Moving on Up...to Examiner.com

I recently signed on as the Phoenix Travel Examiner with Examiner.com. Since a girl can only write so much in a day without burning out, please look for new travel articles at: www.examiner.com/x-1682-Phoenix-Travel-Examiner.

Illiterate Arizona

Valley residents are not a literate group, according to a new study measuring the literacy of America's largest cities. Among the 69 cities evaluated, Phoenix ranks 56th and Mesa ranks 61st. Even Tucson, with its artsy reputation barely manages to crack the top half of the standings, coming in at 33rd.

As a voracious reader and professional writer living in the Phoenix metropolitan area, I am not sure I agree with this assessment. Then again, I'm not sure I totally disagree with it because, while most of the people I know are quite literate, they are not all widely literate. Some of them are generalists. Others are experts. So I guess it comes down to how you define literate.

Dr. Jack Miller, President of Central Connecticut State University, and author of the annual ranking of "America's Most Literate Cities" evaluated 69 cities having populations exceeding 250,000, using 6 six literacy indicators:

• newspaper circulation
• number of bookstores
• library resources
• periodical publishing resources
• educational attainment and
• Internet resources.

On that basis he may have a point. I can only think of a couple of independent bookstores in the Valley: Changing Hands in Tempe and the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale. There may be others, but if so they keep a very low profile, or specialize in genres I don't follow. I can't even think of a kids-only bookstore in town.

As to newspapers, the Arizona Republic, which is owned by media mega-corp Gannett, is the big dog for the entire state. It is also, according to their website, "one of the fastest-growing major metropolitan newspapers in the country, ranking among the top 20 newspapers in daily circulation." I am not a subscriber, although I do occasionally pick up a Sunday paper and regularly surf the azcentral.com web site., but that apparently is part of the Internet resources ranking rather than the newspaper ranking. I did subscribe, a few years ago, to the East Valley Tribune but I have let the subscription lapse. Both seem to get a significant portion of their content from the AP and it seems like a waste of paper to subscribe to either when I can get the content online. I'd say something about the shortcomings of their local coverage, however, being a local journalist but not a subscriber means I have to shoulder some of the responsibility for those myself.

I regularly use the Valley's libraries. In fact, the Tempe Public Library on Rural/Scottsdale Rd. and Southern, is among the greatest libraries I have been in. It's no Library of Congress but it beats many others, including those in other college towns. The Southwest Regional Library is also amazing, but more for the environment than the stacks.

The Phoenix New Times is the periodical I read most frequently, but again, I don't subscribe. I don't think anyone has actually ever offered me a subscription to the New Times. It's available free at several locations, so I don't even think about subscribing, although I have thought about contributing. I will purchase some of the local magazines if the featured topic is one I am interested in.

Phoenix shares the 39th ranking in terms of Internet resources with Detroit. That's a bit of a surprise. I would have thought we would be higher. Still, the study only looked at library internet connections and most everyone I know accesses the Internet from home or work. Not even I surf the 'net at the library although I have been known to access the library's card catalog and electronic resources from home. I've even encouraged others to make use of the resources available online through the library to others.

Since I don't have kids and am not a product of the Arizona educational system, I don't have any comment about it. I will say that I am very tired of cashiers who can't make change without a calculator and clerks who can't spell even with the aid of spellcheck.

Unfortunately, I, and my friends, appear to be the exception, rather than the rule. The 2007 America's Most Literate Cities survey supports the conclusions of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) that Americans at all levels are reading less and less well. Disturbingly, this downward reading trend is occurring when Americans are spending more time in school and accomplishing higher levels of education. In other words, whatever Americans are learning in school, it is not literate behavior. At least, not literate behavior as measured by America's Most Literate Cities.

Who Makes These Decisions?

People make stupid decisions when they travel. Mostly because they are not familiar with the cultural, social and even criminal details of the places that they only visit for a few days. That excuse doesn't hold up when a city, community, state or nation makes a bad decision when trying to attract visitors.

