I’ve read this article by CNN commentator John Avlon several times because I think it is perfectly on the mark about what ails our republic.

(If you are a regular reader of the Clark Report, you know that I believe that competitive redistricting is our only possible solution to an ever-polarizing political landscape. I won’t beat that dead horse here, except to say it stands to reason that we will have politicians who cater less to the lunatic fringe and their own narrow interests when they must win in a truly competitive district.)

Of course, one critique of articles like that above is that there never really ever was civility in politics. As I recall, opponents of Andrew Jackson claimed that he was an adulterer, etc.

However, I think the Avlon article reminds us that the problem is not lack of civility from some quarters, rather the amount of space we give those lacking civility at the table of democratic discourse. After all, now the distance between lie and the public eye is even shorter than when Churchill famously said that “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

There is something different: the blog-as-news syndrome. We have lost the old standard-bearer news organizations and returned to the days of Jackson when papers were owned by partisan organizations or industrialists. We are Balkanizing and we don’t seem to care.

I saw the most frightening aspect of that first hand in Bosnia. In support of their political masters, “news” organizations just parroted the party line to the point of tearing that country apart, resulting in over 200,000 deaths.

In American history, we avoided that fate over 100 years ago as the Journalists Canon of Ethics took on greater meaning and newspapers became more professional and independent.

Walter Kronkite is not just a good anchor, he epitomized the way journalists aught to be.  But more that that, he epitomized the way editors should be. The best news  production was professional, process-driven and introspective enough to admit when it made mistakes.

This is where I think the turning point needs to be. Blogs don’t have editors and fact checkers –and that is bad enough because people take blogs as true news sources. To make it worse, editors at Fox and MSNBC, primarily, have decided to continually blur the line between news and commentary.

Really, you can’t always tell which show is meant to be a commentary show and which is news.

Editors: you need to take back control of the process. Your news readers should be only that, news readers. They are not stars. They should not toss in comments or throw knowing glances at the camera to tell you how they feel about the news. In fact, tear it all down and start over. But this time, re-read the Canons of Journalism.

Only then can we strive to have civility in discourse. Only then can we really protect our democracy.

St. Francis
111 E Camelback Rd

I tried St. Francis almost a month ago and I’m so sorry that I could not get a review up on GetYourPHX.com sooner. This is a great addition to Phoenix’s food scene.

The night we went, it felt as if the summer had broken. There was a cool breeze; not heard from since April. Long-ago forgotten, like the Pleistocene.  It tickled its way in through St. Francis’ huge open facade and in to the dining room.

The open-air bar at the front of St. Francis framed the darkening mountains to the north of the restaurant for me, as if planned that way.

The food was delicate and nuanced in the case of the forbidden rice and vegetables. The fingerling rosemary potatoes were bold and undaunted. The fig and goat cheese flat bread swirled on my tongue.

The potatoes were Bruce Springsteen to the vegetables’ London Philharmonic and the flatbread’s Grateful Dead.

The staff were quick, professional and quite enthused about their new home. They walked with a tilted briskness that you’d expect to see in old New Yorker etchings from the 1930s.

I hope to visit again soon.

The Good: The restaurant was comfortable, yet sharp and clean.

The Bad: Am I just getting older and cheaper, or does everything just seem more expensive to me these days?

The Ugly: I hate valet parking. Just gotta say it.

If you are FHA-financed and get an offer accepted by the end of next week, you could get your new home in time to still capture the $8,000 tax credit. The deadline is the end of the month if you are conventional.

However, it’s going to be tough!

Here are some reasons why you should not despair if you do not make it in time.

1) Interest Rates are Even Lower. According to Bloomberg News, interest rates are below 5% now. If you are not new to real estate, you probably can’t believe this. Interest rates 7 years ago were over 7%. Interest rates in 1981 were over 15%. If you are new to home buying you might just shrug, but you shouldn’t.

Compare a loan at 7% with a loan at 5%. On a $100,000 house your monthly principle and interest at 7% is about $665. At 5% it is about $552. That $113 per month savings equals $1,356. You would match the $8,000 tax credit savings in 5.8 years.

You don’t get the tax credit right away, but you will still save tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the loan!

