With the national and city elections over, retirement possibly edging out a 40 hour work week in a few years or less, a bass boat and motor home that have sat idle for the last 4 years because of the Activist, I have decided to retire the Scottsdale Activist to just occasional editions when needed to expose the stupidity of the city council, staff or developer underhanded "wants" which have not been exposed by other venues.

Yes, we know the Scottsdale Tribune will end in January and that did come into our decision, but we are also very proud that we apparently spawned a number of publications and websites that will continue to attack the nonsensical actions of the council should it be necessary in the future in our stead. They are all listed in the Activist which will remain on line without updates unless I email those on our lists that a critical update is on line.

This decision didn’t come easily but 4 years of the 50 to 100 hours a week it takes us to put the webpage together and on line, the cost which is really minimal for what we have accomplished, as well as a regular 40 hour regular job I hold down, the time is at hand and the staff is tired.

With the possibility of a new mayor and council, we feel it will be at least sometime after January before anything we can do anything about will happen, and we pray that the new council will decide to include the residents in the decision they make with openness and without the secrecy and underhanded, smoke and mirrors actions of the Manross Administration.

We pray Mary Manross has lost the race for mayor and we will openly attack her stupidity if she tries to challenge the County’s decision on the vote count; she has lost twice and to embarrass herself and the city even more after what she has done to the city with her illegal actions, what she said and called beloved City Matriarch Frances Young, and other acts of stupidity is unconscionable and the actions of a very egotistically sick person in our opinion.

Yes, we have been approached by a number of people who want to take over the Scottsdale Activist, but with the high amount of confidentiality we have maintained to protect city employees and higher level members of the city organization or those working with or for the city, there is no way we can allow that information to be given to anyone under any condition. In addition, our confidential employee contacts would never trust, call or ask for help from anyone else.

I have tied up all the web names tied to the Scottsdale Activist so no one can duplicate our efforts for the next 10 years so none of our confidential sources can be exploited.

To our confidential sources: I will still maintain and check my websites emails for comments from you to expose interworking of the city that are bogus and I will continue to be heavily involved in that aspect of keeping the city straight in that manner. My phone number is always available to you also on a very confidential basis as before.

Just because the Scottsdale Activist is going to an "as-needed" basis doesn’t mean I am going to leave you wonderful and dedicated city employees in a lurch. I can always put out a special edition of the Activist if needed to expose the problems as I have in the past or I can go to my inside contacts to verify and expose the issue internally without anyone knowing from where the information originated.

We feel we have served the city well and exposed many issues which have forced Manross & Company to rethink some of their decisions over the last 4 years.

We feel we were a moving force in Scottsdale by:

There are many other incidents that we can cite but those are the most known.. to date that is…..

I would like to personally thank Nancy Cantor, Mike Merrill, a couple people who have since passed, a number who have moved from the city, and many others who shall remain anonymous for various reasons for all of their help over the years we have been publishing the Scottsdale Activist.

I would also like to thank Craig J. Cantoni for trusting us to carry his columns every week. We've had excellent responses with a few negatives but his writings are very thought provoking and provocative which is needed in this day and age.

I also want to thank all of those who contributed to the Shout & Spout section of the publication, we couldn’t have uncovered some of the issues without your timely information.

For you Nay-Sayers who think we don’t have any readers, below is the chart from this last January to the first 3 days of November. Be aware that the site is a very simple design which consists of only one huge and long page, not a lot of pages which anyone who has tried to print it found out, so the hits are exactly that, the number of times the site has been "hit" or opened.

With deep appreciation and a heartfelt "Thank You" to all our loyal and treasured contributors and readers over the years.

George Knowlton, Editor
480-326-2475

This shows an average readership of over 13,000 "hits" per week which we're told is very good for a single subject, single city website.

Thank you again for your  Trust, Loyalty and Readership!!!

George

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We wish to thank mayor Mary Manross and her always compliant City Council Majority for the following:

We’re sure there are plenty of other examples we could come up with but just those above we have forced us to involuntarily visit the "Porcelain God" on too many occasions already.

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When I was a kid here in Scottsdale, in the 60’s, I would go with my dad who worked for the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette, to read the voting machines after the polls closed on Election Day.

Times were so much simpler…..Ah-h technology. Supposed to be faster and make life easier. Not when it comes to voting or worse yet, counting the votes.

May be we will have the final results for Scottsdale’s mayor and council race by the end of next week, because with this just in from "Maricopa County election central":

As of November 7, 2008, 4:55PM, Phoenix, AZ – Maricopa County Recorder, Helen Purcell, is posting another update for the November 4, 2008 General Election.  "We’ve processed and tabulated 51,481 early ballots today," according to Mrs. Purcell.  "We still have approximately 50,000 early ballots and 100,000 provisional ballots remaining to be processed and counted."

