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May 04, 2015

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New comments here:

http://www.roguecolumnist.com/rogue_columnist/2015/04/the-left-wing-bubble.html

Including why and how the worst of the Baltimore rioting broke out (not police violence); who the victims of the riots are (the local Black community) and why the immediate physical damage is only the beginning of Black Baltimore's problems as a result of the riots. Also, follow up comments re right-wing myths and realities in Germany.

Just preliminary remarks.

What is this mysterious "East Valley"? Is that a way of referring to Chandler/ Gilbert?

What are these mysterious jobs being "stolen" by them? Do you refer to the burgeoning electronics and aerospace industry? Other professional work?

How are they stealing that investment capital and luring that "young top talent" away from Phoenix? Must be all those narrow roads, mature shade trees and light rail they're known for!

Are they just lucky? Conniving and underhanded? Or are they doing something right? If the latter, what, and is it something Phoenix can and should emulate?

Don't tell me its segregated suburban neighborhoods. There are plenty of those in North Phoenix where there is nothing but retail and maybe some warehouses and call centers. Besides, is that really what top young talent is lured to the mysterious Orient of the Valley by? Seems unlikely. They could move to Idaho.

Oh! And I almost forgot the dense, vibrant mixed-use downtowns used by the East Valley (ahem) to lure all those software developers and engineers (and their families?). Yeah, and the gay pride parades Chandler and Gilbert throw every year to show their "tolerance". Nothing says "community" like a cross-dressing carnival.

Emil, Would you name a few companies of "the burgeoning electronics and aerospace industry" in the east valley?

I've met a lot of engineers from Chandler, but they all seemed to work for INTC or Free Scale Semiconductor(formerly Motorola) which is based in Austin and was just purchased by Holland headquartered NXPI.

Metro Phoenix will never become a walkable place. It is absolutely automobile-centric.

Skin Cancer Central is far too gone. It will remain a suburbanite destination. Maybe the young will grow into the lifestyle? or not.

@Emil: came across this today:
“California water prices are much more stable over time, but they vary a lot by geography. California municipalities see prices that vary by about 12 times. For example, Ventura pays pumping charges of just $120 per acre foot, while San Diego is purchasing desalinated water for $2,200 per acre foot. Price discrepancies like this defy economic laws. There is certainly nothing resembling a scarcity price for water.”
From:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/004914-a-fix-california-water-policy

For San Diego, works out to 20 cubic feet/$ +/-

WKG, Suggest you locate a copy of Desert Cadillac by Marc Reisner, its got lots of water numbers.

WKG, The San Rafael Cattle Ranch was the location of 17 movies. One of my favorites is Tom Horne. There are two stories of Horn available in book form. I was in that country and Mexico a few days ago.
A small book called “A Slow Trot Home” by Lisa Greene Sharp is a nice read. I have stayed at her place near Tubac in the past and My Friend and Green Valley Cattle Rancher, John Hayes is married to a Sharp, also owners of the San Rafael. The US part of the old Spanish Land Grant is now owned by the Nature Conservancy and the State of Arizona (a shame as the state has shut it off to the public to allow HLS to OCUPPY the place.) I got threatened with trespassing last time I visited and tried walking around the ranch house.

Emil,
a friend and I watched a DVD of Pepe Le Moko, we both enjoyed this excellent 1937 melodrama.

Emil, The "East Valley" pretty much calls the shots in AZ. AZ Legislature is the right wing subdivison of Utah

And folks, re Baltimore “riot” how about this farfetched conspiracy theory, it was initiated by HLS, NSA, DEA, the FBI and wealthy folks that would benefit by having a “looting” and criminal riot compared to a political protest?

An interesting clip from the news on Baltimore and St Louis problems.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/04/1381774/-A-White-Son-Of-Ferguson-On-Why-St-Louis-Can-t-Change?detail=email

WKG: more numbers for U.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/04/1382431/-Scientists-abandon-California-snowpack-measurement-because-why-bother?detail=email

You write: "I remind you of the column I wrote in 2008 for all those who say, "Talton just takes pot shots, he never offers solutions."

Frankly, I agree with just about every idea you put forth in that column. "Zion County" is a bit much.

Since 2008, however, (and I doubt that you will agree) from my vantage point a surprising amount of what you suggested is either a) in place, b) being planned or studied seriously, or c) at least being given lip service by persons who weren't even "going there" in 2008.

Your remarks not only pre-date the implementation of light rail--and its wildly successful acceptance in the Valley--but also the change of attitude in Mesa itself that has resulted in the expansion of the LRT through town. Face it, "Main Street" should be renamed "Main Line" as it is basically a double-track railroad with narrow access lanes for automobiles next to the curbs. I think the shade trees are there, too--at least for part of it. So much for the "Zion County Kookacracy."