For instance, the Super Bowl is coming to Glendale in February. Hosting a Super Bowl in Glendale is not a stupid decision in itself. The University of Phoenix stadium is relatively new and still state of the art even if it does look like one of the notorious "Phoenix Lights" UFOs landed in the middle of nowhere. The stupidity is that we're trying to pull it off this season. Immediately following a Super Bowl in Miami which everyone - from sportscasters to athletes to fans - LOVES.

What's wrong with this season? Well...

• Downtown and significant chunks of Tempe and Mesa are torn up with light rail construction that isn't scheduled to be complete until LATE 2008.
• Hotel construction in Glendale is way below demand and unlikely to meet needs.
• Traffic around the Valley is already bad and becomes horrendous during big events.
• We're in the middle of a drought.

To add insult to injury, the teams are staying at Kierland and Wild Horse Pass, meaning they will spend an hour each way in transit, though much of it will be on a freeway. Out-of-town media will be staying downtown which poses another unique set of transportation issues, including the light rail construction and confusing freeway access. At this rate the Phoenix metropolitan area is going to get slammed with negative impressions and press making it very difficult to attract future big events.

Unfortunately, the Super Bowl is not the only example of bad decisions. Fortunately, Mesa, which is considering building a water park near a sewage treatment plant, can still back out of the arrangement or relocate the project. Waveyard is a proposed water park including multiple surfing, whitewater and swimming pools, 2 hotels and office/residential space looks great on paper. Claims that it will use only as much water as an 18-hole golf course seem a bit optimistic. Even assuming that is true, a desert is an odd place to put a water park, especially since the Valley is facing an imminent water shortage just from growth. Then there is that sewage plant....

Such decisions really make you wonder about how officials make decisions around here. They obviously have the best intentions but that isn't enough. They need to think about what they are doing, not just the good they hope to do, but also the potential problems and risks. Constantly looking at the world through rose colored glasses is going to leave the Valley and those who love it with some massive black eyes.

A [Name] by Any Other [Name] is Not the Same

Being a girl with a boy's name, I can honestly say sticking with a name is worth it. Sure, there were times when I wanted a more ordinary name. That was before I realized having an unusual name increases the likelihood that I will be remembered and recalled, two very important things for a writer. I would think they are important things for an airport. too.

Right now there is a debate raging about whether Williams Gateway Airport in Mesa, AZ should be renamed Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. I don't think it should. Here's why:

There is nothing memorable about Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. Yes, it clearly identifies where the airport is and two of the markets it serves but that's it. If all airports were named after the markets they serve we wouldn't have JFK/Kennedy or LaGuardia airports in New York, O'Hare airport in Chicago, Logan airport in Boston, Epply airport in Omaha, Love Field in Dallas or even Sky Harbor in Phoenix. Obviously, having a non-locational name has not hurt these airports. In fact, they are among some of the most widely recognized airports in the country if not the world. If the goal of the proposed name change is to make the airport more recognizable and therefore more appealing to travelers, it seems like Williams Gateway Airport is as likely to achieve that as Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport is.

Phoenix is a popular destination, so there is some logic to including Phoenix in the name of the airport. Travelers, however, choose destinations for what they think they will find there. Unfortunately, there is no romance, emotion or even a strong image associated with Phoenix-Mesa. At best it sounds like some flat , rocky hill rising from a barren landscape the periodically destroys itself with fire only to be rebuilt. Not my idea of a fun place to vacation more than once.

The IATA (International Air Transport Association) code, which is the 3 or 4 letter code pilots and savvy travelers use to identify the airport will not change just because the name of the airport does. IATA is a global association and IATA codes are used to identify airports around the world, not just in the U.S. so changing an airport's IATA is far more complex and difficult than changing the airport's name. The code for the airport in Mesa is IWA, easy to remember if the name of the airport is Williams Gateway Airport. Not so easy to remember if the name is Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. The logical codes for Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, such as PMG (Brazil), PGA (Page, AZ), and PMA (Tanzania), are already assigned, making it unlikely the IATA code would change along with the name.

