Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS

The story: A man killed at a car wash in a Monday night shooting and another who was wounded are thought to be the victims of a random attack.

Your take: Blame the victims. It’s their fault they were shot. But thankfully, that uncorroborated view was met with a fusillade of common sense.

tiebreaker started the blame by commenting, “Oh, well.” He later wondered, “What man is doing any good at a car wash on the South Side at 11 p.m.?”

handslikeclouds responded: “What is wrong with you? . . . Every time this happens it creates the atmosphere for it to happen again. Don’t be flip, protest it.”

And suzanne58 wondered, “Are you really that heartless?”

Carl123 asked, “I would really like to know the rules of the road about living on the SW side. Especially if I wanted to wash my car. Maybe go to the store late? What’s the deal here? … If I live down there, I’m not supposed to do anything after the sun goes down? I’m naive, so lay it out please.”

When tiebreaker’s view garnered a smattering of support, leftfield said, “Empty, pandering flattery is the signature of the unctuous.”

I Won got fed up with the back-and-forth, writing, “If I wanted to deal with this crap, I would have relocated to Philly or Detroit. Murders and stereotypes: A nationwide epidemic.”

And speaking of stereotypes, mustberight had this perspective on the vehicle used by the suspects: “The fact that an Audi was involved is really a mark of the drug people.” Take that, all you Audi owners.

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

The big debate:

Death at the car wash

MOST-VIEWED

LOCAL NEWS STORIES

For Wednesday, April 22

1 Teacher in Chandler sex case hired because of error.

2Mike Letcher is new city manager.

3Minuteman founder to run for Senate against McCain.

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST WEEK IN REVIEW

1 USC’s Floyd may lose recruit after rejecting UA: Before Sean Miller was hired as the new men’s basketball coach at the University of Arizona, University of Southern California coach Tim Floyd rejected the job. Then Solomon Hill said he may reject USC. Hill, a guard-forward, first said he would go to UA, then switched to USC. Update: Hill said he will come to UA to play for Miller.

2 3,000 at Tucson Tea Party protest bailouts, stimulus: Tucsonans by the thousands assembled in El Presidio Park downtown April 15. They weren’t there to file their income tax returns, but to protest the stimulus package, federal bailouts, immigration, abortion and the first 100 days of the Obama administration.

3 Miller sells UA program to Dan Patrick: A Citizen blog told how new coach Sean Miller went on the nationally syndicated “Dan Patrick Show,” telling the radio host how he will pitch the UA program to prospective recruits: “There’s never been a . . . time where there’s more opportunity to play as a freshman.”

4 Dozens of U.S. citizens deported: In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years, The Associated Press reported.

5 New UA center ready for taunts from ASU fans: Another UA basketball recruiting drama. Center Kyryl Natyazhko, who chose Arizona over Arizona State, expects to get razzed by Sun Devil fans when UA plays basketball in Tempe.

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS

The story: Some 3,000 people rally downtown Wednesday to send a message to government officials that the nation is way off course.

Your take: This nation’s financial mess is the fault of the Democrats. Except for those who believe it is the fault of the Republicans.

Members of the Citizen’s online community engaged in a spirited debate about risk, banks, thrifts, home loans and who is to blame.

3795 said it is Democrats: “Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are the poster boys for malfeasance and a failure to stay objective in accordance with their job description.”

Not so, wrote 1721: “Republicans create the mess by giving tax breaks to their rich friends, corporations and banks and then they stage a pseudo protest complaining about the new president having to fix their mess?”

Maz called the protest “a staged, contrived, Fox News-organized event.” And scottmtucson said it was “amazing how the GOP and the rich can get ordinary Americans to do their bidding.”

No, that’s not who was at the protest, wrote 1967, who said the crowd was made up of “people from all walks of life and every color in the rainbow with one thing in common, love of country, freedom and liberty. Even many Democrats. No wonder the liberals are fuming.”

territunes tried to be bipartisan: “It was great to rally with other folks who are up-to-here with the corrupt political class – of all parties and stripes.”

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

MOST-VIEWED

LOCAL NEWS STORIES

For Thursday, April 16

13,000 protest bailouts, stimulus at Tucson Tea Party.

2New UA center ready for taunts from ASU fans.

