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A story filled with wonder

May 31, 2014 by

A short story on page C3 in today’s Arizona Daily Star said an unnamed Border Patrol agent yesterday killed an unknown fleeing “person” near the Torres Blancas golf club in Green Valley.

I was struck by the quote from the BP statement as reported in the story:

“Agents pursued the driver and during the encounter, an agent discharged his service issued weapon, resulting in the death of the driver.”

There’s a lesson there in how to back your ass into a story so it sounds like much less than a human being killed by a border cop in the desert.

Wonder why the BP had to kill. Wonder if the driver was armed. How come the BP gave chase? Did the agent fear for his life? Wonder if the agent fired a warning shot? Wonder if the agent fired more than one shot? Or did he shoot him dead with one shot, like Dead Eye Dick? Or did he empty his “weapon”? Wonder if the dead person (man or woman?) was an illegal immigrant. Wonder if this will turn out to be yet another case of government-sanctioned murder with impunity. When it comes to the BP, Justice is blind, deaf, hog-tied and passed out dead drunk.

Notice that the story was tucked in a back page of a back section. That’s because the when the BP kills people, it’s hardly news. Very routine.

It’s just the border.

Nobody gives a shit.

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With:

Poetry at Campbell and Skyline

May 23, 2014 by

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Thurday last, I bought some poems at the intersection of Campbell and Skyline. For a buck.

A man who said to call him the Homeless Guy wore a sandwich board and stood at the traffic island at the Campbell left turn bay. It said “Poems $1 for a few.”

At the time, I was heading west on Skyline, passed Campbell where the Poet was hawking. I passed him by unable to read all the stuff on his sandwich board. I had to drive a fer piece before I could make a U-turn, head east back to Campbell where I waited for the light to turn green and drove yet another fer piece where I could make a U-turn and gain the left turn lane in order to support a local poetry hawker. I thought perhaps they were his poems.

I waved by dollar bill and he came to my window. He was not a poet. He handed me three pieces of paper. They had been typed, copied and cut into strips. One was: “Biological Reflection by Ogden Nash.” It said:

 

A girl whose cheeks are covered with paint

Has the advantage with me over one whose ain’t.

 

I could have gone happily to my grave without reading that.

There was another poem by “Robery” Louis Stevenson. Not worth wasting your time. The other was by Robert Service.

No one is allowed on traffic islands in the city. The council banned people from traffic islands after a newspaper hawker for the Tucson Citizen was run over. It’s one of the many things that killed the newspaper.

It is unfortunate that I could but interview him but briefly until the traffic light changed. But he didn’t want to talk or give his name. He had the good sense to wear a hat and protect his nose.

His sandwich board said he had “no downers,” just stuff to brighten your day.” At the bottom of the sandwich board, he wrote, “Do not read while driving.”

Or not at all — as the case may be. But I give him credit for promoting cultural enrichment in heavy traffic.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: People

An alleged state park in Oracle

May 14, 2014 by

A couple weeks ago Zoe and I decided we should take a hike. We settled on a trail we had read about that begins in Oracle State Park. We went. The park was closed.

It is closed every weekday. It’s an ARIZONA state park so it’s closed 5 days a week.

We called the number on the sign because we had a question. The recording said to leave a message, and a ranger would call us back. We left a message. It has been a couple weeks, and no one has called. I suspect there are no rangers to return calls.

We left the alleged state park and found a short hike down the road off the Mount Lemmon road. We got pictures of prickly pear blossoms and other desert flora. So we made something of a botched plan.

The wise and august members of the Legislature, who have cast the image of Arizona as an amalgamation of xenophobic racist morons, do not, on the whole, believe in parks. Hence, they unpay to keep them closed for all to unenjoy. These sagacious solons do not believe in public or state-financed higher education. Hence they also unpay to destroy our unfuture as well.

(The slideshow music is Paul Desmond playing Embarcadero.)

