A Slate.com article verbalizes what I’ve been thinking.
I think the reason why I like Slate.com is because so many of the articles cover things I’ve been thinking about with a level of uncertainty and help me to decide — or at least lean towards one side — of the issue. Michael Kinsley’s piece, The Pursuit of Democracy – What Bush gets wrong about nation-building is a perfect example.
Where I live.
The other day, Mike took his mom and I for a ride in his plane. I sat in the back seat with my 7-piglet digital camera and took some photos of the Wickenburg area from the air.
This is a photo of my house, taken from the southeast at about 2,000 feet above ground level (AGL to us pilot types). I circled my house so you could see it. So when I say that I live at the edge of nowhere, I’m not kidding. Our “neighborhood” stretches off to the northwest from our house. Most homes out there are on about 1.6 acres of land. Our immediate neighbors have 2.5 (like us) or 5 or even 10 acres. It’s a nice arrangement with plenty of spacing between us. No need to close the blinds at night. Lots of privacy. Space for our horses and chickens.
It bothers me that so many developers are trying to squeeze high density housing into Wickenburg’s available land. Most of the folks I know who came to Wickenburg five or more years ago (like us) came here because of the wide open spaces and loosely packed housing. It’s a quality of life thing. If you want to live on top of your neighbors, you can do that in any major U.S. city. Leave the outlying areas — the towns on the edge of nowhere — for the folks who don’t want their roof inches away from their neighbors’.
Of course, when a developer’s only motivation is squeezing as many dollars out of an acre of land as possible, he’s not likely to respect the wishes of the people who lived in the area before he came along and snatched up all the vacant land.
And what do the developers care about the quality of life when they’re not living in the urban sprawl they’ve created?
But it’s a crime when the elected officials of a town go along with the developer’s plans, despite the wishes of the people that voted them into office.
Silly me. I thought we lived in a democracy.
…and asking questions.
This Thanksgiving season, as I prepare to fly back east to spend the holiday with family members in their comfortable homes, I can’t help but think about the thousands of people left homeless by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
I can’t imagine what it must be like to have my home and virtually all my possessions taken away by a natural disaster. I can’t imagine what it must be like to wonder where I’ll be living next week, month, or year. What I’ll be doing for a living. How my kids will go to school. Whether I’ll ever have the same level of comfort — even if that comfort level was low by many standards — as I used to.
We drop canned goods into collection boxes and write checks to aid organizations. Some of us even participate in holiday meals at homeless shelters. But do any of us really think about the people we believe we’re helping? How far do you think a few cans of tomatoes and a couple of pairs of jeans that no longer fit you will go to help the people who lost everything?
Thinking about the Katrina victims, formerly of New Orleans, is hardest for me. The levees broke and the pumps failed partially because they were in serious need of maintenance. Maintenance they couldn’t get because of budget cuts and confusion over who would pay. But where did that money go? What government-funded project got the cash that should have gone to the levees and pumps? A new war monument? A parking lot? Mardi Gras clean-up?
And what of the money that should be funding FEMA in this terrible time of need? Oh yes, I know where that’s going. It costs a lot of money to fund a war. I guess our government believes it’s more important to shove democracy down the throats of the Iraqis than to ensure the safety, welfare, and well-being of our own citizens at home.
So as you’re eating your Thanksgiving turkey this year, stuffing yourself with stuffing and gorging yourself with gravy, take a moment to think about the thousands in need in this country.
And give thanks that you’re not one of them.
I realize that public opinion doesn’t really matter.
I run a Web site called wickenburg-az.com. Its primary purpose is to provide information about Wickenburg, including things to do and see and businesses that operate here in town. I built the Web site because there was no non-commercial Web site about the town. Basically, if you wanted your business on the Web, you had to cough up big bucks to get it on one of the commercial sites in town — sites that weren’t even updated on a regular basis. I didn’t think that was fair. I also didn’t think any of those sites provided useful information for residents or visitors.
Over the years, the site has become quite a forum for voicing opinions about the way things are going here in town. I admit that I started it. Then John started adding his two cents and since what he submitted was well-written and well-reasoned out, I couldn’t help but publish it online. Along the way, a handful of other people submitted articles and I published them. I felt that these opinion pieces helped round out the site.
Recently, I’ve gotten quite a few opinion pieces from people I’ve never heard from before. I’ve been publishing most of them. Others are a bit over the top, even for me. What amazes me, however, is how many people have written to say they agree with much of what appears on the site — even though these opinions aren’t what’s reflected in the local newspaper or among local politicians.
In other words, the town’s government is pushing one way on many issues and the newspaper is rubber-stamping their decisions. In the meantime, many people don’t agree with or even like what’s going on.