3Teacher tied to murder disciplined in earlier liaison.

The big debate:

Tucson Tax Day Tea Party

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

The story: Fewer prisoners, fewer corrections officers, fewer programs. Arizona Department of Corrections administrators know cuts are coming.

Your take: Cut back on extras provided to inmates. They have it too good.

“The state needs to make these inmates more accountable for their actions and their crime,” wrote Chevygirlaz. “Being away from their family is not enough. We the taxpayers pay for room and board for these offenders. What do they pay? Nothing.”

saladfork urges “outside the box thinking”: “Work with corporations and put the prisoners to work making whatever-widgets, instead of seeking cheap labor outside the USA.”

tcroyal says, “It is time to use the private prison system.”

And azsd proposes, “Immediately release anyone convicted of ‘nonviolent’ marijuana crimes!”

But handslikeclouds says enough is enough: “Cuts in schools, cuts in prison guards and programs, do anything but raise taxes. Why? Because they don’t want to upset the wealthy geriatric retirement communities they bank on here and who own them.”

And trusty leftfield puts his own twist on the prison spending cuts: “How do you right-wingers like your tax cuts now? I suppose it was OK as long as the working poor was getting the shaft, but now that they will be letting people out of prison early, I imagine this does not sit so well. Be careful what you wish for.”

MOST-VIEWED

LOCAL NEWS STORIES

For Wednesday, April 15

1 Solomon Hill eager to join Sean Miller on UA basketball team.

2 Tucson man accused of setting car fire to win marital blessing.

3 Student killed in love triangle involving teacher.

Citizen Staff Writer
KIMBLE COLUMN

Mark Kimble

Associate Editor

I wasn’t around for the Boston Tea Party, so I can’t describe how riled up those colonial types were 235 years ago when they defied the government and chucked a bunch of tea into Boston Harbor.

The history books describe it as “a direct action protest” in which individuals take things into their own hands.

Had I been at the original Boston Tea Party – not the unrelated Tax Day re-enactments Wednesday -I might have a better understanding of what is going on now with photo radar – those ubiquitous gizmos that snap pictures of speeders, red-light runners and other traffic scofflaws so they can be cited by mail.

I can understand that people nabbed by the units aren’t all that happy with them. But the anti-photo radar movement is made up largely of people who have not been ticketed.

They nonetheless feel the systems are unfair or a violation of their right to privacy or something like that. And they are revolting – in Arizona and around the nation.

I really don’t get it.

Unfair? Is it unfair for cops to have cars with lights hidden behind the grille? Or unmarked cars? Or for them to hide on a side street with a radar gun? This isn’t a game. It’s enforcing laws.

Privacy violation? What right of privacy do you have while speeding or running a red light on a public street? None at all.

Violation of your constitutional rights? I don’t think so. The Founding Fathers were forward-thinking guys, but I can’t find any mention of cameras, radar or even cars in the Constitution.

Nonetheless, I can’t remember anything else the government has done recently that has made people so upset. I’m trying to understand. I really am.

So I asked Joe Scott, marketing director for a Pennsylvania-based outfit called PhantomPlate.com.

Scott’s company has an entire business devoted to beating photo radar in all sorts of ways. Its main product is a database of all known photo radar locations that you can download into your GPS navigation device.

Then when you approach a photo radar location, the thing beeps and you slow down. Keeping the database current costs $39.99 a year.

There also are sprays and plastic covers for your license plate that are supposed to reflect the flash of photo radar and make your license plate unreadable.

Scott tried to explain why photo radar is so objectionable: “Usually when you get pulled over by a police officer, you’ve been doing something wrong,” Scott said. “It’s fair and that’s the way it is.”

Fair. That seems to be the key word used by the anti-photo radar crowd.

Scott said cameras can’t be talked out of issuing a ticket if, for example, you’re speeding on your way to a hospital – something I can’t believe is common.

But there is an irony in Scott’s business. While he makes money defeating photo radar, he doesn’t want to totally defeat it. No photo radar, no business.

Ryan Denke is king of the Arizona anti-photo radar crowd with his Web site, photoradarscam.com.

He’s an unemployed electrical engineer from Peoria who spends his time circulating petitions to put an initiative on the November 2010 ballot to ban photo radar in Arizona.

