Rogue Columnist

School’s out completely

Whatever the final numbers, the outlook for education in Arizona is grim. Blame the Kookocracy. Blame the governor, wealthy Republican Douglas A. Roscoe Jr. aka "Doug Ducey." Or credit them. A majority of Arizonans voted them in.

Education Week's respected Quality Counts report ranks Arizona 47th overall. The state has been down in the basement with Mississippi in per-pupil funding for years. By no measure has funding kept up with student population or dealt with inequalities among districts.

Similarly, higher education has received ever-decreasing portions of the state general fund. The slash-and-burn cuts that are imposed every few years are never restored.

The new regime intends to double down: at least $104 million in cuts to universities, elimination of all state support for the largest community college districts, and, despite a claim of increasing K-12 funding, a serious reduction there because the promises aren't in real dollars. Including inflation, the actual spending on K-12 will be a 13.5 percent reduction from 2005-2006.

Now, my mother said, "If you can't say something nice about a person, become a newspaper columnist." In that spirit, I can't even credit the Kooks with originality. They are merely playing out a national strategy being enacted in every state capitol where Republicans hold sway.

Even so, Arizona has suffered so many decades of such vandalism, the consequences will be more severe. Real lives will be affected, opportunities to escape poverty and climb the ladder of opportunity smothered. The damage won't stop there.

Jon Talton March 6, 201571

Politics: National

Republican-English Dictionary

If it's true that we live in a conservative country with a permanent Republican majority — or anywhere close — it is important to know what they're talking about.

So your humble servant offers this handy translation guide. I promise to update it as I think of new words and phrases or commenters offer up good ones. And enjoy more meaningful conversations with your red friends.

Activist Judges: Jurists who make rulings with which conservatives disagree. Antonyms: A Supreme Court that decides an election the Constitution insists should have gone to the House of Representatives or gives the rights (but not responsibilities) of citizenship to corporations, reversing decades of precedents.

American Exceptionalism: The United States is uniquely virtuous and commanded by God to work its will on other peoples. The greatest country in the world. Slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, the conquest and near extermination of 500 Indian nations, stealing half of Mexico in a slavery-driven war, Japanese internment, and the deaths of innocents in our wars of choice are not part of this exceptionalism. Nor do any other nations believe they are exceptional.

Birth Certificate: A forged document to allow the illegal election of Barack Hussein Obama.

Boondoggle: Any public investment that conservatives disagree with, which is pretty much anything. Antonym: Funding freeways and subsidies for defense contractors, fossil fuel companies, and other politically connected corporations.

Citizen: A corporation.

Christian Nation: The idea that not only the Declaration of Independence but the Constitution were grounded in the tenets of today's megachurch fundamentalism, and there should be no impediment to laws based on "Christian" beliefs. "Judeo-Christian" is allowed so long as the Jews agree with Bibi Netanyahu.

Christian Values: Male supremacy. Fundamentalism. "God hates fags." A family is a man, woman, and children. End Times theology. Might makes right. Antonyms: grace, compassion, forgiveness, peace, humility, and special attention to the poor.

Class Warfare: Any discussion of today's historic level of inequality or activism to raise the minimum wage, make unionization easier, or raise taxes on the wealthy.

Climate Change: A hoax perpetuated by liberals and climate scientists to make us ride light rail and live in city condos.

Communist: See Eisenhower, Dwight David.

Conservative: Someone who agrees with us. On everything.

Jon Talton March 2, 201556

Politics: National

Solemn obligations

Here is how the pension "issue" is usually framed.

For the major corporations that still offer pensions, they are a drag on earnings growth. In the public sector, they are making every city into Detroit or Stockton, Calif., paving the road to bankruptcy.

Very large numbers are thrown around, often without context, sometimes outright fabrications. This column is not about the numbers. As a nation, we spend too much time under green eyeshades. Numbers, "just business," economics are supposed to provide definitive answers.

Of course it depends on whose numbers are used (liars figure) and there's a reason that the dismal science was once called political economy. Even at its most rigorous, economics is a brawl — and like the sums we are supposed to accept as gospel, the inputs matter (garbage in, garbage out). People are living longer! Well, not by much, it varies greatly among ethnic groups, and the ones that do live long tend to be very wealthy. Etc.

Nevertheless, a majority of the white working class — which is a majority of the electorate — believes that union thugs are bankrupting their cities and states by demanding that pensions be paid to takers on the public payroll. Republican politicians and judges are burnishing their popularity and "seriousness" by working to destroy the pension system.

In certain situations and moments, many of those thugs and takers are called police officers, firefighters, and teachers. Heroes.

Jon Talton February 27, 201579

Phoenix 101: History Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

When the Legislature worked

You know the Arizona Legislature. It's the bunch that reduces education money for some of the worst-funded schools in the nation, savagely cuts financing for universities, has its hands in the hustles of the Charter School Racket and Private Prison Racket. The worthy solons who sold off pieces of the Capitol area in the Great Recession.

It was the birthplace of SB 1070, the anti-immigrant (really voter suppression) law. This is only one of its creations that helped give the impression that Arizona is one of the craziest and most bigoted states. Anything forward looking, the majority opposes. Tax cuts? You bet. It is the Kookocracy.

But there was a time when Arizona had one of the most respected legislatures in the nation. Yes.

In fact, there were at least two sustained periods in the state's history when the Legislature worked.

This is no small thing because the Legislature is by far the most powerful branch of government in the state. Constitutionally, the governor was barely more than a figurehead — a status that has improved in recent years, but not by much. In other words, Arizona moves ahead, or backwards, depending on the Legislature.

Jon Talton February 23, 201518

Politics: National

Labels

Labels in political discourse are incendiary and misleading. They are useful shorthand and inevitable. Yet today they are more challenging than ever.

Let me take a couple of examples. To label someone a racist, anti-semite, sexist, or homophobe immediately disqualifies their arguments. Some people undeniably fit those labels. Others may say something racist but they still deserve to be heard in the public square, offering positions that are more textured that the simple label would imply.

Another is the tart "limousine liberal." This was coined in the 1970s to identify, say, a liberal lawmaker who supported busing while sending his children to private schools. In other words, he was a hypocrite. This term resonated especially with the white working class, many of whom would become Reagan Democrats.

Lately on this blog we have had a debate on the admissibility of the term "sociopath." While we can argue over the precise clinical definition and the care needed to apply it to individuals, I think it's fair game.

Look at the behavior of the banksters, certain businessmen, and politicians, and they fit the bill. This is especially so in their contempt for the commons, for the public interest, and the things we do together as a civilization. Indeed, many of them not only have contempt for these things but they deny they exist at all, outside the fever dreams of bleeding-heart liberals.

Jon Talton February 18, 201545

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Who is Diane Douglas?

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. — Karl Marx

Nobody seems to be admitting to voting for Diane Douglas as Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction. But of the 36.42 percent of registered voters who cast a ballot, a majority backed Douglas over her opponent, David Garcia. Douglas had no experience beyond a controversial stint on the Peoria school board. Garcia is a professor of education, former teacher and Army veteran.

But there you have it.

Garcia, nationally respected, ran on a solid platform of improving Arizona schools, which consistently rank at or near the bottom nationally. Douglas, rhetorically challenged, ran against what she saw as the evils of Common Core, which particularly resonates with white suburbia.

It surely helped Douglas that Garcia had a Hispanic surname. It helped her most of all that she had an R attached to her name. For the majority of state voters, no matter the self-identified "independents," are Yellow Dog Republicans. In other words, you could run a yellow dog as a Republican and they would vote for it over the most qualified Democrat.

I write all this as prologue for the latest, but far from last, Douglas stepping-in-it event. She fired two state Board of Education staff members for the Thought Crime of being allegedly "liberal." My doubt about that was confirmed when the governor, wealthy Republican Douglas A. Roscoe Jr. aka "Doug Ducey," reinstated the pair.

You can read the hilarity here, as well as her clumsy climb-down. But what did voters expect?

Jon Talton February 13, 201548

Uncategorized

I am laid low with the worst flu I've had in years. I will return as soon as possible. Today (2/9) I dragged myself to the doc and he said…

Jon Talton February 7, 201572

Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

Phoenix 101: The weather

This is the time of year when we see smug pieces in Phoenix media trumpeting the fine weather and making fun of the blizzard or snow in the Midwest or Northeast.

It's an old con going back a century or more — although it was typically the subject of advertising (as seen in the above promotion from the 1950s) rather than of "news" stories.

How can I be so cynical as to call it a con? Two reasons.

First, America had a long tradition of the West being misrepresented as the land of milk and honey by railroads and land barons. In most cases, the reality was disappointing, sometimes disastrously so. In reality, the land was unforgiving, "civilization" was primitive, fraud and lawlessness were common, and many immigrants were ruined.

Second, Phoenix historically had about seven decent-to-nice months and five hellish ones. I say "historically" because that ratio is starting to invert, about which more later. But many snowy places have five rough months and seven that range from livable to quite pleasant. Summer in Minnesota is lovely. So it the Phoenix braggadocio about its "superior" weather has always baffled me.

It is true that many people seek the sun almost pathologically, like the doomed space crew in the 2007 film Sunshine. "You don't have to shovel sunshine!" is a motto that resonates, at least with the 4 million people who seem to be willing to put up with almost anything in Phoenix as long as they get hot weather. I admit my blind spot: As a Phoenician, nothing makes me more depressed than endless sunny days.

Jon Talton February 2, 201565

Phoenix Phoenix 101: History Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Sue Clark-Johnson, an appreciation

As a young paramedic, I learned early on that we all hang by the slenderest thread. That thread snapped suddenly Wednesday for Sue Clark-Johnson, publisher of the Arizona Republic from 2000 through 2005.

She was 67, and although I had heard she had been hospitalized, the news came as a shock. The fifties and sixties are not the new thirties.

As a business editor and columnist, I have always had close relationships with publishers. Unlike other people in the newsroom, a business editor supervises the coverage of the publisher's peers and sometimes friends.

I have been blessed with good publishers such as Tom Missett at the Blade-Tribune, Brad Tillson at the Dayton Daily News, Larry Strutton at the Rocky Mountain News, Harry Whipple at the Cincinnati Enquirer and the legendary Rolfe Neill at the Charlotte Observer. They supported the tough, high-impact, sophisticated journalism that we practiced. Frank Blethen has been a consistent supporter of my columns at the Seattle Times.

Sue was my friend and protector during my years as a columnist in Phoenix. Some of the most powerful people in Arizona came to her demanding that I be fired or silenced. She turned them away. Not only that, she provided me with a larger platform as an op-ed columnist on Sunday.

Jon Talton January 28, 201513

Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

Media in old Phoenix

A crowd "watches" the World Series covered by the Arizona Republican outside the Heard Building in 1921. In these pre-radio days, news wire services transmitted each at-bat and inning, which were placed on the scoreboard.

If you grew up in Phoenix in the 1960s and 1970s, the media landscape looked like this:

The Arizona Republic was the morning newspaper. The afternoon paper was The Phoenix Gazette. Although both were owned by the Pulliam family, their newsrooms competed fiercely. The Republic was the statewide newspaper while the Gazette focused on the city. Publisher Eugene C. Pulliam was known for his conservative views and occasional front-page editorials. Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Reg Manning's signature included a cactus. Well into the 1960s, news hawkers in green aprons shouted headlines from downtown sidewalks, ready to sell you a paper.

Surrounding towns had their newspapers, too. Among them, The Mesa Tribune, Tempe Daily News, Chandler Arizonan, and Scottsdale Daily Progress. The city gained an alternative weekly with New Times, founded in 1970 by a group of ASU students. Phoenix Magazine was started in the 1966 by the Welch family.

Television meant the local affiliates of the three networks: KOOL (CBS), KTAR (NBC) and KTVK (ABC). Phoenix had one independent station, KPHO, which was the home of Wallace and Ladmo. Radio ran from easy listening to top 40 (KRIZ, KRUX and KUPD). By the 1970s, newcomer KDKB played album-oriented rock with a hippie laid-back style (The staff is shown at the Mesa Southern Pacific depot in 1973, above right). Broadcast towers topped the Hotel Westward Ho and Greater Arizona Savings Building (Heard Building) downtown.

You knew personalities such as bola-tie-wearing Bill Close, the Walter Cronkite of Phoenix, on KOOL (promoted on the billboard, right). Mary Jo West became one of Phoenix's first female anchors in 1976, joining Close (a crusty guy who was not happy to work with a woman at first). In 1982, Close would be at the center of a famous hostage situation, where a gunman took over the studio and demanded to read a statement on the air. On KOY radio, Bill Heywood presided over the morning drive time, while Alan Chilcoat did afternoons and "sang the weather." Johnny McKinney at KUPD was one of the many popular rock DJs.

Overall, what would come to be called "media" was pretty bland in Phoenix of this era. There were exceptions, and not merely when New Times started to shake things up. The Republic and Gazette was capable of excellent investigative reporting and exposed land fraud and crooked pols, along with plenty of boosterism. Glendale Pontiac dealer, and future governor, Evan Mecham published a short-lived Evening American because he thought Pulliam was too liberal. But most Phoenicians felt a deep connection to these publishers and broadcasters.

Jon Talton January 26, 201511

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix Politics: National

Eight years of Rogue

This month marks the eighth anniversary of Rogue Columnist. That's a long time in the blog world and I couldn't do it without you — the smartest commenters (19,945 comments) on the Web and the thousands who come to read. The number of posts is 907 (!).

I tell more about why I write Rogue on top of my day job and novel-writing here. Today I want to list some of my favorite columns. The nature of column-writing is ephimeral. These stand out even after all these years. Maybe you have some you want to list in the comments field. I've opened all posts, not just the most recent, to comments.

1. Early on, I laid out some of the topics I didn't write about when I was a columnist at the Arizona Republic.

2. Speaking of newspapers, this column laid out the many less-discussed reasons for their death spiral. It holds up pretty well today.

3. Another one, close to my heart, is "Rocky Mountain Requiem," about the heartbreaking loss of the Rocky Mountain News, one of the oldest newspapers in the West and where I was fortunate to work in the great newspaper war with the Denver Post.

4. I haven't written much personal history here. One exception, and among the most popular, is "Ambulance Days," my reminiscences of my days as an EMT/paramedic in the Phoenix of the 1970s.

5. I was also blessed by the amazing fine arts program at Coronado High School, which I write about in "Friday Night Lights." And by attending Kenilworth Elementary School near downtown, which I celebrate in this column.

6. A few of the columns on national social and cultural issues have stood the test of time (cliche alert). Among them: "Rules of Engagement," "Men Don't Read," "R U Raising Stupid Children," and "A Giant Leap and Then A Long Fall."

Jon Talton January 23, 201517

Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Whose civics?

At first glance, one can only admire the Arizona Legislature passing, and new Gov. Doug Ducey (my first level Linked In buddy) signing into law a measure mandating that all high-school seniors take a civics class and pass a civics test.

If I remember correctly, everyone at my high school was required to take a semester of civics and another of economics. I took the new test and aced it.

Too much of our education system today is geared to producing workers, cubicle proles in the New Gilded Age, and "consumers." Anything that educates citizens about their rights and responsibilities — and capabilities — is healthy. That Arizona is said to be the first state in the union to take this step is astounding.

So perhaps I should leave it there and let the brightsiders say, "He didn't hate Arizona, for a brief shining moment! Everything's fine, with championship golf!"

Jon Talton January 20, 201540

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix

Phoenix should leave GPEC

A little history: The Greater Phoenix Economic Council was formed in the aftermath of the 1990 recession. Fueled by savings-and-loan grifters and spec-building con artists (Charlie Keating combined both roles), it was the worst downturn the city had faced since the Depression.

Up to that point, of course.

It stung that the "infamous" and "negative" Barron's article calling out Phoenix was correct. But there were enough locally headquartered companies, civic stewards and sane political leaders remaining to be concerned about more than image. Phoenix and Arizona started a serious effort to diversify beyond real estate, to recapture the efforts of the late 1940s through the 1960s aimed at creating a robust, high-quality economy.

And for several years, GPEC was successful. The keys were the first president, Ioanna Morfessis, who had a sophisticated understanding of economic competitiveness and development; also, she was backed by a board of business titans who could knock heads and write checks. One other element helped: the city of Phoenix was still the unquestioned center of gravity.

Unfortunately, the decade saw 40 percent population growth and massive new sprawl. At the same time, most of the city's corporate crown jewels were either bought or significantly downsized and almost all the stewards died or retreated. The appetite to seriously build a quality economy, to sustain the cluster strategy, waned. In this "drunk on growth" atmosphere, Morfessis left.

She was followed by Rick Weddle and Barry Broome, both capable. But GPEC and the metropolitan area had changed dramatically.

Jon Talton January 15, 201521

Politics: National

Aux barricades?

Thought exercise: Which will destroy France first — Islam or Anglo-Saxon hyper-capitalism?

An American looks at the size of the French population that is Muslim (7.5 percent) and laughs. There are probably as many Muslims in metropolitan Phoenix.

And yet for all its claims to universal values — Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité — France is a distinct and largely closed civilization. Had I moved to Paris at age eighteen and stayed (merveillaux!), I would still never be considered a Frenchman. The barrier is so much higher for people from France's one-time colony of Algeria and elsewhere in the Islamic world.

The United States is a credal nation, unusual in the world. Thus, the ethnic group that was so reviled more than a century ago that it provoked the largest mass lynching in American history now includes governors, senators, mayors, Supreme Court justices — even the immigrant-hating High Sheriff of Maricopa County. Pretty much only on America.

In the aftermath of the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, much of France is rallying to prove its intention to remain an open society welcoming to immigrants. But not all. Marine Le Pen's right-wing party that wants to halt immigration has gained from the bloodshed. Questions are being raised elsewhere in Europe, too.

Jon Talton January 12, 201552

Politics: Arizona/Phoenix Politics: National

Governor Ducey

Doug Ducey was elected governor of Arizona with a 36.24 percent voter turnout, the lowest in recent history. It may seem unfair to judge him so soon. But, no. The days when a GOP office holder was independent-minded are gone, replaced by a party ruled by a nihilist ideology.

As Jonathan Rauch wrote in the New York Times, "America does not have a broken political system. It has a broken political party: the Republicans." This is what those Arizonans who vote continue to double-down on.

In his inauguration address, Ducey's explicit or implied comments were in the ALEC-Koch brothers "mainstream" of the party. Taxes must always be low or cut further. Government spending must be cut further. Get government "out of the lives of the people" (except, presumably, for the Social Security recipients and defense spending that prop up the state economy). Change regulation to support certain favored businesses ("deregulation"). And the all-important "economic freedom."

Ducey reprised the old Newt Gingrich meme of "opportunity," after their fashion:

Opportunity is not a government program planned and distributed by some expert class any more than personal freedom is a favor granted by those in public office. Opportunity is a new job or training for a better job. It’s the kind of school where every child can grow in knowledge and in character, the kind of neighborhoods where families feel protected, a state where enterprise is welcome and hard work is rewarded.

In other words, Arizona can expect more of the same, only perhaps even worse.

Jon Talton January 8, 201531