Posted inPhoenix Phoenix 101: History

Phoenix 101: Power primer

Phoenix has no history. Why are things so screwed up here? It's just like every other place…

Such are some of the statements, whether inane and inaccurate or plaintive, that I often hear from Rogue readers, or just folks down in "the Valley" when I sneak back for a journalist-guerrilla raid. So, a new occasional feature, Phoenix 101, to try to fill in the gaps for a place where even natives my age have never even ridden a city bus, much less know a rich, corrupt and even inspiring history. Let's start with power.

From the era of the Hohokam, power in the Salt River Valley flowed from water. Whoever controlled the water — and how it was used — sat upon the commanding heights of the society. Even today, the divide between Phoenix and the East Valley is partly an echo of the old war between the north and south side of the Salt River over who would get the precious, and fickle, riches of its stream. Even today, the Salt River Project remains, very quietly, the kingdom and the power and the glory.

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Posted inPhoenix

Arizona unemployment: Grim reality

Here's a reality based report that won't be discussed by the local viziers of boosterism in Phoenix, much less the editorial pages of the Arizona Republic. The job losses from the recession that began in 2007 are much worse in Arizona than the 10 previous major recessions since the end of World War II.

The Minneapolis Fed crunched data nationally and for 50 states to come up with this fascinating interactive presentation. Although Arizona's unemployment appears to be relatively low compared to some states — for reasons I've previously explored — this comprehensive report puts all the wishful thinking and ideological twisty games to bed. No other downturn comes even close. The "legendary" 1991 recession? Beanbag compared with this labor market bloodbath. The truly nasty 1973 recession? Not even close.

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Posted inPolitics: National

Two roads to the future?

With the exception of LBJ, Democratic presidents since 1960 have fared badly in their legislative agendas, even when Congress was controlled by their party. President Obama, for all his gifts, may be on track to fare little better. Health care. Cap-and-trade. Financial reform. Big-time tax evasion. Even for this cool-handed moderate, it's a tough sell.

Meanwhile, the media and the salesmen on Wall Street are in a constant search for "green shoots" — signs this historic recession is over. Nobody is thinking through what these shoots will turn into, exactly what the road ahead looks like. But for many, including policymakers, we find a desperate assumption that the economy will pick right up where it left off in 2006.

Two schools of thought are at work here. One says the fundamentals are sound, as President Hoover put it, and the future will look much like the recent past. The other, found more among the outliers, argues we have hit a historic pivot point — but will we realize it and save ourselves?

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Posted inUncategorized

How Detroit committed suicide

In the garage of my condo tower, someone parks a 1965 Buick Electra 225 convertible. It is sleek and big and powerful. This was Detroit, and in many ways America, at the zenith of its power.

Buick, like all GM divisions, still enjoyed great autonomy, including having its own design bureau. This car is a work of art. It is the successor to the legendary Roadmaster, and in those days Buick fans were fiercely loyal (my mother being one). GM cars were tiered so people could move up to a new GM brand as they became more affluent, as millions did in the 1950s and 1960s — Chevy to Pontiac to Oldsmobile and even Cadillac. Ah, but the Buick was special: glamorous, racy, classy and exclusive. Built union.

I think of all this, of course, as Chrysler is pushed into bankruptcy and General Motors may well face the same fate. What went wrong, and what does it say about America's future?

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Posted inPhoenix

Phoenix, Dubai and other heat dreams

On the ground in Phoenix, and sometimes green sprouts arise even amid the ugliness of the cityscape and thuggingness of the politics. A woman on a walker watched me struggle into CVS; on the way out, she said, "I've been praying for you." It keeps me aloft. Tuesday night saw an overflow crowd at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore for the launch of my new mystery/suspense novel, The Pain Nurse. Today I was on KJZZ with Steve Goldstein, where my friend Grady Gammage and I reprised our good cop/bad cop routine with Phoenix in the interrogation room (guess who plays bad cop).

I got to read the Arizona Republic on blessed, relaxing paper this morning, a welcome break from the Information Center. Today's Phoenix Laff Riot is Mayor Phil Gordon concluding some kind of economic partnership with Dubai. It's hard to know where to begin with what's wrong with this deeply unserious distraction. For one thing, rhetoric about solar power, sustainability, etc. is a joke considering Phoenix is a basket case in all categories. It let solar research and enterprise get away after the 1950s and now has nothing to offer the Mideast kingdom, other than a model of worst practices. Meanwhile, Dubai is in a deep recession, partly caused by overbuilding. So the benefit is, what…?

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Posted inUncategorized

The end is always near

Word comes this morning of a 6.0 earthquake centered about 130 miles from Mexico City, a place already frightened by the swine flu outbreak. "We Mexicans are not used to living with so much fear, but all that is
happening — the economic crisis, the illnesses and now this — it feels
like the apocalypse," a 22-year-old told the Associated Press. Take comfort, Yanks. Apparently the teaching of history is as neglected in Mexico as here. In 1519, apocalypse of the mighty and advanced Aztec Empire came at the hands of Hernan Cortes, 600 conquistadores and Indian allies who had chafed under the Aztec lash. Cortes leveled Tenochtitlan, built Mexico City.

