Archive for June, 2009

“We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings.” – Ronald Reagan

Iran is in meltdown.  Iran is the new frontlines of democracy and expanding freedom.

Which is it?  For days after the latest election in which Ahmadinejad claimed victory, the Western press largely ignored the budding protests in Iran.  These protests are essentially demonstrations by what we could call the grassroots of Iran saying that their voices have been stifled by an unfair election process. 

It’s also kind of a big deal that the U.S. is officially not recognizing the election of Ahmdinejad.

Here is a link to a youtube video of thousands of people marching through the streets of Tehran.  Here is a series of photos from flickr.  Amazing stuff.  Can you imagine this happening even ten years ago?

This is a direct result of policies of George W. Bush and his vision of spreading democracy across the world.  You can’t tell me that the protests in Tehran and other parts of Iran aren’t part of a growing freedom movement there.  And this will not be the last time we see these kinds of events in countries that have been less than free.

Hopefully, this will provide some clarity to the Obama administration on foreign policy posturing.

One of the best analysis of the situation in Iran is here, on CBS News, by a friend of mine, Ben Domenech.  Here are some excerpts:

There is only one conflict in Iran today, to paraphrase Viktor Yushchenko — and it is between the regime and the people.

You wouldn’t know that from watching the news channels on TV in America today, or from reading sites like CNN World, featuring lonely wire service stories on what’s going on in Tehran. But news and images streamed in all day from Facebook and Twitter with reports from individuals on the ground — reports of students standing up to the onrushing military and police forces, of rocks and fire and tear gas, and even of clerics protesting the election’s result. Taken together, the scene appears to be the most violent protests in Iran in decades.

Many of these reports are unverified, as everything from within the fog of war tends to be. But the images and videos coming through are not. And Agence France Press has reported that at least ten leaders of two Iranian reformist political groups have been arrested. And throughout the day, access to means of communication were restricted.

***

Unfortunately, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is not exactly the paradigm-shifting reformist the Western press has made him out to be. The reason neoconservatives like Daniel Pipes have professed support for the current president is that Ahmadinejad’s extremist statements exposed the blatant radicalism of the Iranian regime, ruled by Spiritual Leader Ali Hoseini Khameini (the president is merely his flunky in Iran’s system of rule). Even if given the presidency, the reform-minded Mousavi will not have any real impact on nuclear policy or other areas that threaten America’s interests in the Middle East.

Yet this does not make him any less important. At the moment, Mousavi has become a symbolic expression of the disenfranchisement of the populace, his victimhood the fuel for a social uprising that resembles in so many ways the Tiananmen student movement whose anniversary the world marked just days ago. Supreme Leader Khameini has officially endorsed the Ahmedinejad victory, meaning that the revolt going on in Iran at this moment is not a revolt within the system, but against it. Mousavi is no longer just another politician, but he has by his actions become an enemy of the Islamic Republic — a republic in name only — and the protesters today have joined with him in this action. This is not the sort of thing that the ruling authorities will forget or forgive. There will be consequences, and they will almost assuredly be bloody.

Secretary of State Clinton has voiced her concerns about the election result, while the White House reiterated its offers of dialogue with the Iranian regime. It is a strikingly disturbing thought that President Obama would do such a thing, in the wake of the events of the past few days — granting legitimacy to the Mad Hatter of Tehran — but this is obviously his decision. Let us hope someone will call the president’s mind to a higher purpose, to catch hold of a moment when his support for freedom has the potential to have a very real impact.

“Any system is inherently unstable that has no peaceful means to legitimize its leaders. In such cases, the very repressiveness of the state ultimately drives people to resist it, if necessary, by force. While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings.”

Ronald Reagan said it nearly 27 years ago. The world needs to say it today.

Solid stuff.

“Camping like an environmentalist.”  I don’t even know what that means, but someone said it to me. For one thing, I’ve always considered myself an environmentalist – of the traditional sort.  I love the outdoors, grew up in the White Mountains of Arizona and probably spent more time in the back country by the time I was 18 than the entire national staff of the Sierra Club combined.  Seriously.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am decidedly NOT an environmentalist in the political sense that Sierra Club-types like to advocate.

