The Friday saloon

• The best piece I have seen on the extremism driving the government shutdown — and worse to come — is from Andrew Sullivan. "I regard this development as one of the more insidious and anti-constitutional acts of racist vandalism against the American republic in my adult lifetime." I highly recommend it.

• Ezra Klein writes, "Markets (still) aren't too worried about the debt ceiling. Sometimes markets are wrong." I examined this earlier this week: Default "is no longer just a scary story economists tell each other over campfires. It is barreling toward us." My column is here. Also, Wonkblog offers this useful primer to the issue.

• I find it telling that President Obama and Congress quickly ensured that the military would be paid. Forgive me for thinking of the Roman Empire and the power of the Praetorian Guard. One wonders what happens when our dysfunction reaches such a level that a new Caesar decides to take his legion across the Potomac. Meanwhile, we see plenty of stories about National Parks closed and GOPers escorting World War II vets into their memorial, but little about the poor and vulnerable being hurt.

• It's a laff riot, tears allowed, to watch the Scottsdale City Council try to "fix" the linear automobile slum that McDowell Road and other parts of south Scottsdale have become. They, after all, helped cause the problem by allowing car dealers to decamp north and, with the "I don't go south of Bell" mentality, otherwise neglect this area. It is the classic metro Phoenix problem of ageing mass-produced subdivisions divided by enormously wide highways called "streets." It is difficult to turn such an area into "a heritage corridor" aside from a drive-by illustration of tragic mistakes. This was once a wonderful area, with Los Arcos Mall and Coronado High School. But it always had the ticking time bomb of bad, car-centric civic design and the constant pull of the next real-estate hustle somewhere else. For all its money and even with ASU Skysong, Scottsdale is caught in the same mindset that perpetuates miles of blight across the region.

Some have asked me to "focus the conversation" better. Should I? Or is the open-thread format working?

Comments

[cal Lash]

Its your column Jon.
Do what feels good to U

[cal Lash]

Scottsdale: As a teenager Scottsdale was a dirt road from the Arizona Canal north and the big draw for young westside hoods (like me) was the chicks at the private girls school, Judson..
As a phoenix cop the big joke with Phoenix cops was having a Scottsdale cop tell you they didnt have prostitutes in Scottsdale. The truth was the Scottsdale hookers got a 100 bucks a trick instead of 20. Guess 80 bucks more makes you a what?
That reminds me that the first and last dance I had was in the river bottom between Scottsdale and Tempe.
Scottsdale politicians have been a joke since Herb Drinkwater died.
I would look for downtown Scottsdale art stores to fold. I go there about once a month and there is nothing happening. However at night the booze clubs are in full swing with the Scottsdale PD bike squad bringing in the bucks by arresting guys taking a leak in the parking lot and guys getting oral sex behind pizza parlors from those non hookers now getting 300 and hour.

[cal Lash]

Dance did I say dance? I meant LAP dance

[Petro]

Some have asked me to "focus the conversation" better. Should I? Or is the open-thread format working?

I think it's working fine, and I don't think it needs top-down-management: "focusing."

But some have asked, so it appears this is up for debate. Some thoughts:

The "anarchy" of the open thread is "working" partly because it's an incomplete anarchy, and partly due to the civility of the commenters here.

By "incomplete anarchy," I mean that it still has the wisp of top-down as it is coalesced around a personality. This "governor" - in the sense of governing an engine - can turn the regulation up or down within certain realistic limits. So this hangs over our heads whether or not Mr. Talton brings the hammer.

Which brings us to the civility. Mayhaps it be due to the angelic nature of the commenters, but probably mostly it's this dangling Sword of Damocles ("Hammer of Talton.") It's a fragile arrangement that could be subsumed at any time by the army of lurkers that Jon is incontinently trying to de-lurk (I see you over there on Facebook trying to get them to weigh in here.)

(I am of course poking fun by calling it "incontinent" - I, too, am inclined towards the-more-the-merrier.)

At the end of it, I don't believe this question will be, or can be, answered democratically. The minute this becomes a matter of general concern amongst the minions here will be the minute that Talton's hammer will have to come down.

Nice of you to ask, however. :)

[Just say no....ho ho ho]

Red meat by Rogue once a week works fine. Talton needs time to continue to write his outstanding novels. When is the next one?

[Chris Thomas]

No need for more focusing on my account. Btw, did I mention yet that Cal is not as tall in real life as he is described on the page? :)

[cal Lash]

Only in Arizona: The Last Picture Show. In 1973, largely because of the skinny-dipping party scene, the film was banned in Phoenix, Arizona when the city attorney notified a drive-in theater manager that the film violated a state obscenity statute. Eventually, a federal court decided that the film was not obscene.[8][9]

[Petro]

It appears that the GOP shutdown souffle has flopped, that they may lose the House over this. Perhaps this means they will not keep it in the oven all the way until the Oct. 17th "timer" goes off?

The hemming and hawing will be fun to watch over the next few weeks.

[cal Lash]

I am sure there are folks in Arizona that would like to see Arizona move into the 2 percent level.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/3/majority-of-us-executionshappeninjusttwopercentofcounties.html
AZ the state with a governor that seems to detest pardons.