Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts

31 August 2017

Racial Profiling, or Why Joe Arpaio Would Have Locked Me Up


I am not, in any way, a fan of Joe Arpaio's pardon.  The former Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona (which includes Phoenix) was a racist power-mad S.o.B.  (I know, I know, I should tell you how I really feel.)

Arpaio apparently believed that anyone Hispanic - or looked Hispanic - had to be illegal (NOTE: they're not.)  Arpaio and his deputies specifically targeted people with brown skin, and would simply pull over people who looked Hispanic.  "About a fifth of traffic stops, most of which involved Latino drivers, violated Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable seizures. "

Image result for maricopa az county jail
Maricopa Co. Jail -
Tent City
It is important to remember that Arpaio ran a jail, not a prison. Nonetheless, Arpaio referred to his jail as a concentration camp, and called all detainees (60% of whom had only been arrested, and had not yet arraigned, tried, or convicted) criminals.

NOTE:  Coffin v. United States 1895 established "presumption of innocence" as the bedrock of our criminal justice system.  But not, apparently, in Maricopa County.

Sheriff Arpaio dressed his detainees in black-and-white striped uniforms and pink underwear because it gave him a good laugh.  He fed the prisoners rotten food - green bologna was a favorite - because they didn't deserve any better. He housed detainees outdoors, under Army-surplus tents, without any cooling measures and inadequate water - the temperatures in the tents could easily reach 140 degrees. “I put them up next to the dump, the dog pound, the waste-disposal plant.” Sheriff’s department officers punished Latino inmates who had difficulty understanding orders in English by locking down their pods, putting them in solitary confinement, and refusing to replace their soiled sheets and clothes. The investigation found that sheriff’s department officers addressed Latino inmates as “wetbacks,” “Mexican bitches,” “f***ing Mexicans,” and “stupid Mexicans.”   (The New Yorker)

But wait, there's more!  Arpaio was a real piece of work. He was (and is) one of the most prominent and persistent "birthers" around, to the point where he used Maricopa County funds to send a 5 man deputy squad to Hawaii to investigate then-President Obama's birth certificate.  He set up a fake assassination attempt to boost his reelection.  He tried to get a grand jury to indict a number of Maricopa County judges, supervisors, and employees.  (The grand jury rejected all the claims.)  His office improperly cleared - i.e., claimed to have solved - up to 75% of cases without investigations or arrests, and simply ignored hundreds of rape cases.  He claimed that he lacked enough detectives to do the job - and when he was given $600,000 for more detectives, none were hired and the money vanished.  Along with almost $100 million of Maricopa funds.  (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio, and The Atlantic)

But wait, there's more!  Back in 1995, a wheelchair-bound paraplegic named Richard Post needed help to urinate; well, that was asking too much, so the jailers strapped him into a restraint chair, tightened the straps as tight as they would go, and left him there for six hours. And broke his neck. In case you're wondering, he'd been arrested for possession of a joint.  And no, he hadn't even been tried yet.  Presumption of innocence...  And no, this wasn't the only mauling, maiming, and even death that occurred under Arpaio's rule, in Arpaio's jail, where, remember, over 60% of his "criminals" were simply awaiting trial, often stuck because they couldn't afford cash bail. (Phoenix New Times)

What finally began the end of Arpaio's career was when a Mexican man holding a "valid tourist's visa" was stopped in Maricopa County, arrested, and detained for 9 hours in 2007. The man sued Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, alleging racial profiling. Four years later, in December, 2011, a federal judge in Phoenix ordered Arpaio to stop detaining anyone not suspected of a state or federal crime, reminding him that simply being in the U.S. illegally is not a crime, only a civil violation. Arpaio's response was to let everyone know that after "they went after me, we arrested 500 more just for spite." He was voted out of office in November of 2016.  He was finally convicted July 31, 2017, of criminal contempt of court. He was pardoned by President Trump August 25, 2017, before he was even officially sentenced.

Okay.  So what do I care?  Aside from the multiple violations of basic human rights, the United States legal system, and the United States Constitution?

After all, I'm not black.  I'm not Hispanic.  I'm not Jewish.  I'm not Native American.  However, I've been mistaken for all of these.  I'm 100% Greek, born there, orphaned there, adopted from there.  (All right, my genome, according to National Geographic, is 50% Greek, 25% Tuscan Italian, and 25% Northern Asian Indian.)

But I know something that blonds don't know.  I learned, very young, that WASP Americans - even those who aren't racist / bigots - are very ignorant of the possibilities of ethnic differences in a group of people who all have brown eyes, black hair, and a slightly darker shade of skin.  To many WASPS, we all look alike.

I was shipped to this country when I was 2 1/2 years old - here's a picture of me from the orphanage. That curly hair, those big dark eyes, led some people in our Arlington, VA world to assume that my parents had (for reasons passing understanding) adopted a child who might have "a touch of the tar brush" as it was so politely put back in the 1950's.  There were also whispers about me in my grandmother's small town in Kentucky. Nothing overt.  Just whispers, enough so that I was aware, early on, that not everyone was as pleased to have me around as my parents and grandparents.

Since then, I've had the privilege of explaining who I am, i.e., where I'm from, to an endless stream of people.  When I travel internationally, I'm the one taken aside for questioning.  I have a passport that says I was born in Athens, Greece, for one thing, and that makes people wonder.  It's only gotten worse since 9/11, and I have had long chats with uniformed personnel in many an airport.  The one exception is Athens, Greece, where the guy looked at my passport and waved me through without even a baggage check.
"Συνεχίστε!" "ευχαριστώ!"  ("Go on through!" "Thanks!")

But even when I don't have to have a passport, such as crossing the border into Canada - and they are always very polite - I'm the one who has to get out of the car and talk directly to the border guard so that s/he can make sure I'm not...  someone else...  something else...  That I really am "American".

I don't mind that.  Well, I do mind, but I can live with it.  But there's more.

In 1960 we moved from Arlington, VA to southern California.  In the '60s, when the California image was blonde, tan, and thin.  I had the tan.

NOTE:  It's all right - I figured if you can't join 'em, beat 'em, and (in the world of mini-skirts and gogo boots) came to school wearing my grandmother's 1930's suits (see illustrations on the right) and an armload of books.  If you're going to stand out, stand out with style.

Moved down South.

A little profiling, here and there.  A  a lot of, "Greece?" said by someone with an extremely puzzled face.  And some other things, like the time a KKK type followed me through the stacks in the public library saying "oink, oink", "Jew pig", "Jew bitch", etc.

