The Arizona Republic

Hollywood, Wall Street and Silicon Valley

Articles — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 21:07:00 -0400

The collapse of the Bush administration may be seen by some on the left as a triumph of the popular will. But its main result may more accurately be read as a handover of control from one oligarchy to another. A new, more "enlightened" group may be rising to power, but it’s still unclear what this will mean to the vast majority of Americans.

Power in America is shifting from George Bush’s Sun Belt mafia -- with its roots in post-1950s aerospace, energy and development -- to a new political triad. This new triad draws its power from three key post-industrial… more

Gregory Rodriguez on Immigrants, Acculturation in The Arizona Republic

Communications — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:17:00 -0400

New America in the News:

If Sunnyslope had a patron saint, her name would be the Virgin of Solitude.

The black-cloaked woman is the saint of Oaxaca, Mexico, but her image drapes walls in homes and businesses throughout Sunnyslope, one of the Valley's oldest neighborhoods, nestled at the bottom of Phoenix's North Mountain.

Over the past decade, so many immigrants from the southern Mexican state have moved into Sunnyslope that the working-class community in north-central Phoenix is becoming known as "Little Oaxaca..."

Now, waves of Mexican immigrants fleeing poverty in Oaxaca are drawn to Sunnyslope for its affordable housing and its access to major bus routes..

They are transforming pockets of the neighborhood, and re-creating pieces of the Mexican villages they left behind...The neighborhoods help cushion immigrants' adjustment to the U.S., experts said, and allow them to still feel close to their homelands.

"The new enclaves become a . . . stepping stone for immigrants," said Gregory Rodriguez, an Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank where he studies acculturation.

"It's lonely and disorienting, moving to a land with different expectations. These neighborhoods help ground people and help root them in the past, even as they're obviously charging forth in the future..."

For the complete article, please visit The Arizona Republic website.

North America Needs an Energy Alliance

Articles — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 23:11:00 -0500

In the opening decades of the 21st century, virtually all of America’s most critical problems -- political, environmental and economic -- will be wrapped up within the issue of energy. Energy fuels our deadliest enemies, threatens our environment, and poses a direct challenge to our long-term economic viability.

What is needed now is a coherent strategy that deals directly with our fundamental geopolitical dilemma: how to grow our economy while reducing our dependence on imported energy and, over time, carbon-emitting fuels.

We believe there is such a workable strategy. It centers on the creation of a powerful energy alliance among the three… more