Tuesday, March 18, 2014




Just as the buzzards were closing in on the irrefutable disconnect that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer had vetoed a neo-conservative "religious freedom" bill, S.B. 1062, that she allowed to flourish for weeks in the Arizona legislature while she watched, that she later denied knowing about, as if the existence of the whole loony tune Republican-led legislative body was news to her, she announced this week that she would not seek a third term, no doubt because it had been determined she was un-re-electable.

The next day, March 13, 2014, a younger copy cat cougar television advertisement for Christine Jones, a former executive vice president at GoDaddy.com, for governator was broadcast during the early morning segment of the local news affiliate for CBS in Phoenix, KPHO-TV, which is far less liberal than the national newsreaders might seem, considering the reputation of "60 Minutes," Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and Mike Wallace and so on for taking on the powerful to the Big East ... anyway, this feature advert (don't really know how long or often it had been broadcast previously, but it couldn't have been often) included Christine Jones acting like it was a commercial for a new brand of eye glasses. Call it the Sarah Palin pivot. She had the neo-politico hairdo, as in, kinda cougar, very Scottsdale, as in, appealing quite well to the gated community crowd. With sex appeal, perhaps, at the pivot just as her back was turned, for a quick look for the Viagra set. Close shot. You get the picture. The only thing missing was the wink.

Looked more like a hair commercial than a political advertisement.


Anyway, the weird pot-pole in American history that is Brewer's political career, considering the damage she had done to Arizona already backward international reputation was barely cold, and here was another close shot to a well-coiffed female to feast the fearful eyes on. Another party girl ready to rule. Another governator ready to f...k. A kind of Sarah Palin moment. Jeesh, I wish I could shake the impression, but there it is: My own style of masculine progressive propaganda, sure, sure, sure ... I've been known to see mirages for years ... call it post-traumatic Evan Mecham era disorder ... morphed into a Joe Arpaio border monitor ...

But let's just keep hot-dry-lands imagery brewing, just to see if any of it rings true. Have a Corona. If you must.

Brewer's announcement that she wasn't going to run was hardly a surprise. If you consider the disaster to race relations in the nation caused by S.B. 1070 a few years back, the finger-wagging-incident-at-President-Barack-Obama-photo meme, and the more recent confusion and embarrassment of an arch-conservative "religious freedom" bill to respond to a problem that did not exist, the whole state has been nothing less than ruderless in the foul winds of the cruel airs of the new draconian discourse of the snake charmers.

One only wonders if the state, since it hasn't all but burned down despite these social disorders, really even needs a governor. This arid land just seems to be solid as hell. If wishy washy leadership can't bring catastrophe to billions and billions of years of heat-baked stone, maybe we can save a few bucks and do away with the office entirely. At least the land endures.

Maybe a good wind sock will do. Just let it turn, in the breeze, to the political winds. During her announcement, Brewer used the term that she will continue to be a "cheerleader" for the state. And now I'm left with the unshakable angst and the sense of bewonderment at the mere question: "cheerleader" for what? Economic recovery? For more television news Kens and Barbies and politicians in kewpie doll outfits to blow sunshine up to the idea that our bloodthirsty glory days will somehow be restored ... oh never mind ... It's all just a bunch of bullshit! There was no such thing. The real terror-torial history of the southwest is a sad one. Brewer putting an exclamation point on this type of "mission accomplished" public relations from state offices is nothing less than lipstick on a pig, and a starving one at that.

Shame on anyone who buys it. The desertification of the Californicated is almost complete, this campaign commercial Confuscious reasons. Poetically speaking, let me put it this way for Arizonans: If you can still spit, you are part of the problem.

To Brewer's credit, she didn't always tow the party line. For example, accepting federal funds for Medicare during a red herring era where taking anything from President Barack Obama's administration was heresy for the reactionary rattlesnake sect. After her announcement, at least one pro-right commentator was kind enough to say she did what was best for the state of Arizona, and there is little doubt that this is what she actually believed. Sure. Sure. Sure. The road to hell is paved with ... "a lower wage Mississippi economy," as the leading Democratic contender, Fred DuVal, puts it.

Meanwhile, the GOP and Tea Party is flooding the zone with candidates, and it's going to be a bloody scramble for the governator candidate to run against the lone Democratic choice for gov so far, DuVal. Why so many conservatives want to be governor in a state that more often than not prefers a Democrat (and why that is, exactly) ... (is beyond me). Seems like a GOP guv will stand atop a snake pit of odd constituencies that wants to roll back even the knowledge that the Earth isn't flat. And it's so hard to argue with crazy people. But not even Arizona is flat, so I am told, and based on these billion-year-old canyons and mountains and stuff, I'm starting to believe, yes, Copernicus and Galileo and the highly skilled invaders of Mars at the University of Arizona astrolabs are correct, despite what some members of the Know Nothing Party, which wears ignorance like a badge of honor, wants people to believe.

One of these retro-wing hopefuls, Al Melvin, a state senator from District 11, may have already succumbed to these peculiar factoids when he failed to manage a few simple questions from Anderson Cooper over S.B. 1062. Yes, Big Al, religious freedom is running pretty rampant in the U.S.of A., due to something called the First Amendment. No need for the ditto. And don't even talk about that old Reagan era bugaboo, flag burning, cowboy. Everybody is saving their matches these days.

The GOP stampede this year will include Jones, the aforementioned "it" girl of the moment, who must have tons of her own money as the attorney for GoDaddy.com; Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, State Treasurer Doug Ducey, Secretary of State Ken Bennett, and Andrew Thomas, the former attorney general who ran wild bunch for a while with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe "J. Edgar" Arpaio, who has found a new hobby in the drone technology industry and alienated so many of the state's Latino voters the red line toward Democrats looks like some straight-up burning arrow from Al Gore's film, "An Incovenient Truth." Just think of the debates to come. Would anybody actually want to spend an evening hanging out with these people? Folks who think Sen. John McCain, a flame-spitting hawk, is some kind of liberal? Pretty tough crowd. The good. The bad. The ugly.

Just take a peak over the edge of the canyon, man. Greet the abyss. Doesn't it just make you want to spit?

No comments:

Can Scottsdale Arts CEO Wuestemann make the Center for the Arts hip again?

By Douglas McDaniel After his first six months as the CEO for Scottsdale Arts,  Gerd Wuestemann is revealing plans to initiate improvement...