Hey, Arizona, remember what I said? You're too dumb - statistically speaking - to fathom how far I went to get away from you, and I'm glad I did. You're a Red state, a Christian Conservative state, a Confederate state that believes in Ronald Reagan's rugged individualism and whatnot. So you'll understand when I explain it to you in the most Biblical of terms:
Be content with your lot. You asked for it. I don't begrudge you it. And I hope (actually, I know) that you'll choke on it.
To the good people in Flagstaff and much of Tucson, bastions of sanity in an otherwise bedlam-racked place, I say good luck. Fight the good fight for as long as you can, until you come to (your senses) the same conclusion I came to. And then leave. It's the best thing, the only thing, you can do. Pick up your skills and your earning potential and your good intentions and bring them to places where they will be appreciated. Where others will benefit from them. Where they can make a difference.
Just leave, like the Anasazi did almost a thousand years ago. Leave behind the state of Russell Pearce and Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio and Ben Quayle and Jon Kyl and your other Senator there, the senile guy who graduated 5th from the bottom of his class in Navy pilot school, the guy who got his pasty old ass whalloped in the last presidential election - what was that loser's name? McPalin? Something like that? You know, the confused crustacean who's been giving Barry Goldwater's senate seat a bad name for the last twenty-odd years? That one.
Say goodbye to him and all the other low-life conservatives who make their living demonizing immigrants. Those would be the same immigrants who serve the agriculture and hospitality industries from whom the Republicans take campaign contributions, to the tune of millions of dollars, year after year. Say goodbye to all of them, and to those beautiful red sunsets, too...
I'll let you in on a little secret, although I suspect you already know: It's the smog, not God, that makes those Arizona sunsets so blushingly beautiful. Kiss her goodbye because she doesn't really exist. I speak from experience: The only parts you'll really miss are immovable, inanimate objects: Mountains, canyons, saguaro, the sky. Don't worry. They won't miss you, not one bit.
Trust me. In a hundred years, it'll be like you were never there at all.
pH 2.o7.11