And then we came to South Dakota, where I have been taken for Native American.  In a small town West River, my husband and I stopped late one summer night to get a motel room.  Back then, I had long hair, down to my waist, and, since it was summer, a pretty good tan.  I was told they had no vacancies.  I went back to the car and we sat (windows open) to figure out where the next closest town was, and another car pulled up.  A nice blond man got out, went in - I could hear the entire conversation - asked if they had a room, and was told "Yes, sir.  Sign right here." I told some friends about it, and they said, "Oh, yeah.  They're pretty racist up there."

And more.

Now all this happened, but not daily.  (Well, not since my school days - no, you could not pay me enough money to be a child again.)  Just often enough to give me a hint of what it must be like to be truly a minority in this country.  But I'm still officially white, part of the white majority, and I do have privileges. There are all sorts of things I can do without getting arrested, or even stopped by the police:
  • I can change lanes without signaling.
  • I can walk around the neighborhood wearing a hoodie.
  • I can reach for my car registration and proof of insurance in the glove compartment.
  • I can stand on a street corner, looking confused and anxious.
  • I can forget my keys and use a coat hanger to get into my locked car.  Or open a window to get into my locked house. 
  • I can sit on my front porch and watch whatever street show's on offer.  I can even talk to people on the street or make comments to my husband about what's going on.  
  • I can stand in an alley with a group of friends. 
  • I can talk on a cell phone. 
  • I can, and have, driven around with a broken tail light, and for a while, without a front license plate (which wasn't required in the South). 
    • (NOTE:  In the last few years, people have been stopped, arrested, jailed, and even killed for doing each and every one of these things in the United States of America.)  

(Wikipedia)
But, for me, any and all of the above would have been risky behavior in Maricopa County under Joe Arpaio.  Maybe not for you, but for me.  Because of how I look.  

Pardon Joe Arpaio?  I wouldn't have, but what's worse is that he was convicted and then pardoned for a misdemeanor.

Did I mention his "special forces" that led a botched raid in which they firebombed a home to ashes and burned a puppy alive?  (See here.)  And found nothing?

Did I mention that Joe Arpaio was/is one of the founders of the The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA, for short) that believes that sheriffs are "the highest executive authority in a county and therefore constitutionally empowered to be able to keep federal agents out of the county"? And, as such, are not responsible to any federal law, agent, or judge? (See CSPOA and/or Southern Poverty Law Center on the movement.)

After all of that, a misdemeanor?  Unpardoned, the most he would have served would have been six months, maximum, and - sadly, tragically - it wouldn't have been in the Arpaio Maricopa County Jail.

Pardon him?  I sure as hell wouldn't have.  But then, I have skin in the game.
PS - Next week, back to quacks, radium and murder.

29 January 2016

Why I had to Be Careful on the Reservation for A While


Map of the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community.
Scottsdale bounds the north (upper map) and west (map left) side,
while Mesa bounds the south (map lower) side.
These days I don't worry too much about driving across the local Indian Reservation outside Scottsdale, but there was a time when I had to keep a sharp eye out for police vehicles while driving to and from school.

And, the real cause of the problem was that I was trying to be a nice guy.

And, because I was ignorant.  I hadn't yet learned that people didn't necessarily read something I'd written, in the manner I had envisioned while writing it.

I made my way toward fiction through the journalism field. My primary goal was to make a living writing fiction, so my first goal was to earn a B.A. that might help convince editors I was a serious writer.

To accomplish this first goal, I decided to attend the Cronkite School at Arizona State.  At that time, at least, an ASU student had to earn the majority of his common core credits during his first two years -- all spent outside the Cronkite School.

Yes. You're seeing it correctly.
SCC is the Fighting Artichokes!
After completing enough credits with an acceptable GPA, a student had to apply for the Cronkite School then had to pass the Cronkite entrance exam before being permitted to apply for the Journalism or Communication Program.

I used the GI Bill to pay for school, but had two kids at home during this time, and another one on the way toward the tail end of my sophomore year. So, I spent those first two years at nearby Scottsdale Community College (SCC) to: save money, run my small pool layout business, and spend more time around the house. Our youngest son was born about the time I entered the Cronkite Program at ASU.

By the time I was admitted to the Cronkite School, I'd worked as a reporter on a small Scottsdale paper for two years, had also spent two school years on the Scottsdale Community College paper, and finally closed my small business to permit me to concentrate on completing my degree.  Two years after entering the Cronkite School, I graduated with a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication.

But, the thing that caused me to run afoul of police on the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) occurred while I was working on a small human interest story for the SCC paper.

Scottsdale Community College isn't really in Scottsdale at all.  It's actually about a half-mile outside Scottsdale, on land leased from the SRPMIC.  And, the SRRPMIC police patrol the area outside campus, while providing arrest authority on campus when needed.  A person who stole money from the SCC snack bar cash register, while I was on the paper, for instance, was apprehended by campus police, then arrested by SRPMIC police, who booked the suspect into the Maricopa County Jail.  (Yes, that's right.  That's Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jail -- pink underwear, green bologna and all... though these days it serves a vegetarian-only diet with no bologna on the menu [assuming you don't count Sheriff Joe's antics as bologna].)

One day, in the school news room, the faculty adviser for the paper told me she had received permission to have a school reporter accompany an SRPMIC police officer on a ride-along during a night shift.  She thought I might be a good choice, due to my age and military experience.  I happily accepted the assignment.

When that night arrived, I showed up at the police station on the reservation and met the sergeant who would be driving us around in his SUV, while on night patrol.  He was a nice enough guy, if a bit too showy for my taste.  I wasn't worried about that; I'd dealt with showy guys in the army.

He took me out and drove his patrol route, showing me areas of interest -- such as the lawnmower repair business where he'd earned a decoration for his actions during a shootout.  We found a new car sitting empty in the middle of nowhere, which was registered to someone on the other side of The Valley.  After calling for a tow truck, he explained that young people on the reservation sometimes went to clubs in Scottsdale or Phoenix, then stole a car to drive home.  Sometimes they stripped the car after getting it home.  Other times, like this one, they simply abandoned it.  We hunted around for, and found, the keys by the time the time the tow truck arrived.

He took me through "Bunny Acres" a part of the reservation that's pretty empty except for a few houses crouching in darkness.  Elsewhere, he showed me the remains of a house that had been destroyed during a shootout between reservation gang members on one side, and the FBI supported by the SRPMIC police on the other.  He asked me not to write about that house, because standing wisdom held that gang activity on the reservation had been completely wiped-out that night, and the tribal government didn't want potential casino customers to worry about the possibility of gang violence.

Had I been a hard-nosed reporter working on an expose, I'd have countered by asking for his opinion concerning the clear gang problems two friends of mine had encountered while working as teachers on the reservation.  Those two guys, for instance, found it interesting that when they handed out M&M's to their high school students, the red M&M's disappeared from some desks, while the blue ones disappeared from others, depending on whether the kid was a member of the Crips or the Bloods.  Gang tensions influenced the daily lives of those kids in the classrooms.