 

Filed Under: Places Tagged With: ,

Longevity

May 8, 2014 by

George A. Steiner was born during the Taft administration. He was 102 years of age on May 1 this year. He sent a card to mark his birthday. SCAN0062His son — John F. Steiner — and I attended graduate school at the University of Arizona during the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Father and Son — both have had rich and productive academic careers — have been writing the definitive college textbook on ethics and business, Business, Government and Society: A Managerial Perspective. I say “have been” because the 13th edition was  published two years ago.DSCF1137

It is the most interesting textbook I have ever read. Unlike most, it is replete with fascinating stories well told. The writing is first-rate — also a rare thing among the genre. One of my favorite gems is a chapter on Henry David Thoreau. The Steiners say of Thoreau that besides being indolent, he “became a beacon for the few in each succeeding generation who rejected materialism. But its light has a limited radius. Tourists now drawn to his Walden Pond homesite support three shopping malls within a mile as the crow flies.”

John says his father has “certain feelings” about being 102. All things considered, I think that’s understandable. His father dictated the content on the front of the card, which asks the question, “Do You Know Me?”

If you want to know more about George Steiner, search Google, and it will yield many books.

The search will not tell you about his paintings, one of which is in the background of the portrait, which was taken by John.

Many happy returns.SCAN0063

 

Filed Under: People Tagged With: ,

Ode to a mysterious cup

May 5, 2014 by

I am amazed by of my new coffee cup. It has a glaze to daze and dazzle.

Joel and Pam Nilsson

Joel and Pam Nilsson

I acquired this cup for what some would say was a pretty penny. I say cheap at twice the price. Since then, I find a cup of coffee most unsatisfying if I do not use this cup. We have a very nice collection of cups, mugs, thermos cups for the car, cups from Mexico, China (what isn’t from China?) and even this country. But they are unworthy vessels. Not even the cup from the JFK library compares.

My superior cup was made by Phoenix potter, Joel Nilsson. In another life, he was a reporter for The Arizona Daily Star. We met there more than 40 years ago. He moved on to the Arizona Republic and wound up his career there as an editorial writer.

As potters go, Joel isn’t particularly ambitious. He has no shop. He has no Internet presence. He has an active Facebook page, which is how to connect with him. He say he does not want to become an industry. He is truly an artist.

Joel and his wife Pam last month showed up at the Oracle Arts festival. I met them there and bought two bowls. As an afterthought, I bought the cup. What a buy.

It sat around for a day or two and I tried it. This was a different experience. The cup’s surface was room-temperature ice, smooth, slightly textured. Very, very different. It was very odd, but oddly outstanding. I tried other cups to test my sanity. They had no textured smoothness to surface. I asked Edie to try it. She said, “Huh, unhuh.” She already wonders about me.

And well she should. I am a bit fussy. I have been roasting coffee for better than six years. I have roasted green coffee beans from Hawaii to Yemen. As I write, I am sipping a coffee from Burundi called Muyinga Murago. I have a burr (as opposed to blade) grinder. I have drip coffee maker that heats water to better than 190 degrees, the minimum needed for a proper cup of joe.cropped-DSC_0018.jpg

But I’d never given much thought to the cup. I asked Joel how he made this glaze. He said he did not know. He said he could not explain why the glaze was exceptional. It may have had something to do with oxidation, and how the gases interact in  the kiln. Or maybe it had something to do with the handle. In the end, he said, it was all a crap shoot.

Thus the Mystery of the Glaze, a conundrum that is perhaps best left unsolved. Lends mystique to a cup of coffee. I should be grateful. Thanks, Joel. By the way, the bowls are elegant.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: People

Ten hits from Irkutsk

April 17, 2014 by

humpty-dumptyrussia-putin.jpeg5-1057x960It appears Putin is nostalgic for the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and wants to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. In this case it appears all the Putin’s horses and all the Putin’s men might at least put some of Mssr Dumpty back together again.

