We just went to Arizona for twelve days and I have a couple of observations to share. First of all, I’m struggling to conceptualise what living in Phoenix would be like in the summer. It was a hundred degrees (American) for about five of the April days we were there. I can’t understand how people can even function in that heat, never mind work or play any sport outside after summer arrives and the moderate spring weather slips away.
Makes me wonder if the draw of electricity for air conditioning is roughly equal to a Canadian draw on natural gas during a forty below (Canadian) winter.
Probably.
My next observation is pretty simple. Hey Arizona, get the fuck off your phones when you’re driving. I come from a land where the government made a distracted driving law. Then that same government set a date for the imposition of the law and immediately began stopping and fining offenders. While we were in Maricopa the Arizona legislature passed a distracted driving law. But apparently it’s going to take a year to educate people that driving while not paying attention to the road and traffic is a bad thing. So, because of a slow learning curve, the citizens of the state are going to have to endure another full year of self absorbed dickbags texting when they should be signalling or braking.
I found the texters a mix of appalling and amazing. The utter disregard for the danger you create as you cruise along at eighty miles an hour staring at a phone screen instead of a windscreen is mind boggling. Because texting an LOL and a couple emojis is more important than the safety of your fellow citizen drivers I guess.
I suppose though that it may take a year to educate the Hyundai horde to the idea that the freeway isn’t their personal space. Consider that it wasn’t unusual to be mired in a traffic jam. Consider further that it wasn’t unusual to see one lane not moving after the congestion had cleared. Finally, consider that as the traffic moved along the reason for one unmoving lane became clear. The driver was unaware that the traffic was moving. Head down texting completely fucking oblivious.
Each time I saw this occur I wondered about the fight that has gone on regarding dicktracted driving in the state of Arizona. I wondered about the argument that the government shouldn’t have the right to impose restrictions on personal liberties. Then I wondered why someone hadn’t Glocked the non-moving driver in another expression of personal freedom.
The border crisis puzzled me in Arizona. We watched Fox news repetitively show night vision crossings of illegals. We listened to Fox news parrot the president with words like crisis, emergency and caravan. We listened to unflattering descriptions of the unwashed masses spilling into Arizona.
And yet.
Everywhere that a person goes in Arizona there are Mexican food and restaurants. There is Mexican architecture. There are Spanish street names and Spanish plaza’s. There are Mexican festivals and even Fox news was preparing for Cinco De Mayo with features highlighting Mexican food, dance and tradition. Almost every news commentator was named Gonzales or Lopez and Spanish television and radio stations were everywhere. The guys that were building the house behind my cousins place played Mexican music and sang in Spanish. Houses were called haciendas and Arizona itself comes from the Spanish Arisona depending on whose interpretation a person chooses to believe.
I guess that what I’m saying is that if you don’t want to attract Mexicans then you should make a conscious effort to limit the adobe roofs on all the new housing and maybe try and North Dakota your state a little bit.
It’s kind of like leaving a heat lamp on and then bitching when it attracts unwanted moths.
Granted, we didn’t see all of Arizona. But everywhere we went the Mexican/Spanish influence was inescapable. Spanish was spoken almost as much as English and it was easy to detect a Spanish accent tucked away in the English spoken by shitloads of people of every description and demographic. It seems as if the Flower of prosperity blooms in Arizona but the roots of the plant are in Mexico.
So, I wondered who the fuck the audience was that Fox news Phoenix was targeting regarding their coverage of the border crisis.
Scottsdale maybe?
Anyway, most Latina and Latino immigrants are Catholic. Catholic doesn’t mix well with birth control and it’s looking to me like Arizona is becoming more brunette every day. In another decade or two most Arizonans will think of Vincente when the word Fox is used. Perhaps the Murdoch boys will have to rethink their Southwestern approach to the news if they want to keep those advertising dollars rolling in.