Name changes don't always stick. Even if they eventually do stick, it takes a long time for that to happen. For instance, it is not uncommon to hear Florida's Kennedy Space Center referred to as Cape Canaveral, even in the national media. (Cape Canaveral, by the way is still the name of the town located to the south of the Kennedy Space Center, but between 1958 and 1969, it was also the name of the NASA facility.) Closer to home, many people still call Piestewa Peak Squaw Peak and Piestewa Parkway, Squaw Peak Parkway, despite the fact that both were renamed to honor Arizonan Lori Piestewa, the first Native American woman to die in combat on foreign soil after she gave her life in 2003 while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Arguably, this name change was an improvement because it replaced a sexist and denigrating name with one that honors and exalts the contribution of the very groups (women and Native Americans) the original belittled. It will still take a generation to catch on. And what happens when somebody comes along in say 50 or 100 years and says "that name doesn't really tell people where the Peak or Parkway is, we should rename it Slightly East of Center Parkway"?

Okay, so Charles Linton Williams is not widely known among today's Arizonans or even today's Phoenicians. The legacy of Williams Air Force Base, which graduated more pilots and instructors than any other Air Force Facility before it closed in 1993, deserves to be remembered and honored and is still widely known. Renaming Williams Gateway Airport Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport accomplishes neither of these things. In fact, all the name honors is the transitory nature and attitudes expressed by so many modern Arizonans who have called the state home for less than a decade. It is a disservice, not just to the long-term residents of the area, but also to the traveling public. Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport adds nothing to the airport beyond making the airport easier to locate on a map, and let's face it, with MapQuest and Google maps it is easier to type in Williams Gateway, AZ than Phoenix-Mesa Gateway, AZ and the results are the same. If that is the only reason to change the airport's name, it is a poor one. Arizona is a young state with a young population. Let's treasure and preserve what history we have.

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Copyright 2007
Informed Ideas

More About Airport & Airline Attacks

In my last post, I noted that terrorist attacks against airports and airlines were rare in the U.S. Rare is an imprecise term, and on e of the problems I have with modern journalism is the overuse of general and imprecise terms surrounding important issues.

To be more precises: of the 554 terrorist incidents occurring in the U.S. since January 1, 1968, only 50 have been against airports and airlines, according to the data in the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) Knowledge Base. The 50 incidents include nine hijacking but not the attacks on 9/11. The events of September 11, 2001, which are listed as three separate attacks, are classified as an unconventional in the Knowledge Base because aircraft were used as weapons and the targets were business and government facilities. There have been eight terrorist incidents, including 9/11, in which unconventional tactics or weapons were used. They include the ricin attacks against news and government personnel in 2003 and 2004, the staking of trees by the Earth Liberation Front in 2001 and the lacing of two seedless grapes with cyanide in 1989.

The Knowledge Base does not track whether any of the individuals involved in the 50 actions against airports or airlines were or pretended to be airport or airline employees to gain access to their targets. It does indicate that airline and airport employees have been injured and killed in some of the incidents which resulted in injuries or fatalities. Injuries and/or fatalities were reported in only about 10 percent of the incidents.

It should also be noted that the only terrorist incidents recorded in the Phoenix metropolitan area was the arson and firebombing of a luxury home near Scottsdale's McDowell Sonoran Preserve in 2001 by ecoterrorist Mark Warren Sands. Similar arsons occurred in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson that same year.

The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism is a non-profit organization formed after the 1995 bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. It is dedicated to preventing terrorism on U.S. soil or mitigating its effects. The MIPT Knowledge Base is a resource for the research and analysis of terrorist incidents, court cases, groups and leaders around the globe that includes data from the RAND Corporation, the Terrorist Indictment database and Detica's research on terrorist organizations.

Click here for copyright permissions!
Copyright 2007
Informed Ideas