Tucson Weekly, October 1, 2020

CHOW: Sonoran Restaurant Week Will Whet Your Appetite for Local Dishes

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Fresh Hope Atop Hell’s Backbone An excerpt from Mort Rosenblum’s new book ‘Saving Our World From Trump’ CURRENTS: Board of Supes Showdown

DANEHY: Names on a Ballot

HOPE

SAVAGE LOVE: Collective Conundrums

FAITH

STRENGTH

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OCT. 1, 2020

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STAFF

CONTENTS CURRENTS

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In the race for Board of Supervisors, voters have a clear choice between District 1 candidates

FEATURE

An excerpt from Mort Rosenblum’s new book Saving Our World from Trump

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CHOW

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Sonoran Restaurant Week sees 30 local restaurants offering specialty and regional dishes

ADMINISTRATION Jason Joseph, President/Publisher jjoseph@azlocalmedia.com

EDITOR’S NOTE

Comings and Goings

IT’S TIME FOR ANOTHER GOODBYE here at Tucson Weekly. I’m sad to note that staff reporter Kathleen B. Kunz is leaving us to explore a possible career in the legal field. Kathleen came on board with us while she was still a senior at the UA School of Journalism after we were impressed with the work she did as an intern. She’s covered cops, education, evictions, local government and a whole lot more in the two years she’s been here. We wish her the best of luck as she sets out on her next adventure.

Before she departs, though, Kathleen has a swan song for us: She brings us a report on the race between Republican Steve Spain and Democrat Rex Scott for the District 1 seat now held by the retiring Ally Miller on the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

Coming on board to replace Kathleen this week is Nicole Ludden, who graduated summa cum laude from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism earlier this year. During her college years, Nicole worked as a features reporter and fact-checker at the Arizona Republic, an investigative reporter with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism and a borderlands reporter for Cronkite News, among other accomplishments. While working on her high school newspaper, Nicole “fell

Jaime Hood, General Manager, Ext. 12 jaime@tucsonlocalmedia.com

in love with being able to write for others by amplifying their voices through my journalism.” We can’t wait to see what she does for us.

Elsewhere in this week’s edition, we bring you an excerpt from UA journalism professor Mort Rosenblum’s new book, Saving Our World from Trump. Mort is a longtime foreign correspondent who has taken his vows of objectivity seriously—but Trump’s presidency has been enough to make him break those vows. Rosenblum looks at Trump’s environmental record in “Fresh Hope Atop Hell’s Backbone.”

You’ll also find Tom Danehy’s column taking a look at some of the odd names on this week’s ballot; managing editor Austin Counts previews what you can taste at a whole bunch of restaurants during Sonoran Restaurant Week; Cannabis 520 columnist David Abbott looks at what’s happening with certification centers during the pandemic.

A final note: If you’re interested in voting this year, make sure you’re registered by midnight on Oct. 5 or else you’re out of luck!

Jim Nintzel Executive Editor Hear Nintz talk about the latest news on Wednesday mornings during The Frank Show on KLPX, 96.1 FM.

RANDOM SHOTS By Rand Carlson

MMJ

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Certification clinics face a new business environment

Cover design by Ryan Dyson

Casey Anderson, Ad Director/ Associate Publisher, Ext. 22 casey@tucsonlocalmedia.com Claudine Sowards, Accounting, Ext. 13 claudine@tucsonlocalmedia.com Sheryl Kocher, Receptionist, Ext. 10 sheryl@tucsonlocalmedia.com EDITORIAL Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor, Ext. 38 jimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com Austin Counts, Managing Editor, Ext. 36 austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Jeff Gardner, Associate Editor, Ext. 43 jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com Mike Truelsen, Web Editor, Ext. 35 mike@tucsonlocalmedia.com Nicole Ludden, Staff Reporter, Ext. 42 nicolel@tucsonlocalmedia.com Contributors: Lee Allen, Rob Brezsny, Max Cannon, Rand Carlson, Tom Danehy, Emily Dieckman, Bob Grimm, Andy Mosier, Xavier Omar Otero, Linda Ray, Margaret Regan, David Safier, Will Shortz, Jen Sorensen, Eric Swedlund, Mark Whittaker PRODUCTION David Abbott, Production Manager, Ext. 18 david@tucsonlocalmedia.com Louie Armendariz, Graphic Designer, Ext. 29 louie@tucsonlocalmedia.com Ryan Dyson, Graphic Designer, Ext. 26 ryand@tucsonlocalmedia.com CIRCULATION Alex Carrasco, Circulation, Ext. 17, alexc@tucsonlocalmedia.com ADVERTISING Kristin Chester, Account Executive, Ext. 25 kristin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Candace Murray, Account Executive, Ext. 24 candace@tucsonlocalmedia.com Lisa Hopper, Account Executive Ext. 39 lisa@tucsonlocalmedia.com Tyler Vondrak, Account Executive, Ext. 27 tyler@tucsonlocalmedia.com NATIONAL ADVERTISING VMG Advertising, (888) 278-9866 or (212) 475-2529 Tucson Weekly® is published every Thursday by 13 Street Media at 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona. Address all editorial, business and production correspondence to: Tucson Weekly, 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona 85741. Phone: (520) 797-4384, FAX (520) 575-8891. First Class subscriptions, mailed in an envelope, cost $112 yearly/53 issues. Sorry, no refunds on subscriptions.

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TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

OCT. 1, 2020

DANEHY

TOM HAS SOME THOUGHTS ON THE BALLOT AHEAD OF THE START OF EARLY VOTING

By Tom Danehy, tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE, BUT EARLY voting starts next week. Mail-in ballots will be sent out and people can vote in person at early-voting sites. I ran into one of my neighbors at the mailboxes the other day.

She told me that she was going to vote on the first day possible. When I asked her why, she said, “I want to make sure my vote is in just in case I die before Election Day.” That’s some serious Americanism going on there. We chatted for a while and, using uncharacteristically colorful language for someone of her bearing and erudition, she made it abundantly clear against whom she would be voting.

I’ll be voting in person on Election Day, which means that I will probably be mistaken for a MAG-got. I’m actually hoping that I get approached by one of Junior’s “army” of poll watchers. I guarantee he will be amazed at how quickly an old white man can whip out the STFU, using the perfect Richard Pryor inflection as I do so.

While much of the attention will understandably be focused on the races for president and senator, there are other things cooking that should not be ignored.

The Arizona House of Representatives has had a Republican majority since 1966.

CLAYTOONZ By Clay Jones

That’s crazy. In fact, between 1992 and the present, Republicans have held the governor’s office and both the House and Senate in 20 of those 29 years. But this year, the Republicans hold a slim 31-29 edge in the House and there’s a decent chance that it could flip to the Democrats for the first time in forever.

I decided to look at some of the races for the State Legislature and, just for the heck of it, judge some of the people just by their name. Jumping out immediately is Billy Bragg in District 29. First of all, Billy Bragg sounds like he would be the faithful teenage sidekick to a super hero from the Golden Age of Comics. He is NOT to be mistaken for Billy Bragg, the English punk/folk artist and political activist.

