Archive for the ‘Arizona Daily Star’ Tag

Songs With The Word ‘Tucson’ In Them   Leave a comment

Yesterday the Arizona Daily Star published an article titled “31 songs that have the word ‘Tucson’ in them.” Of course, it go my attention
so I read the article figuring that one of my favorite singer-songwriters would be included in the 31 songs, Tom Russell, who penned
The Ballad of Edward Abbey — he was not. I guess the list was not intended to be comprehensive.

It was in the town of Tucson in Nineteen Eighty-Three
A man named Edward Abbey come a walking up to me
He pulled his cigar from his mouth, said, «I smell lawyers here»
The politician, running-dogs, they crawled away in fear
Singing do-ra-do
Singing do-ra-day
Ed walked across the desert at least a thousand times
He spoke with javelina, slept ‘neath piñon pine
And if he saw a billboard there, he’d chop that bastard down
Said, if a man can’t piss in his own front yard, he’d never keep close to town
Singing do-ra-do
Singing do-ra-day
Lord, I wish Edward Abbey were walking round today
Ed had a taste for women, in fact he married quite a few
He said, «I’d fall in love, boys, but I’m only passing through
You know I like ’em all, boys, and some more than the rest
I’ve tried my hand at monogamy, now I’m off to save the west
Singing do-ra-do
Singing do-ra-day
Ed died one day at sundown in his Tucson riding shack
They wrapped him in a sleeping bag and drove him way out back
Beneath the wild saguaro, the coyotes chewed his bones
And on a hidden marker, was ‘No Comment’, carved in stone
Singing do-ra-do
Singing do-ra-day
Yeah, I wish Edward Abbey were walking round today
Now I’m living in the desert, but the town is a-closing in
Those cracker box developments, Ed would call a sin
We stole this land from the Mexican and now we’ll sell it back
And they’ll live like mortgage prisoners in those goddamn housing tracts
Tell me, who votes for the mountain lion, tell me, who votes for the fox
Who votes for the spotted owl who hides there in the rocks
I wish that Ed would come again with a chainsaw in his hand
And carve all up those housing tracts and take on back the land
Singing do-ra-do
Singing do-ra-day
Yeah, I wish Edward Abbey were walking round today

On This Veterans Day, “Say, ‘Hello In There'”   Leave a comment

David Fitzsimmons — Arizona Daily Star
 
You know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say, “Hello in there, hello”
 
So if you’re walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes
Please don’t just pass ’em by and stare
As if you didn’t care, say, “Hello in there, hello”
 
— from Hello In There by John Prine
 

As a Veteran and an old person in general, I’m trying hard not just to fade away — “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”
Like many people my age, we are familiar with the line in General Douglas MacArthur April 19, 1951 farewell address to
the U.S. Congress. A great line for a General but not for older people. I, for one, am not ready to just fade away.

As older people, we experience daily the looks of people we may come in contact with, and in their eyes, 
we have already faded away — they stare straight through us. In the last decade, I have seen more doctors 
than in the total of my eighty years, and just once, I would like, “Hello in there, hello.”

Cactus Blossoms   1 comment

Cactus Blossoms — Image by kenne

Even though the southwest is experiencing a mega drought, nature finds a way to continue life cycles.

“Drought conditions in the West, particularly the desert Southwest, have intensified over the past 45 years,
with less precipitation and longer and more frequent dry spells between storms. The Southwestern deserts
that include Tucson were slammed the hardest by far.” Arizona Daily Star

Cartoon du Jour: GO CATS   Leave a comment

David Fitzsimmons — Arizona Daily Star

Today the Arizona Wildcats are playing the Stanford Cardinal in the NCAA Woman’s Basketball Finals.

GO WILDCATS!!!

Cartoon du Jour   1 comment

Source: David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson AZ

RPG—1933-2020   3 comments

— David Fitzsimmons/The Arizona Daily Star

It’s up to us to keep moving her values forward and not take this country
back to the 1950s. If you know your history, then you know what I mean. So
many people have benefited from this woman being on the Supreme Court,
especially women. We have lost a giant of a woman!

— kenne

Stages   Leave a comment

Yellow Wildflower (1 of 1)-2 stages art blogStages — Computer Art by kenne

I see what is
and imagine ways
to make it different.

Imagination allows me
to become a maker of
a new image out of self

thereby merging the
real with the ideal —
not a difference in kind.

— kenne

Prickly Pear Fruit Still Life   1 comment

Prickly Pean Fruit (1 of 1) art blogPrickly Pear Still Life (August 3, 2015) — Computer Art by kenne

Yesterday, the blossoms of the barrel cactus, today the fruit of the prickly pear cactus.