He says he is “more than confident” he’ll collect enough signatures.

Denke is quick to note that he has “a clean driving record” and has not been nabbed by a radar camera. But his objections center on the fairness issue.

When a human officer nabs you, you can plead your case to the officer and then have the opportunity to face your accuser in court, Denke said.

But when a photo radar-issued ticket arrives in the mail a couple of weeks after the violation, “By then, you don’t know if you were driving that fast,” Denke said.

He also says it’s unfair that as many as half of the vehicles are, in effect, exempt from photo tickets.

Drivers of commercial vehicles can’t be identified and mailed a ticket personally, so companies can ignore citations, he said.

If a plate is obscured – for example, with Scott’s spray – there is no ticket. And drivers from Mexico or another state can ignore photo radar tickets because Arizona won’t track them down, Denke said.

But unless something happens, fighting photo radar is a losing proposition.

At the end of 2006, there were 155 jurisdictions using red-light cameras; two years later, that had more than doubled to 345.

There are 3,000-plus speed and red-light cameras in the nation, up from 2,500 a year ago. The figures are from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

There is, of course an easier and cheaper way to avoid photo radar tickets: Don’t speed or run red lights.

Call the cameras unfair if you like. But also call them omnipresent. And probably here to stay.

Mark Kimble appears at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV Channel 6. He may be reached at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or 573-4662.

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS

1 City appears rudderless after council fires city manager: On Tuesday, Tucson City Manager Mike Hein sat down with his seven bosses on the City Council for his annual performance evaluation. When he walked out a half-hour later, a council vote quickly made him the ex-city manager. Deputy Mike Letcher will be in charge until a permanent replacement is found.

2 Xavier coach Miller “follows heart” to Arizona: Sean Miller said would follow his heart and leave Xavier University in Cincinnati to become the head basketball coach at the University of Arizona. Once at UA, Miller immediately saluted former coach Lute Olson, who built a program Miller said he is proud to lead.

3 Anthony Gimino column: UA strikes gold in hunt for hoops coach: After a coaching search that seemed up, then down, then meandering, sports columnist Gimino wrote, “The forecast is for clear skies and lots of sun. Sean Miller has saved the day and chased away the clouds.”

4 Colbert says: “No good half” of Tucson: Funnyman Stephen Colbert dubs U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords “Miss Pink Sweater Set” because she balked at naming part of the space station after him. Colbert had unkind words for Tucson, too.

5 Jason Terry supports Miller, still feels Pastner was better choice: Former University of Arizona star and current Dallas Mavericks player Jason Terry is 100 percent behind Sean Miller as the Wildcats’ new coach. But he still thinks former teammate and former UA assistant coach Josh Pastner might have been a better choice. Pastner instead became the new head coach at Memphis.

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

Citizen Staff Writer
KIMBLE COLUMN

For those of you planning to build a rocket launching facility in Arizona, I’ve got good financial news:

You won’t have to pay sales tax on material used to build that launch site.

Maybe your plans are different. Maybe they involve airplanes and jet fuel.

When you buy jet fuel, you’ll pay a state tax of 3.05 cents per gallon. But once you buy 10 million gallons of jet fuel in a year, you no longer have to pay the state tax.

What about property taxes? You don’t have to pay them – if your building houses a nonprofit organization that uses volunteers to clean highways.

It’s absurd. There are no plans to build rocket launching facilities in Arizona, and waiving the sales tax on construction won’t change that.

Companies don’t buy millions of gallons of jet fuel based on whether there is a minuscule tax applied. And how many buildings can there be in Arizona used by road-cleaning volunteers?

Yet that’s how Arizona’s tax code is built – with an exemption here for one thing, another exemption there for something else. And then you stand back and look at the whole package and it’s a mess.

Eventually, all the exemptions add up: billions of dollars the state could be collecting but isn’t because of thousands of individual tax exemptions.

Some of them you know about. You don’t pay sales tax on food or medications. You get an income tax deduction for interest on a home mortgage and for donating to charities. And there are tax credits for donating to schools and to organizations that help the working poor.

But that’s just the tip of it. Many exemptions and credits were written into state law in the belief that businesses would come to Arizona or expand their operations here if only they got a little tax break.

