Dispatch from the Inferno State

-by Doug Kahn

Having visited family and friends in Phoenix, Arizona so many times over the past few years, it finally made sense to get a place and park my own couch. I had been told it was customary to wedge oneself between sofa cushions before posting on a legitimate (so to speak) blog, so here I am. (Two years ago I even bought a condominium in Phoenix as an investment, but that item belongs in a story about my personal wealth and intellect, both in sharp decline.) Scottsdale is where I’m sitting right now.

Not that there’s any open space between Scottsdale and Phoenix any more. Mesa, Tempe, and Glendale used to be distinct communities, too. Sun City (or ‘Del Webb’s Sun City,’ if anyone remembers those ads) is inside the loop now, Loop 101. Imagine 2,000,000 racing fans with infield passes to the Fahrenheit 500, a banked oval track (Loop Highway 101) surrounding us, with tens of thousands of careening Toyotas churning up a permanent dust devil which blocks atmospheric moisture from contaminating our beloved ‘dry heat.’

Arizona is an interesting place. Exceptional things happen here; I’m going to try and help you keep up with local happenings from time to time, and this is one of those times. Here are a few facts, in no particular order:

The State Legislature has a 60-member House and 30-member Senate. 40 legislators (all Republicans) have sponsored a bill barring Presidential candidates from appearing on the ballot if they won’t provide proof of US citizenship. The bill was passed out of a House committee on February 23rd. It hasn’t had an up or down vote yet. The original ‘idea’ became ink on paper courtesy of Representative Judy Burges of Skull Valley. There is no sanity clause. Did I mention they were all Republicans?

I really live in Englewood, Florida; the Sunshine State. We say that, but statistically, Florida has more ‘partly cloudy’ days than anywhere else in the continental United States. The top five sunniest states are Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. Florida feels like it’s the sunniest, though, because when you’re there you actually want to spend time outside.

The all-time high temperature record in Englewood stands at 99º. In Phoenix, we had a day in July 2003 when the low was 96º. ("Day" meaning 5:00 am.) We shattered a record in 2007, with 32 days peaking over 110º. The weak-ass old record was only 28 days, set in 2002.

About ‘dry’ heat. When the temperature hits 110º here, a person may be heard to say, “Yes, but it’s dry heat.” (This person is in another state, you understand, indoors, with the air conditioning turned up to whoopee.) The temperature is 110º in the shade, the air temperature, you annoying twerp. When you’re standing out in the sun, your maximum surface temperature is 110º only if you’re made out of a mixture of nitrogen, oxgen, carbon dioxide, desert dust, pollen, and valley fever spores, with a relative humidity of 5%. If you happen to be an actual carbon-based life form with a water content of 70%, you’ll have heat-stroke in a matter of hours.

This is Maricopa County, 1990 population 2,100,000. The 2010 census will show it has doubled to 4,200,000. (This will be an undercount, because tens of thousands of people who actually reside here claim to still be residents of Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota, where they lived and paid taxes before their eyebrows froze off in the winter of ’01.) Almost two-thirds of Arizonans are Phoenicians. All the Democrats live in Tucson. That’s not completely fair; Harry Mitchell (AZ-05) is a Blue Dog Democrat, and he used to be the mayor of Tempe. All the real Democrats live in Tucson, under the protection of Raul Grijalva.

The Legislature is in special session right now, busy cutting billions out of the state budget, and the final resolution of that won’t be known for a while. A ballot measure on May 18 will ask voters to increase the state sales tax by 1% to 6.6%, and if that fails, another $1 billion is going to get whacked out of public education. We have two Senators here (Kyl and McCain) who have very helpfully come out against the Governor (Republican) and Legislature (dominated by Republicans, you understand) and are urging people to vote no on the sales tax increase.

While we’re on the subject of laughably idiotic Republican legislation, House Bill 2290 passed on a party-line vote last week. That would allow businesses to ‘donate’ scrap tires for the humanitarian purpose of filling in abandoned mines, so that kids couldn’t fall in and get hurt. Not to worry if you’re from another state; this is an innovation only available in Arizona. There is no state that allows scrap tires to be dumped in landfills. Some states apparently have laws which prohibit dumping, but don’t specifically mention abandoned mines. Because only a moron would consider such a thing reasonable.

All-day kindergarten has been abolished. 310,000 adults will lose MedicAid. 47,000 kids will lose health care, the program abolished. All state parks are going to be closed, if they can find the ready cash to seal them up, shut off the water and electric, etc. They seem to be waffling on a plan to abolish the Department of Youth Corrections and turn all the violent offenders over to the counties. So be aware: if you’re driving through on I-10, don’t pick up any hitchhikers. And bring an empty bottle. All the rest areas have been shut down.

One of the reasons the state is short of money is a generous tax-credit for private school tuition:

“Twelve years ago, Arizona lawmakers set out to help low and middle income students attend private school. Lawmakers passed a bill to give tax credits to people who donate to a Student Tuition Organization, or at STO. The STO then provides scholarship money to students who attend private school.

The Arizona Department of Revenue reports that since the law went into effect twelve years ago, Arizonans have claimed hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits under the program.But during the past 18 months, several media outlets in Phoenix and Tucson have reported that people who should have been benefiting from the program are not. Those reports indicate that instead of helping those most in need, the breaks were going to families who could already afford to pay for private school. According to the investigations, families were using two main tactics to achieve that:

-- Ear marking, which allows a donor to specify that their donation must go toward a specific student.

-- Swaps, where separate families agree to donate to each others’ children. Both families then claim the tax credit.”

In February, the legislature rejected a proposal to make sure the breaks weren’t just helping wealthy families cheat on their taxes. And refused to audit the program to see who was actually benefitting.

Hum the official state anthem, adopted in 1919 (to the tune of Funk #49):

Come to this land of sunshine . . .
Where the golden sun is flaming
Into warm, white, shining day,
And the sons of men are blazing
Their priceless right of way.

Flaming, blazing sunshine. There are more stanzas, but I’ll sum it up for you: It’s a goddamn toaster oven here 90% of the time, and the thing you really want to do is to build a highway and motor to Needles, California and parts west as soon as you possibly can. With the top up.