Stoneman Road
I am a member of the Scottsdale Historic Preservation Commission and in the past have done a couple columns in hard copy in the Scottsdale Republic and on the blog about the Stoneman Road. That road was used between 1870 and 1890 as an important supply line between Fort McDowell and Fort Whipple in Prescott. I know you are probably familiar with the section that still exists for a couple of blocks as the "Military Road" in Cave Creek. I have also walked the area between Cave Creek Road and into Legend Trail in Scottsdale and with the help of old aerial photos provided by Mr. Tom Saxer, who lives on Windmill Road south of Carefree Highway, have discovered traces of the road.
Other traces exist in McDowell Mountain Park and we are working on finding evidence near the old Brown’s Ranch location north of Dynamite Road and Alma School. Also, there was a remount station near Ocotillo Road and Cave Creek which we are checking out for authenticity (See AZ Memory project online for a good photo of the ruins).
Our goal is to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the road sometime during 2010. We have several ideas on the table. As important as the road was, there isn’t much information available on it. We have done a lot of research including trips to the Sharlot Hall archives in Prescott and the Cave Creek Museum but haven’t had much luck. I have also worked with Mr. Ed Brown, the great, great grandson of E. O. Brown, one of the early settlers of Scottsdale. He played as a kid on Brown’s Ranch in the 1940s but doesn’t remember any traces of the road. In a way, the lack of information makes the project more intriguing for guys like us who love the history of the area.
If you are agreeable to it, I would like to do a guest editorial in Sonoran News explaining the history of the road and a mention of some activities planned for 2010 with a mention that we are always looking to find more pieces to this puzzle. Sometimes readers have information from family archives or whatever that may help our research. An editorial could possibly reveal something for us.
At this time there is no urgency as we are still formulating ideas. I think this would be an interesting bit of Cave Creek and Scottsdale history that would be of interest to many residents and with the distribution of Sonoran News in the Cave Creek, Carefree, and north Scottsdale area, we could gain some serious interest.
Thanks for your consideration. Keep up the good work, I always enjoy the stands you take at Sonoran News.
Jim McAllister | Scottsdale
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Gorging on canards, political correctness, and obesity propaganda
Now that Michelle Obama has made obesity her cause célèbre, get ready to be force-fed a diet of canards, political correctness, and propaganda on the bloated subject.
As sure as God made little orange Cheetos, you’re going to hear that poverty causes obesity, that the poor can’t afford nutritious food, and that vending machines, food companies, fast-food chains, automobiles, global warming, and other byproducts of capitalism are making people fat. You’ll hear very little about studies that show a connection between welfare and obesity, between single parenting and obesity, between race and obesity, and between a lack of self-control and obesity.
For sure, you won’t see a reporter grilling the fat young woman and her fat mother who waddled down the aisle at the movie theater last week. The young woman was carrying a tub of buttered popcorn the size of a laundry basket and two sodas that would fill a bathtub. Her mother was clutching her own pantry of snacks. The pear didn’t fall far from the pear tree.
Such rotund people won’t be asked why they can’t walk past the snack counter without buying a week’s worth of calories but other people can. Nor will they be asked if they think it’s right that they run up medical bills at the expense of fit people. Instead, reporters and government nannies will portray them as victims who were somehow coerced by the theater chain to chomp and slurp their way through the movie like ruminating cows at a feed lot. After all, it would be mean-spirited to blame the victims.
My wife and I made the mistake of going to the supermarket on Super Bowl Sunday to buy the ingredients to make a big pot of homemade minestrone soup. The store was packed with people pushing grocery carts packed with packs of soda and beer, and with pillow-sized snacks packed with fat and sugar. Our cart was packed with white beans, spinach, tomatoes, and chicken broth. Yes, our cart was very un-American but very Italian.
Self-righteousness isn’t the point. Heck, I used to work for a candy company, and I swig high-calorie beer with an alcohol content of eight percent. Nor do I give a damn, Scarlett, what you eat. The point is that it’s a lot cheaper to eat healthy than it is to eat unhealthy, as evidenced by the fact that the contents of our cart cost far less than the contents of other carts. Another point is that the food in our cart could have been purchased cheaply in poor inner-cities, as I know from personal experience and as thin and poor Asian immigrants prove everyday.
Oops, I just devoured two canards. Yummy.