With Arizona facing a $3 billion budget deficit next fiscal year, Democrats in the state House have proposed that tax credits and exemptions be put on hold for a year. But that would be a monumental undertaking – and one that would anger almost everyone in the state, for one reason or another.

To get some handle on all the tax exemptions and credits available, the state Department of Revenue compiled a list and tried to estimate how much money could be collected if each exemption was eliminated.

The list is 153 pages long.

The list of sales tax exemptions alone is 21 pages long. And if the state collected sales tax on everything, it would have an extra $10.1 billion. That alone is enough to run state government for more than a year.

Giving a tax exemption to companies buying more than 10 million gallons of jet fuel costs taxpayers about $8.2 million annually – not a huge amount, but a painful hole.

You don’t have to do something as outlandish as building a launching facility to escape sales taxes.

People who eat in restaurants pay sales tax on their meals. But employees who eat in the restaurant where they work don’t. Likewise, food sold to be served in prisons is tax free.

Buy all the seeds, seedlings, roots, bulbs and other “propogative material” you want to produce commercial crops, and there is no sales tax.

“Paper machine clothing sold to a paper manufacturer and directly used or consumed in paper manufacturing” is tax free – although I have no clue what “paper machine clothing” is.

There is no sales tax on “pipes or valves 4 inches in diameter or larger” – as long as they are used to transport oil, natural or artificial gas, water or coal slurry.

You have to pay sales tax if you buy a car, but not if you buy an ambulance.

Tickets sold for college sports are taxed – except for football tickets, which are not.

The way the state taxes liquor is unbelievably complex. The tax is generally $3 per gallon – except wine, which is either 84 cents or 24 cents per gallon, depending on the alcohol content. Malt liquor is taxed at 16 cents per gallon.

If the flat $3 per gallon rate were used for all liquor, the state would rake in an extra $458 million per year – a tidy sum when you’re faced with a deficit.

There are plenty of other tax exemptions – on bingo operations, boxing matches, corporate income taxes, betting on horse and dog races, underground storage tanks and on and on and on.

A millions bucks here, a million bucks there, and eventually it knocks a huge hole in the state budget.

Mark Kimble appears at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV, Channel 6. He may be reached at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or 573-4662.

MARK KIMBLE

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST WEEK IN REVIEW

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

It was almost all basketball.

1 Ex-Cat Pastner will follow Calipari to Kentucky: Josh Pastner spent eight basketball seasons at Arizona – four as a player and four as part of the coaching staff. Last year he went to Memphis as an assistant to coach John Calipari. He’s now following Calipari to his new job at Kentucky.

2 Anthony Gimino column: Livengood needs to rally in coaching search: UA Athletic Director Jim Livengood’s first full-scale search for a basketball coach is going “as swimmingly as a bowling ball in a lake,” Gimino wrote. After several high-profile guys couldn’t be lured, USC coach Tim Floyd flew to Tucson, talked with Livengood, flew home, then said no. Who is next?

3 If Floyd takes UA job, he might bring recruits: Not only does the UA men’s basketball team need a coach, it also needs some players. Recruits bailed after previous coach Lute Olson stepped down. Hiring Floyd may have meant getting some of his recruits, too. But . . . (see No. 2 above).

4 Young Wildcats seem ready for some turbulence: After UA’s season ended with an unpleasant pasting in the Sweet 16, players who will be around next year say they are ready for what may be a tumultuous season.

5 Criticism wearing on Hein as council evaluation looms: City Manager Mike Hein is no longer sure he likes his job. And it’s no longer certain he’ll have it. Hein is up for his annual performance review and he can count only three of seven City Council members firmly in his corner.

Citizen Staff Writer
KIMBLE COLUMN

When you talk about a baron, you’re probably thinking of Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt or others of that ilk.

You’d be unlikely to apply the label to a group of young people working in a borrowed and cramped Tucson warehouse.

But they are “eco barons,” according to a new book on the world’s most influential environmentalists.

Although these Tucsonans work with a shoestring budget in a building that they have to vacate for three weeks every year to make way for the annual gem shows, they run what an author calls “America’s most effective private environmental law firm.”