Here is the latest election posting update, November 8, 2008 at 5:43pm.  Updates can be viewed on the County Recorder’s website, www.recorder.Maricopa.gov.

Mayor 

W. J. "Jim" Lane        45,600 

Mary Manross              45,091 

               
City Council

Ron McCullagh         35,538

Lisa Borowsky          34,241 

Suzanne Klapp         32,560

Betty Drake                   31,477 

Tom Giller                      25,103   

Nan Nesvig                    21,906  

So anything said about the election at this point would be spoken out of turn.

Even when the election is all over, signed, sealed and delivered, don’t think for one minute that citizens can sit back and leave all decisions up to those elected as evidenced by recent past experience.

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 ~ Rude or Insulting Comments?

It has been said by a very few Mary Manross supporters that the Scottsdale Activist has been "Rude and made insulting comments" in some of the material posted concerning the City Council majority and the Mayor.

Gee, Really?? What do you do when your elected leaders refuse to listen to you, refuse to talk to you, refuse to attend your open community meetings, and then blindly dismiss the vast majority of residents that disapprove of the leaders decisions? Some times the only way to get the attention of ignorant or self-indulgent egotistical elected leaders IS to insult or berate them.

The Scottsdale Activist makes absolutely no apologies for such remarks or articles that were so richly deserved and so very timely.

If elected and appointed officials want to be treated properly and with due respect, they might want to return the treatment they wish to receive. This mayor and council majority is not and could never be of that ilk. They are too enamored with themselves and the developers they so heavily support, residents be damned.

All right! The big boss of the Scottsdale Activist is calling a time-out after almost four years of providing residents weekly in depth, validated information about their hometown and the people who make it run (or not!).

Yippee!!!!!!!!!! ................. I think.

Now I have oodles more time to give to the Housing Board and finding out why we have ignored the Housing and Neighborhood Elements of the General Plan and the 1999 Council adopted Housing Policy. (And not have someone calling me to remind me of a deadline…)

Now, too, some of us can get down to the nitty gritty of examining the General Plan Update process after years and years of no advanced planning taking place.

Since first being asked to serve on a City committee and attend community education conferences and classes by our late Mayor Herb Drinkwater, in 1986, I have been blessed to work with some really wonderful people.

Fellow citizens have provided much insight and camaraderie in seeking solutions to multi-faceted issues and along with staff it has been an overall good experience. Volunteering for service to my community has not been dismal.

Frustrating…..sometimes……but never dull.

With the Waterview/Solis project coming up for Council to approve and a number of other projects waiting in the wings the current Council and the one to be, need to hear the concerns of all residents. That goes for traffic and transportation, code enforcement, neighborhood safety, infill development, infrastructure planning, economic development, preservation of open space and neighborhoods, schools and education, and environmental policies.

That means everyone who reads the Scottsdale Activist, and you all can weigh-in on anything about Scottsdale that concerns you at citycouncil@scottsdaleaz.gov

Don’t stop there. The City Manager, and I pray that John Little will accept that job and drop the "interim" handle, needs to hear from you, too. Send him a message at jlittle@scottsdaleaz.gov

Don’t forget the "Shout and Spout" email address either, ‘cause it will be monitored, so I am told.

You have Mike Merrill’s email address? Ah, well here it is F8713@aol.com

Me? No problem, complaint or praise, all are important and I am: nancyanncantor@cox.net

I am off to play with the Grandkids and bake for the holidays and write about the first classical music radio station in Arizona…..no not KBAQ or KONC……back, back….you will just have to wait and see.

Keep your eyes and ears and minds open.

Peace.

Nancy Cantor
Chair, Scottsdale Coalition

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The Scottsdale of old, the Scottsdale spoken of world wide as THE family place to vacation is gone not to be easily revived thanks to the incompetence and favoritism shown developers by one Mary Manross and her list of cronies.

The town where a family could wander downtown without fear of being accosted by rowdies or drunks no longer exists. It wasn’t ruined by the resident’s, it was ruined by a lack of planning and understanding on the part of the Manross Administration and their blind drive and unbridled effort to selfishly build a legacy just for themselves.

The American Idol stars came to town and promptly left the "W" Hotel because it was too urban and not the "deserty" feel they thought they were going to get. They went to the Boulders in Carefree instead; so long tax dollars. We’ve heard that same thing about a number of other visitors. Don’t you suppose that word will get around? You can bet it will !!