Back to camping.  I had the chance to take my two sons (ages 10 and 2) and my older son’s friend on an overnight up Kelly Canyon south of Flagstaff recently.

We went on our escape to the mountains driving a Ford Escape Hybrid. 

Now, as I wrote in a previous post, I was very impressed with the Ford Escape Hybrid.  More importantly, my 10 year-old son and his friend thought it was “cool.”  Hey, load up the tent, the sleeping bags, put on my Maui Jim’s, crank some Big and Rich (or Jason Mraz or Maroon 5 or REM or U2… I know I’ve got a diverse taste in music) grab a diet Mt. Dew and hit the road in style.

We started north on I-17 and I decided that I needed to push it a little bit, to get there to set up before the sun went down.  I was not disappointed.  That hybrid spun up every time I needed it to.  The hill going up to Sunset Point wasn’t even an issue – I was passing everyone on the road.

We hit the exit and the Escape Hybrid made a smooth transition from speedy freeway roadster to off-road machine.  It had all the power I wanted and held its own on roads and semi-roads in the back woods.

One of the coolest features was the 110V plug in the console.  I set up our tent, threw in my inflatable air bed and pulled the Escape up next to the tent and plugged it in and had an inflated bed in seconds.  Now that is a new kind of camping.  Call it camping hybrid-style.

The bottom line – there is literally no reason that if you are going to get a mid-size SUV not to get the Ford Escape Hybrid.  It’s economical, powerful, fast, functional, fun and my kids think it’s cool.

What more do you need?

You see a story like this one, about Wal-Mart opening targeting a specifically Hispanic clientele, and the first thing that comes to mind is “Why didn’t they do that before?”

At least, that was my reaction.  Bashas’ has done it for years under the Food City banner and there have been a number of different chains that have catered to Hispanics.  Given Wal-Mart’s market share, you’d think they would have done this long ago.

So, it opens today – and my guess is that it is going to blow expectations out of the water.  Wal-Mart is a great store – it’s got everything.  I know there are a bunch of Wal-Mart bashers out there – whether you are a union supporter or a shopping snob – but at the end of the day they are good at what they do – sell a lot of stuff at affordable prices.

That will be the same with the new store at 89^th Ave and Thomas… and it should be.

Viva la Wal-Mart!

(I don’t know if that is correct Spanish grammar – my high school Spanish teacher, Mr. Allen, would be horrified if he knew how little I actually learned and retained.)

Figures this would happen.  I came up with what I thought was a clever solution to Arizona’s budget crisis only to learn that it’s an idea that is already in place in eight other states!  Who knew?  This is from ATR’s Patrick Gleason’s blog:

Last week Sean Noble, author of the blog Noble Thinking, offered a solution for those that insist taxes must be raised in Arizona. Noble suggests “The Arizona Department of Revenue should expand the option of voluntarily paying more taxes by adding a form – let’s call it Form SITIC – for “stuff I think is critical.” Then, all these people who want to pay more taxes can check the box for what their additional contribution will fund.”

ATR supports Noble’s idea and notes that it is not without precedent. The solution Noble offers is a Tax Me More Fund. Arizona lawmakers can simply create a Tax Me More Fund so that people who feel they are under-taxed, like Gov. Brewer, Chuck Coughlin, and Randy Pullen, have a place to send their money. As it stands, 8 states already have a Tax Me More Fund in place.

The concept has it’s origins in the cradle of the liberty movement in America. According to the Center for Fiscal Accountability, Massachusetts led the way in developing a Tax Me More Fund proposal at the turn of the century. After Bay State voters passed a 2000 referendum to lower income taxes, the Voluntary Optional Tax Endowment (VOTE) was introduced as a way for opponents of the tax cut to voluntarily pay at the old rate. In 2001, the MA legislature added a checkbox on its state tax forms in 2001 that allows the taxpayer to decide which tax rate to pay.