It would be so much cooler if that Billy Bragg were running for the Arizona State Legislature.

Unfortunately, this Billy Bragg is an African-American Trump Republican, which carries with it numerous layers of sadness.

I mean, if this guy showed up at a Trump rally, some inbred guy named Dewey would look over and say, “Wait a minute!

Didn’t you die from the COVID after the Tulsa rally?”

Also running as a Republican in District 29 is a woman named Helen Fokszanskyj-Conti. Really. So, you’ve got a last name like Fokszanskyj. (I tried to pronounce it, but I just threw up my hands and screamed the first syllable.) Anyway, you’ve got a name that maybe 10 people in the country can pronounce, one that ends with “k-y-j,” and you decide to become a hyphen person? As James Coburn said in Payback, “Man, that’s just mean!”

In District 25, there’s a Dem named Suzanne Hug. Meanwhile, District 14’s incumbent is Becky Nutt.

There’s a Democratic hyphen person in District 15, Kristin Dybvig-Pawelko. I’m fairly certain that she didn’t meet her husband online because those dating-service algorithms have secret instructions. If they come across somebody with a name like Dybvig or Pawelko, they can only match them up with a Smith or a Jones. To her eternal credit, her website says “Kristin Dybvig-Pawelko. Difficult Name. Easy Decision.”

In District 10, on Tucson’s far East Side, there’s a Republican candidate named Mabelle Gummere. Imagine if she were in the Army, standing at attention, and the officer called her name, “Gummere!” So, she takes a couple steps forward and gets yelled at to get back in line. That would never get old.

Oh, and in District 11, there is Oro Valley’s own Mark Finchem, who disgraces himself on an almost-daily basis. Apparently, “Finchem” is Hillbilly for “moron.”

There are a couple other races that are decidedly lacking in humor. In District 20, Shawnna Bolick is running for reelection.

When she filled out her paperwork to be on the ballot, she intentionally put down the wrong address, that of a private mailbox service. What she did was against the law and should have disqualified her from running. But the Arizona Supreme Court said that it would let her slide this one time and then added that their decision had nothing to do with the fact that HER HUSBAND IS ON THE SUPREME COURT! Well, OK then.

And then there’s the saga of long-time legislator Sylvia Allen, the White Mountain crackpot who said, among other things, that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that attending church on Sunday should be compulsory; and that higher birth rates for Latinos is leading to the “browning of America.”

Allen lost her primary race to heavily funded Wendy Rogers, who is kinda like the Wicked Witch of the West, only with fewer redeeming qualities. Rogers may be even crackpot-ier than Allen. Plus, despite the fact that she has lived in Tempe for the past quarter-century, for the sake of this election, she is claiming that she lives in a 600-square-foot mobile home in Flagstaff.

Her carpetbagger status may give the Democrats an opening.

Finally, there’s the Republican candidate in the Senate District 4 race—Travis Angry.

Aren’t we all? ■

TWO IN ONE

OCT. 1, 2020

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

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Kinsey, points to the 2018 election, when Democrats for the Arizona Legislature, several statewide offices and Congress outIn race for Board of Supervisors, voters have polled their Republican opponents.

Scott has beaten the political odds in the clear choice between District 1 candidates past. He got his first taste for public service

By Kathleen Kunz in his 20s when he served as a Republican kathleen@tucsonlocalmedia.com on the city council in Athens, Ohio. After resigning from his second term and moving THERE’S A VISIBLE SYMBOL OF to Pima County, Scott worked as a middle the differences between the candidates for school teacher for eight years and then bethe District 1 seat on the Pima County Board came an administrator for 19 years working of Supervisors: face masks. in Flowing Wells, Amphitheater, Marana COURTESY PHOTO Republican Steve Spain thinks the idea and Tucson public school districts. Along Republican Steve Spain (left) and Democrat Rex Scott are in a race to replace the of wearing a “rag” on your face is “stupid,” the way, he switched parties, leaving the retiring Ally Miller on the Pima County Board of Supervisors. while Democrat Rex Scott sees them as GOP and becoming a Democrat. a necessary tool to combat the spread of He sees parallels between his work as a more comfortable going to church because date in place until local conditions warrant COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that had everybody in there is wearing a mask, then lifting it. To advocate for any other position public school administrator and the superinfected more than 25,400 Pima County resvisor position and described them both as it’s worth wearing it because right now this is dangerous, selfish and irresponsible.” idents, 622 of whom had died after contractroles that oversee the provision of services The two candidates are vying to replace country—this world—needs more prayer ing the disease as of Monday, Sept. 28. to his constituents. Scott believes he can than most any other time.”

Republican Supervisor Ally Miller on the During a Republican primary debate in bring a valuable perspective to the board, But Scott puts his faith in public health Pima County Board of Supervisors in DisJune, Spain told an audience that homesomeone who has “learned the needs of this trict 1, which includes Marana, Oro Valley, officials who say that masks are one of the made face masks are ineffective and can community through the eyes of its children.” most effective ways to reduce the spread of the Casas Adobes area and the Catalina cause hypoxia, which is a lack of enough Since the coronavirus pandemic began Foothills. The district is home to roughly COVID-19. oxygen to sustain function in a person’s “If we had put a nationwide mask man56,000 Republicans, 53,100 Democrats and earlier this year, Scott has been largely supmuscle tissue.

42,500 voters unaffiliated with the two major portive of the decisions the board has made date in place back when the virus first hit “There is one place where I’m willing to and how the county health department has parties. our shores, we wouldn’t have a quarter of wear a mask, and have consistently now Despite that voter registration disadvan- worked with community stakeholders on the global cases and deaths, even though we since this whole thing started, and that’s are only 4% of the world’s population,” Scott tage, Scott believes he can pull off an upset a church,” Spain said. “If one person feels CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 said. “Pima County must keep its mask man- victory. His campaign strategist, Adam

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TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

OCT. 1, 2020

FRESH HOPE ATOP HELL’S BACKBONE An excerpt from Mort Rosenblum’s new book ‘Saving Our World from Trump’ BOULDER, UTAH – ATOP HELL’S Backbone Road, a spectacular mountain road to pretty much nowhere, two of America’s better angels see hope for an awakened America with a clear sense of what “great” means.

Up here in crisp piney air, Blake Spaulding and her friend, Jen Castle, show what is possible. But after nearly four years in Trump-polluted purgatory down below, it is clear that recapturing the soul of America will take far more than electoral victories.

“We have to realize that this planet is the best spaceship we could ever have to traverse the cosmos,” Blake told me, “and if we don’t trash the place, we can have some fun along the way.”

True enough. The challenge is beyond a change of leaders. We need to fix America and rejoin a wider world to steer our spaceship planet onto a wiser course. This is our last chance to heed a warning from Justice Louis Brandeis more than a century ago: “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. But we can’t have both.”

