation, outside of the Northeast Corridor, that still exists today. This even though the nation has added 100 million people, become much more densely populated, and oil prices will make the car- and airline-based future seen as inevitable in 1971 increasingly difficult to sustain.

Amtrak was created because of a massive grassroots campaign. It was also an effort to help save the bankrupt Penn-Central and the freight railroads in general. But it was also born in sin as a deeply flawed political compromise, dependent on a federal subsidy that few lawmakers would or will admit is necessary, and a political plaything depending on who controls Congress and the White House. Something had to be done. Whether Amtrak was the answer is open to debate. America once enjoyed the best and fastest passenger rail system in the world. It was killed by automobiles and airlines that were heavily subsidized by the federal government (and continue to be), even as the private railroads were taxed and regulated heavily. Nor were the externalities priced in: Pollution, energy consumption and the resulting geopolitical instability, sprawl and its environmental consequences, etc. After spending heavily on new streamliners after World War II, railroads saw passenger business steadily fall off to this subsidized competition. Some fought on with top-notch service, notable the Santa Fe. Others couldn't wait to kill their trains, notoriously the Southern Pacific.

Both served Phoenix in the 1960s. The Santa Fe ran a classy little train from Union Station to Williams Junction, where it connected with the road's premier transcontinental streamliners, including the Super Chief, El Capitan, Chief, San Francisco Chief and Grand Canyon Limited. The SP operated three trains in each direction until the mid-1960s: the crack Sunset Limited, the Golden State and the remnant of the once grand Imperial. By 1970, only the Sunset survived, a raggedy thing that usually had a couple of coaches and a vending-machine car (a decade before, the Sunset routinely had 14 cars, including sleepers and full-service diner). Cities such as Cincinnati and St. Louis had dozens of trains, right up to the eve of Amtrak. After Amtrak, cities usually had one train, often at inconvenient hours (Phoenix had service until the mid-1990s, when the state government refused to help upgrade the northern main line of the SP).

The Deuce in old Phoenix

The block of shuttered buildings (right) just west of the Suns arena was, by the 2000s, almost all that was left of the storied Deuce, Phoenix's skid row. It has since been leveled, losing two historic hotels, so team owner Robert Sarver could make another holy surface parking lot.

In its heyday, from the 1920s through the 1970s, the Deuce extended over several blocks from the Southern Pacific tracks to Van Buren, centered along Second Street. It's open to debate as to whether Second Street was the origin of the name. Or if it was a shortened version of the Produce District, the warehouses and loading docks clustered along the railroad tracks, including middle-of-the-street spur lines that ran along Jackson and Madison. Yet another interpretation: The area was Beat 2 of the Phoenix Police and the cops nicknamed it.

However it came by its moniker, the Deuce was one of the city's most colorful and storied districts. During Prohibition, it was known for its speakeasies. For decades, brothels and gambling could be found along the infamous Paris Alley, off Second Street between Jefferson and Washington.

Old downtown Phoenix was remarkably compact and walkable. The main part of the central business district ran along Central and west to Seventh Avenue. East along Washington and Jefferson were a remarkable variety of stores, including Penney's and Korrick's department stores, as well as the Fox Theater, the barber college, Dr. Pease Dentist and Dr. Hugh Ilstrip's chiropractic practice.

The Greyhound and Continental Trailways bus depots faced each other at First Street and Van Buren. East of Greyhound was the Arizona Republic/Phoenix Gazatte building, St. Mary's church and the church schools, and Phoenix Union High School. South of this, the Deuce.

It was a dense mix of single-story business buildings and two- to five-story single-room occupancy hotels, many dating back to territorial days. One could walk into this "bad part of town" by taking a few steps east of the Fox or south of St. Mary's. The small businesses there ran the gamut from bars, cafes, package-liquor shops, gospel missions and pawn shops to second-hand furniture outlets and an Army-Navy surplus store. Franco's America Bakery was at Fourth Street and Washington. It was next to a Western wear store with a lifesize horse standing on the overhang. The Matador Mexican restaurant was in the Deuce before it was relocated to a location on Adams. A few houses survived in the district, as well.

The remains of the city's Chinatown were part of the Deuce (although the Chinese, not facing the discrimination they had suffered in California, followed the Anglos out as the city sprawled). Sing High Chop Suey House, now moved a few blocks west of the Deuce, is a survivor. And then, starting at Madison, the produce operations such as Central Wholesale Terminal and United Produce.

The most famous denizen of the Deuce was Ernesto Miranda, who worked off and on at United Produce. Miranda was arrested in 1963 for kidnapping and rape, and gave a confession without having a lawyer available during the interrogation. The conviction was thrown out by the Supreme Court and police agencies were forced to routinely "Mirandize" suspects. Still, Miranda himself was convicted in a second trial, where the tainted confession was not introduced, and served time. Released in 1972, he returned to the Deuce where he sold autographed Miranda warning cards. In 1976, he was fatally knifed at La Amapola bar, located at Second Street and Madison. By that time I was working on the ambulance, but was off-duty that night; a crew from B-Shift transported Miranda to Good Samaritan Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The Giffords test

NASA keeps putting off the final launch of space shuttle Endeavor, so who knows when it will finally lift off. It's a media event because Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a grievous injury, flew to Cape Canaveral to witness the first attempt which was scrubbed. President Obama was another guest. I'm sure she'll try to return when her husband and his crew finally make it off the pad. And America — and Arizona — have written an inspiring, inoffensive narrative of the affair: Plucky heroine fights back from adversity to see her heroic spouse fly into space. What happens next? Is she, some ask, the natural replacement for Sen. Jon Kyl when he retires?

