Everything in motion

May 2024

The weather is heating up here in Phoenix as the days tick closer to summer. Only a few more weeks before our sidewalks turn into frying pans. 

For me as a teacher, this time of year invites a reflective headspace. It is the beginning of a two-month sabbatical called “summer vacation.” 

I enjoy the change of pace. 

As I sit down and prepare for a season of rest, I know that I will be watching events around me continue to accelerate. 

We are living through an unsettled time. 

Digital inventions over the past two decades have already changed how we socialize and engage with the world. Before we’ve fully adjusted to this digital reality, here now is artificial intelligence threatening to upend the status quo in basically every human endeavor. We don’t know how things will change, but people are telling us that everything will change. 

We are barreling toward the election of 2024. This is the first presidential election since the civic catastrophe of 2020 … and with the same candidates running again. Hopefully the election will go smoothly and our institutions will hold. Hopefully we, a free people living in a free society, will continue to work out our differences through the constitutional order. But our political system is showing signs of decadence and dysfunction. If liberal-minded politicians don’t succeed in making our system more functional, illiberal-minded politicians will succeed in remaking the country in their image. 

Meanwhile, as we look across the world, we see rumblings and developments that seem ominous. Russia is at war with Ukraine. China is saber-rattling. There is war in the Middle East and the ramifications are impossible to predict. Nobody wants to think about the possibility of war between major world powers, but the thought is in the air. Our leaders are tasked with the problem of pursuing national interests while working to achieve a sustainable peace.

We seem to be living through one of those pivot points in the contours of history. And that brings along a sense of existential anxiety. 

When we look back on history, we tell stories. Stories about wars and revolutions. Stories about times of darkness and times of prosperity. We study causes and effects, main characters, and the lived experiences of ordinary people.

The stories of history make sense to us because we know how they turned out. We can interpret them from a safe distance. 

At this moment, late May of 2024, events seem to have a life of their own, and it’s impossible to predict how our story will unfold.

Maybe I have too much time on my hands. It’s probably better not to ruminate too much on the contours of history. 

Thankfully, we do have some agency over our situation.

We participate in society. We live in communities. Some of us are engaged in politics.

We can decide, within certain constraints, how to respond to what’s happening around us. We can listen to the spiritual gurus who tell us to savor the moment.

We can spend time with friends and family. We can do good work. We can find hobbies and entertainment.

We can appreciate the rhythmic seasons of the year and the linear seasons of life. 

Nothing is guaranteed.

But as the legendary basketball coach John Wooden liked to say, “Things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out.”

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Historical Photos of the Month 

1928: "Group Portrait of the McCulloch Brothers, E. D. Newcomer, and Ed Linder Posed with a Camera in Front of the Arizona Republican Newspaper Offices." McCulloch Brothers Inc. Photographs. Arizona State University Libraries: Arizona Collection.

1961: “Graciela Olivarez Under a Sign Advertising Her ‘Media Hora’ Program on KIFN.” Graciela Gil Olivarez Photographs. Arizona State University Library.

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Links and News 

• R.I.P. “Nikki Haley Republicans” — We’re going to have to find a new name for the segment of the Republican electorate that wants to move on from the MAGA establishment. Nikki Haley endorsed Trump this week. Maybe she thinks she can impact the direction of the party better because of this endorsement; maybe she thinks this is her only way to have a future in Republican politics; maybe she’s maximizing her odds to get picked as vice president. Who knows. She had an opportunity to chart a new course that might have reaped unexpected rewards in the future. Instead, she threw in her lot with a crowd of Republican politicians who have been insulted and humiliated by Trump but fell in line behind him anyway. She will continue to receive scorn from Trump’s base. The big difference is that she squashed a fledgling base of her own. Her campaign of political independence was fun while it lasted.

• Ground game — There is a new book about the MAGA takeover of the institutional Republican Party in which Arizona figures are prominently featured. At the precinct level, zealous newcomers start showing up to meetings and demanding to take charge. Long-time Republican activist Kathy Petsas tries her best to defend traditional Republican ideas, but the zealous newcomers are relentless. The book was written by Washington Post political reporter Isaac Arnsdorf. 

• Don’t forget about the Dreamers — Arizona voters passed an initiative (Prop 308) in 2022 that granted “Dreamers” access to in-state college tuition. The name Dreamers comes from the DREAM Act, a proposed law that would have provided a legal pathway for people who are undocumented but who grew up in the United States because they were brought here at a young age. The DREAM Act didn’t pass, but President Obama signed an executive order creating the DACA program. DACA provided a new category of legal status for Dreamers, but with legal uncertainty because it wasn’t a legislative fix. Anyway, here’s a piece about Dreamers in the Arizona Republic written by Maria Leon, who is taking advantage of Prop 308 to study to become a doctor. 

• Suns in motion — Newly hired Phoenix Suns coach Mike Budenholzer is from Holbrook, Arizona. Here’s how he describes his philosophy on offense: “Playing fast and playing random and the ball moving and people moving are things that I believe in.” 

• More on smartphone bans — I was on KJZZ a few weeks ago to discuss my post about the different ways schools might go about banning smartphones. You can listen to the interview here, or if you didn’t read the post, you can read it here. Following this same topic, the Wall Street Journal published a story about an Arizona teacher in Tucson who tried everything he could to keep his students off their phones and focused on learning. He felt he was fighting a hopeless and isolated battle, so he decided to walk away from the profession. His school is now brainstorming ways to create a school-wide policy next year, but it won’t involve an outright ban. An outright ban would require approval from the school board, and there is fear that it would cause a backlash from parents.

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ICYMI

This newsletter is four years old. In the earlier days of the newsletter, I wrote some sketches of Arizona history. For new subscribers who may have missed them, here are a few of my historical posts:

• Creating Arizona: a brief history of how Arizona’s borders took shape 

• The Phoenix: how the city of Phoenix got its name, and some sources about the legend

• Eusebio Kino was an Arizona cartographer: the story of a Jesuit missionary who is remembered as a bridge-builder of cultures

• Light rails, trains, streetcars, and automobiles: a brief history of transportation in Arizona

• Camelback Mountain: paying homage

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Thanks for reading!