Boulder, population near 200 since 1890, was once the most remote settlement in the lower 48 states. Until heroic crews carved a gravel road and bridged a deep gorge in 1933, it was a two-day burro trek from the nearest town. Electricity arrived only in 1947.

Now a paved highway snakes along a narrow spine 29 miles past Escalante above rock sculptures that reach to the horizons.

It’s not for the faint-hearted. Icy winter snow or a badly handled curve can send you hurtling down 1,500 feet on either side.

Blake and Jen pitched up in 2000 after catering raft trips down Colorado River rapids in Arizona. Boulder lived mostly Old West-style, heavy on beans and beef. Soon, devotees drove days to bump elbows with locals around the fire at their Hell’s Backbone Grill.

Dishes like “dreamy creamed Swiss chard” and Buddhist prayer flags at first befuddled conservative Mormon families whose forebears pioneered the place. But Blake and Jen made friends fast, and they got a liquor license for a well-stocked bar and wine cellar.

They added a six-acre farm to produce 160 crop varieties on impossible high-desert soil: fields of staple grains, gardens of exotic greens, and trees bursting with fruit. Along with an online shop, they kept an energized

strip mining our planet, our mother. We have a responsibility to save it for future generations and to do right by contemporary indigenous people.”

When Trump savaged the two monuments, then Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters, “This is not about energy.” He denied repeatedly that mining was planned.

But the area is rich in coal deposits. And Energy Fuels Resources (USA), America’s only uranium processing plant, sits just outside of Bears Ears.

The Washington Post obtained documents that debunked Zinke’s alternative facts. The American subsidiary of a Canadian company had lobbied hard for more land to allow easier access for radioactive ore. Andrew Wheeler, its chief lobbyist, now runs the EPA. Theodore Roosevelt signed the AntiquiCOURTESY PHOTO ties Act of 1906, used 100 times by presiGRAND STAIRCASE-ESCALANTE NATIONAL MONUMENT dents to designate national monuments or protect land with “significant natural, cultural or scientific features.” It is not clear kept much of the plunder at bay in courts.

Boulder buzzing. whether later presidents can rescind that The grill closed in 2020 before COVID-19 But another four years of Trump would could find its way up Hell’s Backbone. Now destroy rich heritage from the Alaskan wilds protection.

But Trump bulls ahead. From Interior the menu, including The Dinner Jenchilada, to Florida coastlines.

Secretary David Bernhardt on down, he has is takeout or served on the patio. Indoor appointed lawyers and lobbyists who before dining will likely return, but much of the NATIONAL MONUMENTS, UNLIKE joining government worked hard to open wilderness splendor around it may be soon parks, are multiuse; local authorities are be gone. required to hear public comment, but noth- public land for private use. And official spin In one of his last acts, Barack Obama ing defines how. Early in 2017, Blake rose at misleads much of the electorate.

Headlines hailed the bipartisan Great established the Grand Staircase-Escalante dawn and drove two hours to be first in line American Outdoors Act, which Trump just National Monument. A year later, Donald for a hearing at the Garfield County seat of signed into law. Essentially, it only replaces Trump cut its 2,000 square miles by half and Panguitch. funds approved in 1965 to maintain national slashed 85 percent off Bears Ears National Known to be articulately outspoken, she Monument, Bill Clinton’s legacy across the was excluded from the few allowed to speak parks that were diverted elsewhere over the years. mountain. for a measured minute. In Boulder, when I Senators Cory Gardner of Colorado and Blake joined environmentalists to block asked what she would have said, she made Steve Daines of Montana, fighting to keep the decision in court. A lawsuit is pending. her minute count: Meantime, prospectors, ranchers and devel“We are ever more disconnected as our opers are moving in with plans that would society’s pace accelerates and mechanizes. obliterate ancient Native American ruins on The only way we can remember we are huland sacred to a dozen Indian tribes. man animals is to spend time in nature, to Utah exemplifies the reality of Trump’s delight in actual quiet, hear bird songs and repeated boasts about streamlining regula- become friends with plants. If we need this tory bureaucracy. That guts the EPA, the U.S. now, in 50 years when I’m long gone, we will Forest Service, the Army Corps of Engineers need it way more.” and agencies that have protected water, air, Grand Staircase-Escalante, she said, biodiversity and wildlife for generations. shelters 665 distinct species of wild bees, An executive order in July weakened the a crucial component of its ecology. That’s 50-year-old National Environmental Policy one example. When you tear out chunks Mort Rosenblum is a longtime foreign correspondent Act to limit public review of government of nature’s elaborate web, expect eventual for the Associated Press and a professor of journalism permits. It followed 100 rollbacks of federal calamity. at the University of Arizona. This article is excerpted rules, which are badly needed as climatic “There are endless reasons to save it, and from his new book, Save Our World From Trump. Find changes wreak increasing havoc. the reason to destroy it is for outdated fossil more of his work at mortreport.org.

Conservationists and Indian tribes have fuel and minerals,” she concluded. “We are

OCT. 1, 2020

popular Democrats from taking their seats, pushed the bill. Environmentalists liked it, but ranchers and agribusiness didn’t.

Trump signaled he would veto it.

Gardner, visiting the White House, pointed to a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt and played on Trump’s vanity. The bill would allow him to emulate a beloved Republican who championed the great American outdoors. “Put it on my desk,” Trump said.

Mitch McConnell reluctantly plucked the bill from his dead-letter pile, badly in need of those Senate seats. Trump affixed his signature with great fanfare, declaring himself to be the greatest environmental president in more than a century.

In fact, Trump’s hit list for opening public land to coal mines, oil drilling, and other private exploitation amounts to more than 13 million acres, nearly the size of West Virginia. He has yet more plans to entrench an oligarchy that allows him free rein.

ROBERT REICH’S SLIM TOME,“THE System: Who Rigged It, How We Fit It,” exudes hope. The key, he writes, is waking up voters to just how badly democracy has been crippled.

In 2016, the richest one-hundredth of 1 percent of Americans accounted for 40 percent of campaign contributions. That

bought a tax cut, which increased the federal debt by $1.9 trillion. Next to nothing trickled down. Stock buybacks sent the Dow soaring.

“The problem is not excessive greed,” he wrote. “If you took the greed out of Wall Street, all you’d have left is pavement. The problem is the Street’s excessive power.”

Senators raise tens of millions for a job that pays $174,000 a year. Half work as lobbyists when they leave office. In one passage, Reich quotes Trump in 2016: “’I give money to everybody, even the Clintons, because that’s how the system works.” To which Reich adds, “Those might have been the most honest words ever to come out of his mouth.”

Countless examples, from reprehensible to outrageously corrupt, show staggering unjust inequality. Poor people lose homes for a missed payment. Taxes bail out corporations that lose multiple billions. CEOs make 300 times their worker’s wages.

One answer is graduated taxes, as in all other wealthy nations. For the über-rich, money is how you keep score. For those living week to week, it is no game. America’s richest 0.01 percent—160,000 households— owns as much as the bottom 90 percent.

The poorest half of the nation controls just 1.3 percent of its wealth.

