Ask us if we're surprised by ASU campus glitch

PERSPECTIVE

The problem with building up unrealistic expectations in the media - as we believe has been done with the Payson-ASU campus - is that people make plans based on what they think they can trust.  Then when the bubble starts to burst, as it did Friday on the front page of a local newspaper, the impact is much worse than if the story had been reported in a more balanced manner from the beginning.  That's saying it about as delicately as we can.

And if you really believe that all we have to do is reach into our campus bag and pull out another university, can I also interest you in a natural bridge?  As a local paper says elsewhere in Friday's edition: "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."

These relentless ups and downs make for good newspaper copy.  I think I'll wait until ground is broken before I get too excited.

Special Coverage: GOP's War on American Labor

From Dorothea Lange's 'Migrant Mother' (Florence Owens Thompson) series, Nipomo, California, early spring 1936. (photo: Dorothea Lange)

Reader Supported News | Perspective

Beautiful Wisconsin

By John Cory, Reader Supported News
 
When he began the book, he wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this."

It started three years earlier as a series of articles for the San Francisco News. He investigated camp life, and even drove Route 66 so he would know the terrain. He walked and talked with the people, capturing language and lives, and then put ink to paper.

The book was an immediate bestseller - revered and reviled - banned and bought. The corporate world denounced the author; the FBI compiled a file to track him, and radio and political pundits pummeled him. He was called a socialist, a communist, a propagandist, and for good measure, a socialistic communist propagandist agitator. One slur is never enough.

The book spent a year on the bestseller list and won a Pulitzer Prize. A year later it was turned into a movie. Twenty years after its publication, the author won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

John Steinbeck wrote "The Grapes of Wrath" to tell the story of the Great Depression. Of farmers turned into migrants, of every-day citizens turned into beggars, while the corporate owners grew fat and fierce and greedy for more. He wrote to give hope amidst the vicious and divisive tactics of corporations and to remind them and us: "... the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed."

At the end of the film version of "The Grapes of Wrath," Tom Joad lays it out: "... A fella ain't got a soul of his own - just a little piece of a big soul. The one big soul that belongs to everybody ..."

And there is the beauty of Wisconsin.

The big soul gathered together, just like the motto says, "From the many - one."

And that is the fear of the corporate sponsors of Gov. Walker and the would-be owners of America. The people. We, the people - coming together.

The facile mantra of "what's good for business is good for America" is nothing more than the promotion of indentured servitude. And if we accept it then we are truly lost.

The Wisconsin issue is not about politics, economics, or good governance. It is about stopping "we the people" from gathering together. It is about stirring envy and crisis in order to corporatize, consumerize, and conformitize the masses for the profit of the few, the rich - the privileged owners of America.

This is all about the separation of we, the people - divide and conquer - about turning neighbor against neighbor, scrabbling for crumbs while the corporation steals the loaf.

Where once we cheered 'united we stand, divided we fall,' we are now sold on 'looking out for #1.'

Steinbeck learned that those greedy bastards couldn't be shamed. They could be blocked if we banded together and supported one another in the battle for rights and equality and dignity.

What does it say about America when unions are more regulated, more controlled, and have more oversight than Wall Street, or corporations that profit from pollution and poison? What does it say about America that our Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are persons and money is free speech and therefore persons with lots of money have more free speech than persons without money?

The people of Wisconsin say different.

Wisconsin says that people matter, that we, the people matter, and that we, the people belong to one another and not the corporate states of America.

The banks and Wall Street profit from selling us a house and they profit from our mortgage debt by slicing it up in multiple slivers for investors to profit off our payments, and when our jobs go away, the banks and investors profit off foreclosure. Heads, they win. Tails, they win. And when we have nothing, they tell us we must sacrifice more in order to save The American Dream, Inc.

Tom Joad said: "They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat ... The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it."

Too big to fail. Too big to be managed. Too big to be held accountable.

The beauty of Wisconsin is that the people have no fear. The fear comes from the political puppets of corporate sponsorship. The people do not fear the power of the wealthy; the corporate lackeys fear the loss of power over we, the people.

Maybe it is true that the wealthy manipulators of the Tea Party and corporate conservatism of the modern GOP are taking America backwards, back to the Gilded Age of 1890. But we can only go backwards, even a single step, if we allow ourselves to be pushed without pushing back. And that is the beauty of Wisconsin.