Speaking of the Super Bowl, the First Lady is going to somehow stop Americans from overeating but can’t stop her husband from hosting a Super Bowl party and watching a sport in which half the players are grossly overweight. This is a sport where there are 11 minutes of physical exertion and three hours of chugging Gatorade. What’s with that? It’s telling that the top sport in the rest of the world is soccer (football), a sport where scrawny players run up and down the field without stopping for sugary drinks.
Granted, the three hours of American football are filled with more than Gatorade drinking. They are also filled with inane commentary, commercials for fat and sugar, artificial hoopla, gangbanger-like posturing, and incessant replays to determine if the ball crossed the plane of the goal line before the tattoo on the receiver’s forearm touched the ground – or some other obscure rule from a rule book that is thicker than the healthcare bill hatched by Congress.
As you’ve noticed, Michelle’s new cause is giving me gas. Or is that the beans in the minestrone?
Craig J. Cantoni | Scottsdale
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It’s the system, stupid
I'm sure most remember the Clintonista regime as they touted their popularity by proclaiming ..."It’s the economy stupid." Well I believe the reason we have seen a dramatic change in our country's fortunes, pun intended, is "It’s the system stupid." The system to which I am referring is our fractional reserve fiat money system that creates money from interest bearing debt.
Its unfortunate but very few Americans know how a dollar is issued. A dollar can only come into existence at its root in the form of debt. To top it off Congress in 1913 passed into existence the Federal Reserve Act which granted a private corporation owned by the banks to issue our money at interest. As an example in the fiscal year 2005 U.S. taxpayers paid the private corporation called the Federal Reserve $396 billion in interest payments on U.S. government debt that they hold.
Our founders knew the dangers of central banking and I fear Thomas Jefferson's words are coming to fruition ...
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
The president who signed the Federal Reserve act into law, Woodrow Wilson, sometime after was remorseful ...
"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
Unfortunately this isn't taught in our schools but as one great capitalist, Henry Ford, noted regarding our "system" ...
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
L. Stagg | Cave Creek
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University of Arizona calls Republicans “A fat white guy threatened by change”
University of Arizona graduate student Jeffrey Koessler logged on to his CatMail, the public e-mail server provided by U of A, only to discover a racist and discriminatory quote provided by the U of A server.
The last thing any student expects to find when they log onto a publicly provided school server system is discrimination. For Jeffrey this was something he was not prepared for. On his home page read the quote of the day provided by the administration in charge of the CatMail server stating, “Two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who is threatened by change.”
“I didn’t expect to ever read anything like this on a public server,” responded Koessler, “I was under the impression that public Universities were non-partisan institutions. I found it discriminatory and racist in nature, while re-enforcing the double standard that exists regarding liberal and conservative philosophies.” Koessler continued, “Imagine the outrage had the quote been about the Democratic Party and included similar racist comments.”
Immediately after noticing this, Koessler contacted the Chairman of the Arizona Federation of College Republicans Andrew Clark to determine what the next course of action was.
“When I received this e-mail [from Mr. Koessler] I was appalled at the University of Arizona administration,” stated Clark, "I have an expectation that our public Universities act in a professional and non-partisan manner. These institutions invest larges amounts of money and time to ensure that students are focused on the need for diversity and to make them aware that all demographics need to feel welcomed. Apparently, that same standard does not apply to Republicans on campus. I think the University’s actions in this instance represent an ignorant ideology and are shameful."
Chairman Clark along with the U of A College Republicans plan on addressing this issue with the administration with a firm, but respectful stand. “Action needs to be taken [against the administration] for the childish and quite frankly atrocious quote displayed for the entire student body to read. This type of behavior cannot and will not be tolerated. The active discrimination of a demographic within the University system is simply unacceptable. No student should ever be made to feel unwelcome at the University because of their political beliefs."
“I’m thankful for the action that the University of Arizona College Republicans as well as Chairman Clark plans on taking, and I hope that this issue can be resolved so that an incident like this never occurs again,” ended Koessler.
UofA Republican Party | Tucson
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CCUSD GB minutes
I had a chance to review the CCUSD governing board packets for the forthcoming meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 9. The board packets can be read on the CCUSD website by clicking on Governing Board Agenda and Packet for Feb. 9, 2010 (about two-thirds of the way down the page on the right).