2) Prices May Change after the Tax Credit Goes Away. We don’t know by how much, but prices may change after the incentive of the $8,000 tax credit goes away. With many people leaving the market and the holidays coming up, the market will slow and prices will come down. It slows during the holidays, anyway. But this is a double-whammy. People buying this holiday season could come up with a really incredible deal, just in time for Christmas.

Helluva stocking stuffer, huh?

According to a University of Arizona study from January of this year, the average American adds 474 pounds of food waste per year to landfills.

There are also increasing costs to transport fertilizers. According to beef magazine (a bastion of leftist thought), “During the 12 months ending in April 2008, nitrogen prices increased 32%, phosphate prices 93%, and potash prices 100%. This price surge in 2008 was due to strong domestic and global demand for fertilizers, low fertilizer inventories, and the inability of the U.S. fertilizer industry to adjust production levels.”

As the economy improves, these prices will go up with greater demand and with higher fuel prices.

So, here’s my point: if you want to use less foreign oil, emit less greenhouse gas and promote local, organic food, start composting.

All you need is clean kitchen and yard scraps (no cooked food, meet or breads), a good compost bin, a nice shady place and water.

Below  is my contribution to helping you find a method that makes composting easy. And, let’s face it. If it ain’t easy, we are not likely to do it for very long.

That’s why I gave up my hobby of collecting personally autographed postage stamps of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Surgeon General’s Waring: I am not a professional film-maker.

Jim McPhearson of the Downtown Voices Coalition pointed out this great article on what is needed to support economic growth downtown. This example is from Tempe.

One ingredient is lots of trees and shaded spaces for pedestrians, shoppers and casual diners. Let’s hope that the next General Plan takes that more seriously. We have 100 reasons to learn from Tucson and plant more desert-friendly shade trees, most important of which is the heat island effect.

The mornings stay cooler longer and the evenings cool down faster. And, while I respect the grandeur of palm trees and their place in Phoenix history, they just don’t cut it. A 30 foot tall lawn dart simply does not provide the shade that we need.

They do, however provide very attractive living quarters for cockroaches and pigeons.

Just because I’m a Realtor®, does not mean that I am willing to go along with everything the State or National Associations of Realtors says.

Typically, in Arizona, they have attempted to undermine rights residential users of solar energy. Nationally, they don’t typically support environmental laws that I support.

But I am ready to step out and say that we should not extend the $8,000 tax credit past the November 30th deadline. This is sacrilegious to some. Aren’t I undermining my own business? Aren’t I preventing people from buying houses?

Well, my personal business is not as important as the fate of the country. The program has cost the country $15 billion. The National Association of Realtors wants to increase the credit to $15,000 and remove the first time home buyer restriction. It will cost the general fund between $50 and $100 billion. And, over time, we will find all kinds of loopholes, so that will only grow.

We are looking at a bankruptcy of Medicare and Social Security on the horizon, and we are supposed to expand this program? Unacceptable.

As for preventing people from buying houses, I simply don’t accept that the market will dry up.  We have record low home prices in America. The market will do better as the rest of the economy recovers. Further, banks still have many, many foreclosed homes that they have not released into the market (over 40,000 in Arizona). While we don’t want them to release them all at once, a steady stream of homes on the market can keep prices down.

For me, it is a simple equation: we needed the boost in the housing market, but it is not worth creating a permanent new hand-out when the result will just add to our staggering deficit and debt.

Now, here is another idea for you to ponder. It might be high time that we eliminate the tax deduction on the interest on your home. Or, at least we need to replace it with something that is more geared toward new home ownership. Now, that is sacrilege! I’m trying to find the article in my stack of old magazines. It was either in the Atlantic Monthly or the Economist, but this is not a new argument.

It goes like this: the interest deduction encourages people to buy houses that are unrealistically large for their income, it encourages sprawl, it is a huge drain on our general fund when we can’t afford it and it is used by people for second homes. Heck, my parents take an interest deduction on their stinkin’ RV because it is a second home!

Really? You gotta squint really hard and look sideways to call an RV a second home.

Regardless, if the goal is to get first time home buyers in to a home so that they can become stable, why give a credit for a second home? Why not offer a one-time $15,000 tax credit for your first home. After that, you are on your own.

I’ll find that article and link to it. This it a very touchy topic, so I’d love to see some debate on it.

As for this topic, check out a very good article on the issue, here.

Hey, all. Don’t forget that we have two big events this week.