As I told the sergeant driving me around, however: "No problem.  Both my editor and our faculty adviser told me to treat this as a human interest story.  I'm supposed to give SCC students a feel for what the cops paroling the streets around school are like -- what you guys go through on a daily basis. I'm not here to dig up any dirt, or get anybody into hot water.  Plus, I spent time in the military and I hold a Top Secret clearance.  So, if you find you just said something you shouldn't have, let me know and we'll talk about it.  My bosses probably won't want it in the story anyway."

We went to a drunk driver arrest, worked a small traffic accident, and drove around some more.  We drove past a house that had a big pack of dogs running around out front.  The sergeant slowed and swung the SUV over toward that side of the street, quietly calling out the window to them.  As the dogs began to stand and prick their ears, he turned to me and said, "These guys always let their dogs out; they never put them inside or put leashes on them.  The law says they can't be out here without leashes, and I could arrest their owner.  But, we try to help people remember to do the right thing, without arresting them if we can."

By then, the dogs were barking and jumping, frantically chasing the SUV as we drove down the road on the right side again.  As the front door opened, and the owner came out, yelling at the dogs, the sergeant called: "They need to be on leashes if they aren't penned up!  Get them inside!"  Then he turned to me as he rolled up his window, saying, "This way, it wakes him up, so he pays the price, but he doesn't have to get involved in the legal system."

A short while later, we got a call about a domestic violence dispute with shots fired.  That was the one and only time the sergeant turned on his flashing lights and siren.  The only time he drove at anything above the speed limit.  Just about the only bit of excitement all night!  (If you don't count a pack of barking dogs chasing your car.)

But, even the domestic violence dispute was over by the time we arrived.  The man with the shotgun had been arrested and everyone else was being assisted by advocates.

When I wrote the story, I aimed for the human interest piece I'd described to the sergeant.  I emphasized the idea that the department practiced what they called "Community Policing," using the sergeant's own parallel about how they tried to police the SRPMIC employing common-sense alternatives to arrest, the way Andy Taylor policed Mayberry on the Andy Griffith Show.  I illustrated this idea by outlining the way the sergeant had dealt with those loose dogs.

I was so proud of the result that I even dropped several copies of the student newspaper at the police station, so the guys could read it.

When I was on the way out, however, a lieutenant stopped me.  "You're the guy who wrote that story in the college paper, right?"

"Yes, sir.  Did you like it?"

His face clouded.  "We got a problem.  That sergeant who took you around is in hot water."

I was horrified.  "Why?"

(Okay, so this isn't a word-for-word recreation of our conversation.  But it is pretty close, I think.  I mean, this happened 16 years ago or so.)

We went into his office.  "Did you really have to compare us to Andy Taylor and Mayberry?  Why did you do that?"

"Well.  He did it.  He explained that was what you were doing.  And I thought it was a great idea!  So I explained it.  What's wrong?"

"It didn't occur to you that folks might read that, and think we were all a bunch of Barney Fife idiots -- shooting ourselves in the foot all the time!?"

I felt like an idiot, myself.  I shook my head.  "I'm sorry.  That never occurred to me.  I just thought I was comparing you to a guy who did a good job of keeping the peace, and gently keeping folks from stepping out of line.  That's why I wrote about the dogs."

His head snapped up.  "That really happened?  Just the way you described?"

I nodded.  He was pretty angry, but it was the truth.  "Yeah.  Just the way I said."

"And he said that stuff, about intentionally making all those dogs bark to wake up the owner?"

"Yeah.  Why?  What did he do wrong?"

"Damn!"  He scanned the story and put his finger on a spot.  "This part here -- where he went to the shooting with red lights and siren -- how fast were you going?"

I shrugged.  "I don't know.  It was dark out, and I couldn't read the speedometer from where I sat." I was pretty sure we'd been doing about sixty, but I knew that was the wrong answer.

"Did you feel in danger when that happened?  Did you think he was driving too fast for the dark conditions out there?"

I shook my head.  "Absolutely not.  What did he do wrong?  What's the problem with the dogs?  He did it so he wouldn't have to arrest that guy."

He laid down the paper and looked at me.  "Well, the problem is: That's a little thing called "Disturbing the Peace."  And it's illegal!  You had a tape recorder with you.  I saw it.  Did you record all this?"

"Yeah.  I did.  But, I didn't mean to get him in any trouble."

"Do you have those tapes with you?"

They were in my car, but I'd had enough basic journalism training to know how to handle that question.  "I always have to give them to my editor.  They belong to the paper."  (Please note: I did not say I had ALREADY given them to my editor, just that I HAD to, and that they belonged to the paper.)

"So you don't have them."

"No."  They weren't on my person.  They were in my car about fifty feet away, in the parking lot.  On the front seat!

"Okay.  I'm going to let you go.  But, you need to bring me those tapes, because we need to use them. And we may need to call you to testify in court.  If you don't bring those tapes back, we can issue a warrant.  Understood?"

I nodded.

Back at my faculty adviser's office, I told her what had happened, and what I'd said to the lieutenant.

"You actually told him the tapes are newspaper property?" she asked.

"That was the advice I got, when that local editor came to speak to one of my classes."

"Give me the tapes."  I handed them over.  "Okay," she said.  "Now they ARE newspaper property.  And he'll need a court order to get them from us."  Then she looked at me.  "But, you'd better be careful when you drive across the reservation to come to class.  They might try to arrest you.  Here's my card; if they arrest you, call me."

Maybe that police officer just wanted to scare me, or something.

But that faculty adviser wasn't joking.  She was worried.

That was over a decade ago, so I don't worry too much anymore.  Heck, I don't even know where I put her card.

But, for a while there . . .

See you in two weeks,

— Dixon

02 January 2015

My Arizona Home


So, last night being New Year's Eve, and given that my family could benefit from a little added side income, I found myself driving a cab from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am.

Yes, I picked up several folks who'd had a bit too much to drink (though perhaps fewer than you might imagine), along with a few rather odd folks who had clearly been up to rather interesting activities, and two different groups who'd had blow-outs, wrecking their cars.

And, yes, I made some money.  Humorously enough, my smallest tip came from a guy who kept telling me he was wearing a $1200 suit.  He tipped me less than two bucks for a $14.00 trip.  But, I guess that's why he has the money to buy expensive suits.

What surprised me, however, was that I had to chip ice away from the edges of my car door, after I'd turned in the cab this morning, and gone to retrieve our family sedan from the parking lot, before I could pry my frozen-shut door open to drive home.