Although they live and work in Tucson, they raised the worldwide alarm for polar bears, warning that the animal could be wiped out. And they have done the same for dozens of other species.

These barons are the founders and employees of the Center for Biological Diversity. And they are among the environmental giants profiled in “Eco Barons,” subtitled “The Dreamers, Schemers and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet.”

The author is Edward Humes, a Tucson Citizen reporter from 1980-85. He left to work for the Orange County Register where he won a Pulitzer Prize and then turned to books. “Eco Barons” is his 10th.

In the book, Humes tells of Doug Tompkins, the founder of North Face and Esprit who surrendered his companies and wealth to buy land in Chile.

He and wife Kris Tompkins, the former CEO of Patagonia, have saved more rain forest than anyone.

And Andy Frank, who invented a plug-in hybrid car and has been wooed and snubbed by the automotive giants.

And Terry Tamminen, a southern California pool cleaner whose acumen led him to become that state’s top environmental official under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and author of the nation’s toughest climate-change law.

But Humes saves some of his most lavish praise for our homegrown Center for Biological Diversity.

The center has 20-year-old roots in the Southwest, starting when Peter Galvin and Kierán Suckling met in 1989 as they were counting and mapping Mexican spotted owls in New Mexico for the U.S. Forest Service.

When they noticed the Forest Service was planning to allow logging in owl territory despite legal restrictions, they told a newspaper where the owls’ nests were. They were fired and became friends.

The two moved in with Dr. Robin Silver, a professional nature photographer and Phoenix emergency room physician who became a financial supporter. Eventually they started the group that has become the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson.

Humes notes that during its 20-year existence, the center has won close to 90 percent of its 500 cases – an unprecedented success rate in environmental law.

The George W. Bush administration didn’t like listing species as endangered. But almost every one of the 87 listed during the Bush years was protected because the Tucson-based center “used the courts to force the issue,” Humes writes.

And that is how the Center for Biological Diversity works: by forcing the government to abide by every letter of environmental law – especially the Endangered Species Act.

While more-mainstream environmental groups try to make progress by seeking compromise, not controversy, the center eschews that approach, Humes said this week in an interview. He cites a precept laid down by Galvin: Because 90 percent of the Earth’s species have been wiped out or are endangered, there can be no compromise on the remaining 10 percent.

Humes said it is the polar bear case that has drawn the most attention to the center because it has the potential to force the government to deal with climate change.

It was the center that forced Bush “to concede, after six years of resolute denial, that there really is such a thing as global warming and that it is killing (among other species) the polar bear,” Humes writes.

And that’s an impressive accomplishment for a bunch of people working in a Tucson warehouse.

Mark Kimble appears at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV (Channel 6). He may be reached at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or 573-4662.

ABOUT THE BOOK

“Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet.”

Published by Ecco/HarperCollins, 352 pages, $25.99 hardcover

www.ecobarons.wordpress.com

www.edwardhumes.com

Citizen Staff Writer
KIMBLE COLUMN

Yes, I know you may be getting ready for dinner, and I’m sorry, but this is something we need to discuss: an invention we consider one of the hallmarks of a civilized society.

When we go to the bathroom (sorry), all we do is push a lever and a satisfying and powerful whoosh takes it all away.

Then it becomes someone else’s problem – in our case, Pima County’s. It’s gone, and that’s all that matters.

Robert Glennon knows this won’t make him tremendously popular, but he says we need to rethink how we dispose of human waste.

It’s one of many things we need to rethink when it comes to water, says Glennon, a law professor at the University of Arizona and author of a new book, “Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It.”

Although we take it for granted, Glennon points out that he isn’t the first person to point out that the way we handle human waste is wasteful.

More than 100 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt asked whether “civilized people ought to know how to dispose of the sewage in some other way than putting it into the drinking water.”

Looked at that way, it does seem rather silly.

As Glennon notes, we go to great lengths to ensure the water delivered to our homes is absolutely pure and ready to drink. Then we take a bunch of that pure, ready-to-drink water, dump you-know-what in it, and send it away.

“It is a bizarre system,” he said in an interview this week. “We take a resource, treat it to drinking water standards, then use only 10 percent for drinking.”

In his book, Glennon has plenty of examples of profligate water use.