Amazon paid no income tax for two years. Its 2019 bill was 1.2 percent of a $13.1 billion net profit. That year, Jeff Bezos joined 180 CEOs of the Business Roundtable to pledge fairness to all stakeholders, employees and customers included. Weeks later, Whole Foods cut health benefits to part-time workers, saving what Bezos earns in two hours.

Another answer is cutting through bullshit. The book is framed as a reply to Jamie Dimon, who was stung when Reich criticized him. Dimon said he was a patriot before being CEO of JPMorgan, a Democrat who did much for the impoverished.

Yes, Reich agreed, but he is also dangerously deluded.

“Socialism,” Dimon wrote in his 2019 letter to shareholders, “inevitably produces stagnation, corruption and often worse – such as authoritarian government officials who often have an increasing ability to interfere with both the economy and individual lives – which they frequently do to maintain power.”

Was he listening to himself? Big money is about profit only for shareholders and huge risks guaranteed by the public treasury. In short, corporate socialism.

Capitalism is for proletariat. Social democracy, hardly a Soviet gulag, is simply a fairer

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

capital economy.

When Adam Neumann dreamed up WeWork as an office-sharing company in 2010, JPMorgan lent him enough to buy buildings but also a $60 million jet, large estates in Westchester County and the Hamptons, a $27 million Bay Area home and a fancy Manhattan residence, along with toys like a quarter-million-dollar Maybach car.

WeWork lost $2 billion in 2018. Neumann was forced out before an IPO in late 2019 with a $1.7 billion severance package and a $46 million a year job as consultant. Thousands of employees faced layoffs, compensated by worthless stock options.

Reich’s book skirted the big question: How much time is left to fix America?

Fierce lightning ignites drought-stressed forests. In California, fires burned a million acres in the first half of 2020, including 5,000-year-old redwoods. Inland hurricane-force storms devastated 10 million acres of corn and soybean in Iowa. It will get worse.

With so many crises at home, few Americans look beyond our insulating oceans. The threat is not a world war but rather countless unstoppable small ones.

And now, more than missiles, the danger is microbes.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

Avoid the lines at polling places and the possible spread of COVID-19 when you vote this year.

Request ballot by mail

by Oct. 23.

Return by Oct. 27 or drop off at any early voting site starting Oct. 26 or polling place on Election Day.

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OCT. 1, 2020

popular Democrats from taking their seats, pushed the bill. Environmentalists liked it, but ranchers and agribusiness didn’t.

Trump signaled he would veto it.

Gardner, visiting the White House, pointed to a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt and played on Trump’s vanity. The bill would allow him to emulate a beloved Republican who championed the great American outdoors. “Put it on my desk,” Trump said.

Mitch McConnell reluctantly plucked the bill from his dead-letter pile, badly in need of those Senate seats. Trump affixed his signature with great fanfare, declaring himself to be the greatest environmental president in more than a century.

In fact, Trump’s hit list for opening public land to coal mines, oil drilling, and other private exploitation amounts to more than 13 million acres, nearly the size of West Virginia. He has yet more plans to entrench an oligarchy that allows him free rein.

ROBERT REICH’S SLIM TOME,“THE System: Who Rigged It, How We Fit It,” exudes hope. The key, he writes, is waking up voters to just how badly democracy has been crippled.

In 2016, the richest one-hundredth of 1 percent of Americans accounted for 40 percent of campaign contributions. That

bought a tax cut, which increased the federal debt by $1.9 trillion. Next to nothing trickled down. Stock buybacks sent the Dow soaring.

“The problem is not excessive greed,” he wrote. “If you took the greed out of Wall Street, all you’d have left is pavement. The problem is the Street’s excessive power.”

Senators raise tens of millions for a job that pays $174,000 a year. Half work as lobbyists when they leave office. In one passage, Reich quotes Trump in 2016: “’I give money to everybody, even the Clintons, because that’s how the system works.” To which Reich adds, “Those might have been the most honest words ever to come out of his mouth.”

Countless examples, from reprehensible to outrageously corrupt, show staggering unjust inequality. Poor people lose homes for a missed payment. Taxes bail out corporations that lose multiple billions. CEOs make 300 times their worker’s wages.

One answer is graduated taxes, as in all other wealthy nations. For the über-rich, money is how you keep score. For those living week to week, it is no game. America’s richest 0.01 percent—160,000 households— owns as much as the bottom 90 percent.

The poorest half of the nation controls just 1.3 percent of its wealth.

Amazon paid no income tax for two years. Its 2019 bill was 1.2 percent of a $13.1 billion net profit. That year, Jeff Bezos joined 180 CEOs of the Business Roundtable to pledge fairness to all stakeholders, employees and customers included. Weeks later, Whole Foods cut health benefits to part-time workers, saving what Bezos earns in two hours.

Another answer is cutting through bullshit. The book is framed as a reply to Jamie Dimon, who was stung when Reich criticized him. Dimon said he was a patriot before being CEO of JPMorgan, a Democrat who did much for the impoverished.

Yes, Reich agreed, but he is also dangerously deluded.

“Socialism,” Dimon wrote in his 2019 letter to shareholders, “inevitably produces stagnation, corruption and often worse – such as authoritarian government officials who often have an increasing ability to interfere with both the economy and individual lives – which they frequently do to maintain power.”

Was he listening to himself? Big money is about profit only for shareholders and huge risks guaranteed by the public treasury. In short, corporate socialism.

Capitalism is for proletariat. Social democracy, hardly a Soviet gulag, is simply a fairer

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

capital economy.

When Adam Neumann dreamed up WeWork as an office-sharing company in 2010, JPMorgan lent him enough to buy buildings but also a $60 million jet, large estates in Westchester County and the Hamptons, a $27 million Bay Area home and a fancy Manhattan residence, along with toys like a quarter-million-dollar Maybach car.

WeWork lost $2 billion in 2018. Neumann was forced out before an IPO in late 2019 with a $1.7 billion severance package and a $46 million a year job as consultant. Thousands of employees faced layoffs, compensated by worthless stock options.

Reich’s book skirted the big question: How much time is left to fix America?

Fierce lightning ignites drought-stressed forests. In California, fires burned a million acres in the first half of 2020, including 5,000-year-old redwoods. Inland hurricane-force storms devastated 10 million acres of corn and soybean in Iowa. It will get worse.

With so many crises at home, few Americans look beyond our insulating oceans. The threat is not a world war but rather countless unstoppable small ones.

And now, more than missiles, the danger is microbes.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

Avoid the lines at polling places and the possible spread of COVID-19 when you vote this year.

Request ballot by mail

by Oct. 23.

Return by Oct. 27 or drop off at any early voting site starting Oct. 26 or polling place on Election Day.

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TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

OCT. 1, 2020

TWO IN ONE

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

safety protocols and reducing the risk of spreading the virus.

However, Scott was critical of the supervisors when they established new public health regulations on businesses. He said the supervisors rushed the process and did not consult with the business community first to see if the regulations could be “reasonably implemented,” so they had to later revise their regulations after complaints from business owners.

