Hitting the Refresh Button
Spring 2021
The days are getting longer. The weather is getting warmer. Flowers are blooming. Baseball is being played. Here in Phoenix, springtime brings the awareness that 100-degree temperatures are lurking around the corner. It might not be this week. It might not be next week. But someday soon we will wake up in the morning and it will already be too hot to go outside.
This spring has a special feel to it. After a year of stifling social restrictions, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Each new vaccination frees another person to physically interact with others. Our social circles are expanding. Schools are re-opening. Sporting events are steadily increasing their attendance limits. Music venues are planning their return.
Unfortunately, many people are still using the pandemic to fight a culture war. Vaccine passports are shaping up to be the next battle. The question of vaccine passports is a bit worrisome to me due to the fact that, after getting my second dose of Pfizer, I promptly lost my vaccine card. Faced with a “show-me-your-vaccine-card” situation, I would be stuck in a conundrum. I might become an unwitting culture warrior. You might see me on the news one night, arguing with the ticketing person at a Diamondbacks game. Trust me! It was the Pfizer! I’ll even show you the appointment emails! No I didn’t take a vaccine selfie!
It’s just a sign of the times, I guess. This spring should be a season of liberation. We collectively sacrificed to get through this pandemic. The vaccine is clearing the way for life to go back to normal. But our political-culture wars hang in the air like a thick smog. No arena of normal life, so it seems, is safe from becoming weaponized.
To a certain extent, I understand the passions involved. Beneath the surface of the exhausting spats on social media, there are legitimate disagreements about important issues facing this country. How should we run our education system? What should be taught? How should we run our elections? How strictly should social media companies moderate user content on their platforms? What’s the right balance between freedom, safety, and equality?
People have lived through divisive times before. But it seems to me that, in the current climate, even if you do succeed in moving the needle in your preferred direction in the political-culture wars, everyone still loses. Our social ecosystem is polluted to a heightened level. I don’t blame social media for all of this pollution, but I do think it plays a major role. The platforms are designed to increase engagement and sell ads. They’ve become the reality-warping battlegrounds in our cultural civil war.
To try to get some perspective on it all, I’ve been taking a break from social media. I’ve deactivated several of my social media accounts. Went dark on others. I’ll probably be back eventually, but I’m not sure. So far, it feels like addition by subtraction.
Besides the digital spring cleaning, I’ve also been thinking about how to freshen up this newsletter. Scroll down for an update on Cholla Express.
Baseball field adjacent to Tempe Diablo Stadium. Photo taken April 1, 2021.
What’s Next for Cholla Express?
When I launched this newsletter last year, I didn’t know exactly what I would write about, except that I wanted to get in touch with the local scene and learn more about my home state of Arizona. I wanted to write more consistently, and I wanted to start a newsletter on Substack.
In the first issue, May 2020, I wrote about a local restaurant opening against the backdrop of quarantine. The August issue was all about the summer heat. The September issue was all about transportation in Arizona, past and present. At times I’ve veered in different directions, writing segments on technology and education. But the newsletter has mostly revolved around the following topics: cultural and economic dynamics in the state, profiles of different geographic areas, and a variety of historical segments.
In future issues, I plan to stretch the boundaries of the newsletter, in terms of both format and frequency.
Format. I want to open up the style for this newsletter. The content will remain Arizona-centric, but I plan to write more freely on topics that are on my mind. Maybe it will be commentary on some relevant state issue, like the teacher shortage. Maybe it will be another random tangent about technology and society. I might even dip my toes into a political controversy, who knows. I’m not going to stop writing the kinds of segments familiar to readers of this newsletter, but I do plan to mix it up.
Also — not every issue will be structured in the newsletter style. There are a few single-segment stories I have in mind to publish. While I could just include these with other segments to publish in the newsletter format, I think it will be more efficient (psychologically) for me to write these as single-segment posts.
Frequency. My day job is teaching and coaching, which takes up a significant amount of time and energy. The monthly format served well as a foundation for this newsletter, but as I’m approaching the end of the school year, I’m realizing it will be better to unleash the time constraints. From now on, the issues I publish will be more sporadic. This may lead to more frequent emails during certain months, but I promise I don’t have time to overwhelm anyone’s inbox. Most likely the pace will continue about once per month, with an occasional shorter post on a single topic.
Thanks for subscribing and reading. I appreciate your time! I’m also grateful to have received several emails from readers this past year. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences.
As always, feel free to reach out with questions, comments, or feedback.
To visit the Cholla Express archive, click here.
Aerial View of Phoenix
I took this picture from an airplane last month. The main street cutting up the frame is 7th street, which you can see bending slightly just before it reaches the ballpark. Bottom frame would be the Warehouse district. Center frame you can see downtown Phoenix, and then the smaller cluster of buildings is uptown Phoenix. Off into the distance is North Mountain, part of the Phoenix Mountains. If you scanned to the right (out of frame) you would be able to see Piestewa Peak and Camelback Mountain.
Links and News
The drought in the Southwest has been much in the news, lately. Here are a few stories that stood out to me:
Tucson Star columnist Tim Steller captures the problem in human and ecological terms.
Las Vegas pushes to become the first city to ban ornamental grass.
In pondering social media, I came across a short book by Jaron Lanier, a technology pioneer turned digital-ethics activist. On my other blog I wrote a review of his book:
As a follow-up to my September post about transportation, I wanted to share this substantive analysis of the bus system and ideas for improvement:
Matt Yglesias writes about How to make the bus better.
Final Item: Historical Photo of the Month
Phoenix residents dressed up for travel in the year 1942.