Local hotels no longer have anywhere in Scottsdale to take their visitors. Instead they go to the Western Venue on the Fort McDowell Reservation north of the Verde River or the Pioneer Village off I-17 north of Cave Creek Highway for the Old West experience (which Scottsdale used to have in Rawhide) Manross allowed to get away from the city.

What used to be a world class destination for those looking for a western themed location has become a town of faddish and glitzy bars generally visited by "20 something’s" from other local cities.

The long term entertainment formerly enjoyed by those former vacationers which brought steady dollars to Scottsdale via sales tax dollars is gone.

Those of us who have lived in Scottsdale for 20 years or more have seen the city we love change from a sustainable family friendly city to one that cannot be sustained by huge numbers of glitzy, faddish bars and off site condo owners where average families are wanting for family activities and available shopping areas. Los Arcos is gone and Manross hasn’t provided anything or even an idea of how to replace the lost shopping or the sales tax dollars it represented.

Instead of Scottsdale, families need to go to Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler or the west side to find wholesome family activities.

The "20 Something’s" are generally college students or those from other cities where their actions are not tolerated. They are mostly a financial flash in the pan, who do not live in the city or pay local property taxes. They are a heavy liability due to drugs and other illegal activities and their visits are totally controlled by the economy.

"20 something’s" do grow up and start families. Scottsdale currently has nothing to offer those families concerning family entertainment venues.

When the economy sours, laws are strictly enforced, and the "20 Something’s" grow up, the bars will be forced to close and we will end up with a ghost town without any semblance of a plan from the current Manross Administration on how to rectify the situation or recover the lost sales tax revenue.

Yes. We have been very critical of Mary Manross and the City Council Majority and deservedly so.

No single person or group has done more to damage the city and its image than Mary Manross, the City Council Majority, and their developer friends from whom they took massive amounts of campaign dollars to cement the developer positions with the Manross group.

Former Mayor and beloved city legend Herb Drinkwater would be furious and outraged with what Manross has done to his beloved Scottsdale.

Should by some fluke Manross be re-elected, we will be even more verbose about her incompetence and failures by plastering her foibles, fact by fact, all over the city in any venue or media possible.

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We would first ask that the makeup of the DRB and Planning Commission be addressed with new recommendations which would include clauses that would disallow anyone on either board being involved directly or indirectly in any development or project in Scottsdale 6 months prior to, during or for 2 years following their service on said board or commission.

We would also like to see at least 2 knowledgeable but non-professional residents, one from the north and one from the south is among those appointed. It would also be requested that the City Council, not the Planning Commission or DRB have the final say as the DRB does now. These 2 entities have far too much power and are absolutely not representative of the resident wants and needs.

We would pray that the new council and mayor will understand the utterly disastrous folly and secrecy of the Manross years and quickly formulate a plan which will include reasonable and affordable retail additions to South Scottsdale (Centrovida, etc), not more unneeded high end condos or apartments which upset the residents and over-tax the infrastructure, with local residents fully involved in the planning process.

We need to hold the size of the downtown area to where it currently is without the massive increases in density and height proposed without the addition of new infrastructure that needs to be provided at the cost of the developers including Scottsdale Heath Care.

We have always been a family oriented city until the advent of Manross being elected mayor and we desperately need to reorient the city back to that goal. Family First !!!

We need to complete a total review of the plans, general and otherwise, for the entire city before we embark on any further approvals for expansion, height or density within the city limits with the inclusion of residents within a 3 mile radius being directly involved in the process. If developers really want to be a part of Scottsdale, rather than just a hit and run deal, they will wait for the new guidelines to be worked out. Those new guidelines will improve the image of the city and developers will clamor to be allowed to build what WE want built in our city.

The McDowell Corridor needs to be addressed and high end condos and such should not be part of the plan. We need to review the values of commercial land in the corridor and help get the values balanced back into acceptable numbers. The "sale" to ASUF and the purchase by the city for a value over twice the actual value by Manross has totally skewed the values and they need to be brought back into line for the sake of the owners, even if it means working with the Maricopa County Assessors Office to accomplish that goal.

We need to see the preservation and reawakening and use of the theme of Scottsdale which has been "The West’s Most Western Town" for the last 50+ years which has served the city well financially and otherwise during that time. Without a theme based on the history of any city, the city dies a slow undignified death and becomes just another Anytown USA because there are no identifiers for travelers to fix their travels upon.

We would also like to see the 80 acres at West World leased with an option to purchase to a company who will build a Western themed venue that will bring back the tourists and family vacationers who used to visit and use Rawhide as the center of their visit. This would provide the increase in sales and property taxes that Manross Administration has cost this city.

We would like to see a Tram similar to the one at Palm Springs as suggested by Jim Lane about a year ago that would travel from the Preserve Discovery Center to the top of the McDowell’s (Drinkwater Peak?).