First, drop by the Artist and First Time Home Buyer Workshop tomorrow night at the Alwun House. I will be on a panel discussion with lots of other great people who will help you or somebody you love make that first, all-important home purchase.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148132137657&index=1

Second, Get Your PHX at NINE|05 is on Thursday. The good folks at NINE|05 have created a special Get Your PHX cocktail, just for us! I’m told it will or may include rum, strawberries and soda –but they are still playing around with it.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=141614765792&index=1

This is a friendly reminder that the Grand Ave. Festival is happening on Sept. 26th, and there will be a special walking tour of many of the adaptive reuse buildings around Grand Ave.

Check out this reminder press release with great details about all of the buildings on the tour:

———————————————

PRESS RELEASE

FOR RELEASE:  IMMEDIATE
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Beatrice Moore
602.391.4016
muppetsrealmom@earthlink.net

Phoenix, AZ  (September 14, 2009) — The Grand Avenue Festival, an all day event on September 26, will be highlighting the history of the Lower Grand Avenue area and the many interesting adaptive re-use projects there as part of the day’s many festivities. Tickets are $ 10 per person and can be purchased by calling 602.391.4016 or by visiting the festival website at www.grandavenuefestivalaz.com. Proceeds from ticket sales for the guided walking tours will go to the Grand Avenue Merchants’ Association (GAMA).

Grand Avenue has a long, and storied history which continues to be added to today with the many new uses that have been popping up in the Lower Grand Avenue district (from Van Buren to the 1-10 Freeway overpass) – with many buildings reverting from industrial uses back to the original small retail and office uses that once lined this important connector to Wickenburg, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and points west. An influential factor in this renaissance has been the many innovative commercial adaptive re-use projects in the neighborhood: new owners have preserved parts of the existing vintage structures while making modern conversions that allow for more practicality in today’s world, including a myriad of hybrid uses.

Adaptive re-use of commercial buildings in older commercial districts is an important factor in creating true neighborhood sustainability, and for nurturing the small business community, particularly the arts. Many small, entrepreneurial businesses are attracted to the character these older structures lend to a neighborhood – and rents are more affordable than new construction.

This tour will focus on celebrating the unique history of Grand Avenue, as well as the wonderful adaptive re-use projects in the neighborhood, highlighting six projects along the street. Tour stops will include the following:

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You might recall from my previous post about anti-deficiency, that Arizona was just about to find itself in a baaaad place for home owners. Here is the recap:

• Arizona is traditionally an anti-deficiency state. I.e., if the bank takes back your property and sells it at a loss, they can’t come after you for the difference.

• A legislator (Republican Senator Steve Pierce, R-Prescott) attempted to change that law so that people who lost their homes to the banks within 6 months of purchasing (presumably investors), could be pursued by the banks.

Problem: it would have encouraged more foreclosures and bankruptcies. Here is why: Arizona has a relatively short foreclosure period (90 days). If banks know that all they have to do is wait out an owner in order to foreclose and still be able to go after the deficiency, then they are more likely to do that. This will impact more than just people who are flipping homes. This could impact all kinds of buyers, not just “flippers.”

So, the Arizona Association of Realtors (AAR), who did not see the implications when the bill first passed, were successful in moving legislation to overturn the original bill  –with the help of the original author, who should consider thinking through legislation in the future.

Moral of the story:

1. Lawmakers need to think through things a little more thoroughly;

2. The AAR lobbyists might have been a little too busy helping the home builders undermine local cities’ ability to collect impact fees or improve energy efficiency of homes to catch this one early.

I’m just sayin’.

Roosevelt Row and the Alwun house have been leaders in helping to promote home ownership in historic neighborhoods around downtown.

This Homebuyer’s Workshop, hosted at the Alwun House, is for you if you think you can’t qualify for a home, or you are just looking to get a new home before the $8,000 tax credit goes away.

The event is tailored to first time home buyers who want to live in CenPho. Perhaps you are an artist or work in a field where income is inconsistent. There will be plenty of folks available to answer your questions (including me).

A panel of experts will cover the following:

1) Funding programs for first time home buyers.

2) How to afford your first home.

3) Housing market analysis.

4) Historic neighborhoods: Garfield, Coronado, etc.

Please RSVP at the Facebook invite here, or directly to me at clarkreport@kenclarkforaz.com