Posted inPhoenix

Phoenix broiling: Apocalypse now, or later

The Republic devoted a magisterial nine sentences today to the fact that Phoenix is on track to meet or exceed last year’s record 32 days of 110 degrees or above.

Not that anybody living there now cares, but as late as the 1960s, the Salt River Valley had hard frosts in the winter (thus, far fewer mosquitoes, no West Nile virus). We went back to school in September, in un-air conditioned classrooms, because it was cooling down enough to open the windows. Night-time cooling in summer was significant, and the summers were not as hot, nor did they last as long, as now. The idea of more than a month of 110-and-above would have seemed frighteningly absurd.

Contrary to the mantra of "it’s a desert, shut up about the heat!," these man-made changes in the Phoenix weather are a Big Deal. So far, they are mostly a local event, caused by the massive loss of agriculture and gargantuan increase in paved sprawl. Global warming’s consequences haven’t really started to kick in.

What happens then?

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Posted inPolitics: National

A referendum on conservatism and ‘conservatism’

Part of me wants to nap until election day — and I’m a political junkie. The campaign coverage has descended to such a level of distraction and foolishness, especially in the electronic media, that it’s difficult to bear. Unfortunately, most people will be sufficiently indoctrinated by this sideshow, and I give you President-elect McCain. Where he is the truly risky choice, the media must have Obama in that box. Where the election should be a referendum on the now incontestable consequences of the Republican policies McCain will continue, it will be a referendum on Obama. I give you: President-elect McCain.

And he’s the "conservative." Yet he is no impostor. He is the same kind of "conservative" that has run the country for years.

This perhaps is the biggest irony in the room. A quarter century of "conservative" rule — including Bill Clinton and the Gingrich Congress — have given us a larger government, huge deficits, a crippling debt, debased culture, overseas adventures and imperial presidential power (We’re Americans: we torture) that would make Calvin Coolidge, Robert Taft and Barry Goldwater cringe. It is even counter to the ideas of Ronald Reagan as a political thinker (and, yes, he was a formidable one). By way of context, Ike, Nixon and George H.W. Bush were right-of-center pragmatists, not conservatives.

The heirs of Buckley bravely carry water for today’s "conservatives," but Buckley couldn’t have died a happy man, to see where his counter-revolution led (he became a vocal critic of the Iraq adventure). Burke and Russell Kirk are spinning so fast in their graves as to provide new data to particle physicists.

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Posted inUncategorized

Leggy, blonde coed hooker wrecks world trade talks

Years ago, when I was a reporter in San Diego, we had a contest: Who can bore readers with the fewest words in the lede (the winner, at three words: "Otay Water District," as in, "Otay Water District directors voted Tuesday to…" — the reader would have moved on to the hockey scores after only three words).

Nowadays the winner is "world trade talks." A funny thing, that, considering how much globalization has revolutionized American lives, for good and ill, while most Americans haven’t been paying attention. So prop open your eyeballs as I note that world trade talks collapsed yesterday.

I suspect something more fundamental changed. The failure of the Doha Round of talks may well mean the end of the trade paradigm that has prevailed since the end of World War II. This is the biggest news story that will get the least attention.

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Meanwhile, in book news
Posted inUncategorized

Meanwhile, in book news

My new mystery, The Pain Nurse, is set for spring publication from the Poisoned Pen Press. This is a break from the David Mapstone series set in Arizona. The Pain…
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Posted inUncategorized

Today’s must read

I must call your attention to one of Jim Kunstler's best posts in years, "The Coming Re-Becoming." Must reading. It includes this priceless passage:In the days when the Harmony Mill…
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Posted inUncategorized

R U raising stupid children?

When people tell me their children don't read newspapers, I usually say, "Wow, you don't seem like someone who would raise stupid children." This invariably takes them aback, perhaps if for no other reason than it's not the typical hangdog response from newsies of, "I know."

My point to that the people who will tell their children what to do as adults will get factual information, sophisticated analysis, in-depth context and investigative reporting, whether it's delivered online, on dead trees, or through implants in their Botox injections. The people who will rule the world will consume and read journalism. The most gifted of them will also have gained the singular insights into human nature and the world that come from literature and history.

It says something about so many American parents that they are content to raise stupid children into stupid young adults. So I pretty much knew what to expect from a Sunday front page story in the New York Times headlined "Literacy Debate: Online R U really reading."

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Posted inPhoenix

Phoenix and Arizona — the solutions are out there

Newer readers to Rogue Columnist might wonder about the attention I pay to my native state of Arizona, even though now I live in Seattle. First, because after I chose to leave the Arizona Republic in April 2007, I took with me a cohort of loyal readers who want something other than the usual mendacious Phoenix cheerleading (think of this as a virtual Battlestar Gallactica). But also because the challenges and troubles Arizona faces carry lessons for all of America. Finally, I fear Phoenix’s coming implosion will bring a huge pricetag for American taxpayers, and a human tragedy that shakes our souls.

Some of these readers still tell me they come away from my posts feeling depressed. I want them to realize the facts, get mad as hell and take action. But Phoenicians, even really smart ones, tend to have two emotional gears: blind optimism and suicidal depression. It’s a malady as old as settlement of the West, where promotional posters back east led to a trail of broken dreams. Others realize that the mountain Phoenix and Arizona must climb is so steep that it seems hopeless.

