Michael Bryan

By Tom Prezelski

Re-posted from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

The cameras have largely left, but this week, we were reminded that the story of our Little Ukraine On The Virgin River continues. First, there were reports that militiamen (largely from other states), having stayed behind after the standoff and apparently lacking anything else to do, have been harassing the locals and demanding their papers. There also came word of infighting among the various militia groups camped out at the Bundy Ranch, a predictable result considering that we are talking about a movement where every man fancies himself a colonel.

To the media’s credit, reporting on this story has largely made it clear that this insurrection was not an isolated incident, but merely a fairly extreme manifestation of a long-standing conflict between rural westerners and a Federal government which they simultaneously depend upon and rail against. While most would trace this back to the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s, those more familiar with the history of the western states see this current running back into the 19th century. Folks who want insight into the roots of this might do well to check out two books, one a scholarly history and the other fiction, about a spectacular crime that occurred in Arizona in 1889.

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By Tom Prezelski

Re-blogged from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

The last few weeks have been tough on anyone who still believes that the media should have a serious role in the public dialogue in Tucson.

First, city staff proposed a budget that axed Access Tucson and left the city’s Channel 12 “restructured” and without a home, apparently so the building that houses both of them can be sold to a developer, leaving Tucson without a public-access cable station and severely limiting citizen access to City Council proceedings. Next came the news that the Tucson Weekly, which recently celebrated 30 years of independent journalism, has been sold to an out-of state firm with “a record of decimating publications they acquire.” (Here is where someone points out that the same outfit also acquired Inside Tucson Business, but, considering that ITB is little more than a Chamber of Commerce organ that has been giving schmucks like Lionel Waxman column space for years, its demise would be no great loss.) Finally, Arizona Public Media announced that Arizona Illustrated, a local institution since 1980, will be put “on hiatus” until June. This move will mean that our local public broadcasting system will be almost entirely without local public affairs content, with the exception of a few minutes of headlines at the beginning of NPR programming and, of course, whatever Arizona Spotlight can fit in-between self-indulgent essays and profiles of out-of-town artists during its weekly half-hour on the radio.

As if to remove any doubt that things are in a downward spiral in this regard, local CBS affiliate KOLD decided to observe the 2-year anniversary of the disappearance of Isabel Celis with a “special report” in which reporter Som Lisaius asked famed Phoenix-area psychic Allison DuBois for “insights” into the as-yet unsolved case.

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By Tom Prezelski

Re-Posted from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

It is actually an old story, but it has gained some currency due to the highly visible StartUpNY campaign out of the State of New York’s economic development office. We have all seen the ads. One of them features an outfit called Valutek, who recently  left Arizona for Upstate New York.

Valutek, a firm that manufactures products for the cleanrooms used in research and high-technology manufacturing, in moved their corporate headquarters from Phoenix to Albany three years ago, just as the current economic development initiative was starting in the Empire State. It was also a year after Arizona passed a budget that included the largest cuts to higher education in American history. The timing is not mere coincidence, as reported by the Albany Business Review:

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