We don't get a lot of ice like that, here in the Valley of the Sun.

I'm sure a lot of you out there are thinking: "A little ice.  Boo hoo.  Deal with it Desert Boy!"  And, frankly, it can be hard to explain how odd this is, to someone from -- oh, say: Minnesota perhaps.

Which has me thinking of a rather remarkable little book called My Arizona Home, written by a fellow named Desé R. Trat.  Trat does a nice job of capturing both fact and flavor, when it comes to his description of the Phoenix area and Scottsdale, so I thought I'd share some excerpts with you.  Happily, Trat was glad to give me permission to do so.

Trat's book begins with an explanation (if you could call it that) about why desert dwellers develop sort of love or "fever" for the place, with this rather odd opening note:

“In the upper soil levels of much of the desert southwest, there is a mildew-like fungus known as Coccidioidomycosis, or Cocci. You’ve probably heard it called 'Valley Fever.' Believe it or not, if you’ve lived in The Valley all your life, you’ve probably already had Valley Fever. Valley Fever can be dangerous …”

 —Public Service Announcement Televised in the Phoenix area, 1967-1978

(You may be interested to know that I remember seeing this ad on television. He then begins his winding roam through desert life.   :)

 Things in the desert are farther away than they appear. This is why a picnicker with a broken down car might die of thirst while walking to a near-by highway, and why his bleached bones might later be found twenty miles from the nearest paved surface.

 But don’t think the desert sets traps for the unwary; it doesn’t.

 The desert just has a dry sense of humor and likes to play practical jokes.

 People who respect the desert stock their cars with little practical joke kits including: several gallons of water, a small shovel and a few boards for getting out of sand traps—plus maybe a flare gun, in case the joke starts growing old. Consequently, those who respect the desert tend to survive its practical jokes and often wind up developing a certain fondness for its sense of humor.

 Those who don’t respect the desert, however, don’t usually develop this fondness—possibly because they are too busy having their bones bleached.

 The Valley of the Sun (‘Hoozdo’ or ‘The place is hot’ to the Navajo Tribe) is really a huge basin area, occupying hundreds of square miles, surrounded by low mountain ranges and dominated by the Salt River.

 This river (called ‘Onk Akimel’ or ‘Salty River’ by the Pima Tribe) drops 10,000 vertical feet from its origins in the White Mountains (the sacred ‘Dzil Ligai’ of the White River Apache Tribe) to enter the valley from the east and run across its width, pouring out to the west.

 In the final years of that time period denoted by the initials B.C., the Hohokam—a prehistoric tribe of Native Americans—established the first known civilization in the Salt River Valley, building large communities and over a thousand miles of canals, which moved water from the Salt River to their farm fields.

 The latest remains of the Hohokam indicate that their civilization died out, or significantly changed around the year 1450. Today, two tribes in the area claim the Hohokam as their ancestors: the Tohono O’odham (meaning Desert People) and the Akimel (meaning River People).

 The Tohono O’odham are often called the Maricopas, while the Akimel are often referred to as the Pimas (evidently, this is because the Akimel word for "I don't know what you are saying," sounds like "Pima" and was heard quite often by early settlers in the area, who took this as the tribal name.)

 The two tribes share The Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community, which is very nearly surrounded by Scottsdale, Mesa, Chandler and Fountain Hills.

 The Hebrew word ‘Jehu’ (pronounced Yay-hoo) means ‘reckless driver’. In the 1800’s when Arizona was still part of the New Mexico Territory, this word was used to designate a man who was a stagecoach driver—perhaps a strong indicator of the way those men drove their coaches.

 Jack Swilling, born in Anderson County, South Carolina on April Fool’s day of 1830, entered the area now known as Arizona as a Jehu, helping to build Leach’s Wagon Road around 1850. After that, he became a miner, then a soldier and later an Indian scout. In 1867, after rounding up enough backers to make it possible, he revived the Hohokam canals, making Phoenix a viable place to live and farm.

 Swilling died before a town site was incorporated, in 1881, on the north side of the Salt River. However, his friend picked the name Phoenix from Swilling’s dictionary—the only dictionary in the settlement. Thus, Jack Swilling is credited as the founding father of Phoenix.

 With the spread of irrigation, due to Jack Swilling’s revived Hohokam canals, other cities and towns began sprouting up all over the Salt River Valley. Though it would not actually be incorporated until 1951, the city of Scottsdale was founded several miles northeast of Phoenix in 1894 by Winfield Scott, a retired army chaplain.

 The current city of Scottsdale has spread north from that original location, climbing up into the foothills of the McDowell Mountains, Pinnacle Peak and other parts that rim The Valley.

 Composed of bare rock, overlaid with a thin sheet of dirt, scrub plants and cacti, these mountains have no way to soak up rainwater. Thus, when it rains, the majority of the runoff does just as its name implies and runs off, right down the mountainside, onto the flatlands below. 

 The result is that—somewhat perversely, perhaps—though Scottsdale is located in the desert, the major natural problem confronting city planners is flooding.

 The desert is crisscrossed by hundreds of sand-bottomed wash beds—some as small as two feet across and a foot deep, and others as large as eight feet across, by six feet deep. These wash beds are usually bone dry. After a heavy rain, however, the water sheeting down from the mountains, joins in these washes. There it forms into solid rivers—fronted by a wall of water, up to six-feet-high—and can rush through the larger washes at freight train speeds.

 These flash floods have been known to carry away people, cattle—even large trucks. The victims are often recovered miles downstream, drowned and battered by rocks, wreckage and other effluvium carried along at bone-splintering speeds by the raging waters.

 Water, not blessed with a natural ability to ignore the effects of gravity, tends to run downhill. Thus, all that water, in all those washes, heads down off the mountains and flows south through the length of the city.

 Natural drainage within the topography has created a sort of super wash—a runoff superhighway, if you will—that knifes through Scottsdale, up to a quarter-mile wide. Usually, this super wash just takes the form of a boring, dry wash bed, but occasionally it transforms itself into a dangerous raging torrent of turbulent dark flood waters. Those who lived in Scottsdale before the sixties, called this super wash “The Slough,” pronounced “Slew.”

 The Slough runs through south Scottsdale between Miller road to the west, and Hayden road to the east. It runs through the city and then out of the city into Tempe, where it dumps into what used to be the Salt River, almost immediately south of the border between the two cities.

 The river bed the slough dumps into was bone dry for decades, because the Salt River, which once ran deep and wide, was dammed up in a series of seven reservoirs north and east of the Superstition Mountains, in the early part of the Twentieth Century. The original damming of the Salt River, and creation of the concomitant reservoirs, was a massive federal project akin to the Tennessee Valley Authority. The organization created to oversee all this was designated The Salt River Project.