Scott pointed out that Gov. Doug Ducey instructed all school districts to work with their local health departments to make decisions about reopening. He has heard from several school superintendents that they are working “hand in glove” with the county health department to determine when it’s best to do on-campus instruction.

Scott praised Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francisco Garcia and Public Health Director Dr. Theresa Cullen for providing their expertise to the county during this critical time.

While Scott is pleased with the county health department’s work on business and K-12 school regulations in the era of COVID-19, Spain believes local government needs to “back off” and let people return to normal daily activities. He said that Pima County has hindered the community’s ability to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I genuinely believe listening to so many medical experts, so many educational experts around the world and here within this country: kids need to be back in the class-

rooms,” Spain said. “Kids are suffering from depression, there’s a higher rate of committing suicide, it’s really time to get the kids out from behind a screen and back in front of their friends. They’re safer that way.”

He also believes the county’s Back to Business Task Force is ineffective, and that the best thing Pima County can do is stop controlling how businesses operate.

“We’ve got the state of Arizona issuing its guidelines, we’ve got the CDC issuing its guidelines, unless there’s some extremely exigent circumstance, Pima County really doesn’t have the expertise to add much to that.”

Spain was born and raised in Green Valley, Arizona and began his career in hospitality after graduating from the University of Arizona. He worked in IT for hotel chains such as Westin and Marriott. Spain said he enjoyed the work for many years and then took a severance package and has been doing local consulting since then.

Spain said he met with Supervisor Ally Miller at the end of last year when he found out she was not seeking re-election. They talked about the responsibilities of being a supervisor and the skills that are required.

He said they discovered his skillset as an IT expert fit in well with the role, because they are both analytical by nature. Spain said he has saved companies lots of money through “cleaning up contracts” and he is excited by the opportunity to go over road construction contracts.

Spain is “perpetually frustrated” with the deterioration of county-maintained roads in District 1. He said the county only spends about a third of the money they have to put toward road maintenance, and the rest goes into the General Fund.

“I will push unbelievably loudly and hard to ensure that we spend every bit of that to dig ourselves out of this hole that we’ve dug and get our roads at least in queue to get better,” Spain said.

Scott agrees with Spain when it comes to roads. He noted that 70 percent of all of the roads in unincorporated Pima County are in “poor or failed condition.”

Scott predicts that the COVID-19 pandemic will have a significant impact on the county’s budget, and he offers his 23 years of experience CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

OCT. 1, 2020

CHOW

COURTESY PHOTO

For Sonoran Restaurant Week, 30 Tucson restaurants are celebrating what makes local food special.

SAMPLER PLATE

Sonoran Restaurant Week will whet your appetite for local dishes

By Austin Counts austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com

Reese. About 81 percent of restaurants that participated in last year’s inaugural celebration saw an increase in sales, according to Reese. She’s expecting a SONORAN RESTAURANT WEEK returns this Friday at more than two doz- great turnout this time around despite coronavirus concerns keeping some en establishments and features a wide restaurateurs hesitant about allowing variety of cuisine from the best culinary dine-in service. minds our city has to offer.

“It’s a little smaller this year since This year’s event has teamed up with the Tucson City of Gastronomy to feature there are some restaurants who haven’t reopened yet,” Reese said. “We have just the organization’s certified restaurants over 30 restaurants participating but we such as Boca Tacos y Tequila, Hacienda think it’s actually a pretty good turnout, Del Sol and Reforma Modern Mexican, considering the times.” along with local foodie institutions like Several local restaurants are using this El Charro, Feast and Saguaro Corners as they prepare special three-course menus year’s event to welcome guests back to their dining rooms as the effort to reopen at a nominal price range of $25 to $35. dine-in service in county eateries begins The deals run Oct. 2 through Oct. 11. this weekend. Tito and Pep chef and As an added bonus, guests have the owner John Martinez said he is excited option to order their three-course meal to-go and enjoy it in the comfort of their to return to a modified dine-in experience during restaurant week. The owner own home, said event organizer Laura

closed his doors on March 16 amid the pandemic and only returned to take-out service in mid-May. “A restaurant is something that is intended to be communal,” Martinez said.

“Having been in a restaurant without people in the dining room is an odd feeling.”

Martinez plans to solely feature his three-course menu during the 10-day event to help get back into the swing of things, he said.

“It’s a great opportunity to partner with Sonoran Restaurant Week and to welcome guests back into our restaurant,” Martinez said. “I think it’s also a good way to get ourselves back into dine-in service and test the waters.”

While Tito and Pep’s special menu is still being finalized, Martinez said he plans to feature dishes that complement late summer and early fall flavors, like green corn tamales paired up with grilled Sea of Cortez shrimp. Expect a lot of seafood on the upcoming restaurant week menu, said the owner.

“We love seafood here and I want a change of seasons. I know it’s officially fall, but it’s still pretty warm in Tucson,” Martinez said. “My menu is almost like a wedding—something old, something new—so we’ll be bringing back some of my favorites.”

Another favorite of restaurant week is back: The Cup Cafe at Hotel Congress.

The establishment is set to reopen Thursday with the majority of its seating to be located on the patio. Senior marketing and events manager Dalice Shepard said restaurant week is an excellent way to experience Tucson’s culinary scene without depleting your bank account.

Shepard also said the offerings on their menu will accommodate carnivores and vegans alike. Their menu will feature mesquite crab cakes or chickpea fritter lettuce wraps, roasted tomatillo and toEnjoy Evenings on the Patio!

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

9

mato salad with a prickly pear vinaigrette and grilled pork loin in mole sauce or vegan Sonoran sopes.

“We were a part of Sonorant Restaurant Week last year and it was a great way to introduce people that maybe hadn’t dined with us at Cup Cafe to come down and try our select menu,” Shepard said.

“The great part about restaurant week is it’s budgeted and you know what you’re spending before you get there. It makes a perfect night out.”

One of the best reasons to be a part of restaurant week is the amount of promotion these establishments get just for participating, said Shepard. Reese’s firm, Storyteller PR, along with local tourism promoters, Visit Tucson, go above and beyond to make the 10-day event a success, according to Shepard.

“There is so much marketing, public relations and push to all of the restaurants that are involved with Sonoran Restaurant Week,” Shepard said. “It’s just a win for all of these restaurants to have another organization out promoting for them and encouraging people to try places they haven’t in the past.”

Sonoran Restaurant Week also benefits the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona. This year, participating restaurants are donating gift cards that will be used for future fundraising events sponsored by the food bank.

“This event raises awareness to all the good work the community food bank does in our community and encourages everyone to donate to them and support their mission,” Reese said. “Given the current circumstances, our challenge this year is to duplicate all the success we had last year by providing a unique experience for the community and continue to support the community food bank.” ■ Check out sonoranrestaurantweek.com for more details.