Little of this is real, but it's a test of our collective blast-off from reality. No one but family and close friends really know how she's recovering from such a traumatic injury. There's no chance that a Democratic congresswoman from Pima County who barely secured re-election could win the statewide Senate race in an Arizona that is one of the reddest places in America.

Most horrendous in this Lifetime movie version of events is the Soviet-style airbrushing of the most important fact: Giffords was the target of an assassination attempt that grew directly out of the extreme hate- and gun-filled rhetoric of the Tea Party election season in 2009 and 2010. Almost immediately after the shooting, which claimed six lives and injured 12 others, the rewriting of history began. Why, this was just the work of a deranged individual. So what if his reading included Ayn Rand? And what possibly could be the connection between Jared Lee Loughner and, say, repeated death threats to Giffords, the widely televised gun-toters at the president's appearance at the Phoenix Convention Center, Sarah Palin's gun sights on Democratic candidates (including Giffords), lines such as "Don't retreat, reload" (Palin) and "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous..." (Michele Bachmann), and the weakest gun laws in the country. Nothing to see here, move along.

Phoenix 101: The East Valley

A subdivision in Chandler.

Of all the many delusional linguistic constructs in metro Phoenix meant to sell real estate and sustain the unsustainable (think, "The Sun Corridor," "the North Valley," etc.), only the East Valley has the most substance to it. Such was not always the case.

In 1960, when Phoenix's population was 439,170, Mesa clocked in at a mere 33,772. Tempe was a little college town. Scottsdale a small artist's colony/former farm town with "Western" touristy schlock. Chandler was a stop on the railroad for the San Marcos Hotel. The remainder were tiny agricultural villages. All were separated by miles of fields, groves, and history.

Mesa, for example, was distinctive for its settlement by Mormon pioneers. Tempe was the home of the normal school turned Arizona State College and just renamed a university. All the real towns supported separate newspapers. Mesa and Tempe had their own street-grid numbering systems. Guadalupe was its own unique enclave, first settled by Yaqui Indians fleeing the Mexican Revolution and was the most culturally Mexican place in the Salt River Valley.

The common denominators: Economies based on agriculture, the Southern Pacific Railroad, and (with the exception of Scottsdale) being south of the Salt River and thus part of the coalition that fought against Phoenix and north-bank farmers for water rights and allocations before and after the Newlands Act. Power in the area resided with the big growers and prosperous businessmen of Mesa, all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

By the late 1970s, the landscape was changing fast. Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe and Mesa had grown together. The Superstition Freeway was being slowly built east from I-10, reaching Dobson Road around 1977, disrupting and slowly killing the rich cluster of local businesses that lined old U.S. 60 along Mill Avenue, Apache Boulevard and Main Street.

Mesa's population was closing in on 150,000, and it was annexing miles of retiree trailer courts that ran along Main toward the Pinal County line. Samaritan Health Services, the forerunner of Banner Health, opened a new hospital, Desert Samaritan, near the new freeway. ASU had grown to be a large university and Tempe extended south with The Lakes. The first subdivisions of something called Ahwatukee were being finished. From the rise of I-10 at Baseline, the view east glittered like a jewel at night. Still, miles of citrus groves ran east of central Mesa, centered around Val Vista.

Almost everything south of central Mesa and Tempe was still agriculture. Chandler was a small town and Gilbert little more than a crossroads. Williams Air Force Base was in operation and far from everything, linked by the ubiquitous two-lane concrete roads lined on each side by irrigation ditches.

The next two decades would see startling change, and the evolution into a true separate identity within the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Bin Laden open thread

I'll open the blog up for your comments on the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. Special Forces. My quick take: Maybe it helps President Hoover's re-election, but nothing else much changes. Remember, bin Laden achieved his strategic goals beyond his wildest dreams: To cause the United States to over-react, attack Muslim and Arab countries, be seen an an enemy of Islam and thus energizing new generations of jihadists, as well as slowly bleeding ourselves to death in an endless "War on Terror."

Moreover, we're more addicted to foreign oil than ever; Iran, with nuclear ambitions, has expanded its influence because of our war-of-choice on Iraq; Israel is defiant and about to become more isolated, and the Military-Industrial Complex won't be throttled down because of bin Laden's death. And will we get our liberties back with the repeal of the Patriot Act? Don't count on it.

Some interesting links:

The New Yorker: Notes on the Death of bin Laden.

Slate: Eight unanswered mysteries.

Salon: Hunting for Osama, By the Numbers.

National Journal: The Secret Team that Killed bin Laden.

Times of India: The ISI and the Hiding of Osama.

TPM: Senate Intel chair says torture didn't lead to bin Laden in any way.

Bin Laden's war of a thousand cuts will live on.