We would like to see an observation area at the top of the tram run overlooking the entire valley with a 360^o panoramic view as well as a couple of inconspicuous "Green" restaurants, one for the high end and one designed more for families. All of these ventures could be built and run by outside industries with part of the revenue as well as the sales taxes generated coming to the city of Scottsdale. The draw for tourists and valley residents would be tremendous and lucrative financially.

We want the Preserve finished in a prudent and careful manner which would include fiscal responsibility commensurate with the needs of the rest of the city taken into consideration.

We don’t want to see an increase in density in the north as it has been designed to be a sparsely populated area and we see no reason to change that premise for any reason.

We demand the NAOS and ESLO area rules and regulations be enforced to the letter of the law and even strengthened if at all possible. We don’t want non-native plants added to areas that were specifically designed and set by law to be spared non-native plants many years prior to most of the developments in those areas.

We would like to see all development in the downtown area held to traditional Southwest Architecture with soft lines and colors which typify the southwest flavor. The outrageous designs currently offered do not say "Scottsdale" and are not desired by most residents who really care about the city’s history and future.

We don’t feel that we are asking for the impossible or unattainable levels of improvement in our city.

We just want what’s best for everyone, not just those with the ability to buy the election, or worse yet, buy a vote from a corrupt City Council, DRB or Planning Commission..

 ~ Letters to the Editor  

~Another look at the monstrous Dial building nearing completion at Scottsdale Rd/101. This is a total disgrace for Scottsdale. Remember that Manross/Berry etc. touted this development as being "WORLD CLASS" - I don't think so. It looks more like a concentration camp. Another fine example of how Scottsdale's growth has totally outgrown Manross's capabilities, exposed her gross ignorance, and her ties to developers.

~I am so embarrassed to be part of the voting public in Scottsdale. How can a candidate with no regard for the welfare of our citizens and city be elected? Money talks – that’s for sure.

~Hang on to that vote lead Jim Lane, we need to get rid of Mary Manross big time.

~ In a way, I was sorry to see Betty Drake lose, but in reality she will do the city far more good as an independent planner than as a council member and without the conflicts of interest which were unethical in my mind.

~ Is there the slightest possibility that the new council might be more in touch than the current council? It’s a waiting game but I hope and pray they are.

~ Watch that crazy egotist (Witch) Manross ask for a recount even though she will have lost twice! I guess with Larry not working in 3 years, they need her income to survive. But then I heard that ASUF was going to hire her to a Directors position for a possible ^$125,000 a year  based on her giving them the SkySong site if she lost : I dare them to try!!! There is a law against that you know.

~We are thrilled that Jim is leading Mary in the race, even if we did get shafted in the Council race. Maybe a new Mayor will help sway the thinking on Council.

~ I thought it was very surprising but interesting that COPP didn’t place even one of their endorsed candidates in the mayor’s position or the council. Could it be they have been outflanked by a larger population in the north and are not the power house they once were? Bob V has to be boiling.

~How long do you think it will be before the Chamber woos Borowsky into their corner? She announced at a recent forum that she is considering taking the Scottsdale Leadership, aka Chamber owned and operated organization program and probably paid for by that same chamber… hmmm. Ecton in sheep’s clothing.

~Maybe we will have hope of some true organizational leadership if Lane is elected. He is so close!

~Suzanne Klapp and Martha Ecton are buddies…how unfortunate.

~I wonder how Lisa Borowsky feels about winning just because of Daddy’s money? Oh probably fine with it as she likely has used that tactic throughout her life just to get ahead. Wonder why Daddy did not pay her defaulted law school loan at St. John’s? Oh wait…he did didn’t he?

~God help Scottsdale, prayer is all we’ve got left after this election.

~I can’t believe that Betty Drake is gone. What will the Activist write about now? Good job getting her ousted. She wasn’t doing Scottsdale or any of the citizens any good anyway.

~When do those stupid campaign signs come down? They are an eyesore! Maybe McCullagh could get off his lazy (butt) and be useful by taking them down being he’s the one with the bright idea to eliminate them which didn’t work.

~Watch out North Scottsdale. Mayhem has a way of spreading and with an out of control new Council, I bet you will see lots of "building" coming your way. Say goodbye to your beautiful open space and buildings that "blend" with the surroundings aka the Dial building.

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  Living in the Land of Oz

Well Ozites this is the end of the line for us in Oz as the "Wicked Witch" is GONE!

As all great stories go, there is always an end to the book, not to say there may not be some part 2’s when necessary, but for now it appears that this volume of Living in the Land of Oz has reached its end.