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TUCSONWEEKLY.COM

OCT. 1, 2020

Medical Marijuana

BOOM AND BUST While dispensaries see sales increase, MMJ certification businesses may need to find new model

By David Abbott david@tucsonlocalmedia.com THE DISPENSARY SIDE OF THE medicinal cannabis industry has flourished during the pandemic, but what about those docs who provide the recommendations that allow people to get a license to use marijuana?

These certification clinics have weathered the coronavirus but face a challenging future now that patients only have to review their cards every two years and the possibility that voters may legalize weed for recreational purposes.

While there has been a huge increase in pot sales during the lockdown and a wave

of new MMJ patients, certificate providers are likely going to have to find a new way of doing things in order to survive in a yetto-be-defined marketplace.

The Arizona Department of Health Services provides monthly reports on the MMJ industry tracking information including monthly and cumulative amounts of pot sold, but AZDHS also tracks certification trends.

At the beginning of 2020, there were 230,892 total active cards, with 223,285 allotted to individuals, or qualifying patients.

At the beginning of the pandemic in March, the number of qualifying patients increased to 230,317, and by the end of August, the most recent data available, that number had ballooned to 269,030, an increase of more than 38,000 people with legal access to weed from the beginning of the year.

But even with all the new patients, certification centers are seeing a drop in business. Part of that is the new rule extending the life of cards to two years, but part of it may be some people are expecting voters to approve Prop 207, which would legalize recreational use.

There are several business models in the state, from clinics with multiple offices and

a stable of doctors to individual docs juggling the business side with patient care.

Tucson’s Tumbleweeds Health Center has seven doctors working as independent contractors, as well as six employees and a handful of volunteers.

Business owner Kim Williams says Tumbleweeds, which is nearing its nineyear anniversary and is one of the oldest certification centers in the state, has not been hit as hard as some providers, but business is down given the current environment.

“We’re still in the game,” Williams said.

“The snowbirds are not snowing in and with COVID and Prop 207 on the ballot, it’s been a perfect storm.”

Much of Tumbleweeds’ business in the past few months has been patients seeking new cards, but she thinks that aside from snowbirds delaying return, patients that should be renewing cards are holding off in case Prop 207, Smart and Safe Arizona, passes.

To that end, Tumbleweeds has devoted an entire section of its website to outlining the differences between what’s allowed for recreational pot and what patients stand to lose should they give up their cards.

“Once people realize the differences, they’ll stay with medicinal, which helps

them maintain rights and privileges they won’t have with legal,” Williams said.

For example, MMJ patients are allowed 2.5 oz a month instead of just one ounce under Prop 207 and it can be in any form.

Recreational possession in amounts over one ounce would be prosecuted as a felony.

Among the other differences noted on the Tumbleweeds’ web site: Without a weed card, packages for edibles packages will be limited to 100 mg and each piece can’t have more than 10 mg.

Dr. Reeferalz is another popular clinic, with five locations in the Phoenix metro area and one in Tucson.

“We’ve definitely been affected by the lockdown,” said Taryn Tia, Dr. Reeferalz Tucson manager. “We were getting a lot of first-time certifications, but people have been waiting to get recertified. I think they’ve been waiting to see if legalization passes, but I don’t think they realize it could take as long as 18 months to be implemented.”

Tia added that there was a natural slowdown when the new certification rules were set in place, but she echoes Williams’ concerns for patients who think recreational will be a better deal.

“I think if people are educated [about the implications of legalization] they’ll

OCT. 1, 2020

maintain their certifications,” Tia said.

“People think they’ll be able to just walk in to Circle K and buy it if it passes, but it’s not going to be like that.”

She also thinks the tax revenues will not be as robust as projected in 207’s analysis by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, which claims an additional $250 million in tax revenue to the state annually.

“A lot of people will start growing and the tax revenues won’t be what they’ve expected,” she said. “It’s hard to get a good read on it, though.”

To offset losses in revenues, both Tumbleweeds and Dr. Reeferalz have begun a telemedicine program for recertifications that has been allowed by Gov. Doug Ducey during the coronavirus pandemic.

Doctor Heather Moroso has been hit particularly hard this year, due in part to her patient-friendly practices surrounding the rollout of two-year certificates.

“My business has [also] been affected because legalization is on the ballot and people are waiting for that,” she said.

As a single doctor with a solo practice, she does not have the time to devote to marketing that the others might have.

“My business is 90 percent doctoring and 10 percent business,” Moroso said. “It

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 11

comes out of necessity and is a matter of not having the time. I play a lot of whacka-mole.”

Additionally, at the outset of the pandemic shutdown Moroso purchased a building in South Tucson that is slowly morphing into a naturopathic clinic. On the positive side, given the reduction in business for her certification practice, she has more time to devote to that project.

“I’m on a five-year plan with the clinic.

I need to have time to do this,” she said.

“Certification will be part of the practice, because it’s what I love. People need to have access to medicine.”

Regardless of how the dynamics shake out, everyone will likely have to adjust to a business landscape that includes legalized and heavily regulated weed.

“We have a business model designed to grow no matter what the outcome,” Dr. Reeferalz’ Tia said. “I think [the business] is going to go full circle, from medical to recreational and back to medical.”

Correction: A column titled “High Times” (Tucson Weekly, Sept. 24) identified Aari Ruben as owner of Bloom Dispensary. Ruben is the owner of Desert Bloom Re-Leaf Center, located at 8060 E. 22nd St. #108, Tucson. ■

ARIZONA IS READY TO LEGALIZE IT. Millions for Higher Education Expanding Public Health Services funding for highways thousands of high paying jobs prop207.com

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OCT. 1, 2020

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

By Rob Brezsny. Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s EXPANDED WEEKLY HOROSCOPE 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 $1.99 per minute. 18 and over. Touchtone phone required.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself,” wrote 16th-century author Pietro Aretino. By January 2021, Aries, I would love for you to have earned the right to make a similar statement: “I am, indeed, a royal sovereign, because I know how to rule myself.” Here’s the most important point: The robust power and clout you have the potential to summon has nothing to do with power and clout over other people—only over yourself. Homework: Meditate on what it means to be the imperial boss and supreme monarch of your own fate.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.” Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield made that brilliant observation. It’s always worth meditating on, but it’s an especially potent message for you during the first three weeks of October 2020. In my view, now is a highly favorable time for you to extract uplifting lessons by dealing forthrightly with your knottiest dilemmas. I suspect that these lessons could prove useful for the rest of your long life.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “My business is to love,” wrote poet Emily Dickinson. I invite you to adopt this motto for the next three weeks. It’s an excellent time to intensify your commitment to expressing compassion, empathy, and tenderness. To do so will not only bring healing to certain allies who need it; it will also make you smarter. I mean that literally. Your actual intelligence will expand and deepen as you look for and capitalize on opportunities to bestow blessings. (P.S. Dickinson also wrote, “My business is to sing.” I recommend you experiment with that mandate, as well.)