 Today, SRP, as it is popularly known, provides water and electricity to a major portion of the Valley of the Sun; without it, most of the people who live here, would have to live somewhere else.

 Heavy rains can cause SRP to open the floodgates and let water out of the reservoirs, in order to keep them from overtopping the dams. The half-mile wide riverbed then fills with deep, running water. When I was a kid, if SRP opened the floodgates, the Salt River would flow deep and muddy. Traffic running over the two-lane Mill Avenue Bridge, the only bridge over the Salt River back then, would back up for hours. And, when it rained that hard, a fast-flowing river usually ran down The Slough, which would dump its own quarter-mile-wide load into the Salt River bed just west of Hayden road.

 There were no bridges at all over The Slough, meaning that Scottsdale was effectively bisected by a river of fast-flowing runoff. Scottsdale school teachers, who largely tended to inhabit the lesser-expensive housing found in Tempe, had no way of getting to the schools. When that happened, the schools would close for the day and thousands of children—myself included—would cheer.

 In the Seventies, Scottsdale undertook an ambitious program to deal with the flooding of The Slough. The land that held The Slough was bought up from the farmers and others who owned it. Then the city dredged the bottom of The Slough and built earthen retaining walls, where needed, and constructed a series of bridges and large but unobtrusive culverts to carry the roadbeds above the flood waters.

 Having effectively canalized and bridged The Slough, they then set about beautifying it. A long, interconnected series of parks and golf courses was constructed down the length of the flood area. Today, this area is known by the name designated by those far-reaching planners of the Seventies as the Scottsdale Greenbelt.

The Greenbelt in small flood time.
 The Greenbelt provides golf, parks, picnic areas, tennis courts, a skate park, miles of bicycle and jogging trails and many other forms of exercise and recreation for Valley Dwellers. When it floods, those few roads that still run through the bottom of the wash are closed. The raging waters run down over the parks and golf courses, and the repairs afterwards are fairly simple and comparatively inexpensive. Overall, the Greenbelt is a masterwork of form following function, which would have made Frank Lloyd Wright proud, if he had been involved in its construction.

The lake from the air.
 A few decades after Scottsdale created the Greenbelt, the city of Tempe created Tempe Town Lake.

  Today, much of the old Salt River bed in Tempe is filled by this lake, retained by the banks of the
The lake as Tempe residents tend to see it, near Mill Ave. Bridge.
river bed on the north and south sides, and by inflatable dams on the east and west ends. When SRP opens the floodgates, the dams can be deflated, and the Salt River flows, once more, through its historic channel.

See you in two weeks!
—Dixon

24 January 2014

MLK and Navajo Voting


The great Martin Luther King Jr.

 Monday we celebrated Martin Luther King Day—even here in the great state of Arizona, which was a bit late on the uptake.

The great Tony Hillerman
 Additionally:  Over the years, I’ve tremendously enjoyed Tony Hillerman’s series of mystery novels set against the backdrop of the Diné people and their Navajo Nation, as well as its surrounding states. Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee need no explanation here, certainly. And I’m sure you are as impressed by Hillerman’s knowledge of Navajo (Diné) lore and custom as I.

 Thus, at the close of this work week, which kicked off with the celebration of Martin Luther King Day, I think it appropriate to mention—here on Sleuth Sayers—the impact I recently learned Martin Luther King’s work had on the lives of Navajos, and other Native Americans, in my own state of Arizona.

 I was surprised to learn, this week, something I’m ashamed I didn’t already know. And, it’s something I don’t recall having read about in Hillerman’s work (though he may actually touch on it, because, as frequent readers know, my memory can be a bit faulty at times).

 Prior to this week, however, I’m embarrassed to tell you, I didn’t know that Navajos were not permitted to vote in state or federal elections, in Arizona, until 1948. In fact, NO American Indians living on reservations in Arizona were able to vote until then.

 It might be pointed out, incidentally, that this was years after many Navajos and other tribal members had fought for our country in both world wars. Even more unsettling, Navajos did not generally turn out to vote (or even register) in large numbers, until after the 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed.

And, with good reason! 

To understand why, we need to take a quick tour through the history of Native American citizenship.

 Much of the problem stems from the fact that “Indian Reservations” were established in a manner that made them, legally speaking, sovereign nations within the borders of the United States. This is how the phrase “Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce with foreign nations, among the several states, and with the Indian tribes,” found its way into the constitution.

 For this reason, until 1924, Native Americans living on reservations were not recognized as United States citizens. Prior to this time, American Indians were denied citizenship (including the right to vote) unless the tribe they were part of arranged a special treaty or agreement with the federal government, or they underwent a process of individual naturalization, which required renouncing tribal citizenship, severing tribal ties, and demonstrating that the person in question had assimilated into what one might call “Euro-American” culture.

 After Native Americans served in World War I, however, popular opinion led the U.S. Congress to pass the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Though this act technically granted U.S. citizenship to American Indians living on reservations, several states still managed to refuse them the vote. Poll taxes and literacy tests were just a few of the ways states accomplished this.

 In Arizona, however, a different method was applied. Shortly after the Indian Citizenship Act was passed, the Arizona Supreme Court, in the case of Porter v. Hall, upheld a state-wide prohibition against Native American voting, stating that American Indians living on reservations were wards of the federal government, making them “persons under guardianship.” Since “persons under guardianship” could not vote, it was a slam-dunk; Navajos and other American Indians living on reservations in Arizona were denied the ballot.

 This embargo would remain in effect until the Arizona Supreme Court overturned the Porter v. Hall decision, in 1948. At which point, the state imposed a literacy test to deter American Indians (among other minorities) from going to the polls.

And, things stayed this way until 1965. 

Though the Voting Rights Act (VRA)—which Martin Luther King was so instrumental in helping to bring to fruition in August of 1965—may certainly be felt to have deep roots in Selma, Alabama, the law also applied to important areas of Arizona that had large numbers of Navajo voters.

 At the time the VRA was passed, only those American Indians who could (1) read the United States Constitution in English and (2) write their names, were eligible to vote in Arizona polling places.

 The VRA, however, included Section 5: a temporary prohibition of literacy tests in certain jurisdictions. Consequently, Navajo, Coconino and Apache Counties, in Arizona became covered by Section 5 of the VRA, and literacy tests were suspended.
If you compare the map of Arizona counties, above, with the map of the Navajo Nation, below, you should get a good idea of how the reservation lands overlap the counties in question.

 But not for long, because the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia soon held that Arizona’s literacy test had not been discriminatorily applied against American Indians in the last five years.

