Ah, hate mail, I love to get hate mail. It says so in fine print at the bottom of all 43 Publisher's Rants: Hate mail and crank calls are welcome, too, provided you have the guts to provide a return address or phone number. Obviously, the anonymous Popsicle Boy, who's issued another juvenile “threat,” is too illiterate to read that far. Based on the NRA stickers he sometimes affixes to my newsrack, I gather the boy is something of a zealot for the firearms cause, and assumes that as a leftist, I represent the Enemy.The funny thing is, if Popsicle had the nerve to articulate his views, he might have found that I tend to support gun owners' rights more than the average liberal. But the Second Amendment (like the First), isn't absolute. I believe the key phrase there is “well-regulated.”
But on to mail from someone who does have the guts to sign his name. Hate mail doesn't have to be hateful. I just like it when somebody gives me some guff; it keeps me on my toes (where are you, Rico Leffanta?). In the category of respectful hate mail, I would include the letters from PETA protesting the denigration of pigs on the cover of Take the Rich Off Welfare. Or this missive:
“I am a fairly loyal reader of your publication, but I must comment on your February Publisher's Rant. First, let me give you a brief history - I have lived in Tucson for 50 years. If you think you have seen changes... I lived in the desert, near where the Bear Canyon highway to the Catalina mountains is now, when I was about 4 years old (1950). Our nearest neighbor was about a mile away. I lived at the old Prison Camp on the Mount Lemmon highway (check some of the better maps - right above Molina Basin) when I was 4 -12 years old (my father was a guard). Davis Monthan WAS several miles out of town back then. When I was in high school, my best friend and I went "plinking" with our 22 rifles off of Pontatoc road south of Skyline (nothing there back in the early sixties).
“I guess what I'm trying to say is, as far as changes go - you ain't seen nothin'!!! The comment I really take exception to is the following: “In the three-and-a-half years I've been here, I've seen the air quality noticeably deteriorate, and the city become increasingly choked with traffic." Did it ever occur to you that all you California transplants, escaping your failed paradise, are the very cause of the problem?! The one issue that you didn't mention, that will be the overriding issue in the NEXT 50 years, is water. In case it escaped you, this is a desert. We cannot continue the unrestricted importation - nay, inviting with open arms and offering attractive incentives to immigrants - and still have enough water for all.
“I am married to a second generation native Arizonan, she is a native Tucsonan, born in St. Mary's hospital. I know we are all immigrants here unless we happen to be Native Americans, but the problems you mention in your rant are caused primarily by recent immigrants. Look in the mirror if you want to see the root of our problems!!” Jim Hoopes
Obviously I had to expect this kind of reaction to my efforts, based on my state of birth. And just as obviously, at least to me, is that I wouldn't be here if millions of people hadn't moved there since I was born. Nearly as obvious is that both Arizona and California have favorable climates and that people will be migrating towards them for the foreseeable future no matter how strenuously they're discouraged.
The crooks who run my home state have done a better job of screwing it up than the crooks who run yours, which actually resulted in a slight reversal of California's population growth rate during the time I fled. I believe that is no longer the case.
It's no use playing More Native Than Thou. Otherwise you're just wishing your growth problems on someone else's community. I didn't ask to be born into a baby boom, and for better or worse, this is one of the most migratory societies on earth, and has been since well before you were born.
Just as important as regulating growth is encouraging the people who choose to live here to maintain sustainable lifestyles, no matter how many there are. I leave less of a footprint than many natives since I rely on bicycle transportation, grow some of my own organic food, restore my land to encourage native species, and am trained by California's periodic droughts to conserve water.
What I hate to see is my adopted bioregion making the same mistakes my home region (specifically, Silicon Valley, which was half apricot orchards when I was born) has made. Some of those mistakes, Tucson has been making for a long time before I got here, including untrammeled, unplanned, auto-intensive, horizontal sprawl in all directions.
I didn't come here to follow a relocated California defense job (like so many lured here by your city fathers), buy an oversized new house on recently-bladed desert, and commute back and forth across the basin every day. I came to start a business that would educate as well as entertain, and serve other sustainable businesses to the extent possible. After busting my butt for three years I bought a 26-year old house in the heart of town, and decide that I want to do whatever I can to make this a better place to live.
I don't need you to tell me that "Californians" are ruining this paradise. The fact that things have gotten so noticeably worse in the past three years is due as much to decisions made by lifelong Tucsonans as by those who decided to move here for whatever reason. These same decisions are making messes all over the planet, for strikingly similar reasons. The question is, what are we going to do about it, in alliance not only with our neighbors but with like-minded humans all over the globe, who are facing the results of being ruled by power-addicted greedheads.
If you've got answers, Jim, I'm listening.
So even though I bristle at being judged based on what hospital room I was born in, Jim brings up an important point. Whether you put a million people in the middle of the desert or a quarter million, water is going to be a big issue. There are some among us who collect rainwater, recycle greywater and conserve tapwater as much as possible. There are others who irrigate golf courses or water-intensive crops. Water issues are the key to the health of our ecosystem, and will be covered in “Green Politics,” an occasional column in future issues of the Comic News.
There have been plenty of other reactions to the February Rant besides Mr. Hoopes giving me some welcome guff. I spoke of the importance of supporting local merchants two weeks before the news came in that the delightful Haunted Bookshop had been squeezed out of business by Barnes&Noble and Borders. One shopkeeper told me how Wal-Mart approaches manufacturers of say, camping lanterns, and asks them to redesign a popular model using slightly cheaper materials, then offers what looks like the same item as your local merchant's for $50 less. Another told me that chain stores can offer toys at nearly the same cost she pays for them, because they cut separate deals with distributors. This same kind of backroom deal with publishers is killing independent bookstores like the Haunted Bookshop all over the country.
Another reader wrote to tell me that our first Starbucks is already here, at the Foothills Mall, and that as many as a dozen more are planned for this area. Yet another reader asks:
“I am writing in response to your urging to support local businesses. All in all, I try to do that as much as I can. However, I simply don't know where all the local businesses are, and what they sell. Example problem, where do I go to buy something like toothpaste? My suggestion is this. To encourage people to support local businesses, print a list of them. You can solicit business owners to send you the name of their business, address, phone numbers, description of their business, etc. A few months from now, you can print a huge list of local alternatives to national chain stores, free of charge. I know you need the money from advertising, but this could be just a one-shot deal. Or you could even do it on a bi-yearly basis.”
Now, this is a great idea, but well beyond my means. There is a publication called Boycott Quarterly that can tell you where not to shop, identifying corporations that abuse their workers and/or the environment. A book called Shopping for a Better World identifies some of the more sustainable and conscientious businesses in the country. But putting something like that together on a local level is more than I could ever have time for. In order to really handle such an effort, a coalition of like-minded businesses and consumers would be needed.
A lot of people just don't understand the pressures that small businesses are under, or the decisions that go into setting prices. And a lot of consumers don't recognize that supporting local small business can pay dividends in terms of a healthier community, whether or not you have to pay a bit more (often, you don't). A bit more dialogue would be all to the good.
And again, in terms of the readers and advertisers of the Tucson Comic News, I feel like I'm mostly preaching to the choir. The problem is, how do we get these issues out to the rest of Tucson? Most of the merchants are stretched pretty thin trying to make a living, as are most consumers. Perhaps there's a retired politician or business leader here who could help coordinate such an effort. The citizens of Toronto have successfully organized to keep Starbucks from killing off a favorite local cafe. Can we do the same?
I don't have the answers, but I'm going to keep asking the questions.