Arizona--Surprise!

It's so enlightening to live in Arizona. The state becomes newsworthy in so many ways.

There is always the immigration/border/illegal issue. That is usually good to put us in the news for shootings, rock throwings, Border Agent disputes or threats from the drug cartels. The controversies are interminable in this arena.

We had the horrendous shooting in Tucson January 8th. That brought up gun laws, political disputes, mental illness screening, and several other arguments. Six people killed, a dozen wounded, a community in crisis, heroes and miracles of medicine--headlines for months.

Medical marijuana isn't new to some states, but it is to Arizona. So now we have to figure out who gets the joints, which joint is distributing the joints, and a plethora of other pot problems.

We've dropped to the bottom in education quality.

Junker desecrated the Fiesta Bowl. The whole tournament could be sent off to some place more pure.

A Southwest Airline plane flying over--you guessed it--Arizona had a section of the fuselage tear off and major decompression problems forced it to suffer an emergency landing and several other 737's to be grounded. Cracks are every where (they'd have us believe) in these aging flying contraptions. I happen to fly Southwest home to Idaho when I visit. Not scary at all.

Our governor has memory lapses. (Like she's the only one!) But she's the one caught on film and it's looped over and over. She also is blamed for transplant turmoil and several immigration missteps. (beheadings? true or false??)

Sheriff Joe makes inmates wear pink underwear, live in tents, and he sweeps businesses to rid them of workers without proper documentation or identification.

There are undoubtedly other Arizonan issues which I, as a newcomer, can't remember or am unaware of.

Idaho was so much less news worthy. We had the militiamen and skin heads in the north of that state. Killing of a game warden by that Claude Dallas. There might have been a couple other errors that launched my homeland into the headlines, but nothing to the extent of my adopted state.

Feel free to add to the list if you are a native Arizonan or have lived here longer than I (which would be most of you.) Maybe Arizona has been in the news for something positive and I missed it. University of Arizona made it to the final eight, I think, but not the famous four...I'll put my thinking cap on and try to ponder the positive. I hate it when the state I live in looks foolish.