There is the theme park outside Atlanta where in 2007, after a drought hit the South, a 400-foot tubing hill and 13,000-square-foot play area were opened – both covered in man-made snow.

After nonessential water use was banned, the theme park owners claimed snow-making was essential. They later relented and shut down the snow-making – after using 1.2 million gallons of water.

There are lavish magazine articles about opulent bathrooms in Phoenix homes where a designer bragged about catering to clients who demand “car wash” sprays in their showers. There are 10-head showers, each spewing 7.5 gallons per minute. So a 10-minute shower uses 750 gallons of water.

There have been many plans and schemes – some downright wacko – to get more water to where it is needed.

Cloud seeding to make it rain more. Desalinate seawater. Filling ocean-going tankers with water and shipping it where needed. Put 13 million gallons of water in a massive polyfiber bag and use tugboats to tow the bags from Alaska to San Diego. Pipelines crossing the Rockies.

All the ideas are enormously expensive and face huge environmental and political obstacles. It certainly would be far simpler to just save more of the water we have than use it to dispose of human waste and have car wash shower sprays.

We don’t value water because we pay so little for it. Glennon notes that we pay more for cell phone or cable television service – neither of which is essential.

The average American family pays about one-quarter cent per gallon for its water – which works out to about $20 per month.

“But we’re not paying for the cost of the water,” Glennon said. “We’re only paying for the cost of getting it to us.”

So what can and should be done to persuade people to value the water they have?

Tucson already is ahead of most communities, Glennon said, with the use of reclaimed water on golf courses and parks and a rate structure in which the cost of each block of water is higher than the previous one – a system that penalizes high-volume users.

One-third of American communities have declining block rates – the more water you use, the cheaper it gets – which encourages profligate water use, Glennon said.

And unbelievably, an unknown number of communities don’t even have water meters. Customers pay a flat monthly rate regardless of usage.

Residents of Sacramento, Calif., for example, have no water meters and recently voted to keep it that way.

Glennon said, “We have treated water as though it is infinite and valueless, while it is really finite and valuable.”

Mark Kimble appears sometimes at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV, Channel 6.

He may be reached by e-mail at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or by calling 573-4662.

ABOUT THE BOOK

“Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It” by Robert Glennon

Published April 8 by Island Press

400 pages, $27.95

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS

The story: The Fourth Avenue Spring Street Fair drew 300,000 people, but sales may have dropped 20 percent.

Your take: You were divided. No parking and the same old overpriced stuff. Or parking wasn’t an issue and there were some great items for sale.

Speaking for the former was Fidel, who said, “The fair charges ridiculous prices for food, drinks and the other shoddy knickknacks that they sell.”

“This stuff works for the tourists and the snowbirds, but I think the locals would like something a little better,” added truttman.

“Maybe street fairs are just stale already?” wondered Scotty F.

“I TRIED to attend but, alas, where’s the parking?” asked altivo.

Answers came in from 2667: “I took the Sun Tran bus to get there, so no trouble with parking.”

And nanijean: “I parked a few blocks away and walked. No problem there. It was worth it! It was a beautiful day, fun time and we loved it!”

“The place was packed,” added 1967. “The organizer’s estimate has no foundation of facts. No recession there.”

And rubysky said shopping isn’t the only attraction. “Most people I know who have gone to the fair go to people-watch and enjoy the overall activity. If you don’t like it, don’t go.”

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

The big debate:

Street fair was only fair

MOST-VIEWED

LOCAL STORIES

For Monday, March 23

1Anthony Gimino: Low-key aide Dunlap plays major role in success.

2Steve Rivera: ‘Unbelievable’ Cats face Louisville in Sweet 16.

3Street fair organizers: Sales may have been off up to 20%.

Citizen Staff Writer
KIMBLE COLUMN

So what do I write about now? In this space and on this date, I had been planning to discuss the impending death of the Tucson Citizen and say goodbye.

Just two days from now, the Citizen was scheduled to go dark, closing up shop after 138 years.

I was going to talk about columns that still needed to be written and how I wouldn’t have the chance. And about the people I have met – those whom I would miss and especially those I wouldn’t miss at all.

But then on Tuesday, the red phone rang; the execution was delayed. And it’s hard to stuff a body in a grave if it won’t go limp.