Tax-increment financing (a good idea) is now on everyone's radar, as well.

Yes, you made excellent, positive suggestions in 2008. But some of those have been--or likely will be--implemented. So, isn't the "glass partially full"? And what's been accomplished so far has been as a result of people pulling together, Democrat and Republican, to make it happen.

Are we there yet? Of course not! Is there room for criticism? Always! You write, "government shouldn't be run like a business," but one thing I have always appreciated as a businessman is customer complaints--they help you identify what needs fixing. In that context, complaints are not only welcome, but essential.

But an objective report card of what's been accomplished so far would be nice, too.

The Good News: A cradle catholic governor defies a LDS legislature, that would privatize the Grand Canyon with 10 percent of all revenue going to the FUND!
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2015/04/governor_vetoed_land_grab_bills--happy_earth_day.php

WKG: just for you a murder mystery water conspiracy, story.
http://www.hcn.org/articles/could-canadas-water-solve-californias-drought-1?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email

Rob,
Nothing positive has happened in the Sonoran Desert since the Hohokom left.
Back a bit I sent Jon a short piece in this vein.
The Garden of Eden.
Maybe he can add a link to it?

Not sure I understand the venom towards Fiorina.

She surely has accomplished more on her own than any other female candidate, hasn't she??

And to suggest that governments should not be run like businesses ignores the successes of a Bloomberg, or a Mitch Daniels, or a Jon Huntsman, or a Mitt Romney.

I've mentioned before- I'd vote for Bloomberg tomorrow.

INPHX,

Republicans like to say about the opposition, "Well, they never ran a business of their own" or "Well, they never had to meet a payroll".

All very quaint.

concerning Fiorina, it doesn't play well to have to say, "Well, they never ran a company into the ground."

She did. Spectacularly.

Sanders or Webb in '16

Hillary go to hell.

Cents: What's wrong with Elizabeth (T.R.)Warren?

Cal, Elizabeth Warren might be waiting for Hillary to crash and burn, which seems like it'll happen; little too much Global Initiative, maybe, plus those horrific pantsuits and scarves.

Cents:

There's no doubt the Compaq/HP merger was a mistake.

Have you any idea what it takes to get into a position to even be capable of making that kind of mistake?

And its not only about making payroll.

It's about leading large organizations and obtaining results.

INPHX re Fiorina, How about Soros or Buffet? But then very few smart people are dumb enough to run for public office.

How about Arianna Huffington?


INPHX,

Yes, I do. I'm there now.

And I am a "profitable" results guy. Three decades and running.

And, fortunately no big mistakes to report.

Have time to plant some Sahuaros?

Since the thread seems to have died out and a new one is due any hour now, I’m going to riff on a throw-away comment by RC: “The city has special needs and the clock is ticking.” I know very little about the City/Metro – other than what I read here and the referenced links – so a lot of this is speculation. The following pertain to the CITY of Phoenix – not the Metro – although I think some of them apply to the Metro as a whole. Here are the “special needs” that come to mind:

Legacy Costs. Phoenix, being the biggest and oldest muni entity in the Metro has the biggest and earliest impact. These have just started to role in and already are affecting city finances. It’s only going to get worse – a lot worse.

Post-War Subdivisions. The city has the
highest concentration of subdivisions built in the 1950-1960 period. These were thrown up as quickly as they could be built. They weren’t considered to be all that “delux” when they were built. They are clearly considered 3rd rate by today’s standards.

Magnet for the destitute. I’m thinking immigrants (particularly of the illegal kind) here.

Infrastructure needs. The very low density (even compared to Gilbert or Chandler) pattern has resulted in a huge road/sidewalk network. Also water and sewer systems. How is this to be maintained going forward? Partiularly if most of it is reaching its designed live cycle.

Tax Base: static or declining.

Status: even in its own Metro, the City is considered to be 2nd rate. I asked many threads ago: “Was the City considered to contain the most prestigious office space, best shopping, and best neighborhoods?” I only received one reply and that was: “no, no and no.”

Service Delivery Quality: This applies mostly to the “nuts and bolts” of Muni functioning. What would be schools, public safety and public works.

Lack of direction/leadership/unity.

Cal asked me to post this:

“SE ACABARON”
“Well they just ran out”

A Mexican Cowboy on Horseback in the Sonora in the 1960’s

(David Yetman in the Opatas)

The Opatas may have been practicing irrigated farming as early as 1 CE in the Sonora. They possibly ranged as far as into the area of what is now called Phoenix. (The Plains of Sonora are a subdivision of the Great Sonoran desert.)