 This ruling would stand until the VRA’s Section 5 was amended in 1970 to include a nationwide ban on literacy tests. And, Apache, Navajo and Coconino Counties—along with five other Arizona counties—once again became covered under Section 5 of the VRA, throwing out the use of literacy tests.


Yet, more struggles were to come.

 In 1972, in Apache County, the first reservation Navajo ran for public office in a non-reservation governmental body in Arizona. Apache County’s population was predominately Navajo at the time. And, when Tom Shirley ran for the District 3 seat on the Apache County Board of Supervisors, he decisively defeated his white opponent—only to find himself blocked from taking office.

 Officials argued that Navajos weren’t really U.S. citizens (that sovereign nation thing again) and thus could not hold office. The court battle dragged on until the Arizona Supreme Court ruled, in September of 1973, that American Indians living on reservations were fully qualified to hold public office. Thus, the first Navajo member of the 3-person Apache County Board of Supervisors finally took office nine months after his term was supposed to have begun.

 Though Shirley did not run for re-election in 1976, he was instrumental in fighting an attempt to gerrymander the county’s districts—a plan clearly designed to limit future Navajo representation on the Board of Supervisors. A federal court finally stepped in, citing the VRA, and Shirley’s fight was won. Consequently, the results of the 1976 election saw two of the thee Supervisor seats filled by Navajos.


 In 1974, federal observers monitoring the election in Apache County, for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, noticed a lack of polling places and a greater need for ballot translation. According to the report, these problems resulted in long lines that made people wait hours to cast their ballots, some waiting until after midnight.

 Congress amended the VRA to address these issues in 1975.

 The problems, however, continue. Patty Ferguson-Bohnee, director of the Indian Legal Clinic at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, was quoted in a recent Arizona Republic article as saying: “It’s not history. There’s still a mentality that Indians need to stay on the reservation.”

 She added that the Arizona Speaker of the House, in 2003, asked the state attorney general if Navajos could legally serve on state commissions. “It’s just a very odd, backward way of thinking,” she said.

 Perhaps the Speaker had never heard of the Arizona Supreme Court decision dealing with Tom Shirley. I’m embarrassed to say I hadn’t either, until this past week—though, as a guy who’s part Choctaw and Chickasaw, I’ve also never thought American Indians “need to stay on the reservation.”

I’ll see you in two weeks!
— Dixon

26 July 2013

Mystery Photo Fun!


SleuthSayers is a Mystery Web Site. To that end, today, I’m presenting a short mystery. 
Inspired by Leigh’s fascinating photo essay on the 21st, I’m presenting my mystery with both text and photo clues intended to permit readers to exercise multiple mystery-solving techniques, so they can choose the method(s) that play to their own strengths. 


 The mystery is: 
[A] Where was Dixon Hill yesterday (Thursday), and [B] what was he doing there? 

 Perhaps you’re a techno-sleuth, for instance. Though I took most of these photos with my cell phone camera, some were captured from online sites. If you can find the origin of these particular pics, you’ll be able to easily solve at least half the mystery. 

If digital manipulation is not your bag, there are other clues and hints to help. But … what was I doing in this place yesterday (aside from taking pics on my phone camera)? 

Are you a walking UNIVAC data collection master? Have you read and compiled things about me that might give you a clue – particularly when you couple this with my location? And don’t forget to consider extraneous factors that may lead you to success, such as the season and what you know about me. 

Even if you’re not a walking computer, switch into sleuth mode, turn on those “little gray cells” and… 

Let the sleuthing begin! 

(But ... watch out for red herrings. While everything included here does exist at the site I visited yesterday, some of these photos are designed to obfuscate or confuse. ... Though I don't expect you to have too much difficulty.  After all, I designed this for morning coffee fun time!) 

Here come the clues!

I took these photos outside Scottsdale, Arizona – even though the name of the place I photographed might make the unwary believe that I’m inside the city limits. 

 Below is a photo date/time hack, taken at Entrance One of the place I visited yesterday. Maybe you’ll find it helpful. 



Yes, it was fairly cool in The Valley of the Sun, yesterday -- though not as cool as it was for most of last week, when temps hovered in the mid to high 90's and a breeze blew through while a layer of clouds blocked the sun's burning rays.  Felt almost like Christmas!

Does the photo on the right give you a hint where I was, or what I was doing there?

 Many businesses and institutions have logos or symbols that represent them. Below are two symbols that represent the place where I spent much of yesterday. 







This fellow sits out in the hot sun all summer long!

And, here is what he's guarding.  And, this is ABSOLUTELY a part of the place I was visiting ... though I never spent much time here, because I'm not good at growing more than the grass in my front yard.





















     Nearby are these interesting artifacts (seen on the right). 

But, be forewarned: they have nothing to do with the sort of plants you grow in a garden.




Below is part of a sign on the ring-road around the place.  Is it really directing folks to Mr. Toad's home???



The structure in the pic below isn't really on the grounds of the place where I was yesterday (though I took this shot from the ring-road), but it runs just along the western boundary -- so I thought it might be a good clue if you used Google's satellite view (or street view) in part of your work.



The symbol seen in the vertical circle (below) is not a symbol for the place I visited, but it is the symbol for where that place resides. The reddish thing you're looking at is a sculpture sitting in the median of the road that bounds the southern edge of the property.  

This median sculpture designates entry to a certain land, which is actually (perhaps) a very good clue.  I took this shot from the ring-road.



Below is a great place to get 5-star food at 2-star prices.




People who have sat in these seats went on to create films that won accolades at the Sundance Film Festival and other venues. 



If you know women’s pro basketball, maybe you know that Ryneldi Becenti once played on this court. (Sorry it's blurry.  I was being chased off by security! LOL)


The photo below shows just a door and window in a wall.  To me, however, it's the place where I took the first step on a long, crooked road that brought me out the other end as a writer.

 
Below: At one time, I wrote (probably rather poor) news stories about activities at this place. In fact, before I had a computer of my own, this is where I wrote.



A few more shots, which just might tip the ballance. (The first shot is over-sized for those who love looking at the desert.  On my computer, it's possible to pan right by grabbing the little bar just below the photo.  You may need to click on the photo and open it, however, before you can pan, depending on your setup.)






 Got it figured out? Know where I was and what I was doing there (or at least feel you can take an educated stab)? Click on the “comments” link below, and tell us . And PLEASE! In your comment, tell us what tipped you off. In this manner, maybe we’ll all gain some smidgeon of fresh insight concerning contemporary sleuthing. I’ll post the answer, right in that same comments thread, later in the day so you can check your solution. 

See you in two weeks! 
--Dix

12 July 2013

The Crazy Crawl


I’m busy today, so I’m stealing a page from Leigh’s book on Florida News, but crumpling it up my own way.