The details – at least the few we have been allowed to know – have been spelled out in these pages over the past couple of days.

Gannett Co. Inc., the megamedia company that owns the Citizen, told us Jan. 16 that the paper was losing money and had been put up for sale. If there was no sale, which seemed likely given the national non-market for newspapers that lose money, the Citizen would publish its last edition March 21 – Saturday.

We then would be invited to pack up our notebooks, non-company pens and paper clips, Mickey Mouse posters, Indy 500 memorabilia and other career detritus and vacate the premises.

There would be severance, which was fair enough, but when that ended it would be time to look for career No. 2 – almost certainly outside of journalism.

So that was the plan. The final commemorative edition featuring employees, former employees, Citizen readers and friends saying nice things about the paper’s history would come out Saturday, mostly as a collectors’ item. We’d throw ourselves a little wake, then move on.

Not so fast.

We’re going to be here past Saturday. Maybe not long, maybe for quite a while. There reportedly are a couple of potential buyers for the Citizen. Negotiations will continue and something will happen. Or not.

We may be the last to know. We’ll probably find out the result when we try to get into the building by running our employee ID cards through the electronic reader and none of them works.

Yes, it is great that we have the chance to continue doing what we love for a little while longer. But there is a comfort in certainty – even if it is a bad certainty.

Since Jan. 16, this place has felt like a hospice. The patient is terminal, and we’re all just waiting for the time to come so we can say our final goodbyes and move on.

Then this. There are people who have lined up other jobs that were to start next week or soon after. Do they stay with journalism, which they love, or go work someplace that has a future?

If the Citizen is sold, what will the new people be like and what will they want to produce? Do they want another New York Times or another Weekly World News reporting on Bigfoot, space aliens and Bat Boy?

We still feel as if we’re living under a death sentence – but it’s now an uncertain one. We could be yanked out of our cells and executed tomorrow or next week or God-knows-when.

Ryn Gargulinski, the Citizen reporter who has a knack for putting things in the proper perspective, said it’s like “a dead cat being dragged around behind a pickup truck.” Not having much experience in that area, I’ll take her word for it.

My farewell column is still around. It’s just waiting to be dragged out at the right opportunity. Stay tuned.

Mark Kimble appears sometimes at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV, Channel 6. At least for a while, reach him at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or 573-4662.

MARK KIMBLE

If the Citizen is sold, what will the new owners want to produce? The New York Times or the Weekly World News?

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS

The story: In a column, Ruben Navarrette Jr. says racial issues are not just black and white. There also are Hispanics. Call them off-white, he wrote.

Your take: Stop trying to stir up problems where none exist, say members of the Tucson Citizen’s online community.

In making the comment at the top of this page, 6565 adds, “The problem with Americans of all colors is that too many of us see ourselves as victims and if we don’t see ourselves that way, the schools and the liberal media will soon educate us to understand that we are.”

“Ruben is wrong,” writes 2161. “The correct term for what he describes is ‘Ethnic Bias.’ ”

“Racial issues will never go away as long as these issues are used as pawns in a bigger game by folks like our president, attorney general and on down the line,” writes Scotty F.

And geezerman asks, “What about the Chinese, Australians, the Koreans, the Indians and so on and on?”

In his column, Navarrette referred to Black History Month in February, leading arizona native to ask, “Why don’t we have a white history month?”

“Because, every month is white history month in America,” replied leftfield.

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

The big debate:

Black, white and off-white?

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For Monday, March 16

1Anthony Gimino column: Wins over quality seeds boost Cats.

2 Cops: Grandma tried to smuggle pot into U.S.

3 Study: Many locked-up immigrants are not criminals.

Citizen Staff Writer
KIMBLE COLUMN

Forget that hooey about the Grand Canyon being really, really old. And forget that rumor that it took a couple million years for the Colorado River to cut the mile-deep canyon.

Here’s the real deal: The canyon is only about 6,000 years old – a geologic infant.

And it didn’t take that long to cut the canyon. When the big flood – the one that got Noah into the boat-building business – receded, the rush of water cut the Grand Canyon in a few days.

That’s not the way I learned it in Geology 101. And a geomorphology professor at the University of Arizona says it is nonsense.