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “I’m the diamond in the dirt, that ain’t been found,” sings Cancerian rapper Curtis Jackson, also known as 50 Cent. “I’m the

underground king and I ain’t been crowned,” he adds. My reading of the astrological omens suggests that a phenomenon like that is going on in your life right now. There’s something unknown about you that deserves and needs to be known.

You’re not getting the full credit and acknowledgment you’ve earned through your soulful accomplishments. I hereby authorize you to take action!

Address this oversight. Rise up and correct it.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The author bell hooks (who doesn’t capitalize her name) has spent years as a professor in American universities. Adaptability has been a key strategy in her efforts to educate her students. She writes, “One of the things that we must do as teachers is twirl around and around, and find out what works with the situation that we’re in.” That’s excellent advice for you right now—in whatever field you’re in. Old reliable formulas are irrelevant, in my astrological opinion.

Strategies that have guided you in the past may not apply to the current scenarios. Your best bet is to twirl around and around as you experiment to find out what works.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have,” says motivational speaker Robert Holden. Hallelujah and amen! Ain’t that the truth!

Which is why it’s so crucial to periodically take a thorough inventory of your relationship with yourself. And guess what, Virgo: Now would be a perfect time to do so. Even more than that: During your inventory, if you discover ways in which you treat yourself unkindly or carelessly, you can generate tremendous healing energy by working to fix the glitches. The coming weeks could bring pivotal transformations in your bonds with others if you’re brave enough to make pivotal transformations in your bonds with yourself.

SAVAGE LOVE ROGER THAT

By Dan Savage, mail@savagelove.net

I’m a 30-something gay man married to a 30-something gay man. For almost two years, we’ve been seeing another pair of married gay men around our age. They were our first experience with any sexual or romantic interaction outside of our relationship. The first six months were hot and heavy. We were together constantly and having sex almost every night. After the “honeymoon phase” ended, one member of the other couple (“Roger”) wanted to slow things down. Roger and I had some conflict over this, and I have to admit that I showed a pretty bad side of myself while grappling with insecurity.

Eventually, Roger pulled me aside to talk

one-on-one. He wanted us to be “friends who have sex sometimes.”

Then, right after COVID-19 lockdown started, Roger and I had another heartto-heart on my birthday. After many drinks and a lot of making out, we both said we loved each other. Roger walked it back the next day. “I don’t know what you thought you heard last night,” he basically said, “but I’m not in love with you.”

I was devastated. This isn’t what I want.

I am in love with Roger and his husband.

I don’t want to be “friends who have sex sometimes.” My husband is OK with just being friends with Roger and his husband, especially since their large friend

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In her high school yearbook, Libra-born Sigourney Weaver arranged to have this caption beneath her official photo: “Please, God, please, don’t let me be normal!” Since then, she has had a long and acclaimed career as an actor in movies. ScreenPrism.com calls her a pioneer of female action heroes. Among her many exotic roles: a fierce warrior who defeats monstrous aliens; an exobiologist working with indigenous people on the moon of a distant planet in the 22nd century; and a naturalist who lives with mountain gorillas in Rwanda. If you have ever had comparable fantasies about transcending normalcy, Libra, now would be a good time to indulge those fantasies—and begin cooking up plans to make them come true.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio-born Prince Charles has been heir to the British throne for 68 years. That’s an eternity to be patiently on hold for his big chance to serve as king. His mother Queen Elizabeth just keeps going on and on, living her very long life, ensuring that Charles remains second-in-command. But I suspect that many Scorpios who have been awaiting their turn will finally graduate to the next step in the coming weeks and months. Will Charles be one of them?

Will you? To increase your chances, here’s a tip: Meditate on how to be of even greater devotion to the ideals you love to serve.

events: for example, American Marines waging pitched battles against Japanese soldiers on South Pacific islands. But audiences were cool to that approach. They preferred comedies and musicals with “no message, no mission, no misfortune.”

In the coming weeks, I advise you to resist any temptation you might have to engage in a similar disregard of current events. In my opinion, your mental health requires you to be extra discerning and well-informed about politics—and so does the future of your personal destiny.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Pretending is imagined possibility,” observes actor Meryl Streep.

“Pretending is a very valuable life skill and we do it all the time.” In other words, fantasizing about events that may never happen is just one way we use our mind’s eye. We also wield our imaginations to envision scenarios that we actually want to create in our real lives. In fact, that’s the first step in actualizing those scenarios: to play around with picturing them; to pretend they will one day be a literal part of our world. The coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to supercharge the generative aspect of your imagination. I encourage you to be especially vivid and intense as you visualize in detail the future you want.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Inventor Buckminster Fuller was a visionary who loved to imagine ideas and objects no one had ever dreamed of before. One of his mottoes was, “There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.” I recommend that you spend quality time in the coming weeks meditating on butterfly-like things you’d love to have as part of your future—things that may resemble caterpillars in the early going. Your homework is to envision three such innovations that could be in your world

by October 1, 2021.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “My own soul must be a bright invisible green,” wrote author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Novelist Tom Robbins suggested that we visualize the soul as “a cross between a wolf howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark molasses.” Nobel Prize-winning poet Wislawa Szymborska observed, “Joy and sorrow aren’t two different feelings” for the soul. Poet Emily Dickinson thought that the soul “should always stand ajar”—just in case an ecstatic experience or rousing epiphany might be lurking in the vicinity.

In the coming weeks, Pisces, I invite you to enjoy your own lively meditations on the nature of your soul. You’re in a phase when such an exploration can yield interesting results. ■

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): During World War II, Hollywood filmmakers decided it would be a good idea to create stories based on graphic current

Homework: Make up a song that cheers you up and inspires your excitement about the future. It doesn’t have to be perfect. FreeWillAstrology.com.

group has adopted us and he worries we’ll lose all these new friends if I end our friendship with Roger and his husband. I would really like to talk this out with Roger, but I’m not sure I can get through that conversation without DTMFAing him.

I mean, which was it? Were we a fun sexy fling and nothing about the last two years mattered? Or was he in love with me but decided the conflict and complication of this relationship wasn’t worth it? Which was it?

—Trouble In The Quad

And while it may seem unfair that you can only have Roger in your life on his terms, that’s the reality. That’s everyone’s reality, TITQ, because loving someone doesn’t obligate that person to love us back or love us in the same way that we love them or want the same things we want. But Roger can’t impose his terms on you. If being “just friends” feels like an insulting consolation prize after what the last two years has meant to you, if that’s not good enough, then Roger doesn’t get to be in your life. You can have terms too.

Backing up for a second: You seem to believe that if the relationship mattered—if Roger and his husband loved you and your husband and vice-versa—then it wouldn’t ended. That’s false.

Something can matter and still end.

Something can also matter more to one

Roger doesn’t want what you want.

That sucks and I’m sorry. But we’ve all been there. Falling for someone who doesn’t feel as strongly for us as we do for them, whether we’re dating as couples or singles, is always painful.

But that pain is an unavoidable risk.

OCT. 1, 2020

person than it did to another person. (Or couple.) You don’t have to dismiss or minimize what the four of you had because Roger has decided, for whatever reason, that being in a quad with you isn’t what he wants.