I spent seven years as a columnist in Phoenix offering solutions, as well as pointing out the emperor’s wardrobe malfunction (and believe me, I pulled my punches every time I wrote). But here again are some solutions. Some might apply to towns other than Phoenix.

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Posted inUncategorized

In Seattle, another chance to shoot ourselves in the foot and reload?

Seattle is the most backward city on the West Coast when it comes to mass transit. That still puts it light-years ahead of most American cities. Its bus system is quite good, the first light-rail line opens next year and a street car now links downtown to the burgeoning South Lake Union district. Sounder commuter heavy rail runs from Tacoma north to Everett. In addition, the Cascades Amtrak service provides convenient service between Eugene, Ore., and Vancouver, B.C., including Portland and Seattle. The ferry service is the best in America, despite recent underfunding.

But Seattle residents feel profoundly inferior to Portland, with its world-class light rail system, and Vancouver, with its SkyTrain. And its a sign of how much progress has been made in California that all the service I mention above is a fraction of what’s available in LA, San Francisco or San Diego. Yet Seattle is also the gang that couldn’t shoot straight when it comes to many transit projects.

A roads-and-transit measure was defeated last year. Now an all-transit measure may come to the November ballot, and already newspapers, powerful suburban developers and even the generally pro-transit King County executive Ron Sims are opposing it. Seattle’s misadventures with transit have lessons that apply to other cities, and will be more important in years ahead when a lifestyle based on long, individual auto trips becomes less viable.

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Posted inUncategorized

The danger to the economy: Size does matter

One of the biggest underlying problems behind the financial crisis is size. These are the wages of years of mergers and industry consolidation, combined with weak or non-existent regulation. Thus, Wachovia today posted a loss of $8.9 billion — enough to add to the public funding of Amtrak by nearly eight-fold. In a healthy market economy, a bank with such performance could simply be allowed to "fail," with depositors covered by the FDIC and the shareholders who enabled the disaster taking the fall.

But Wachovia is too big to fail. Like its cousin investment banks on Wall Street and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, its collapse could bring down the entire economy. If necessary it will be propped up, as the Fed and Treasury have done with those other giants. (The immediate damage: $25 billion). That’s your money. Of course, the executive class will continue to take home tens-of-millions paychecks as a reward for these disasters.

And yet, the brain surgeons in the executive suites of Wachovia are merely trying to fix the bank enough to sell it. Jamie Dimon’s JPMorgan Chase seems to be the last shopper standing at the garage sale of the American economy. The result, in addition to calamity in Wachovia’s hometown of Charlotte, will be an even bigger behemoth to hold taxpayers hostage next time.

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Posted inPolitics: National

McCain’s national security cred and TR — more media lies

The corporate media, particularly the electronic division, keeps repeating certain shorthand, whether it’s true or not. One example, on display almost daily, is that "John McCain’s the maverick." I’ve gone to great lengths on this blog to disprove that notion. McCain is a fairly conventional "conservative" who once or twice bucked his party when it didn’t really matter. You can check his voting record. This is no secret.

McCain’s utter hostility to helping the state he claims to represent deal with the problems of rapid urbanization and funding the illegal alien surge that was so profitable to Republican businessmen shows how he will govern domestically. Likewise his "straight shooter integrity" image is shattered by the facts, from the Keating Five onward. (Check the McCain File to your right for more).

Now two more "givens" are in the teleprompter scrips. First is the idea that McCain is a national security expert, ready to be commander in chief on "day one" — Sen. Clinton helpfully said it herself. The second is that McCain is a "Theodore Roosevelt Republican."

There’s just one problem: Neither is true.

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Posted inPolitics: National

Is it already over for Obama, IV?

Obama’s win in the Democratic primary showed him to potentially be one of the most gifted politicians in American history. Yes, he gives a good speech — something that is underrated, particularly after the embarrassingly inarticulate George W. Bush. If we’re to have any chance to address the historic challenges facing the country, we’re going to need an inspiring leader at the bully pulpit.

But he also ran a great ground game, outflanking Hillary’s admittedly badly run operation, and showed he could push back effectively against Rovian tactics. After the disaster of conservative government on display everywhere and every indication this should be a Democratic year, why can’t I come out an admit I was wrong about Obama?

I hope I can. Unfortunately, he has several things going against him, which may prove insurmountable. Remember, Michelle said, "this is it, one campaign and no more," or words to that effect. If Nancy  Reagan had said the same thing in 1976, no book would be called "The Age of Reagan," however gifted that orator and politician was.

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Posted inPhoenix

The Coles affair: Unsustainability is now

Once again, the Wall Street Journal goes to Phoenix to report on the most pathological aspects of our economic troubles. It does the in-depth, sophisticated and contextual story on the suicide of Scott Coles and the collapse of his Mortgages Ltd. that the local press will not allow its reporters the time and expertise to do. And remember, the Republic’s in-house diktat is, "say something positive about the community" (and use streaming video!!).

The personal story of Coles is the stuff of a tragic novel, albeit for our tawdry era. He was 48 when he wrote a goodbye note, donned a tuxedo, climbed into bed, and apparently committed suicide. His company was in trouble, and with it some of the highest-profile projects in "the Valley." His 20-year-younger second wife, whom he had met in Las Vegas, wanted a trial separation. The darkness he must have felt merits our compassion and prayers.

But the business story must also be told, for it illustrates not only how Phoenix got into its worst downturn in perhaps decades, but also the peril of Ponzi Scheme Nation.

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