(final podcast link)

Thank you everybody for being such a great audience and an even better source of learning over the years. I fully intend for this to be the final post on the Arizona Growler. Hey, if professional athletes can call a long hiatus “retirement,” so can I. Therefore, I “retire” from politics.

Jeff Rutledge continues to pursue his degree in media arts and general business administration. Trevor Smith is graduating with a B.A. in political science and will be working in Washington (that’s all he let me say). Ratman continues to wreak common-sensical havoc upon liberal public schools in southwestern Arizona.

I was going to announce my specific career plans on this blog, but recent events have led me to handle this a little more securely. If you’d like to know, and if I know you (having only met on the Internet still counts), you can feel free to shoot me an email at gpohara at gmail dot com, and I’ll be more than willing to let you in on the secret.

On a podcast-related note, you might recall some legal research back on the “O’Hara Factor” where I determined that getting the Arizona Board of Regents to turn its current weapons policy around would be sufficient to restore gun rights on Arizona’s university campuses. I hope that helps anybody who decides to make a political push.

The Arizona blogosphere meanwhile looks as healthy and vibrant as ever. I only hope that more people pay attention as blogs become the norm as opposed to a niche. Thank you everybody for the good times. Please know full well that I’m leaving on a better note than what the podcast might imply. It’s a challenge that I hope will be taken up soon.

Best Regards,
G. P. O’Hara

I just noticed in my statistics this afternoon that somebody had clicked to the Growler from the Wikipedia article of Rep. Raúl Grijalva, with whom I had a well-known incident back in early October.

During the winter break, I’ve been a regular contributor to Wikipedia, making over 400 edits.  Some have been mistakes, but otherwise, I’m glad to have been fighting hundreds of vandalism cases inbetween working out and resting back in Yuma.  Nonetheless, I affirm that this was not my edit.  As evidenced in the article’s history, user Kynn Bartlett made the edit at 10:51 MST yesterday.

I will be contributing to the discussion in order to have a more-specific link included, but I will refrain from editing the article myself, as Wikipedia is rightfully strict concerning neutral point of view.  I expect Congressmen’s pages may receive extra traffic and editing today, as the new Congress has been sworn in.

The AP reports that a UAPD officer shot and killed a man brandishing a shotgun during a traffic stop this morning.  We don’t know much more than that, but expect some developments to come out later.

The Arizona Daily Wildcat has no updates on the story, as it is currently on winter hiatus until January 10th.

I guess the story makes this odd to say, but Merry Christmas to everybody, and remember that tomorrow is no less His day than today.  God bless.

Update: The Tucson Citizen reports that the traffic stop was for a stolen license plate.  Deceased is Raul Marquez Jr., 43.  Encounter initiated at 4:50 a.m.; Marquez pronounced dead 45 minutes later.  UA Phonebook indicates no such name being affiliated with the university.

Update (26 Dec): The Arizona Daily Star has more details, including details on the records of the officer and the suspect.  The suspect’s criminal record doesn’t surprise me.

Update 3: Marquez had a felony warrant out for DUI, but was being pulled over specifically for having stolen plates.  Please allow me to echo what the commenters said on the Star article and thank the good Lord this wasn’t the tragedy for the officer’s family that it could have been.

Update: David Roney at Lighthouse Blog reports that his son’s Catholic school has a military uniform ban in place for its Halloween parade.  Of course, military costumes on the university campus typically amount to d****bag "Greek" parties or f***tard anti-war protesters.  Note that my language is typically more reserved than this.

FIRE’s Sean Clark comments in a recent post that censorship of offensive costumes is becoming all-too-common on the university campus.  I do remember one particular instance at the University of Tennessee when a five white students from Jackson, Tennessee decided to dress up as…The Jackson Five.  I’d certainly like to hear what they have to say on fake weapons.  And I don’t consider it beyond the University of Arizona (specifically Residence Life) to pull a censorship move.  The Growler is listening.

Remember: Wilbur Wildcat used to be armed with six-shooters.

FIRE’s website appears to be down; the post is reproduced below:

Most of my regular readers know I’m a big advocate of the Second Amendment being applied to the college campus.  Another case in point of all the things we could possibly concoct: Halloween.

First off, we have to treat fake weapons as real weapons just in case…

Romero said fake weapons are a big concern for UAPD.