"The great owner ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression ... For a man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, and emerges ahead of his accomplishments ... he may slip back, but only half a step, never a full step back ..."

That is what the barons of business fear most, and why they grab as much as they can, as fast as they can. They may not acknowledge that "little screaming fact" of history, but deep inside their soulless hearts and minds, they know it is coming. That is their fear - the fear of we, the people.

And that is the beauty of Wisconsin. Even in the snow, 70,000 - 100,000 people showed up this weekend. Thousands of people across the country did the same in their own communities in support of Wisconsin, regardless of whether the corporate media covered any of it.

The people know.

The people understand.

"... in the eyes of the people there is the failure: and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."

Beautiful Wisconsin.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News: http://readersupportednews.org/

Judy Roberts, Renee Patrick headline weekend

Gerry Reynolds provides the following update on the Rim Country's busy weekend music scene:

On Friday, a folk, country, blues & jazz jam session will be held at the Community Presbyterian Church, 800 West Main Street staring at 5 pm. It's an open house for the church as part of "First Friday on Main Street." An optional hot dish is provided for a modest amount.

On Saturday, Dr Jass and the Heart Beats perform starting at 6:30 pm at the Mardi Gras party at the Payson Elk's Club. It is open to the public, and there is a minimal admission fee. Dr Jass is genuine New Orleans-styled music, and the group is led by Dr Claudio Zamorano on trumpet, Dale Knighton on banjo, Mike Buskirk on trombone, Robert Tarallo on clarinet, Larry Brasen on bass, and Gerry Reynolds on drums.

On Sunday, multiple Grammy nominee jazz pianist Judy Roberts will be performing with the very popular blues and Jazz vocalist, Renee Patrick at 2 pm at the Community Presbyterian Church, 800 West Main Street in Payson. Judy's husband, Greg Fishman is in town, and he will also appear. He is an authority on the works of the late Stan Getz who is world famous, and he sounds just like him on tenor saxophone. They just performed at the Kerr Center in Scottsdale, and they will be terrific. Seats are still available, and there is only a $5 per person donation at the door.

Group wants Pima County to secede from Arizona

The Pima County Courthouse in Tucson is one place Start Our State considers a potential new state capitol. (Cronkite News Service Photo by Channing Turner)

Jeff Rogers, chairman of the Pima County Democratic Party, says that while secession may be popular with voters, he is doubtful the movement will succeed. (Cronkite News Service Photo by Channing Turner)

By CHANNING TURNER
Cronkite News Service

TUCSON – Gazing up at the mosaic dome of the old Pima County Courthouse, Paul Eckerstrom sees a potential capitol building for a 51st state: Baja Arizona.

Pima County politicians have joked about the idea of political separation from more-conservative Maricopa County for decades. But the Legislature’s recent moves on topics including immigration caused Eckerstrom and others to stop laughing and form a political committee advocating that this county of more than 1 million people leave Arizona and create a new state.

“We want to make this a serious effort, at least to send a message up to Phoenix – a message to the country – that we want moderation in our state,” said Eckerstrom, former Democratic Party chairman for Pima County and co-chairman of a group calling itself Start Our State.

Controversial immigration bills, cuts to university funding and efforts to nullify federal laws also prompted the group to act, Eckerstrom said.

“People here are kind of at the breaking point,” he said. “The final straw was the nullification bills going through the Senate right now … that are frankly secession from our country, and we down here want to stay in the United States – we want to be American.”

David Euchner, the group’s treasurer and former chairman of the county’s Libertarian Party, said recent legislation on immigration and abortion pushed him over the edge.

“As much as I disagree with what Barack Obama has done or what our Democratic Congress did the last two years, I much more strongly disagree with what Russell Pearce and Jan Brewer have done to our state government,” he said.

Start Our State filed for official committee status last week, making it the first political committee to pursue creating a new state, Eckerstrom said.

The group wants to put a non-binding resolution addressing the issue before Pima County voters in 2012. If approved, the measure would come to a vote in either the Legislature or a statewide referendum.

If all of that were to pass, Congress and the president would have to approve the new state.

Euchner said the movement welcomes other counties, but each would need to conduct its own referendum.