ATR agrees that those who claim taxes in AZ aren’t high enough should be given the ability to put their money where there mouth is. ATR urges AZ lawmakers to introduce and pass a bill to create a Tax Me More Fund in the Grand Canyon State. The bill might be most appropiately titled “The Brewer-Coughlin Arizona Patriot Act.”

For a list of states that have enacted Tax Me More Funds, Click Here. 

I find it pretty ironic that the first state to enact a Tax Me More fund was Massachusetts.

Ronald Reagan gave two moving speeches on the 40th anniversary of D-Day. The first was at Omaha Beach and the second was at Pointe de Hoc, where Rangers scaled the cliffs to take out machine gun posts.  Both are great speeches, but the Pointe de Hoc is the one I like better (probably because it was written by Peggy Noonan).  Below is an excerpt of the moving prose, still inspiring 25 years later and 65 years from the day that changed the course of the War and the course of history.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Pointe de Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem. You are men who in your “lives fought for life…and left the vivid air signed with your honor….”

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith, and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

Ronald Reagan’s statue was unveiled this week at the U.S. Capital.  Nancy Reagan was back in the Rotunda for the first time since Reagan laid in state following his death.

Nancy Reagan was her typical humorous, unassuming self.  She has been a stellar example of class and dignity in her post-White House years.

“You created that secure space from which he ventured forth to change America and to change the world,” Reagan’s friend and treasury secretary, James Baker III, told her. “As this ceremony honors him, Nancy, it also honors you.”

President Reagan embodied everything that makes a man a great President.  He was willing to work with the other side to advance an agenda of peace through strength on the foreign policy front while expanding economic growth through his supply-side agenda on the domestic front.  Most of all, he inspired a nation to see itself as the “shining city on a hill.”

Thank you Nancy, for sharing such a great  man with the rest of the nation and the world.

As if you needed more reason not to ride the light rail in Phoenix, this should keep you off for good. 

Around 8 a.m., a train was stopped for cleaning after a man smudged feces in the interior of the train. Police were told the man on the train was flicking and playing with feces.

The light rail operator was notified and quickly took the train out of service.

“It is a biohazard, and we have protocol for how we handle a situation like this,” says Hillary Foose. Those protocols include disinfecting the train.

Are we really surprised?  Riders have to hold it until the end of the line and they’re not required to wear pants, so of course this kind of crap was going to happen.

The tragic death of Kerry Martin and her infant son Austin reminds us that life is fragile.

At one point in her life Kerry Martin was called the “31st Senator.” It fit her well because when her husband Dean was a State Senator, she was a near-constant presence at the legislature giving counsel, advice and support to her husband and his nascent political career.

It’s safe to say that without Kerry, there probably wouldn’t have been a Sen. Martin or a Treasurer Martin.  Not only did she provide structure and discipline to his campaigns and elective service, she worked just as hard as Dean did to meet and greet every person she could, adding a wonderfully human touch.

Kerry was one bright cookie as well.  She understood grassroots, precinct targeting, get-out-the-vote tactics and messaging as well as any seasoned political operative.  She knew exactly what worked and what didn’t for Dean on the stump. And she was always at his side.

As political couples go, you’d be hard pressed to find a couple who worked more closely together, played to each other’s strengths and weaknesses any better or adored each other more than Dean and Kerry Martin.

I got to know Kerry during Dean’s initial campaign for the State Senate.  We even lived in the same precinct for a few years, and have been the same legislative district for more than a decade.  She was always pleasant and always willing to jump in and help anyone engaged in a good cause.

My heart breaks for Dean.  I can’t imagine the pain of losing a spouse and then losing an infant child.  I’m a strong believer that God has a purpose for each of His children, and I have faith that these events are in His hands. I know Dean understands this as well, but I know it is still very painful.

One thing is certain, Kerry lived up to the Apostle Paul’s sentiment as written in 2 Timothy 4, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

Kerry and Austin are in a better place, and the reunion with Dean that occurs in the future will be a sight to see.

Godspeed Dean. Find strength in your anguish and know that there are a lot of people who are here for you.