I’m sometimes rather disappointed by television news. Many of the stories are interesting – at least on network evening broadcasts – but, with the exception of the NewsHour on PBS, I find most stories seem to get a bit short-changed.

Few bits, however, are less informative than the “crawl” on the morning news broadcast of a local station here in The Valley of the Sun.

The “crawl” I’m talking about, of course, is that strip of text, which slides slowly by along the bottom of the screen, as an anchor or reporter covers the day’s stories. It doesn't often have much to do with the story being reported, but is instead, I believe, supposed to serve as a sort of televised headline, letting folks know what major stories have transpired since the last news broadcast.

Evidently the idea had its origin with the thought that some viewers might tune-in after a major story had already been covered, and the newscasters wanted to be sure all viewers got at least a clue about what happened.

At any rate, that’s how the crawl seemed to make its debut.

And, these days, I’m hard-pressed to find a televised news broadcast that doesn't include a crawl. Even sportscasts tend to have recent game scores sliding inexorably by along the bottom of the screen.

On that local station I mentioned earlier, however, the crawl is something else entirely.

What is it?

Well, I’m not sure. But, I think it might be some form of odd advertisement.

Either that, or maybe somebody at the station has a problem that needs immediate attention.

Items entered in the crawl, on this station, tend to be completely disassociated with any reality that I’m familiar with. Often barely complete sentences, they usually fail to provide important information, almost invariably leaving a reader to fill in the blanks. 

Here are just a few examples, gleaned over a recent period:

The dog was found in a car at a downtown Phoenix Circle K. 

THE dog?

This begs the question: “Which dog?”

Was it this dog, or that one?

And, I’m confused: What was going on that caused its being “found” to be important? Was the dog missing, or did he do something wrong? Were the police searching for this dog, because it had committed a crime? Assaulting a Post Office employee, perhaps?

Maybe s/he (we don’t know the gender) was a circus dog with special training; perhaps s/he was driving the car, but when police tried to pull him/her over s/he sped away, only to stop at a local Circle K, with tongue lolling. Is that what happened?

OR…

Perhaps there was no dog. Maybe a woman with an abrasive personality was found in a car at a local convenience store (that’s what a “Circle K” is, for those who don’t know), and the witness who relayed events to the reporter described the woman in unflattering terms, and the reporter misunderstood what the witness said, thus concluding that a dog had been in the car instead of a woman.

I don’t know. There was no story about ANY dog, that I saw, on that morning’s broadcast. On the other hand, I didn't see any stories about a woman being found in a car, either.

The family was living in a rented home, when it burned down according to Mesa Police. 

No, I can’t tell you anything about this family. There was no story on the broadcast about a home fire, or a family that had been burned out by one. Not even the Mesa Police showed up on the broadcast – even though the way the sentence was written, it would almost appear that the police have been implicated in arson. 

The car fire has been extinguished and the city says the intersection will be open at 10:00 am today. 

Thank god this one was posted on a different day, or I might have been led to believe that the family above was living in their car. I wonder what intersection was closed for awhile?

Tito said Thursday, baseball’s drug agreement could be undermined by leaks to the media about whether players are cooperating with an investigation by the commissioner. 

TITO said???

THE Tito? The one who used to rule Yugoslavia?

Or, is one of Michael Jackson’s brothers perhaps involved in baseball negotiations?

And, just which drugs are they all agreeing to take, here?

The man and a woman approached an apartment near 29th Avenue and Camelback road, drew a gun and demanded to talk to someone they believed was inside. 

At least this one gave me a good visual. I mean, whoever opened that apartment front door must have been wearing a mighty surprised face.

“The man and a woman … drew a gun…” Well, that must have been awkward. Did they both reach into the top of his pants (or inside her jacket) at the same time? And, which one is left-handed? (I would think that’s an important consideration when two people are drawing the same weapon.)

I can’t help wondering: Why is it “THE man”? I read that, and I get the idea I should know who this guy is. 

And, why is he with “A woman”? That makes it sound as if there’s a certain distance between the two. Maybe they had an argument over breakfast that morning. Or, maybe they just happened to approach the apartment at the same time. After all, it doesn't say, “The couple approached…”.

The latter is doubtful, of course, because: How could two people know to draw the same weapon at the same time, if they’d never previously met? Drawing a weapon together, it seems to me, connotes a fairly intimate relationship.

Conversely, perhaps the reporter was simply being chauvinistic. “THE man and A woman… yeah, that’s how it should read! Gotta keep those women in their place(s).” To wildly misquote Rudyard Kipling: “The man is THE MAN, a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a SMOKE!”

The President of Chattanooga State Community College said he didn’t know Federal Wildlife agents would kill the geese they removed from the campus.

As long as the geese were removed from the campus of Chattanooga State Community College at the behest of the school president, I think this one almost gets the green light.

Why almost?

Well, certainly Chattanooga State has a very pretty campus – even including a river walk – but, I can’t help wondering why residents in the greater Phoenix-Mesa-Metro area of Arizona would be interested in the ignorance of a guy who heads-up a small school in Tennessee.

On the other hand, Chattanooga is a fun word to write -- so maybe that’s why it wound up in the crawl this morning.

And, the geese– approximately 100 of them– were actually removed from the college campus, last week, and subsequently put down because no alternate location could be found for them. I know because I googled it.

And, that’s what makes me think this whole thing may be nothing but a form of advertisement.

I strongly suspect my local news station is putting incomplete and puzzling stories on their morning crawl in an attempt to make me google the story – hopefully including their station identifier in the info I type into google – as a way to drive more readership into their website.

If so, the plan is brilliant in its conception, and confusing to the end!
(Note: No dogs, bow-tied men, or books were harmed in the writing of this blog post.  And, I'm not the one who did-in the geese.)

See you in two weeks,
Dixon

14 June 2013

Two Guns 2013


Summer-Time Reflections on Writing, Route 66, and the Digital Interstate


We took a family vacation last week. The photo below-right shows my son, Quen, about ten minutes after he saw the Grand Canyon for the first time -- an event I missed.

Reaching the Canyon’s south rim just before sunset, we found nowhere to park. So, I let my wife and kids out of the car, then orbited the parking lot until a slot opened up.

When I caught up to them, and asked Quen what he thought of the canyon, he told me, “It doesn’t look real!” A few minutes later, he dropped to his hands and knees, then shoved one arm far out, through the space beneath the fence seen here. Feeling around out past the rocks, his fingers closed on empty air. He turned his head, looking up at me: “It IS real!”