“Sonora is wide open and uncluttered, parts of it flat, other parts mountainous with fine intervening valleys and although it has no major river, streams abound that offer abundant water for irrigation in which, thanks to the goodness of the soil, copious amounts 0f wheat, corn and other grains are gathered in, and herds of small and large livestock are bred with ease due to abundant pasture and Ample land for them.”

— Pedro Tamaron Y Romeral, Bishop of Nueva Vizcaya, 1760.

Yetman and others suggest that the Hohokam and the Casa Grandes were driven further south into the Sonora by social and environmental factors. (Floods and droughts and other tribes in the area)

Pima Indians presumably descended from Hohokam. Hohokam in the Pima language means, “Those who have gone.”

The Honorable William Gilpin a friend and adviser to Presidents in the 1860’s upon viewing the Western US, exclaimed “No Hindrances to settlement now existed.” (Wallace Stegner in Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, John Wesley Powell and the second opening of the West.”)

Gilpin suggested that the Mississippi Valley that now supported 18 Million people could support 18 hundred million.

In my thoughts, the beginning of the colossal destruction of the South Western United States by the likes of politicians such as Gilpin and the push back effort by people like Powell to reign in their Roman Empire expansion. Powell advocated a “modified Great American Desert.”

“How can we congratulate ourselves on the advances in modern agriculture, including greatly increased production, if the rate of starvation, scarcity, depletion and disease increases even more rapidly?” (Masanobu Fukuoka in Sowing Seeds in the Desert).

“Arizona’s solution to needing water was the pumping of ground water. By the 1960’s four out of every five acre feet of water used in the state came out of the ground. In the early days, Artesian wells flowed around Phoenix. By the 1960’s Phoenix farmers could drill as much as 2000 feet and get nothing but hot brine. Drivers learned to watch for fissures. Arizona had reversed the pattern of some states-it had fully developed its surface water first and then began to overdraft its groundwater. Except for its Colorado River entitlement- whatever it was- it literally had nothing left. “(Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert).

"In 1963 The Supreme court ruled in favor of Arizona (over California) that The Salt-Verde-Gila watershed was exclusively Arizona’s except for a small portion that belonged to New Mexico. The one exception to the rule, said the court was when someone had water rights that predated the Colorado River Compact. Those rights had to be satisfied first, no matter what.“ (Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert).

"New York was full of immigrants, criminals and minorities, so who gave a dam if it went bust? But Phoenix and irrigated farmland was America! “(Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert).

So from 1940 until recently Phoenix’s agriculture and then housing boom until bust devastated its water sources as man sought to become god over nature.

“We pretend we are at the top of the great chain of being, although evolution is nonhierarchical. (Derrick Jensen from A Language Older than Words.)

The mountains and the wolves understand water and the desert but:

“Only the Mountain has lived long enough to objectively listen to the howl of the wolf. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau’s dictum: In Wilderness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.” (Aldo Lepold, on Arizona in A Sand County Almanac).

The Good News is:
When the asphalt of Phoenix begins to cook, bubble, melt and becomes a black river the desert will come back and clean and eventually renew some of what man has destroyed. (Cal Lash, 042815)

Back to you, Jon.

042915
Wallace Stegner set about to destroy the “Myths of the west that were no more than he false store fronts Hollywood”. All that came after the rush westward, mining, agriculture and taking of all available resources, “It all amounted to .to a rugged, beautiful and wild welfare state. And Stegners mentor and friend Bernard Devoto decried the “The economy of liquidation” that had prevailed in the West since it was first settled. ( David Gessner in All the Wild that Remains.)

INPHX, There are very few women, 26 in all, who lead Fortune 500 companies. I give Fiorina credit for her ambition but she failed in her endeavor. Lots of men fail, Bush failed, but he was a good cheerleader.
Fiorina has had political ambitions for some time, she has yet to win an election. She seems not to resonate with her fellow Republicans.

Drifter wrote:

" Emil, Would you name a few companies of "the burgeoning electronics and aerospace industry" in the east valley. I've met a lot of engineers from Chandler, but they all seemed to work for INTC or Free Scale Semiconductor(formerly Motorola)..."

OK, here are a few:

In addition to Intel and Freescale Semiconductor, there's Orbital Sciences (Orbital ATK), Microchip Technology, Amkor Technology, Rogers Circuit Materials, Crane Aerospace & Electronics (STC Microwave Systems), Heraeus Materials (Tech. Division)... Also a number of software companies of which Go Daddy Software is the best known. These are all a significant presence in Chandler and/or Gilbert.

There are a large number of smaller companies as well. These are significant because of the collective effect of their payrolls on local employment.

Mesa has Boeing, Able Aerospace Services, AZLabs, and the Aerospace and Defense Research Collaborative (at the ASU Polytechnic campus), to name a few significant organizations.


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