Posted inUncategorized

Book time open thread

33

* Please read below the jump for important new information.

With a hard September deadline for my next David Mapstone Mystery and the demands of my Seattle Times job, I must take a break from Rogue. I regret that I can't sustain the old 16-hour workdays any longer.

You may use this as an open thread to discuss the issues of the day in the comments section. If something major happens, I may try to write. Otherwise, I will also try to update the daily Front Page, as well as Arizona's Continuing Crisis.

As always, the site's archives offer plenty, especially the Phoenix 101 history section. See you in mid-September, God willing.


* Because of the limitations of Typepad, I will have to cut back the amount of time a link stays on the Top Stories archive (Best of the Front Page, Arizona's Continuing Crisis, City Desk, and Climate/Water/Energy).

If there's a story from years back that you want to save, act quickly. My apologies.

33 Comments

  1. Mike Doughty
    Reply
    June 20, 2017,

    Always wondered how Jon managed to do it all.Now we know-16 hr. days.

  2. Cal Lash
    Reply
    June 20, 2017,

    Just read a Web site that was reporting a Phoenix hot spot of 128.8 and it’s 70 in Seattle.

  4. Mary Tooley
    Reply
    June 20, 2017,

    Looking forward to the new book. Sixteen hour days are not pleasant. Edward Abbey advocated for working hard for the environment and then checking out to get into the desert. Wise, wise advice. Applicable for all of us no matter what our work lives are about.
    Also, I have noted that the best creative ideas I get come when I am not working nonstop. I think that is why the goddess of travel invented road trips.
    Happy Solstice.

  5. Cal Lash
    Reply
    June 21, 2017,

    Jon said,
    God willing I will be back in September.
    Guess like the evangelists,
    Jon has NOT noticed,God was murdered by his trumphant stepbrother, The Donald.
    “Keep Scribbling” Jon, see you in September.

  8. Cal Lash
    Reply
    June 22, 2017,

    And the people the Pale faces genocided?

  9. Rogue Columnist
    Reply
    June 22, 2017,

    I already wrote about this:
    https://www..com/rogue_columnist/2017/02/white-majoritarianism.html

  10. Rogue Columnist
    Reply
    June 22, 2017,

    Logging this in. New BEA data for 2015:
    Arizona real per-capita personal income: $37,268, up 2.7 percent, vs. US average $43,996, up 3.4 percent.
    Similar population states: Washington $45,349 and Massachusetts $53,624.
    Arizona is only slightly more affordable than the national average.
    Metro Phoenix $38,521, well below peer cities.
    Now Bob Bobb can write another column saying this doesn’t matter.
    https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/rpp/2017/pdf/rpp0617.pdf

  11. Drifter
    Reply
    June 22, 2017,

    I just visited Once Upon a Crime bookstore in Minneapolis as my extended drift through the city continues. A fine selection of crime fiction novels but none by Jon Talton. While chatting with the knowledgeable store manager I suggested his latest novel be added to the store’s inventory especially because it appears everyone here white has an elder relative living in Phoenix. Phoenix to those here really means Sun City, Surprise or Scottsdale.
    The city of Minneapolis is surprisingly diverse, seemingly tolerant, possesses a lot of fine buildings and the job situation is very strong. Excellent public transportation system.

  14. Mark in Scottsdale
    Reply
    June 29, 2017,

    Article on how elderly Democratic leaders are holding the party back from a fresh, new message and the need for new blood in leadership and in major candidates. Similar articles have appeared in a number of publications lately.
    Matt Bai: https://www.yahoo.com/news/pelosi-go-take-60s-generation-090032524.html
    I agreed with a lot of his points. I don’t think the Democrats can win the Presidency by being a party of old ideas, be they old liberal ideas or old conservative ideas. They need energy and a new/modern message to motivate the occasional/irregular voters who propelled Obama to bother to vote again.
    My personal hope is for a GOP primary challenger to Trump in 2020 who didn’t tap out to Trump in 2016 in the name of preserving their own political future — i.e., someone new and principled who can run on a message of restoring morality, sanity, conservative orthodoxy and pride to the Presidency. It’s an approach any good GOP candidate should excel at, but given the last candidate the party gave us, I take nothing for granted.

  15. B. Franklin
    Reply
    June 29, 2017,

    “new and principled” and Republican?
    When pigs fly.

  17. Cal Lash
    Reply
    July 2, 2017,

    Independence day:
    “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
    –George Washington
    As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.
    George Washington
    “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
    –Thomas Jefferson
    “Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”
    ― Thomas Paine
    “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”
    ― Tom Paine
    Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
    Abraham Lincoln
    You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.
    Erma Bombeck
    Winston Churchill on USA Independence day: Tyranny, external or internal, is our foe whatever trappings or disguises it wears, whatever language it speaks, or perverts. We must forever be on our guard, and always vigilant against it…in those realms of thought which are consecrated to the rights and the dignity of man, and which are so amazingly laid down in the Declaration of Independence.
    Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
    Albert Camus
    Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.
    Moshe Dayan
    Americas indigenous people 0n July 4th:
    https://nativevillage.org/Inspiration-/Iindependence_day_for_the_native_.htm
    https://patch.com/massachusetts/westborough/s/g639k/do-you-know-which-three-presidents-died-on-independence-day
    Another country’s independence day from England:
    https://zeenews.india.com/news/india/independence-day-life-and-times-of-mahatma-gandhi_1917429.html
    Edward Abbey
    The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.
    Cal Lash agreeing with Edward Abbey:
    “My loyalties will not be bound by national borders, or confined in time by one nation’s history, or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language and culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time”.
    Edward Abbey