Many of our readers will be saddened by this news, but I hope they understand how much work is involved with running a site like this and George Knowlton should be commended for his work along with everyone else like Nancy Cantor and others who have worked to help George where we could to keep the site lively.

This Land of Oz did what everyone kept saying could not be done; remove the "Wicked Witch" from her throne. While the numbers are not a landslide it makes me think that for a change, a majority of our voters finally saw the light and turned on the evil leader.

Gone are the days of all the secret meetings and back room deals; or are they?

Gone is the Chairperson of MAG who gave away all of your tax dollars to other cities for light rail while our own traffic stagnates; or are they?

Gone are the times of having a leader who was a tyrant that belittled those who opposed her "vision" (or massive lack thereof) in open public meetings; or will we still see these actions continue?

Gone are the giveaways to developers who have to have these perks to make their project work, and only to their own benefit; or will they really be gone?

Gone are the days where communities have to worry about not having a say in matters of their community and their quality of life impacts; or are the days of worry really gone?

Lets face it Ozites, we have to wait to see what happens from here on out. Even though we got rid of the head of the snake, I am sure that we have not gotten all of it.

We still have the Manross bred "Craven Weasel" on the council and we will be keeping a close eye on him. There is a pretty good chance that if he screws the pooch again we could see a recall committee formed.

Some of us were a little to busy dealing with cutting off the head of the snake and did not have the time they wanted to really go after the "Craven Weasel" like we wanted.

We now have or could have another Chamber crony on the council in Suzanne Klapp. Now I do not have any problems with Suzanne, but the fact is she is not neighborhood oriented. She ran more on the basis of her business experience. Her lack of any comment on community and neighborhood issues is a thing that seriously bothers me.

She is the reason why I honestly believe that the community will not really see a change from the business as usual approach of the city.

We also now may have Lisa Borowsky and the issues with her are not so clear at all. No one had ever heard of her and she had never played a role in city politics with any issue other than her brothers strip club issue.

What is Lisa’s stance on the quality of life for mature communities and redevelopment? What is her take on height and density and where it should go? For that matter what is her stance on the issue of not allowing modernization of the Old Town areas?

The reality is "we have no clue" and she switched sides so often in forums on these subjects that no one who pays attention has any clue where she really stands on anything.

Let’s face it, we also got Jim Lane and I am still not so sure if this is a great thing to herald even though we did get rid of Manross. In reality, is Jim is still development ignorant? When it comes down to it, he’s not so community friendly either when it is business against community.

While we can breathe a sigh of some relief knowing that "Mary the Fairy" is gone, I am still not so sure that things are going to change for the better in this city and it is going to take some time to see what and how our new council will be voting.

The one thing they should all remember is that if we can unseat the Queen Mother after 16 years, we can surely unseat your patoots next time around and the majority of residents have now spoken to this matter.

While it is going to take some time to untangle all the crap we have had to deal with under the past leadership of Oz, I had a smile on my face when a friend of mine asked me this question.

"What is Mary going to do now that she no longer holds the thrown, spend more time with Larry?" I damned near spit my drink all over myself and it took me 10 minutes to stop laughing and nearly a whole minute to learn to breathe in again.

For all of the reasons above, I truly believe that while we may be closing shop it is not going to be for that long.

It is time for all of the people who worked the countless hours over the course of the last few years on this newsletter to take a much needed rest from this task as I think we all did an amazing job against tremendous odds.

Me? I am going to talk George into firing up the boat and heading to the lake to kick back and do some fishing.

Catch all of you when volume two rears its informative head.

Mike Merrill
"The Brutal Critic"
F8713@aol.com

What  would you do?.....you make the choice. Don't look for a punch line, there  isn't one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same  choice?

At a  fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning  disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that  would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school  and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do.  He cannot understand things as other children do. Where  is the natural order of things in my son?'

The  audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. 'I believe  that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled  comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents  itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.' Then he  told the following story:

Shay and I had walked past a park where  some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think  they'll let me play?' I knew that most of the boys would not want someone  like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if  my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of  belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his  handicaps.

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not  expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and  said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning I  guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the  ninth inning.'

Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a  broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye  and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being  accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few  runs but was still behind by three.

In the top of the ninth inning,  Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits  came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the  field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.

In  the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again.

Now, with two  outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay  was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay  bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was  given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because  Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with  the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher,  recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment  in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay  could at least make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung  clumsily and missed.

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss  the ball softly towards Shay.

As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the  ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game  would now be over.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could  have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.

Shay would have been  out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the  pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach  of all team mates.

Everyone from the stands and both teams started  yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Run to first!'

Never in his life had  Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down  the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, 'Run to  second, run to second!'

Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards  second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.

By the time  Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball, the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.