But a lot of people believe it. And Tom Vail, a professional river guide from Phoenix who has taken thousands of people on trips through the Grand Canyon over the past 30 years, says he has no doubt the canyon is just a baby.

If you don’t believe Vail’s theory about how the Grand Canyon came to be, you can join him on a Canyon Ministries “Christ-centered motorized rafting trip” through the canyon.

But if you want to go this year, hurry. The trips are popular, and seven of this summer’s eight trips already are sold out. There is room only on a three-day, $990 trip in late August. “All trips include everything but your clothes, camera and Bible,” the Canyon Ministries Web site advises.

Years ago, when I took a nine-day boat trip through the canyon, I learned all about the Vishnu Schist – the oldest rocks visible at the bottom of the canyon. This layer of rock was up to 3 billion years old, we were told – some of the oldest rock on Earth.

That’s a little off, said Vail – by a factor of about 500,000.

“We look at the canyon from a biblical point of view,” he said. “The Bible says the Earth was created in six literal days about 6,000 years ago.”

For the first 15 years he led river trips through the canyon, Vail said he was an “evolutionist” – going along with the idea that the Earth and the canyon have been around for billions of years. “But then I received Christ as my savior and I started looking at the canyon in God’s view,” he said.

That view is that the many layers of rock making up the canyon were laid down not over billions of years but in about five months, Vail said. Then the big flood happened – the one that Noah survived. When it receded in a rush, it carved the Grand Canyon “in a matter of days,” Vail said.

Jon Pelletier, a UA associate professor of geomorphology, begs to differ. He wrote a book titled “Quantitative Modeling of Earth Surface Processes” and the publication “Numerical modeling of the late Cenozoic geomorphic evolution of Grand Canyon, Arizona,” so the topic is not foreign to him.

Pelletier said indisputable evidence shows that the Colorado River started carving the canyon at least 5 million to 6 million years ago – and continues carving it deeper today.

The age of volcanic rock in the canyon can be precisely dated, Pelletier said, so there is no way the canyon could be only 6,000 years old.

Nonetheless, Vail has assembled his theories – and the like-minded views of others – in the book “Grand Canyon, A Different View.” It has 23 contributors, 17 of whom are scientists, he said.

Several years ago, the book was sold alongside mainstream scientific books in the canyon bookstore. But when the Geological Resources Division of the National Park Service objected, it was relocated.

“It’s still sold in the park,” Vail said, “but now it’s in the ‘Inspiration’ section. They don’t agree with it, but that doesn’t make it not science.”

It’s not science, says Pelletier.

“I’m a super-open-minded guy,” he said, “but I don’t know a geologist at any university in the world that believes that.”

Mark Kimble appears at 6:30 p.m. Fridays on the Roundtable segment of “Arizona Illustrated” on KUAT-TV, Channel 6. He may be reached at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com or 573-4662.

After the big flood – the one Noah survived – the water receded in a rush and carved the canyon in mere ‘days.’

MARK KIMBLE

CANYON TRIPS

For more information on Canyon Ministries’ river trips through the Grand Canyon, go online to www.canyonministries.com.

Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS

The story: A law banning license plate frames that obscure our state name may be eased to lessen fines.

Your take: It’s about time! This was obviously just another money-grubbing scheme by the state and police who have nothing better to do.

Although azcat3620 was the only member of the Tucson Citizen’s online community to cite the shop-worn cop/donut nexus, there were plenty of other unkind things said about police officers.

“Doesn’t our government and our cops have better things to worry about?,” asked xflbret.

SatelliteSebring added, “Law enforcement should be able to distinguish without seeing the word ‘Arizona’ that it’s an AZ plate.”

trodelpost ferreted out a much deeper conspiracy: “Another taxing money grab by people that want to exert as much control on the subjects of the land as possible.”

Home diva’s puppy dies

The story: Martha Stewart’s puppy was among those killed in an accidental propane explosion at a kennel.

Your take: This is why the Citizen is going out of business.

“How many days left until the Citizen finally rolls over and dies?” asked Franklin.

“And you wonder why the Citizen is going under,” added pchen888.

No, it doesn’t make much sense to us, either.

Compiled by MARK KIMBLE

mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com

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The big debate:

That infernal license plate law