I get a little nostalgic over the USSR myownself. The stats for this blog brought to mind a trip I took. The stats show 10 hits from Irkutsk, a city in Siberia about 16 time zones to the east of here. It lies on the shore of Lake Baikal, the biggest, deepest and probably coldest fresh water lake in the world. More than 30 years ago, I boarded the Trans-Siberian Railroad in Irkutsk and began a 36-hour trip to Novosibirsk.

We had a compartment. It smelled of dirty rags, strong tea and piss.  The dirty-rag aroma came from the linen — if you want to call it that. Babushkas were stationed at the doors at either end of car, and I think one had a samovar. The alleged toilets accounted for the pissoir-heavy air.

images-1In the bar car, we read “Zima Junction” by the fine poet Yevgeni Yevtushenko. We were on the way to Zima, northwest of Irkutsk. Yevtushenko was born there.

It is a not a political poem, but Yevtushenko became popular in the West as he danced around the Soviet iron fist. He did not even approach the Western celebrity status of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the unmercifully boring  novelist whose “The Gulag Archipeligo” attracted great notice in the West.
The luster of his heroism dulled for me when the boys in the politburo allowed him to leave mother Russia and eventually settle in New England. After spending much of his life  bitching and moaning about oppression in the Soviet Union, he bitched and moaned about rampant materialism and decadent values in a free society.

From Zima:

I’d like to see the old familiar pines,

the witnesses of the old-old  bygone times,


when great-granddad, along with other peasants,images

were banished to Siberia as rebels.


From far away

   to God forsaken place,

through mud and rain, deep in disgrace,


along with their wives and kids they were driven,


Ukrainian peasants, from Zhitomir region.


They  plodded,  trying to forget about


the things they treasured most of all, perchance…


The watchful convoy guards on the look out


would look askance at their heavy veiny hands.


The corporal would be playing cards as night would fall


while great-granddad, absorbed in thought all night,


would skilfully  pick up a piece of coal


straight from the fire, to have a light.


It is about going home again, a nostalgia piece from 1955. If Yevtushenko’s nostalgia yet lives, he’s not saying, at least publicly. He seems to be content out of the limelight with the Cold War a distant memory. He’s in his 80s and lives mostly in Tulsa. It was reported that he refuses to criticize Putin. And there is nothing about his views on Putin’s undisturbed waltz into the Ukraine, land of his grandfather.

I don’t suppose I want to see Irkutsk again. And I certainly don’t suppose the Stink Train still runs. Moreover, I’d guess Yevtushenko doesn’t want to return to Zima Station. When you get to a certain age, nostalgia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Nonetheless, thank you dear Siberian readers for sparking a memory “from far away.”

Filed Under: Opinion, Places Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A rose is a rose x 20

April 12, 2014 by

There are about 20 blooms on this floribunda rose. They grew on a single cane, from a plant fertilized by optimism and goaded by sunny days and strong verbs.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized

Taxed

April 10, 2014 by

It’s a Paine to say it, but these are the times that tax men’s souls. (Women’s too.)

What this country needs is more affordability in the purchase, care  and maintenance of members of Congress. I am but a handful of percentage points from billionaire Charles Koch’s tax bracket. If that isn’t the ultimate in horse pucky, I’ll be Go-To-Hell.

Perhaps we need to pool money; buy a Solon or two. I’ll volunteer as the bagman. I’m just shooting spit wads here. Big bidness done bought them up. The pharmaceutical guys bought the best, if not the brightest, which is why the news on NBC, ABC and CBS is saturated with drug commercials for every malady known to humankind, and then some. Some of those maladies are plenty exotic and make you wonder what came first, the disease or the cure?

Oddly enough in these taxing times, doing my taxes this year has been like being keel hauled by Captain Bligh. I wish I could say my absence from da blog was because I have been on a trip — someplace exotic like the stockyard at Stanfield or the casino at Why or a Toltec truck stop. But I have been chained to TurboTax, which this year has been the worst version ever. The Terror of the Return was like HAL telling Keir Dullea’s character, “I’m sorry, Dave, but I can’t do that.”

I shall scour the ends of the Earth for an alternative next year. This year’s software has been as hinky and annoying as George W. Bush’s smirk.