He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the  tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally  threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head.

Shay ran  toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the  bases toward home.

All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the  Way Shay'

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop  ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and  shouted, 'Run to third! Shay, run to third!'

As Shay rounded  third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet  screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!'

Shay ran to home, stepped on the  plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game  for his team.

'That day', said the father softly with tears now  rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of  true love and humanity into this world'.

Shay didn't make it to  another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero  and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully  embrace her little hero of the day!

AND NOW A LITTLE FOOT NOTE TO  THIS STORY:

We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a  second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices,  people hesitate.

The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely  through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency is too often  suppressed in our schools and workplaces.

If  you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you're  probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren't the  'appropriate' ones to receive this type of message Well, the person who  sent you this believes that we all can make a  difference.

We  all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the  'natural order of things.'

So many seemingly trivial interactions  between two people present us with a choice:

Do we pass along a little  spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave  the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said  every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst  them.

You now have two choices:

May your day be a Shay day!

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 ~ Cantoni Confab

It’s come to this. It had to come to this. But it’s still frightening that it’s come to this.

We’ve now reached the point in our nation’s history where tens of thousands of adoring fans of Barack Obama show up at his rallies to pay homage to coercion and to ask for even more of it. In a case of mass cognitive dissonance, they hate George W. Bush for the very same trait that they adore in their coercer extraordinaire.

Like GWB, the Chosen One wants to use government force to tell others how to live and to remake the world into his image. The only difference is that he wants to coerce different people and has a different image in mind than GWB did.

Ah, but in the self-righteous, sanctimonious minds of him and his acolytes, Obama’s goals are noble while GWB’s were ignoble. In their thinking, GWB wanted to bomb Muslims and enrich Big Oil. They, on the other hand, want to end poverty, provide free healthcare, achieve equal outcomes, and attain perfect fairness and social justice. And how do they want to do that? They want to do it by treating some folks unequally through unfair and unjust coercion, using the power of the IRS to take their money and redistribute it to other folks.

Hello, do they see the intellectual contradiction?

Of course, the coercers can live with the contradiction, because in their twisted minds, the victims of their coercion aren’t real people. They are caricatures of evil. They are greedy mortgage lenders, fat-cat CEOs, red-necked racists, selfish white suburbanites, rich people born into privilege, and right-wing Republicans. It’s a story as old as the human race: justify coercion by demonizing the other group.

Well, my 88-year-old mom must be a demon. Why else would they want to raise the capital gains tax on her investments and increase the estate tax on her estate?

The problem is, she is a real person, not a caricature. Orphaned as an infant, she was raised by her immigrant aunt and uncle, who worked as a waiter. She worked in clerical and secretarial jobs all of her life, and her husband, my deceased dad, worked in blue-collar jobs all of his. But, oh, did my forebears ever know how to save money. They scrimped so that their progeny, generation by generation, could climb the socioeconomic ladder, finally reaching the rung where my son is the first in the family tree to have the financial wherewithal to attend an Ivy League university, should he desire to be brainwashed in socialism and multiculturalism like Obama.

In heaven’s name, what moral justification is there for using force against an 88-year-old woman? Why do they want to spit on my mom’s dreams? What kind of brainwashing and mob mentality can get people to do things as a group that they wouldn’t do as individuals?

The accolytes don’t even realize that force begets force. When Group A gets in power and uses force against Group B, Group B will retaliate when it gets in power. Or, speaking as an Italian-American, mess with my mom and I’ll bash your face in if I ever get the chance.

The nation’s intellectual elites, most of whom love coercion if it is of the leftist kind, wonder why politics has become so nasty and partisan. Hey, egghead, it’s because you can’t mind your own business.

Speaking of eggheads, a professor is now advising Democrat members of Congress to confiscate 401(k) savings, because, according to her deficient math skills, the rich get a bigger tax break than the poor under that provision of the tax code. It doesn’t dawn on the yolk-for-brain professor that she is advocating coercion to solve an imagined problem that was caused by coercion in the first place. The 401(k) provision exists only because income is taxed twice, once as wages and then again as savings. Do away with the coercive tax on savings and there would be no need for subsequent coercion. There also wouldn’t be a need for armies of bureaucrats, accountants and lawyers to regulate, administer, and litigate the 401(k) provision.

The professor must be confusing America with Argentina, which has recently confiscated private retirement savings to fund the country’s bankrupt treasury.

Her confusion is understandable. Once it became widely accepted by the American public that it is okay to use government force for every purpose imaginable instead of for only the legitimate purpose of protecting life, liberty and property, the yellowed parchments under glass in the National Archives would no longer keep man’s genetic desire for power and control in check.

