There will always be a Phoenix.

In the famous words of the late Governor Ann Richards, you can put lipstick on a pig and call it Monique, but it's still just a pig. That's kind of how I feel about Phoenix. You can bring in all the palm trees and esperanzas you want, fill the streets with Beemers and Volvos, and paint all the houses in earth tones, but it's still just a big, dusty flat spot in the desert.

It's not much of a tourist town, by any stretch. The attractions here are more geared to those who are here year-round, or at least through the winter months. People who live here, at least all the ones that I've met, enjoy it. The dry heat really is a lot more comfortable to those who venture outside than the relatively moist air of San Antonio; yesterday it was 104 and I thought it was very comfortable ... lying in the pool. But still.

And getting around is pretty easy, except where the traffic gets really bad. All of the through streets are wide and straight, and the entire Valley of the Sun is a grid of evenly spaced thoroughfares bracketing architecturally cohesive subdivisions, each with its monumental entrance, its water feature, its theme of colours and edificial gewgaws (Cupolas! Niche windows! Pilasters!). And where the population has reached a certain critical mass of density and prosperity, the appearance is one of comfort and order: a sort of regimented riverless Rhineland.

And of course, it's a very, very large city, with a large middle class, so it's full of good restaurants, and probably has a first-rate nightlife, for those who want that sort of thing. There are jobs here, and a sense of opportunity and promise. It may even be a very good place to raise your kids, though I'm not sure what the criteria for that is; honest small-business owners and con artists seem to come from all backgrounds equally.

But driving around the city yesterday, on the way to the vistas of Dobbins Point and South Mountain Park, I felt a certain je ne sais quoi, a feeling that the pleasant and promising aspects of Phoenix are unreal, that this massive sprawl of urbanity and civilization is more than just artificial; that it is an interloper in this desert, that it will eventually move on to places more suited to human habitation (please, God, not South Texas!) and leave behind the crumbling hulk of Spanish tile and concrete, like so many cicadas.

But that's not really going to happen, is it? No, as long as there is electricity to power the air conditioning, and gasoline to power the pick-up, and as long as there is snow in the Rockies to fill the canals here, Phoenix will survive, and prosper. So I'm thinking I should buy some land here, maybe a dusty half-acre on the Scottsdale side....

Reconsidering things

Earlier today, while we were stopped at the Texas Canyon rest area, I thought about my comment yesterday, about how boring it is driving through the West, and I decided that that was not entirely accurate.

It is true that going from Point A to Point B is a mechanical exercise; that's equally true in the East. Had I had the luxury of time, I could have made the trip from San Antonio to Phoenix, and presumably on to San Diego, much more interesting than it is when we just get on I-10 at Hildebrand and get off at the 202. I could drive west out of San Antonio to Camp Wood, and up the South Llano River, or over to Langtry and up through the Big Bend Country or the Davis Mountains; I could cut across the corner of New Mexico, through Cloudcroft and Alamogordo, and up through Silver City and into Globe. It'd take a long, long time, and it's all country I've covered before. It still wouldn't be as fascinating as a simple drive through any nondescript part of eastern Tennessee or Kentucky; but it'd be a nice trip.

But as it is, having to be in a certain place at a certain time, the freeway is really the only practical option. And on this particular freeway, once you're past the Hill Country around Kerrville, you've really only got that spot in the Transpecos where the Davis Mountains are to your left, and the Guadalupe Mountains are to your right; and Texas Canyon.

Now, I've never really spent any time at Texas Canyon. There's a rest area there, and that's about it. But it's clear from the graffiti on the rocks nearest the rest area that many people have gone climbing in the rocks. They remind me of Vidavoo Rocks in Wyoming, up in the Laramie Mountains not far from where I used to live. I'm not much of a rock-climber -- never done it, in fact -- but the shapes of the rocks are so weird and other-worldly that even us flatlanders are fascinated by the scenery. Maybe one of these days I'll take a few hours to wander around the rocks in Texas Canyon. Until then, it remains the only point of interest on an otherwise dull trip across open space.

We have two days of masterful inactivity planned here in Phoenix, and will probably divide our time between watching TV and swimming. Maybe I'll go wander around the town some, looking for things to photograph. (Today I got only the one shot at Texas Canyon, of a rock that looks like a lizard, before my battery died; I must've left the camera on.) Or maybe I won't. I would go for a drive, but I've already been to every county in Arizona, and I know from sad experience that I want to stay as far away from the traffic in this town, especially to the North, where all the most interesting scenery lies, as I can.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

My third-corner trip to San Diego started today. I wish I could describe all the exciting things we saw along the way, but let's face it: the drive across West Texas on the Interstate is neither exciting nor novel.

This is the worst thing about travelling out West: the places of stunning beauty, and there are many of them, are separated from each other by interminable stretches of boring, flat, straight roads, and wandering around out here at 40 mph on back roads -- what few there are -- makes for unbelievably long trips. Not that I don't still do it, but at least I don't mind so much having to make this trip in the sedan (since I'll need room for four while in California).

(I'll probably feel differently on the return trip, when I'm wandering around alone in Southern Utah.)

Meanwhile, this morning while I was waiting to leave, I was reading a recent history of the Mexican-American War, and was struck by the comparisons between President Polk and President George W. Bush. Both got us into morally ambiguous wars (I'm trying to be charitable here) through a combination of lies and ignorance, then mismanaged it by preferring partisan political considerations over practical military considerations. I can only hope that someday, W's maladministration will be no more relevant to history than Polk's seems today.

Atsa what I said: Dollas, Taxes

You know, I don't mind so much that people get paid oodles and gobs of money for doing things that companies think are worth that kind of compensation (although I do think that there are lots of people who could, say, run a major company like Home Depot, and do it for a whole lot less than the company is willing to pay (see, for example,  http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/may2006/pi20060523_284791.htm).)

But I do kind of mind that you and I are covering part of the cost of that sinecure.

Compensation, including salaries and bonuses, are tax-deductible as business expenses. There is a limitation on deductions for amounts paid to the top 5 people (basically, the deduction's limited to $1,000,000, but there are easy ways around that bit of window dressing), but take a company like a major Wall Street brokerage, which is paying millions and millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses to all manner of Wunderkinder. Us ordinary taxpayers are covering about a third of those payments. The company pays huge amounts, and reduces its taxable income as a result; so it saves about 35% of the amount it pays out, in the form of lower taxes.

Let's put an end to that. Let's make a rule -- a simple rule -- that no compensation to any person in excess of, say, 250% the median national per capita income, can be deducted from the calculation of taxable income.

Here's how that works:

Let's say the median per capita income in America is $40,000; it's about that, last I heard. Now, two and a half times that would be $100,000.

Let's say Interglobal Conglomeration, Inc. pays Lucky Basterd $600,000 a year; and let's say Interglobal is taxed at 35%. By deducting Lucky's $600k, it reduces its tax bill by $210,000. That's how much more you and I have to fork over to Uncle Sam so that Lucky can have his Mercedes washed and waxed before the big party at the country club up in the Hamptons.

Under my proposed rule, Interglobal is still free to pay Lucky that $600,000; but it only gets to deduct $100,000 as a business expense. It now has to pay tax on the other $500,000, saving you and me and the next guy $175,000 every year.

Now, there are, believe it or not, more people than you might imagine making incomes of way more than 250% of the median per capita income. And they are, presumably, worth that money to their employers. So sure, their employers are, and ought to be, free to pay what it takes to get those people's services.

But the rest of us shouldn't have to share the cost.