It's Just How You Look At It

Come on let’s get real about the value of experience in understanding alternative economic development. Living in other communities doesn’t condemn one to never understanding what it is to be a Tucsonan. Oldtimers and newtimers alike can relate to a military friend of mine who returned from overseas and said we must be thankful for our way of life. Transplants to Tucson are a prodigious influx of fine minds from all over the world. The quality of their experience is not to be underestimated.

Take the late local real estate boom and the hovering specter of deflation in housing prices as viewed by the speculators. It’s kind of like buying petroleum at $70 a barrel and looking at current prices at $50 a barrel while wondering where the investment went. Speculators and small owners are keeping home prices higher while holding out for a surge in home buying when the only people left who want to buy are wealthy or credit risks. It reminds me of Houston during the 1980s where empty subdivisions sat molding on mud while buyers avoided the area.

New Orleans residents are being charged high insurance rates while insurance company profits mount and payouts lag. New Orleans is an example of how local conditions can affect the local housing market in that too many expenses to the buyer can prohibit a sale. Many sales are lost as costs like interest rates, taxes, insurance and utilities rise. Potential buyers vanish in the wake of these floods while citizens pay more for expected conditions, some forced to pick and choose, eliminating discretionary spending in luxury and service areas. Credit card and home mortgage defaults rise as credit charges accumulate. Some of this applies to Tucson as well.

Tucson real estate? Just think what would happen to the existing market if a water emergency were declared amid water shortages or even if water rationing were instituted! The bottom would drop out of the housing market as these longed for emigrants fail to arrive to buy the new houses because they don’t want to live out of a gallon jug of water. Some people might even pull up stakes and move out, leaving behind inflated mortgages for the credit people to absorb. If property values drop, tax valuations must also, leaving the government with less money generated and a horrendous water problem to solve.

We need to seriously discuss issues that affect property values and taxes. The quality of life and the open spaces upgrade property values in Pima County. The possibility of another copper mine in this area brings to mind a long time strategy of preserving our natural resources whenever possible. What happened to that idea? Is there a copper shortage? Let’s see what our congressmen and women and senators can do to save the Santa Rita Mountains from becoming another mine dump. Shall we sully Davidson Canyon in order to sell more cement to build more houses to bring more population who will use up the water supply? Public policy needs to reflect common sense.

I suggest that people sit back and think about what there is about Pima County that either brought us here or kept us here. I am a Tucson native who returned home because I learned, like the prodigal son, that there is no place like home. My idea of home is the wide open spaces, cultural events, multicultural atmosphere, and proximity to Mexico. Our future Tucson is in the making and citizens have the freedom to speak out. Elected officials and policymakers need to listen or find another address.

Iraq Commentary

The Sins of the Fathers

Animosities ancient beyond our own beginnings as a coherent people
Bubbled to the surface if a withdrawal of new forces took place
Proving Saddam’s iron fist the only master
To your vengeance
Time to gamble on peace.

We offer sanctuary for political refugees
As Vegas of future options
Which will lead to peace
Define and control inherited feuds
The sins of the fathers controlling no more.

Communicate with combatant groups
List grievances on all sides
Al Sadr saw the foe of his father slain
No prior demands
Time to talk.

Baathists have a right to vote
Where went the spoils of war?
Call for a new election.
Distribute the oil wealth to the people
Like Indian casino money.

The human cost of is irretrievable
The course of history directed
Logic dictates endgame
Time to fold ‘em
While death holds the winning hand.

Nuclear Warfare

Commentary on “Focus: Mission Iran” London Times, January 07, 2007

Assuming the London Times story “Focus: Mission Iran” is accurate, this idea poses several ethical questions, the first among them is the new doctrine of preemptive paranoia, sometimes called starting wars among the more rational in society. Has our world lost any semblance of ethics as the lovely blonde woman on the news assures us that the nuclear device to be dropped on Iran by Israel would be low yield? What are we now expected to accept?

Using nuclear weapons is not acceptable by any standard. Why has the United Nations not sent nuclear weapons observers into Israel yet expects others accede to this demand? How did Israel acquire nuclear technology? Shall we review that story? Threatening the use of nuclear weapons is irresponsible. If such a nuclear strike takes place, the number of warlike regimes in the world will multiply. What then? More nuclear strikes?

To counteract this warlike attitude, I suggest a United Nations resolution that retribution shall not be taken beyond what was given. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Not an eye for a brain. So it is written in the Old Testament and the words are meaningful and those who break that word of their religion are condemned to eternal warfare, the reason for the resolution.

To give this Resolution impetus, once the retribution allowance has been exceeded, immediate member economic boycott will ensue against the offender. Nobody wants to be called greedy, yet even too much retribution is a form of greed.

Warfare is a foolish waste of resources and as such must be stopped, if not for humanitarian reasons that boggle the mind with pain. Threatening a nuclear hit is moral bankruptcy no matter who does it.