Something American schoolchildren aren't taught: 90 percent of the indigenous population of the New World perished in the decades after first contact with the Europeans, mostly because the Europeans unwittingly carried diseases against which the Indians had no immunity. Entire tribes were wiped out. Civilizations do end, sometimes with great speed.

We have the jitters. This morning, the backup plane for Air Force One flew low over Manhattan accompanied by fighter jets. It was a photo-op, but nervous people evacuated several buildings. The flu — it's hard to know. Much of instant, electronic, everywhere media have one speed: hysteria. Still, at least 20 million people were killed by the 1918 flu, perhaps many more — and that particular strain is still not completely understood. It came as another world was ending, as empires were collapsing at the end of World War I's then unprecedented carnage and the particular optimism of the early 20th century vanished forever.

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Posted inUncategorized

Obama gets aboard high-speed rail

President Obama has pledged $13 billion to begin high-speed rail in America. I don't want to be a cynic and ask, does anyone believe we'll see this in our lifetimes (or at all, as American continues its whacko-driven, debt-laden decline)? I'll say the action is a good start. And the sensibility — actually acknowledging the importance of rail to the 21st century — is first rate.

It's important to note a few essentials to understanding the situation. 1) Rail is essential to a sustainable future, using less fuel and having a smaller negative environmental impact that airlines or freeways. 2) It's essential to improving productivity and competitiveness, as workers and semis are stuck in gridlock, and face steadily rising fuel costs anyway. 3) Modern rail systems are thriving around the world, and China sees this as essential to its leapfrog to world supremacy — note to Americans who don't get out much: We're the country that's behind, far behind. 4) The nation's only passenger rail system, Amtrak, has been starved of funding for years, so it has much catching up to do, just on refitting equipment, etc.

With Obama's plan, the devil will be in the details, of course. Yet we're still not thinking holistically about the issue — and we'd better get our act together toot sweet.

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Posted inPolitics: National

The bigger hostage drama

The rescue of the American captain from pirates — handled with cool competence from President Obama to the SEAL snipers — gives the nation a much-needed boost. This comes after eight years of "bring 'em on" grandstanding by the Bush administration. And now, as the company that once stood for American success and the rising middle class, General Motors, faces bankruptcy. At least we can still do something right.

This should not distract us from piracy that has been happening on Wall Street, and that the Obama administration seems committed to, at best, merely applying a nip-and-tuck. It emerges that Obama chief economic adviser Larry Summers not only received $5.2 million from a hedge fund and $2.7 million in speaking fees from big financial institutions after he left Harvard. He also was working for a hedge fund while he was president of Harvard. Frank Rich asks, "Can he be a fair broker of the bailout when he so recently received
lavish compensation from some of its present and, no doubt, future
players?" Ben Stein answers, "I know people and I know money, at least the basics. If anyone thinks
that a man who has had a taste of honey from Wall Street on that scale
will ever really crack the whip on Wall Street, he’s dreaming."

Larry Summers, the man leading Obama's reckless push into socialism; sorry, SOCIALISM!! (or is it fascism? — the right-wingers can't figure it out). What's really happening is that the pirates are winning, and there's no SEAL team out of D.C. to protect taxpayers — or the future of this republic.

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Posted inUncategorized

ASU, part deux

ASU President Michael Crow has issued an apology for what he calls the "confusion" about the university's apparent decision to not award an honorary degree to President Obama when he delivers the commencement address. Crow also said ASU "is naming and expanding its most important scholarship program" in Obama's honor. The statement reads in part:

“I apologize for the confusion surrounding our invitation to President Obama to address ASU students at commencement,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “The entire ASU community has been electrified with excitement since we learned of his participation in our commencement ceremony. We hope that the recent discussion of honorary degrees will not detract from the honor and thrill that ASU – and indeed all of Arizona – is experiencing in anticipation of his visit. I am honored, as are our faculty, staff and students, that President Obama will give his first commencement speech as president of the United States at ASU.” 

You can read the Huffington Post take here, (with some background here) as well as comments. HuffPo and Politico ignited an international firestorm of criticism of ASU when they reported this story earlier this week. The original Rogue post raised indigation among readers — but also hackles in Sparkyville.

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Posted inUncategorized

Making a killing

(With update below)

The killers are among us. In exurban Washington state, a man with a stormy marriage reacts to his wife leaving him by killing his five children — with multiple gunshots — and then killing himself. This came the same day as a nutjob in Pittsburgh escalated a fight with his mother over a dog peeing in the house into the murder of three police officers. Days before, a man burst into a center that helps immigrants in Binghampton, N.Y. and shot 13 to death before committing suicide. Last month it was eight shot to death in North Carolina, another 10 shot to death in Alabama, and four Oakland officers murdered after a routine traffic stop.