I took this photo after he stood again. And, it took him a bit longer to stand, than it had to drop down. Note that he’s gripping the guard rail, and his face reflects the danger of the drop behind him. He hadn’t been worried until he stuck his hand through that fence and felt the empty space beyond. Until then, that incredibly long drop to the canyon floor hadn’t seemed threatening.

The threat itself, however, had always been there. The threat hadn’t changed; my son’s perception had.

Digital Disbelief

Essentially, Quen had fallen victim to a sort of inverse optical illusion. As a ten year old, he’s been raised in a media age that bombarded his eyes and brain with hundreds, maybe even thousands, of images of the Grand Canyon before he had a chance to see the “McCoy”. And, many of these images had been presented in high definition; they looked just as real as the Grand Canyon that now loomed inches beyond his feet.

When my son stuck his hand through that guardrail fence, the thing I believe he was feeling for was a screen. Because, hi-def images appear on screens -- and those screens are often very large. If you’ve been to an IMAX theater, you know what I mean.

It was only after my son reached for a screen, but found empty space instead, that the deep chasm before him became real. Until that moment, he wasn’t afraid of falling into the Grand Canyon. But, in that instant, he realized -- this time! -- the abyss he was seeing, was really there.

I can’t help but think there’s an important lesson here, for those writing in this digital age. A warning, perhaps, about the changing nature of reality-perception among young readers. A reality-perception we’ll have to come to grips with, and help readers overcome, if our writing is to have lasting meaning.

The Route to Realization

Our family trip itinerary was a bit a on the loony side. Or, perhaps I should say it was a little over-full. I picked up a rental SUV at noon on Tuesday, and we left town two hours later, planning to visit the Grand Canyon, Wupatki (Indian ruins), Sunset Crater (a dormant volcano), Meteor Crater, the Painted Desert, and the Petrified Forest, all while getting a little driving and photo op time on Route 66 -- before dropping the SUV back at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix by noon on Friday.

While all these spots can be “seen” on the cartoon map at the top of this post, that image is deceptive: our trip would actually take us more than 500 miles round-trip. Phoenix to the Canyon is 225 miles; Grand Canyon to the “Painted Forest” -- as my wife now calls the national park that combines the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest into a single driving tour -- is another 200. And, unbeknownst to the kids, my wife and I had also spotted a contemporary ghost town on our route, which we wanted to work in if we could somehow find the time.

Our Day One route (orange) took us from Phoenix through Flagstaff and up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, which -- as mentioned previously -- we reached just before sundown. We spent that night in Tusayan, just outside the canyon park entrance. Day Two (Green) took us back to the Grand Canyon, then on to Wupatki and Sunset Crater, back through Flag and over to a Best Western for a night in Winslow. Day Three (orange and green) we planned to forge on to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, then follow highway 180 up, to take Route 66 through Winslow on our way to visit Meteor Crater before getting back on I-40 and turning south in Flagstaff to head home.

Quen: “Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona.”
And, that’s pretty much what we did. The only thing we dropped was Meteor Crater, because most of us had seen it before, and the kids were too pooped to do any more walking by the time we’d finished with the “Painted Forest”.

We’d seen a PBS special on “The Mother Road” a few months back, however, and the kids were interested in seeing Route 66, so I used this opportunity to get a little more driving time on the remains of that original old highway. Plus, Mad and I had our little surprise for them.

If you look at the highway map, you’ll see a spot that’s about half-way between Flagstaff and Winslow, labeled “Two Guns”. This is the site where the small town of Two Guns, Arizona once straddled a concrete bridge spanning Canyon Diablo. Route 66 passed over this bridge and Two Guns, established in the late 1800’s, survived -- prospering during the early 1900’s as a tourist stop on The Mother Road -- until I-40 was built about three-hundred yards to the north. The town sputtered on into the mid-60’s, then fell and restarted until it finally died out in the mid-70’s.

Below, you’ll see a shot of the entrance to a sort of “zoo” built to lure tourists to Two Guns.



The zoo originally sat farther south, but was moved -- along with the gas station and general store -- to a location more advantageous to travelers on I-40. I took this shot with my back not 200 yards from traffic speeding down I-40, but the building stands in ruins as mute testament to the fact its “Mountain Lions” logo, once darkly painted in bold, couldn’t stop cars traveling 75 to 85 miles per hour. The Welcome sign no longer serves any purpose.

Sign Post Up Ahead

And that got me thinking:
  •  Route 66 vs. the Interstate
  •  Print Writing vs. the Digital Interstate we call the World Wide Web.
  •  And, the impact this Digital Reality makes on the generations being born into it: 
    • The way it completely changes their conceptualization and thought patterns,
    • Their information acquisition mechanism, 
    • And the potentially skewed true-false determiners that get hard-wired into their brains. (Think of my son, who had difficulty believing the Grand Canyon was real because he’d seen so many life-like pictures of it before actually going there.)

How can we, as writers, capture and hang onto current and future consumers of our printed goods as these changes sweep over us? Many of my SS colleagues have taken first-steps along this path; I’ve read much of their work -- short stories and novels, both -- in electronic versions I bought online. But, is this enough? Are we thinking the right way? Or, are we victims caught in a pre-digital paradigm?

L.A. Noire, introduced in 2011, was the first video game to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, and it received accolades for its advanced storytelling.

According to Wikipedia: “L.A. Noire is set in Los Angeles in 1947 and challenges the player, controlling a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer, to solve a range of cases across five departments.  Players must investigate crime scenes for clues, follow up leads, and interrogate suspects, and the players' success at these activities will impact how much of the cases' stories are revealed.

“The game draws heavily from both the plot and aesthetic elements of film noir, stylistic films made popular in the 1940s and 1950s that share similar visual styles and themes, including crime and moral ambiguity. The game uses a distinctive color palette, but in homage to film noir it includes the option to play the game in black and white. Various plot elements reference the major themes of gum-shoe detective and mobster stories such as Key Largo, Chinatown, The Untouchables, The Black Dahlia, and L.A. Confidential.”

What does this mean to us, as mystery writers?

And, I wonder: Is the next “True Classic” -- a modern work that will be experienced and studied down through the ages -- even now being keyed-in by some Shakespearian software writer working for a video game manufacturer?

The folks who ran Two Guns were intelligent, industrious, and worked hard to save their livelihoods. But, that didn’t keep them from being literally “kicked to the curb” by a new technology that they couldn't figure out how to deal with.

I’ve not made any suggestions for the best way we can position ourselves, as our way of thinking is swallowed whole by this new one. I can’t really come up with any. And, I know a lot of people have been contemplating, and still are contemplating, this problem.

But, Two Guns serves as a grim reminder: We need to figure it out SOON, or the signpost up ahead might well look like the one at that once-bustling Route 66 stop.