Stick it to Phoenix
Posted inDowntown & central Phoenix Phoenix

Stick it to Phoenix

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I was going to write about Ferguson but the reaction I provoked on Facebook yesterday over the name change for the Suns' home made me switch gears. I wrote, "Talking Stick Resort Arena. That pretty much says it all about Phoenix's inability to be a big city."

So far, 50 people have "liked" it. Much debate came in the comments. Aside from a small number of the usual why-are-you-picking-on-Phoenix notes, there was "Pitiful," "We have no visionary leadership in this city," "This all just makes me want to cry," and "Wait'll they move both teams to Talking Stick neighborhood. …..$10 says that is in the works."

On the other hand, I made some fans (so they said) mad for allegedly being unfair to Phoenix. Still others thought it wasn't a big deal. But they took the time to comment. Someone made the excuse that Phoenix is a "young city," a canard I have tried to knock down before. A couple of comments gave the whiff of, "he doesn't just hate Phoenix, he tortures kittens for sport (and from Seattle, which doesn't even have an NBA team!)".

It started as an offhand comment. Then it became clear I had run sandpaper over a very raw nerve.

Let's stipulate that pro sports are one of the many cesspools in our evermore corrupt and venal society. This is true everywhere. Naming rights always struck me as odd. Who chooses to do business with an outfit because their moniker is stuck on a sports arena? Maybe it's like penis enlargement spam. Somebody must be responding or it would go away.

All over the country, team owners have not been content to extort palaces from the taxpayers under threat of leaving. They also want to milk more cash from naming rights. Only a few places — Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park — have avoided the sellout. It's one more way to suck income upwards while also destroying the history and even poetry of many former sports venue names.

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Posted inUncategorized

They welcome our hatred

Events forced me to fly across the country. Because the old bereavement fares have gone the way of free (and tasty) meals, in-flight movies, free baggage check and an airport experience not out of Lockup Raw, USAirways got quite the bite out of my wallet. The flight was late and several restrooms on the 757 were not working. Of course the entire process — from getting out of the taxi under the din of recorded commands to reaching the gate area which never has enough seats for waiting passengers — was a joy.

The airlines don't care. We're stuck. Where in 1936, Franklin Roosevelt announced that never before in American history had the forces of money and privilege been arrayed against one candidate, and "I welcome their hatred," now the situation is reversed. More and more, highly concentrated industries and the moneyed elites welcome our hatred, then keep on tightening the screws. Americans sheepishly accept the hatred and queue right up for more.

Other sectors come to mind beyond airlines, health insurance and "financial services" at the top of the list. President Obama seems determined to get insurance industry "buy in" on health care reform, so we know how that song will end. It's appropriate to remember our friends the bankers on the anniversary of the failure of Lehman Brothers. A year later, the TARP money is unaccounted for, the industry is more concentrated and thus dangerous than ever, and real regulatory reform appears DOA. And for these privileges, Americans will get ever more gouged on banking fees and insurance premiums — if they can even keep the latter. Meanwhile, executive salaries and profits keep rising.

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