Early Morning Hike   3 comments

Morning Hike (1 of 1)-2 art III blog IIEarly Morning Hike –  Image by kenne

Early Morning Hike

Moving through the vibrant air,

Time past and time now.

kenne

Old Western Bunk House   Leave a comment

Bunk House Interior (1 of 1) art layer blogOld Western Bunk House
Off the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historical Trail

near the Santa Cruz River.
— Computer Art by kenne

Walk A Mile In My Shoes   Leave a comment

Bunk House Boots In Window (1 of 1) art B&W blog Mile In My ShoesImages by kenne

If I could be you
And you could be me
For just one hour
If we could find a way
To get inside
Each other’s mind, mmm
If you could see you
Through your eyes
Instead of your ego
I believe you’d be
Surprised to see
That you’d been blind, mmm

Walk a mile in my shoes
Walk a mile in my shoes
Hey, before you abuse, criticize and accuse
Walk a mile in my shoes

Now your whole world
You see around you
Is just a reflection
And the law of karma
Says you’re gonna reap
Just what you sow, yes you will
So unless
You’ve lived a life of
Total perfection
You’d better be careful
Of every stone
That you should throw, yeah

And yet we spend the day
Throwing stones
At one another
‘Cause I don’t think
Or wear my hair
The same way you do, mmm
Well I may be
Common people
But I’m your brother
And when you strike out
And try to hurt me
It’s a-hurtin’ you, lord have mercy

Walk a mile in my shoes
Walk a mile in my shoes
Hey, before you abuse, criticize and accuse
Walk a mile in my shoes

There are people
On reservations
And out in the ghettos
And brother there
But for the grace of God
Go you and I, yeah, yeah
If I only
Had the wings
Of a little angel
Don’t you know I’d fly
To the top of the mountain
And then I’d cry

Walk a mile in my shoes
Walk a mile in my shoes
Hey, before you abuse, criticize and accuse
Better walk a mile in my shoes

Walk a mile in my shoes
Walk a mile in my shoes
Uh, before you abuse, criticize and accuse
Walk a mile in my shoes, yeah

Walk a mile in my shoes

— Joe South

 Bunk House Boots In Window (1 of 1)-2Art B&W blog

The Sky Peeled Back . . .   4 comments

Sunset (1 of 1)-10_blog“The Sky Peeled Back” (Santa Catalina Mountains) — Image by kenne

The sky peeled back for a moment,
and a weak ray of sunset 
spilled over the scene 
like the diseased eye 
of some forgetful god — 
the light bearing with it 
cold in place of heat.

― Luis Alberto Urrea, from Into the Beautiful North

The Tucson Festival of Books (Click here to learn more) is this weekend, March 14th & 15th. There are a lot of reasons to attend this event, high on the my list is to attend a tribute to Chuck Bowden, a southwest literary legend. Bowden died last August at age 69 here in Tucson. One of the panel members will be author and friend, Luis Alberto Urrea.

Tony Davis writes in today’s Arizona Daily star:

“In 1993, just after Luis Alberto Urrea’s first book Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border hit the shelves, Urrea got a 6 a.m. call at his San Diego home from a gruff, gravelly voice.” 

“The caller said, ‘This is Chuck Bowden. I stayed up all night reading your book. You own me money.’

I asked why. He said, ‘Because I ordered 40 copies for my friends,’ Urrea recalled.”

I first learned of Urrea when he appeared on Bill Moyers’ Moyers and Company in 2012, during which he read from his epic poem, Ghost Sickness, about the death of his father. 

I continue working at becoming a better student of these two great writers.

kenne

Robin Williams — In His Memory, Today I’m Wearing My Mork Suspenders   4 comments

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Source: DAVID FITZSIMMONS Arizona Daily Star

In the late seventies I purchased a pair of “Mork” suspenders and today in his honor I have worn them, and may all week.

— kenne

The Night Before Christmas In The Old Pueblo   Leave a comment

The Night Before border-style blogSource — Arizona Daily Star

Translations: casa=house, caramba=goodness, que pasa=what gives, con mucho cuidado=carefully, cosas=things, aquí and allí=here and there, y=and, los niños=the children, camas=beds, vestidos=gowns, cabezas=heads, esperando=hoping, waiting, nixtamal=ground corn for tamales, buñuelos=sugar-coated fritters, la estufa=the stove, y como!=and how!, chile rojo=red chile, la familia=the family, feliz=happy, a todos=to all.

 

“The Fire Debt Is Finally Coming Due”   5 comments

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David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star

“Much of the West is now a giant tinderbox, literally ready to combust. Yet thanks to fire suppression, the consequences have been postponed for decades.

“When you look at the long record, you see fire and climate moving together over decades, over centuries, over thousands of years,” said pyrogeographer Jennifer Marlon of Yale University, who earlier this year co-authored a study of long-term fire patterns in the American West.

“Then, when you look at the last century, you see the climate getting warmer and drier, but until the last couple decades the amount of fire was really low. We’ve pushed fire in the opposite direction you’d expect from climate,” Marlon said.

The fire debt is finally coming due.”

— Jennifer Marlon — Source: New York Times 

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