The Dec. 15 minutes contained an interesting discussion on a proposed letter to the community (which incidentally was tabled at the last minute). On pages 15-17 of the minutes (board packet pages 54-56), a discussion of the agenda item 3.5 (Letter to Community, presented by President Mark Warren and Dr. Debbi Burdick), Sonoran News was mentioned seven times, Linda Bently(sic)/Linda /reporter was mentioned three times and (Don) Sorchik (sic) was mentioned once. This whole discussion reminded me of medieval monks arguing about "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" Oh, well!
The Dec. 8 minutes contained an error on its discussion of agenda item 5.1 (SDCA update) on its pages 16-17 (board packet pages 36-37). All the board members talked about the sale of 54 acres of CCUSD property on the north campus in relation to the 2005 election. WRONG! The November 2005 ballot language specifically said "lease for five years or more, or exchange" on Question 3, which was eventually voted down. So, if Susan Clancy was confused about these discussions, it is quite understandable: Lease/Exchange, Not Sale.
Pricilla Kapinski | Phoenix
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People slinging arrows at FAR
It makes me very sad that a few people have been slinging arrows at Foothills Animal Rescue's (FAR) move to a new shelter facility in North Scottsdale.
FAR has been homeless since September of 2008 after losing their lease. For one year there was a search for a new property focusing primarily in the Cave Creek area. FAR has over 200 homeless animals requiring care and housing that are dependant on our volunteers and supporters. We expanded our search parameters to find a home and found an excellent facility that will enable us to adequately shelter a larger number of animals.
I'm certain that we all agree that homeless animals finding shelter in Maricopa County do not care in which zip code they live. FAR has and will continue to serve the Cave Creek and Carefree area. Thank you to all of our neighbors that have continued to support our efforts to make Pasta for Paws and the dream of a new home a reality. All of the FAR dogs and cats hope that the helping spirit of Cave Creek will not be constricted by property boundaries.
Laura Jones | Foothills Animal Rescue | Board Member and Volunteer
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Scrutinize defense spending
Defense spending is by far the largest expenditure of our federal government, and it's increasing every year. The Defense budget represents about half of all U.S. discretionary spending.
Our Defense appropriations exceed the total amount of defense spending by all other nations in the world – combined! Defense spending is one of the largest contributors to our huge deficits.
We are embroiled in two wars, racking up deficits, and Americans are not willing to pay for them by having their taxes increased. We can't have it both ways; either we pay for our wars, or we incur further deficits.
The U.S. no longer can be the world's sole policeman. It will take the combined efforts of all civilized nations to help stamp out terrorism throughout the world.
The Defense Budget is a 'sacred cow' that few legislators seem willing to trim because they will almost certainly be labeled as being soft on defense – or even worse, 'unpatriotic'.
There is always fat and waste that can be trimmed in any budget. Defense Department budgets should receive the same scrutiny as any other department of our government and should not be immune from legitimate cuts in unnecessary, wasteful spending.
Paul G. Jaehnert | Vadnais Heights, Minnesota
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Ray Brolley
Everyone that lived in DePue knew Ray and all could share many stories about him. I attended LPO Jr. College at the time Ray was teaching at LP. I rode with Ray for two years and he was always late and always in a hurry. He had to be the world's worst driver.
One story that sticks in my mind occurred on one of those trips. When he arrived to pick me up, he would have his radio on full blast listening to classical music and would lead the music with his right hand serving as a baton and tried to drive with his left hand. One day as we were going through Peru, the radio began experiencing a lot of static. He turned to me and asked, "Rich, what causing all this static?" To which I replied, “It's just some woman running a vacuum cleaner.” He continued on and then his hand stopped in midair and he turned to me with a vengeful look on his face and uttered “You SOB.” I couldn't contain my laughter and he couldn’t either.
Ray will be missed. I knew his mother very well. She was so nice. I was an altar boy and his mother attended mass everyday. I often wondered how could such a nice person be a mother to a guy that was so off the wall?
Dan Blanco | DePue, Illinois
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Health care at gunpoint
Congressman John Shadegg seems to appreciate my Constitutional rights much more than my congressman back here in Pennsylvania. In fact both my Senators (Arlen) Specter and (Robert) Casey and my Congressman Chris Carney have no problem fining me, arresting me and jailing me if I don't choose the kind of insurance plan King Obama wants me to have.
So if there is any way I can swap all three of these guys for Congressman Shadegg, I'd be very appreciative. You see, ObamaCare is health care at gunpoint! We are looking at the first generation of slaves since the Civil War!
Joseph DuPont | Towanda, Pennsylvania
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