This has me a bit baffled. My understanding is that in a democracy, when the people vote, they are choosing the elected officials that stand the same way they do on most issues. When they vote on a proposition, they’re telling their elected officials that they either want it to pass or they don’t. It seems to make sense that the elected officials would do the things that their constituents expect them to, based on popular opinion. It also seems to make sense that if a proposition fails, it would simply fade away into obscurity — not be put up for another vote when a different collection of people were around to vote on it.
Sadly, that’s not the way democracy works in Wickenburg. Majority public opinion seems to have little or no bearing on what actually happens in town. Elected officials do whatever they want to, for whatever reasons strike their fancy. I still haven’t decided if they’re motivated by greed — money under the table and other reward promises — or stupidity — being led around by the nose by smooth-talking developers.
The bypass issue is a perfect example. This has been going on for years. The route 93 and 60 corridor has become a major thoroughfare for traffic between Phoenix and Las Vegas and will be part of the Canamex highway that will link NAFTA members Canada and Mexico. As a result, there is a huge amount of truck traffic going right through town.
ADOT brought consultants into town on a regular basis to meet with the public and gain their opinions on the dozen or so options. The public clearly favored an out-of-town bypass that would keep all those trucks south and west of town. Yet the local government and chamber of commerce favored a route that would put the traffic right through town. (I guess it was important to them for McDonald’s and Circle-K to keep selling burgers, coffee, and gas to the drive-through crowd.)
As a result, the “interim bypass” was developed. This monstrosity would put four lanes of traffic along the riverbed near the existing bridge — it isn’t clear yet whether they’ll build another bridge, too — and route that traffic right past the Community Center and Coffinger Park, through a neighborhood and a ranch (thus displacing dozens of people and destroying the values of the remaining homes), and deposit it back on 93 right where a local developer is attempting to build a high-priced housing development. (It will be interesting to see how many people will pay $800K+ for a house overlooking 4 lanes of truck traffic.) Along the way, this crazy plan calls for two “roundabouts” — the old-style traffic circles that are being dismantled throughout the east — so that our “winter visitors” (most of whom are in the 65+ age bracket) can merge with the trucks on their way to and from Wal-Mart in Surprise. (It might be a good idea to move the ambulance base to that intersection, since that’s where it’ll be spending a lot of time.)
All this is completely against the majority public opinion. People who live in Wickenburg year-round care about the town and its atmosphere. We don’t want highways in the riverbed where exhaust fumes will settle and noise will destroy the quality of life and whatever downtown ambiance we still have.
We also don’t want high-density housing, especially when there aren’t enough high-paying jobs to fill those homes with year-round residents. We don’t want an economy that centers around winter visitors who don’t even like to spend their money in town. We don’t want two Dollar Stores or two check cashing places or a pawn shop. We want businesses that will provide good jobs and the goods and services we need.
But in Wickenburg, public opinion doesn’t matter.
I listen to a reading of our country’s founding document and think about what brought about our independence from Great Britain 228 years ago.
When I’m at Howard Mesa, I listen to the radio every morning. I listen to NPR, National Public Radio. There are actually three NPR frequencies I can get here: on from Phoenix that is repeated by Prescott, one from Flagstaff, and another from somewhere else.
This morning, during Morning Edition, I heard some familiar words: “When in the course of human events…” I soon realized that the radio staff was reading the Declaration of Independence.
It was a moving reading — if such a reading could ever be considered moving. The radio staff took turns reading paragraphs from the document. They each put emotion into what they read, as if they were the people making these claims, the people injured. I’ve read the Declaration several times, but I believe this is the first time I really understood it.
Imagine the east coast of the United States as thirteen colonies under the power of a King far away. Communication between the colonies and the King took weeks (if not months) in those days. The people of the colonies feel that they are being mistreated by the King. They write a document that clearly argues their point, listing dozens of offenses committed by the King against them. That’s the Declaration of Independence.
I can only imagine how that document must have pissed off King George III when he finally read it.
Reading the Declaration gives you a unique view of life in the American Colonies in the early 1770s. It was a time when people truly cared about freedom — because their freedom was limited. It was a time when people considered taxation without representation — because it simply wasn’t fair. It was a time when people who cared about what was right and wrong actually stood up and did something about the injustices they saw.
A bit different from today, when people care more about what celebrities are wearing than what’s being voted on in Congress.
Anyway, this morning, when I spoke to Mike, I mentioned that I’d heard the Declaration on NPR. Do you know what he said? “I heard it, too. It was great, wasn’t it?”
Looks like I picked the right guy after all.