And if you’re hoping to get this quad back together… and it’s entirely up to Roger… you’re going about it wrong. If Roger got cold feet due to the “conflict and complication” of being in a poly relationship, TITQ, then your best move is to avoid conflict and complication. If you think Roger told the truth on your birthday and lied to you the next day, then you need to demonstrate the kind of emotional maturity that makes you a more attractive partner to a person like Roger. And provoking a confrontation with Roger—staging a scene where you’re likely to dump up a guy who has already dumped you—will have the opposite effect. It will only confirm for Roger the decision he has already made.

Your best bet—your best strategy—is to accept Roger’s offer of friendship and refrain from blowing up at him. You should also tell him, just once and very calmly, that you and your husband would be open to getting back together with him and his husband. Best case scenario, the quad gets

back together. Worst case scenario, you have some great memories, a whole bunch of great new friends, and maybe once in a while a hot foursome with Roger and his husband.

Two last things…

I would love to see video of you showing the “bad side” of yourself to Roger. Given the way people tend to minimize their own shitty behavior—all people do it, myself included—I’m guessing it was/you were ugly. If you’re prone to blowing up when you don’t get what you want, well, it’s understandable that someone who dislikes conflict and complication would start getting cold feet once the honeymoon phase ended. I’m not suggesting you’re toxic or unbearable‚ TITQ, only that different people have different tolerance levels for romantic conflict. But if what you want is for Roger to reconsider the decision he’s made, well, you might also wanna let him know you’re working on your approach to conflict.

And finally, TITQ, the other two men in this quad feel strangely inert—more like houseplants than husbands. I mean, you have nothing to say about how Roger’s husband feels and very little to say about how yours does. Is Roger’s husband

interested in keeping the quad together?

Besides not wanting to lose some new friends, does your husband give two shits?

Because even if Roger decides he wants back in, TITQ, and that’s a big if, your revived quad won’t last for long for if your houseplants—sorry: your husbands—aren’t just as invested as you are.

BACKBONE

with mockery. Kimberley Guilfoyle, Don Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, delivered an unhinged rant, so strident that Mother Jones added North Korean martial music as background.

After promising it would be uplifting after the Democrats’ “dark…gloomy” convention, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida reflected the tone. Under Biden, he said, “they’ll disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your homes and invite MS-13 to live next door.”

No one has been tougher on Russia than Trump, speakers said, brushing aside the Republican-controlled bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report on ties to his 2016 campaign and his long courtship of Vladimir Putin, released just weeks earlier.

In nearly 1,000 pages, it went far beyond the Mueller Report with intimate details of links to Russian intelligence and dirty tricks. But it stopped short of specifying a coordinated campaign. Republicans reduced it all to two words: No collusion.

But, in her better-angel mode, she exudes hope that enough Americans will stand up and take action. Voting, she says, is the basic minimum. People need to defend what matters to them and join others for a larger purpose.

With time on their hands, Blake and Jen began circulating “A Love Letter From Helles,” their little community’s newsletter.

It includes a quote from Jane Goodall, now 86, who knows about primate societies, from chimpanzees to humans: “You cannot get though a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” ■

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

AT THE REPUBLICAN convention, Trump flayed his all-purpose scapegoat. China unleashed a deadly plague on America. But he did everything right to beat back COVID-19, he said, and the economy is roaring back as never before. Really? Look around.

South Korea reported its first case on the same day as the United States. By late August, 310 Koreans had died. We will be lucky if our death toll is under 300,000

by November. Other countries tested and traced. Everyone masked up. We did everything wrong.

Early in January, Xi Jinping admitted the threat. China shared research, airlifted aid to the United States and took over the leading role at the WHO that America abandoned.

In just over three years, Trump’s policies have spurred China to begin reshaping the world in its image: harshly authoritarian, with no regard for cultural diversity, human rights, free expression. It plunders the world for resources by corruption and coercion.

And that’s just China.

The Republican convention reached absurdity that overloaded the Twittersphere

UP ON HELL’S BACKBONE, Blake has no illusions about what America faces beyond protecting wilderness and natural beauty. “In practice,” she said, “we have a lawless administration. So much of it is horrendous, world-destroying, soulcrushing.”

The man I’m seeing is the first person I ever opened up to about my bisexuality. Over our first year together, we had several threesomes, but we both became uncomfortable with them and one day he told me he could not have that kind of sex with a woman cares about. We quarantined together and he felt COVID-19 had forced us to rush things. We decided to spend less time together to focus on our careers, which had both taken a hit. Now we only see each every two weeks or so. I thought it could be fun to reconnect and do some more threesomes. He agreed but asked me to handle things. I found us some amazing girls. But as in the past, our threesomes led to problems. I feel threatened, he feels jealous. We fight, I cry, he gets angry and acts like an asshole. I’m very insecure, depressed, and have spent years in therapy. The threesomes feel like too much but we have great

TWO IN ONE

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8

dealing with public sector budgets to help the board make those hard decisions. Spain said he comes from a business background and knows how to “do more with what we’ve already got.” “(Scott’s) approaches come from a ‘big government’ mindset that will hamper our recovery and make it look like another 2008,” Spain said. “We deserve better than that, we all work too hard for that

TUCSONWEEKLY.COM 13

sex when we talk about other women. Is there any way we can make this work?

—Lost Into My Emotions I feel really sorry for the women you two are having threesomes with—even if you’re doing your very special guest stars the courtesy of waiting until they leave to break down in tears, LIME, and even if your boyfriend is polite enough to wait until they’re gone before acting like an asshole, these women are most likely picking up on the tension and may feel conflicted about the sex after they go.

While I don’t think a woman should waste her time (or pussy) on a man who tells her he can’t have “that kind of sex,” i.e. sex she enjoys, with a woman he cares about, I can understand why you might want to keep seeing this guy. (COVID-19 is making it hard to find new partners.)

But you should stop doing the thing that doesn’t work—having threesomes—and do the thing that does work instead: talking dirty to each other about other women. ■ mail@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage www.savagelovecast.com to be the way Pima County handles this situation.”

He said Pima County should reduce their regulations on businesses and schools and as the number of new COVID-19 cases are decreasing, Spain believes the county should “let us get back to life.”

But Scott thinks Spain is ignoring medical experts and he sees some of his opponent’s inflammatory statements about public health as a red flag. He’s set up a website, meetstevespain.com, that highlights some of the inflammatory comments Spain has made in radio interviews and as a columnist at the Arizona Daily Independent website, such as calling Republican Supervisor Steve Christy a member of the “limp-wristed, rubber-stamp, ineffective, bought-and-paid for, worthless pseudo-Republican party” and referring to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who spoke out against gun violence in the wake of the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting as “angry, shouty, uppity teens.”

Scott said Spain’s temperament isn’t suited to the Board of Supervisors.

“Anybody who writes and speaks with such an angry tone and with such extremism in terms of substance is likely to govern that way,” Scott said. ■

14

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OCT. 1, 2020

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