 

Filed Under: Opinion

The good doctor responds

April 10, 2014 by

If you read the letter I wrote to Dr. Sweitzer, you might be interested in her response:

I received your letter in my mail last evening.  I sincerely apologize for the way your case was handled upon Dr. Ewy’s departure.  In the month I have been at the Sarver, I have worked diligently to begin the process of improving care for all of our patients.  I would like to speak with you about your experience.  As I do not yet have an assistant, please call me at your convenience on my cell phone, 608-XXX-XXXX.

Nancy Sweitzer

I spoke with her. She said she was indeed working to improve patient care at the Sarver Center. I believe her. I did visit the sins committed before she took charge upon her. She has a formidable task before her. She needs some time. As you can see her cell phone number is from Madison, Wis., whence she came and took over at Sarver March 1.

 

Filed Under: Opinion, People

Doctor, doctor tell me the news

March 26, 2014 by

Nancy K. Sweitzer, MD, PhD
Director
Sarver Heart Center
University of Arizona College of Medicine
Post Office Box 245046
Tucson, Arizona 85724-5046

Dear Dr. Sweitzer:

I spent a lifetime as a newspaper man so I understand intimately the meaning of snafu and fubar. But I have to say the Sarver Heart Center under its new management offered me an entirely new perspective.

For a little short of three decades Dr. Gordon Ewy was my cardiologist. I would put him up for sainthood, but he would not accept. It was a sad day when he retired.

Upon his retirement, I saw nurse practitioner Donner in May last year who noted that I was in fairly good shape. But she left as well. I had an appointment to see her last November. I received a letter in the mail that I had an appointment with someone of whom I had never heard. Didn’t say spit about this doctor being my new cardiologist. Then, I got a call to make an appointment for a scan. But I had no doctor and no Donner. I spoke with someone in your office, described my predicament. She said in semi-hysterical terms she could not help me, and moreover she didn’t know what to tell me. So I muttered some words (old Anglo-Saxon) appropriate to the occasion and decided I could probably do without a cardiologist since my last occurrence of SVT was many years past.

But the mischief of your heartless center casts a long shadow. I had prescriptions that required renewal. Rosemary at Walgreens called to obtain a renewal for a prescription ordered by either Ewy or Donner. She was told I had to make an appointment at the heart center. But I had no doctor, no nurse practitioner, no one with whom I could make an appointment. This was a problem worthy of Doc Daneeka.

I worked around this problem by contacting my primary, Dr. Randall Brown who prescribed the drug.

I would have let it go when it happened again today. But this was too much. Rosemary at Walgreens tried to obtain a renewal for atenolol. Someone named Sisterman at Sarver denied it. Perhaps I should not blame Sisterman because she doesn’t know me from Adam. But when it comes down to it, that’s the point, is it not? Once I was a Sarver patient. I could call the center and speak to an actual responsive human being. For many years it was Isabel, a Noo Yawker who took care of my appointments, offered tasty morsels at her desk and advised me on other matters with great wisdom. When Isabel retired, I could deal with Debbie who was efficient and cheerful. Today I am unknown, and Sarver cares not a whit. By the way, Jack Sarver gave me the loan to buy my first house in Tucson. He was a good man, a good Democrat and easy to reach.

Which is unlike the center that bears his name. I called the Sarver Center today. I could press this number and that, and when I did so was told I could leave a message. I muttered some appropriate words (Anglo-Saxon in origin). I was thinking perhaps I should try to dial you, the director of the Sarver Heart Center, but I had to look you up. I don’t know you from Eve. But I figure you have so many barriers set up between you and the public that I would have better luck speaking to the Pope. In fact, I’m pretty sure I would.

I did not want to let it go this time around, and just indulge my un-unique Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. So please consider this a nasty letter of remonstration and my testimonial that the Sarver Heart Center doesn’t give a rat’s derriere for its patients.

Sincerely,

Former patient
(Seriously pissed off)

Filed Under: People Tagged With: , ,