Then there’s the proposed state’s name, which would also be up to voters. Eckerstrom said he has received several suggestions, including Baja Arizona, South Arizona and Gadsden, in reference to the 1854 Gadsden Purchase of southern Arizona from Mexico.

Democratic Sens. Paula Aboud and Linda Lopez, of Tucson, supported a tongue-in-cheek amendment last week to allow Pima County to secede in an attempt to dissuade passage of a bill establishing a committee to nullify federal laws, Lopez said. The Senate Committee of the Whole rejected the amendment.

“Unbeknownst to us, down here in Pima County they were talking seriously about becoming their own state,” Lopez said. “I support their right to want to do that, but I don’t know how it would work in actuality.”

Tucson mayoral candidate Ron Asta, a Republican, said he doubts voters would ever approve of a separation, particularly in the more conservative areas surrounding Tucson.

“I don’t think they’ll be in favor of it,” he said. “There’s a real strong conservative challenge.”

Jeff Rogers, chair of the Pima County Democratic Party, said he thinks voters might approve a separation, but he said political pressures in Congress make the measure’s final passage very unlikely.

“The logistics of it seem to fall apart,” he said.

While Eckerstrom and Euchner agree that their movement faces difficulties, they said support will only grow if the Legislature continues on its current course.

“If given the choice between seceding from the Union to stay with Arizona and seceding from Arizona to stay part of the Union, I choose the latter hands down,” Euchner said.

State splits:

– Maine: After four consecutive voter referendums pressed the issue, the Massachusetts Legislature agreed to grant Maine independence as part of the Missouri Compromise in 1820.

– West Virginia: West Virginia split from Confederate Virginia in 1861 to remain in the Union during the Civil War.

Spring on down to First Friday on Main Street

Spring is in the air. It's time to get out of hibernation (the bears, rattlesnakes and juniper pollen have all emerged) and come celebrate March Madness on Main Street - Friday, March 4, from 5-8 p.m.

MoJoe's has been redone inside and will have the Starliter's playing for your listening pleasure. Stop at Down The Street Art Gallery and watch artists make paintings come to life right before your eyes. Todd's Books has a new location that offers much more browsing space.

As always, the Main Street First Friday Block Party is the place to be.

PHS business club wins 37 awards in competition

Payson High School’s DECA Club recently journeyed to Phoenix to compete in the DECA Central Region Career Development Conference. 46 Payson High School DECA members participated. The students competed in business-related role plays and team events. Approximately 830 students participated in the conference held at Phoenix College.

Payson DECA won 37 individual awards, including 8 first place winners, 12 second place winners and 6 third place winners. Earning a first place medal were Jesus Apodaca, Jesse Barry, Fawn Dugan, Jordyn Fruth, Taylor Goss, Marina Madra, James Potvin, and David Seematter. Second place winners were Sara Andersen, Janina Caspar, Haylie Egbert, Madison Flake, Tanner Hintze, Alanna Murphree, Shauna Neal, Kayla Purcell, Josh Petrie, Laura Slatalla, Logan Tsosie, and Eric Vohs. Winning third place honors were Jaymie Carlen, Carisa Haas, Alexis Hagler, Aubrey Pond, Mandy Reid, and Bethany Sprinkle.

Garnering medals in the written test were Keith Williams, Tanner Hintze, Sean Ford, James Potvin, Laura Slatalla, Nickolas McMullen, Bethany Sprinkle, Marina Madra, Aubrey Pond, Haylie Egbert, and Rishele Shoults.

The next competitive event for these active DECA members is the DECA State Conference in March.

Student exchange program needs coordinators

The Center for Cultural Interchange is seeking local coordinators in the Payson/Show Low area to place and supervise high school exchange students from Europe, Latin America, and Asia for a semester or for the academic year.

While we do compensate (800.00 -- 1000.00 per placement) working with CCI is not a "job." The people we seek are those who enjoy young people; and, who share our dedication to international education, global peace and understanding, environmental conservation, and social justice.

The role of a Local coordinator involves:

•identifying schools open to exchange students
•finding host families
•matching families and students
•providing orientation meetings for families and students
•maintaining regular contact with families and students

Regional Directors train and provide support to Local Coordinators. For additional information and to complete a Local Coordinator inquiry, please visit our website, www.cci-exchange.org.

Alternatively, contact Lee White, Regional Director:

1-888-440-8750
whites@cci-exchange.org