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Clippity Clop
A loyal Flashophile passed along an interesting fund-raising letter mailed to Arizonans by the School CHOICE Trust. The trust is soliciting money to grant scholarships to poor kids who want to attend private schools. Nothing wrong with that. It’s an admirable goal. The fact that Arizona grants a tax write-off up to $500 for such contributions is perhaps one point worth arguing about, but that’s a different Flash altogether.
The stationery includes a listing of the School CHOICE Trust’s board of directors, including the founders, John and Isabelle McVaugh. Other board members include Wally Estfan, president of the Diocese of Phoenix School Board; Jeffry L. Flake, former bomb-thrower for the Goldwater Institute turned congressional candidate; Jay Heiler, “Consultant,” former right frontal lobe to J. Fife Symington III. No surprises there.
The inclusion of Dr. Jeffrey Singer, the medical marijuana proponent, is a fascinating choice for the board.
The trust’s advisory board also contains many familiar flat-earthers such as U.S. Representative Matt Salmon and former deputy state attorney general Steven Twist.
There are a couple of curious names on the advisory board, too, including former secretary of state Richard D. Mahoney, a Kennedy Democrat, and — holy school prayer, Batman! — Lisa Graham Keegan, Arizona’s elected schools chief.
Proponents of school vouchers are nothing if not relentless. It’s clear that they’ve adopted the Trojan horse approach by infiltrating the public school bureaucracy with an eye toward undermining and dismantling it from the inside. Graham Keegan is apparently happy to take the bit in her mouth.
Income taxes that go to organizations like School CHOICE Trust will not go into the state general fund, where they are expended on such trivialities as public schools. Graham Keegan, who is often mentioned as a future gubernatorial candidate, apparently likes seeing the funding pool for public schools shrink. It might also explain why she testified in court against Apache Junction’s move to impose school impact fees on homebuilders. It all makes perfect sense, provided the goal is to further starve Arizona’s public schools.
Lisa, babe, last we checked, your official title was Superintendent of PUBLIC Instruction.
That’s PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, not DESTRUCTION.
Lone Wolf
The Mexican Gray Wolf recovery program in eastern Arizona has suffered another setback with the unexpected retirement of the project’s coordinator, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist David Parsons.
Environmentalists say Parsons joined the federal early-retirement program, then reapplied for a position to continue directing the wolf recovery program with the understanding he would be hired back.
“Though he was the only person to apply for the job . . . the Fish & Wildlife Service refused to hire him back,” the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based environmental group, said in a statement.
Parsons, who could not be reached for comment, is a widely respected wolf researcher who steered the recovery program through stiff political opposition. He oversaw the release of the endangered wolves in 1998 in the Apache National Forest near Alpine.
“I have never met anybody who could balance politics and biology better than Dave could,” says Dave Groebner, a biologist with the Arizona Game & Fish Department who works on the wolf recovery project.
Groebner says Parsons took early retirement to generate savings for the recovery program, since a portion of his salary upon rehiring would be paid by his pension.
“We are still hoping to get him back,” Groebner says.
That seems unlikely.
Fish & Wildlife Service spokeswoman Vickie Fox says Parsons was offered a temporary position with the agency to train a successor, an offer she says Parsons turned down.
“He solely made the decision to retire,” Fox says. “We will be hiring a new coordinator sometime in the future.”
Fox also had high praise for Parsons. “Dave did an incredible job with the project. Because of his hard work, we won the case with New Mexico Cattle Growers Association,” she says. Last month, a federal judge ruled in favor of the Fish & Wildlife Service and a coalition of 12 environmental groups that were challenging an attempt by New Mexico ag interests to halt the wolf reintroduction program.
Parsons’ departure comes at a critical juncture. He was heading a study into whether to begin releasing wolves in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico, a site environmentalists say is more remote and safer for the wolves than in Arizona, where five wolves were shot in 1998. No wolves have been shot this year, although several pups have died from disease. Last month, an adult female was found dead about 100 yards from a highway. Officials have not determined the cause of death, but it doesn’t appear to have been from gunfire, Groebner says.
The Fish & Wildlife Service is proposing to move wolves that already have been released in Arizona to the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. The plan, however, is still several years away from being implemented, Fox says. Wolves are currently released in a “primary recovery zone” in the Apache National Forest in Greenlee County. The wolves can migrate into a secondary recovery zone, which is located to the east in New Mexico. However, most of the wolves released to date have stayed in Arizona. There are 21 wolves, including 13 pups, roaming in five packs throughout the mountains and canyons along the Arizona and New Mexico border. Fish & Wildlife Service plans to release additional wolves this winter with the goal of having 100 Mexican gray wolves reestablished.
But the agency is rounding up wolves in the “Pipestem Pack” that are suspected of killing cattle. The Southwest Center says the wolves should be left in the wild.
“In removing the wolves, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is affirming the 100-year-long domination of public lands by private corporations. Native wildlife should not be punished for preying on corporate cattle,” the center says.
The roundup has proved disastrous thus far. Six wolves, including the alpha male and three pups, were captured and returned to captivity in July. The three pups subsequently died of parvo. Two members of the original pack, a female and her pup, still remain in the wild. Fish & Wildlife Service intends to round them up as well, potentially exposing the one remaining wild-born pup to parvo.
There is a program to compensate ranchers who lose livestock to wolves.
Tough Love, Doggy Style
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. Get Out, you say. Well, yes. We’re not talking about the “my dog ate our old logo” joke in the page-three message from the editor, explaining why last Thursday’s edition of the Tribune Newspapers’ Get Out looked different. (We didn’t notice either.) We’re talking about that dog of a special section on how even Gen Xers need to be tough in today’s world. So what’s it take? Well, you got your tattoos, you got your Harley-Davidson motorcycles, you got your cardio kickbox class (your place to practice WWF moves, even), your rugby club, your list of sissy-free gyms, your list of scary foods, including your jar of . . . pickled eggs! You got everything but your penis-extension advertisements. Scariest: We couldn’t detect a whiff of irony anywhere.
It’s Fun to Play at the MCAO
Not every citizen of the fine County of Maricopa has the privilege of receiving a copy of The Prosecutor, the official organ of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. But those who are — the Flash included — were delighted to see the accompanying photo in the September 1999 issue. Creative morale-builders that they are, the folks at MCAO honored some longtime employees — people with 20 to 25 years on the job — by printing a photo of them doing their best Village People impersonation. Is it the Flash’s imagination, or does the “A” guy seem less than enamored with their heady recognition? The Flash also wonders how the MCAO humiliates 30-year employees. Are they hypnotized and made to act like chickens? In any case, thank heavens the photo includes actual letters these loyal workers are representing. The Flash would have been lost without them.
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