Coercion isn’t a slippery slope; it’s a cliff of sheer ice. One step in its direction, for whatever high-minded or low-minded reason, and it’s nearly impossible stop the fall and turn back, especially without the ice ax and cleats of the Constitution.

Almost all of American politics is now about coercion---about some group that wants to use government force against another group to achieve some end, usually to take the other group’s money for themselves or their pet cause. Of course, the coercers don’t put it that way and never use the word "coercion." Tellingly, the media on both the left and right don’t use the word, either, perhaps because they haven’t been educated to think in terms of coercion.

Why would they be educated about coercion? After all, the government monopoly on K-12 education isn’t going to educate students about coercion when it is an institution based on coercion. In fact, the founders of the public education movement wanted to use public schools to coerce Catholics to learn WASP ways, including learning the King James Bible.

The indoctrination is so complete that the word "coercion" has almost totally disappeared from public discourse, although coercion is what Barack Obama and the rest of Congress embrace.

In 1984, George Orwell wrote that the aim of Newspeak was to "make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it." Similarly, coercion doesn’t exist in the public’s mind, because the word has been removed from the American lexicon.

An author and columnist, Mr. Cantoni can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.

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 ~How to tell if you’re in the mainstream of American thinking

Are you in the mainstream of American thinking? Do you have what it takes to be a member of Congress, president of the United States, reporter, pundit, K-12 teacher, college professor, or other trusted influencer or leader? Do you have the proper view of government, the economy, and other subjects?

To find out, take the following 10-question test.

Good luck!

Business profits average about six percent of national income and keep the nation from having an economy like Cuba’s. Federal, state and local governments consume about 44 percent of national income, versus only 12 percent in 1930.

Therefore, which of the following should be reduced?

a) Corporate profits

b) Government spending

If you selected "a," you’re in line with mainstream thinking. Congrats! You get a free subscription to USA Today or a comic book of your choice, whichever you can read without moving your lips.

All of the experiments with collectivism in this country, such as the communitarian communities of New Harmony and Oneida, quickly failed due to the inherent fatal flaws of central planning and the collective ownership of property. Similar experiments by nation states have resulted in tyranny, mass starvation, and widespread poverty.

Therefore, what is best for the nation?

a) More collectivism

b) Less collectivism

Correct answer: "a." If this was your answer, you should think about applying for a job at The New York Times.

Governments intentionally killed over 100 million people in the twentieth century alone. Industry accidentally killed a tiny, tiny fraction of this number and actually saved more lives through life-saving inventions and discoveries.

To take just one of many examples of government-caused deaths, consider what happened during the Great Influenza of the second decade of the twentieth century. Private medical doctors and institutions warned the government that the influenza would spread and kill thousands if the government went ahead with a war bond parade in Philadelphia. The government heartlessly went ahead with the parade.

What is the greatest threat to life, then?

a) Business

b) Government

Correct answer: "a." Many people who have chosen this answer actually have experienced the terror of Ronald McDonald putting a gun to their head and forcing them to buy a Big Mac.

Medical care and medical insurance are much more costly than they would otherwise be, due to the government virtually destroying a consumer market in healthcare over the last 66 years and shifting costs to third parties.

What should be done to make medical care/insurance more available and less expensive?

a) Nationalize all remnants of a consumer market.

b) Restore a consumer market.

Correct answer: "a." Wow, your intellect is awesome if you got this one correct. No doubt, in order to be intellectually consistent (you know what that means, right?) you also want the government to nationalize the food industry and require all Americans to eat at government commissaries. Burp! Excuse me.

The federal government is insolvent and is printing money to hide the fact. In addition, it has over ^$60 trillion in unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare, or over ^$700,000 for each American under the age of 18.

What should be done about this?

a) Give Americans more free stuff and entitlements.

b) Give Americans less free stuff and fewer entitlements.

Correct answer: "a." You should run for office if you got this one right.

Note: You’re halfway done. If you happen to be failing the test, don’t despair. You can turn the situation around by burning your extensive library of history, philosophy, and economics books, especially economics books by Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, and Thomas Sowell. Replace the books with mainstream reading material, such as Newsweek, high school textbooks, and college lectures. You should also watch a lot of network news and 24/7 cable news. In short order, you’ll be getting the questions right.

Inflation is an insidious, hidden tax. In the 137 years from 1776 to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, inflation averaged almost zero. Since 1913, inflation has increased dramatically, especially after the gold peg was removed. In the last half-century, the dollar has lost about 90 percent of its value, and the money supply has increased by about 3,000 percent. Along with government housing policies, easy money was the primary cause of the latest housing bubble and subsequent collapse. Government printing presses are now running red hot to pay the cost of the bailout. High inflation will inevitably follow the current economic downturn, thus penalizing savers, who are the backbone of a healthy economy.