In many cases, the gunmen had recently lost jobs. There were histories of instability and alienation among the suspects (the Oakland case was simply a murderous ex-con). And what our age now calls "anger management problems." All this happened during the Great Depression, too. America had plenty of guns then, and not a few demagogues whipping up the gullible. But in my relatively extensive study of the era I can't find one example of these kinds of mass shootings of innocent people. (I know my literate readers will disabuse me of my ignorance here; but the shootings certainly were not widespread). When America faced mass slaughter, it was events such as the now all-but-forgotten natural gas explosion at a rural Texas school in 1937. It killed nearly 300 students. The outpouring of support and volunteers was immense. (Even Adolf Hitler is said to have sent a telegram of condolence).

But we were a different nation then.

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Posted inUncategorized

ASU’s dreams dashed

When I saw this morning's headline in the Arizona Republic, "ASU's Dreams Dashed," I didn't realize it was just a sports story. Arizona State University was the prime example of a recent New York Times story headlined, "State Colleges Also Face Cutbacks in Ambitions." Reporting on the hundreds of layoffs and scores of closed programs, among other draconian austerity measures, the Times wrote:

…this year, Mr. Crow’s plans have crashed into new budget realities,
raising questions about how many public research universities the
nation needs and whether universities like Arizona State, in their
drive to become prominent research institutions, have lost focus on
their public mission to provide solid undergraduate education for state
residents.

"Mr. Crow," of course, is Michael Crow, who arrived as ASU's president in 2002 promising "the new American university." When he was riding high, I talked to an eminent Arizonan, a huge supporter of higher ed, who had just spent some time with Crow. "He's brilliant…visionary," this person said. "And he's a con man." On my visit to Phoenix last month, a major civic leader said flatly: "I think Crow's house of cards will collapse soon."

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Posted inUncategorized

Newspapers and democracy

I confess: I'm tired of arguing about newspapers. In my city, one of the most literate in America, there's still a numb feeling from the loss of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Rocky Mountain News is barely cold in the ground. Thousands of skilled journalists are unemployed and perhaps can never regain their former living standards. The suicide of the industry has little to do with what the dumb-downers and consultants claim. All the enemies we made over the years can dance on our graves. But the issue is pretty well settled. Some newspapers will remain in some form. But the era of great newspapering is over.

So comes Jack Shafer's latest rattle-the-cage piece on Slate, "It's Time to Kill the Idea that Newspapers are Essential for Democracy." Shafer claims he likes newspapers, but…the Republic did fine for its first 100 years without investigative journalism, most people don't care whether newspapers survive, many newspapers did mediocre work and even the best journalism rarely kept government honest for long. Also, "political parties, special interests, and government itself all have a stake in the maintenance of elections and democracy."

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Posted inPhoenix

Arizona’s mysterious jobless rate

Why is Arizona's unemployment rate relatively low? The national rate in February was 8.1 percent, while Arizona's rate was 7.4 percent. This was 2.9 percentage points higher than in the same month last year, but well below California's 4.3 jump (to 10.5 percent) or Washington's 3.7 increase (to 8.4 percent).

This was the question that the Arizona Republic political columnist Robert Robb claimed to set out to answer in a recent column. I tend not to pay attention to Robb because he pretty much always says the same thing: status quo good, government bad, etc. Robb, the only editorial columnist for the paper, is not a journalist and came out of the "Goldwater" Institute and right-wing/growth machine political world. So one knows where he's coming from.

Not surprisingly, he uses this question to set up a straw-man. He disputes the notion that Arizona is too dependent on real estate, asserts that the state has "a fundamentally solid underlying economy," and deplores "various advocates of various dubious schemes to 'diversify' Arizona's economy." (A graceful stylist, no). So that's it. Move along. Nothing to see here.

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Posted inUncategorized

The apocalyptics

Readers have asked me what I think of the school of writers The New Yorker has dubbed "the dystopians." There is no shortage of slap-in-the-face reality on this blog, so you can decide whether I am one of them. Chief among them is James Howard Kunstler. Another is the Russian emigre Dmitry Orlov. In the magazine, Ben McGrath writes:

Thomas Malthus first lent rational philosophy to the apocalyptic
inklings of religious prophets with his “Essay on the Principle of
Population,” in 1798, and secular doom booms have tended to coincide
with periods of political upheaval or economic breakdown ever since.
The Malthusian movement has expanded with time into a kind of peaknik
diaspora. Peak oil and peak carbon (i.e., global warming) are the
heaviest. The bank and auto industry bailouts have thrust a new concern
to the front: peak dollars…

Malthus was wrong in his time, of course. Kunstler, on the other hand, has proven remarkably prescient in the here-and-now.

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Posted inUncategorized

Breaking the greed compact

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial
monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism,
sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a
mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by
organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Sound familiar? Those were Franklin Roosevelt's famous speech in 1936, where he also said, "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united
against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their
hate for me, and I welcome their hatred." In reality, FDR always had to backtrack to keep from antagonizing capital too much. On the other hand, he led a nation in the 1930s that was on the verge of repudiating capitalism for what then seemed viable alternatives of fascism or communism.

Early 21st century America is reveling in easy populist anger over bonuses paid out to the very AIG executives who did so much to collapse the economy. But I wonder if they have Roosevelt's understanding of these "old enemies of peace"? And what will they do about it? If things really change, it will be because Wall Street did something far worse than break the social compact. It broke the greed compact.

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