Illustration by Cody Angell
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday August 27, 2003
From forest fires to terrorist threats, recall elections to gas shortages, UA students had a lot to talk about when they returned to school this week. We asked our columnists: What was the issue that ruled your world this summer?
Raging inferno was hot story this summer
It's amazing how a spectacle can be devastating and beautiful at the same time.
Nevertheless, the Aspen Fire that raged through the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson this summer was just that. Engulfing our treasured mountains in flames, this massive forest fire was the focus of all our attention for weeks. During the day, it covered our city with an eerie cloud of smoke. At night, the eastern end of the mountain sat behind Tucson like a giant volcano.
We couldn't stop watching, because of both the destruction it caused and the amazing visual display it provided.
Before the fire moved to the south side of the mountains and while it was still hidden on the north side, hardly anyone in Tucson paid it any attention despite the severity of the inferno. But when the flames threatened homes in Ventana Canyon, bumper-to-bumper parked cars lined normally empty roads in the Tucson foothills into the early hours of the morning.
The desert southwest, usually immune from natural disasters, was in the heat of things. Trees were lost, homes were destroyed and animals died. Mt. Lemmon's Summerhaven, once a treasure high above the city, will never be the same.
Arnold is running for governor
When trying to remember everything that happened this summer, I couldn't help but think of the fires that scorched the mountains north of Tucson, a very important ruling from the Supreme Court, the death of Saddam Hussein's sons and a number of other stories that made this a very busy summer. To be honest, however, there was only one that really lingered, one that instantly became a topic of conversation everywhere in the country and the butt of many jokes. I am of course talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to run for California governor.
After a summer-long debate on whether or not he would run if the recall of current governor Gray Davis went through, he decided to throw his hat into the ring. Everyone had an opinion one way or another and regardless of how you feel about his campaign, you can't help but smile at the thought of "Ahhnold" running California. I keep waiting for the "coming to theaters near you" tag at the bottom of his campaign signs to go along with the one-liners that made his movies famous.
Despite the comical nature of this thought, this is truly a great story of the American Dream: A young body builder from Austria comes to America with nothing but huge muscles and a funny-but-lovable accent, makes millions in show biz, marries into the Kennedy family (as close to American royalty as there is) and now looks to be the next governor of California. This story has it all.
SARS, West Nile Virus ruled the season
This summer it was the battle of the bugs that got my attention. SARS infected thousands and had amazing financial impact; it drove North American airline bookings to Hong Kong down by more than 85 percent and at one point cost Canada an estimated $30 million a day in U.S. tourist dollars. At home, we tried desperately to avoid mosquitoes even more than usual; by last week, West Nile virus had infected 470 Americans.
Perhaps because the viruses have caused so few U.S. deaths, they've become one of our favorite things to worry about through special preventative lectures and statements. More importantly, they've inspired numerous tasteless jokes, such as "I'm feeling a bit West Nile-sy today" and my personal favorite: "My Panda Express tastes like SARS" ÷ that is, when the Student Union food court is actually open · (ahem).
Hey, it's best to take precautions, right? Which reminds me of the great advances in insect repellent technology I've been hearing about on television all summer, such as a "Mosquito Control Device" which imitates the beating of dragonfly wings, "the mosquito's most feared enemy," according to the ad. Mankind demonstrates its dominance yet again. Yeah buddy. I'm ordering one for every room in my house. No, make it two.
The devastation of our mountains
Nothing this summer overshadowed the tragic loss of more than 80,000 acres of forest and more than 300 buildings in the Catalina Mountains to a fire most likely started by human hands.
For those who didn't grow up in Tucson, the Catalina Mountains and Mt. Lemmon in particular are an enormous part of our community, even though they are a day trip away from the city. No native Tucsonan is without memories of family picnics on Mt. Lemmon, ski trips to the Ski Lodge, hikes in the pine-needle-covered forest or spending the weekend at a friend's cabin.
Sadly, prolonged drought combined with nearly a century of poor forest management led to the most destructive fire in Southern Arizona in recent history. Since the early 1900s, fire suppression has been the rule of thumb for the Catalina Mountains ÷ a habitat that must have small fires during droughts to prevent megafires. Despite our greatest efforts at fire suppression, nature got its way in the end, as it always does.
If this fire has taught us anything, it's that small fires must be allowed to burn and we must take fire danger warnings seriously.
Supreme court affirms racism
In the recent Grutter v. Bollinger case, the Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action plan, ruling that racism is an acceptable method for selecting students to be admitted to publicly funded universities.
According to Dr. Raudenbush, the Law School's own expert, if affirmative action had not been in place, 71 percent of the underrepresented minority students admitted in 2000 would have been turned away; more qualified students would have taken their places. Ability is being traded for diversity of skin color.
If there are three underrepresented minority students admitted for every one that deserves admission, shouldn't minorities at least be forced to pay extra tuition for the luxury of easy admission? Of course not, those who hold a double standard say they should get this benefit without bearing its cost.
When one pays tax, the amount paid is dependent on the amount of money one earns, not on one's skin color. Public universities are supported heavily by these tax dollars, but the people allowed to use these facilities can be selected based on their race. Why are people to be treated equally when paying, but not when receiving?
Until skin color is entirely eliminated as a factor in college admissions, only the competent and deserving will be underrepresented and overcharged.
Governor river rafts while Bush visited AZ
As a native Arizonan, there is nothing cooler than taking a river trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.
That is, except one thing ÷ when your governor takes her vacation in the Canyon and refuses to come out to visit the President of the United States.
This is what happened: On Aug. 11, President Bush included Tucson in his "Healthy Forest Initiative" tour. It was nice of the President to manipulate the charred Mt. Lemmon as a convenient backdrop for his pro-logging political objectives. Obviously the President did not give a rat's ass about the residents of Summerhaven, or he would have been here when the fire was raging. Just as President Bush avoided witnessing the protesters who assembled to greet him, Governor Janet Napolitano opted to run the rapids instead of greeting Bush.
Not only does our state leader choose the Grand Canyon over a vacation in some generic place like some warm island with a sandy beach, but she also officially gave the President the shaft.
It has been a long time since Arizona has been lucky enough to have a governor who truly cares about our state. Finally, Arizona is the calm state flanked by crazy politics. We have California and their hundred-plus candidates for governor to the west and New Mexico, the haven for state Democrats sneaking out of Texas, to the east.
But here our governor slipped away to love Arizona in the most intimate way, by venturing down the River.