  18. Cal Lash
    Reply
    July 7, 2017,

    “Summertime is always the best of what might be”. Charles Bowden
    It’s another great day in the great Sonoran Desert, The heat is on and the Canadians are long gone. The birds and rabbits, lizards and snakes are hanging out in my shaded oasis and yesterday I photographed a large owl. A gentle breeze from the southwest along with some shade and a little water makes the summer desert a great quiet place to be. Calash
    Take a break: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/673393/photo-main.jpg?1397833552
    https://d4rri9bdfuube.cloudfront.net/assets/images/book/large/9780/8165/9780816510818.jpg
    https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61NPQDX17SL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
    https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/200×150/5a/8f/4b/5a8f4ba034ac2e1a7dc016eed1f336f4.jpg
    Some of my heroes.
    https://www.hcn.org/issues/46.17/charles-bowdens-fury/bowden4-jpg/image
    Have a great summer.

  19. Cal Lash
    Reply
    July 11, 2017,

    The continuing Joseph Smith delusional Mormon (not deranged Muhammad Muslim theocracy) jihad to establish and expand a LDS Theocratic caliphate.
    https://www.hcn.org/articles/monuments-how-grand-staircase-escalante-was-set-up-to-fail?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email
    Of course its all god justifiable:
    “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””
    Genesis 1:28 ESV:
    Like George Carlin said, It’s all bullshit and its bad for you.

  20. Cal Lash
    Reply
    July 16, 2017,

    Earth:”The environment is everything that isn’t me”.
    Albert Einstein
    “It’s really cold outside, they are calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming!”
    Donald Trump
    “I have a very positive attitude to anyone who is protecting the environment, but it’s inadmissible when people are using it as a means of promoting themselves, using it as a source of self-enrichment. I don’t want to name any specific examples… but often, environmentalism is used to blackmail companies”.
    Vladimir Putin
    “The United States has long thought of itself as the land of infinite plenty, and historically we did have abundant resources. But now we are gradually exhausting our fisheries, our topsoil, our water. On top of that, we’re coming to the end of world resources”.
    Jared Diamond
    “Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans have been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest, living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment”.
    Jane Goodall
    “Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill”.
    Stephen Hawking
    “You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer”.
    Thich Nhat Hanh
    And regarding the European invasion and genocide of the Americas.
    “Infectious diseases introduced with Europeans, like smallpox and measles, spread from one Indian tribe to another, far in advance of Europeans themselves, and killed an estimated 95% of the New World’s Indian population”.
    Jared Diamond

  21. Concern Troll
    Reply
    July 23, 2017,

    Well, now our oligarchy comes into the open, with the plan of Senator Ducey heaving into sight before McCain is even dead.
    Michelle Reagan is going to be flipping disaster, Goldwater is going to run everything, along with Cathy Herrod.
    Ah well, get some popcorn, because here comes the next crash, suckas.

  22. B. Franklin
    Reply
    July 24, 2017,

    Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re going to run government “just like a business”!
    A bankrupt business, one where the workers get stiffed and only the banks come out ahead.

  27. Petro
    Reply
    August 28, 2017,

    Wow, crowded room.
    Somebody said I should weigh in anyway. Just copying and pasting here, don’t get too excited.
    I am horrified, Edvard Munch horrified, by Arpaio’s pardon. I have always tilted at this “Badged Ego,” as you have wonderfully tagged him. I have had interactions, and I’ve been under his, uh, “patronage.”
    There is the opinion piece in the AZ Republic:
    https://deconstructingthemanifest.blogspot.com/2009/02/comin-atcha-sheriff-joe.html
    There is the song:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVKmVPm1Ikw
    I know it’s provincial of me to react to the latest Trumpism (and know that the giant orange middle-finger has had me retching since November,) but this latest slight against Law I find to be generally, and personally, beyond the pale.
    If this Arpaio is not part and parcel of Trump’s downfall, then his downfall will mean little to me.
    And his downfall is coming. I will eat crow with relish if I am wrong about this. Because it will be my last meal.

  30. Cal Lash
    Reply
    August 29, 2017,

    “When the white man turns tyrant, , it is his own freedom he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib”. George Orwell in Shooting an Elephant.

  31. Mike Doughty
    Reply
    August 30, 2017,

    I think I remember Arpaio saying that he wasn’t going to allow a judge to tell him how to run his office.Now that the worm has turned he whines like a $itch.Trump’s pardon shows that he thinks the rule of law is what he says it is.I can’t wait to see what happens next.

  33. Cal Lash
    Reply
    September 3, 2017,

    “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within”. – Will Durant

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *