Posted inPhoenix

The center of the, er, recession

Many days the Arizona Republic reads like a bad real-estate supplement to the National Lampoon, but today is especially priceless. The editorial proclaims Glendale as "center of the Valley."

Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. And Glendale has quite a group gathering. It includes far more than ever-loyal football fans drawn to University
of Phoenix Stadium to watch the Arizona Cardinals fight for a win. It’s more than hockey fans or screaming concert-goers drawn to Jobing.com Arena. It’s more than the baseball fans who will certainly flock to Glendale’s
spring-training complex near Loop 101 and Camelback Road next spring.

I compressed the dodo short paragraphs and will cut the reminder for the sake of your gag reflex, but you get the idea. It talks about the developers and real estate ventures and concludes, "Wow." I am sure the Pulitzer judges are already taking note.

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Posted inPhoenix

The crime against children in Arizona

As far as I can tell, the Arizona Republic devoted a mere four paragraphs to the latest evidence of the state’s dismal school system. Here they are:

Arizona spends less on educating its kids than almost any state in the
union, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Wednesday.

In 2006, the state spent $6,472 per student, or $2,666 less than the
national average. Only Idaho and Utah spent less. The report has ranked
Arizona second or third from the bottom in per-student spending dating
to 2000.

The state Legislature caps the amount of money schools can receive from
the general fund and in property taxes, said Chuck Essigs of the
Arizona Association of School Business Officials. That formula is more
restrictive than the majority of states’, he said.

Arizona also ranks in the bottom three when tallying money spent on
instruction, including teacher pay and benefits. Administrative costs
can’t be blamed for eating up the money, either. Arizona ranked second
from the bottom on money spent on administration of individual schools.

So that’s that. We can go back to the ever-desperate "everything’s fine!" Of course, it’s not.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

The strange media romance with John McCain

Breaking up is hard to do, particularly with a lover you’ve idealized to the point of pathology. So what if the reality is as jarring, even dangerous, odds with the ideal? So it is with the mainsteam media and John McCain.

We were treated to this once again in the Sunday New York Times. A front page story described how this "maverick," "insurgent," "one of the most disruptive figures in his party" and "rebel" is now trying to be a standard-bearer who can unite his party. There was mention of his "volcanic" blowups, but in an admiring way.

On the op-ed page, Nicholas Kristof writes, "Even for those of us who shudder at many of John McCain’s positions,
there is something refreshing about a man who wins so many votes
despite a major political shortcoming: he is abysmal at pandering."

Such is the scary fog of McCain worship that envelops even smart people writing for the best newspaper in America. The reality is quite different.

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Posted inPhoenix

Phoenix in search of ‘big city cred’

At the risk of being cruel…

I missed the Feb 4th article in the Arizona Republic headlined "Getting some Big City cred." It starts off, "A
major golf tournament, a celebrity-studded auto auction and, most
important, the Super Bowl — these are the markings of a destination
metropolis.
Yet on the list of America’s
Greatest Big Cities, Phoenix lags in the sorts of physical, cultural
and historical amenities that distinguish the most memorable
destinations."

Then it offers suggestions, some whimsical, some apparently serious, about how Phoenix could get, er, "cred": a signature skyscraper, a signature enchilada, a San Antonio-style riverwalk, more gridlock.

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Posted inPhoenix

What I didn’t write at the Arizona Republic

People kept telling me they couldn’t believe I got away with what I wrote as a columnist for the Arizona Republic. I identified and questioned the vast power of the Real Estate Industrial Complex. While most of the local media were mindless boosters, I discussed the serious challenges to the state’s economy (which are coming true) and indeed to its future as a quality place to live (ditto). How, hundreds of readers asked, did I keep my job?

In the end I didn’t, of course. But for nearly seven years, I offered one of the few alternatives to local cheerleading and media growthgasms. And I was the only one to keep a sustained focus on economic, social and environmental issues — and how they were all tied together.

And yet, dear readers, I pulled my punches nearly every time I wrote.

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