Return from the Land of Az

Just back from the Land of Az, otherwise known as Arizonastan, the Land that Progressive Thinking Mostly Forgot.

I found it amusing one of the main roadways from Mexico, I-19, was the only route I saw with posted distance markers in kilometers, not miles. How civil of the authorities to make illegal immigrants feel right at home...

Tucson is an oasis of progressive thought in an otherwise state of repression. Over Saturday breakfast with a dozen men 50 to mid-80s, the conversation rarely veered away from their anathema of the politics of the ruling Republicans and Tea Partyers. They were embarrassed their governor had no more than a GED diploma. They were shocked their state legislators allowed guns to be carried anywhere except inside the state capitol where they might do some good...

Visiting Tombstone, “the town that wouldn’t die,” I encountered my first, and thankfully only, packing pedestrian. He had a Glock strapped tightly to his right hip. Gilda wanted to take his picture. Not knowing how receptive he’d be, I suggested it was not a good idea. She insisted. I bravely walked away from his line of vision. She shot him. He didn’t know what hit him...

A cartoonist and columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, David Fitzsimmons, captured some of the zaniness of life and politics in Arizona with his entry last Saturday. Among his dead-on missives describing state lawmakers: “Most of them think a Rhodes scholar is an asphalt expert and PBS is something that happens to the wife to ‘make her edgy.’”...

Saturday night Gilda and I had a delicious dinner with friends Steve and Judy at a trendy Tucson restaurant. Both couples live roughly two miles apart in White Plains, NY. So we traveled a combined 8,000-plus miles, each way, to break bread together. Only in America.