Can you trust the government with your money?

a) Yes.

b) No.

Correct answer: "a."

This alternative answer is also correct: "Ah doesn’t unnerstan’ this hyah talk about inflatin’ mah truck tars no mo’e then ah unnerstan’ Gomer aftah he gits into the white lightnin’."

Fatherless families are a leading cause of poverty, school dropouts, crime, emotional problems, and such grammar as the previous sentence. And a leading cause of fatherless families is men who walk away from their parental responsibilities and encourage the mothers of their children to "marry" the state instead of them.

Therefore, what government action would have the highest payoff in reducing poverty, school dropouts, crime, and emotional problems?

a) Increase spending on welfare, K-12 education, child care, tutors, and psychotropic drugs.

b) Remove the incentives for men to walk away and for women to marry the state.

Correct answer: "a."

George W. Bush increased federal spending more than any president since Lyndon Johnson. In terms of regulations, his administration set a record in 2004 for proposed and enacted rules published in the Federal Register --75,000 pages. His increase in regulatory spending in 2003 of more than 24 percent broke a 50-year record. In all, he increased regulatory spending by 68 percent during his two terms. Oh, yes, before becoming president, he made millions from taxpayer-subsidized baseball.

What does this make him?

a) A cowboy capitalist whose cutting of regulations was responsible for the mortgage meltdown and economic crisis.

b) A big-government statist like the Democrats.

Correct answer: "a." If you selected this answer, you have a wonderful ability to disregard facts. Are you a journalist?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt protracted the Great Depression with his cornucopia of new regulatory agencies. Previous economic busts and banking crises were short-lived by comparison. Canada’s banking system was less regulated but fared much better than the U.S. system during the Great Depression. In 1992, the highly regulated Swedish economy and banking system experienced a housing meltdown and economic crisis similar to the situation in the U.S. today.

What is the primary cause of today’s housing meltdown and economic crisis?

a) A lack of regulations.

b) An assumption perpetuated by the government that home prices would always go up, although they’ve gone down in 50 of the last 100 years.

Correct answer: "a."

Barack Obama would get a perfect score on this test, for he would choose answer "a" for all of the preceding questions.

Did you vote for him?

a) Yes.

b) No.

If you answered "a" to the above and to every other question, you are solidly in the mainstream.

If you answered "b" to every question, that explains why you feel like a stranger in a strange land. It also explains why you yell at the TV, mutter at the newspaper, are seen as a crackpot, and are thinking of emigrating.

Incidentally, I failed the test.

An author and columnist, Mr. Cantoni can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.

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~ Information You Can Use

Just click on the logos below to go to these websites.

Send our Brave Troops "Something from Home", Click on  Links below.

Gathering of  Eagles Website was launched 2/9/07. Click on the Logo above for more information on how they are protecting America's Memorials.

~ UPDATE!! A "Must See" for All Americans

Every American should check out all of these websites to learn more about what the American population is about to have to deal with.

This is NOT for Children.

I don't normally allow anything but Scottsdale information in the Scottsdale Activist but after receiving many emails about this and viewing it, I think that it's imperative that every adult at least look at what's offered here if for  nothing more than their own education and to have everyone stop and think about the future of our country. Click on the link below,

 www.obsessionthemovie.com

If you don't have Adobe Flash, install it from the bottom of the page that comes up after you click on the link above. You should be able to view all available links within the main page.

The website below is of great interest as seen from a Lebanese point of view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8fa9yKQeTY

The website below gives some history of Terrorist attacks:

http://patriotfiles.org/civilizationcalls.htm

This website tell you what REALLY happened:

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened

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~ View Past City Council Meetings

We can now access the city council meetings by clicking on the following link:

If you have any problems, check your firewall and other safety features which could block access to the city site.

~Continuing Light Rail Information

The Scottsdale Citizens Transportation Study Committee invites you to view their website for more questions and answers at  www.norailforscottsdale.com .

================================================================

Simply click on the links below to get all the information you'll ever need concerning Light Rail.

     Goldwater Institute Report

     American Dream Coalition

    The Public Purpose

If you have any questions about light rail, send them to editor@scottsdaleactivist.com and we'll get the answers to you as soon as we can.

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~ For Continuing Information on Photo Radar,
Click on the Logo below.

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 ~Are Red-Light Cameras Fair to Drivers?

These modern-day robocops make ticketing easier and can be huge moneymakers for local governments. But critics question their accuracy and fret over privacy issues.

Click on the link below , then scroll down to read the article:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourCar/AreRedLightCamerasFairToDrivers.aspx

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