UA policy prohibits weapons of any kind on campus, including fake or toy weapons that may be part of Halloween costumes.

If a caller reports that someone is on campus with a gun, even if the gun is just a prop, the UAPD will respond as if it were real.

"We will do whatever we have to do to keep everyone safe," Romero said.

I’m not saying police shouldn’t fire back if somebody points a fake gun at them.  I am saying that banning weapons period produces these kinds of sticky situations.  No word on whether tinfoil swords are weapons.  Perhaps witches brew is a form of biological warfare.

Of course, this is the University of Arizona, so discussions of Halloween would never be complete without mentioning race and gender. 

Halloween costumes are especially bothersome, making it hard for officers to identify whom they’re after. Even things like someone’s race or gender can be hidden behind a mask or under makeup.

"Somebody commits a crime, we’re looking for Richard Nixon or a Raggedy Ann and Andy duo," Romero said.

Update (October 9th): Expect a podcast report with my interviews of other candidates either tonight or tomorrow. You will find that the responses of the other candidates, even when we disagreed on many fundamental things, were very respectful and always ended with a genuine handshake. I unfortunately cannot say the same of Congressman Grijalva. Members of the press who seek direct comment may contact me at my email address: gpohara-at-gmail.com.

Update II (October 9th): I had never figured out why Grijalva and his staffer were so sensitive to having the conversation recorded, but perhaps it’s because they’re in a dispute over which debates they actually agreed upon. With this recent incident, Rep. Grijalva might be more likely than ever to avoid the University of Arizona as a debate site.

Update III (October 9th): The other interviews

THIS IS NOT A SATIRE.

I’m not going to delve into legal details here; I’m just going to say what happened and give myself some time to decide a course of action. Interviews of other candidates as well as further personal analysis of what happened will be posted at a later time when I can muster a more professional voice.

In short, I became involved in what I will term an "incident" with Representative Raul Grijalva (AZ-7) and one of his staffers during the October 6, 2006 Voter Block Party held at Main Gate Square by the Associated Students of the University of Arizona. The recording explains the rest.

While I wait upon my senses to allow me to choose a course of action, I urge my fellow District 7 voters to take this into account when marking the ballot on November 7th.

Garrett P. O’Hara
University of Arizona political science senior

P.S.: If you subscribe to the podcast, you might notice that the server I used for the other files is down. I’ll let you know when it’s back up.

How to listen:

Play episode (128 Kbps MP3) | Play episode (64 Kbps MP3) | RSS 2.0 Feed (podcasts) | Subscribe with iTunes or other podcatcher

Addition: This audio work falls under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. Content on the rest of this blog falls under the license seen at the bottom of the right hand column of the page unless otherwise noted in a post. Added October 9th: As stated in the license, this in no way affects your fair use rights.

I saw this earlier, but didn’t know whether to post until something was confirmed.  News sources now confirm that a 18-year-old female UA student was shot early yesterday in a drive-by shooting.  Some students on Facebook had already started a group entitled "Wildcats Against Violence," but the group lists the time as the night of the day before.

Time errors notwithstanding, it’s definitely the same party as FIJI is the same fraternity as Phi Gamma Delta.  The Facebook group reports that Theta Tau and Alpha Chi Omega are also within the vicinity.

Here’s what they didn’t tell you: 

Looking on Google Earth, FIJI is a dirt lot, so the picture is clearly old.  But notice what’s just southwest of that position.  FIJI, 1801 E First St, is just across the street from UAPD, 1852 E. First St.  This is further evidence that citizens cannot trust police as an alternative to the right to bear arms.

This is the second frat shooting this year and the third gun-related incident on university-related property to my knowledge.  Kappa Alpha was trying to remove an unwelcome guest when he pulled out a gun and shot an 18-year-old pledge.  And last semester on University and Park, a group of friends (including a good friend of mine) were mugged, with some of them getting pistol-whipped.

We had three at the nursing school killed back in 2002.  This year, we’ve had 22 aggravated assaults, including, at minimum, the University/Park mugging and FIJI.  How long will it take before we get our rights back?

Update: KVOA’s website thankfully does mention the vicinity to UAPD and notes that an officer heard the shots.  I also just remembered that back when I was in the fifth grade, my family and I were attacked by a raged driver…just near the Honolulu Police Department.  Go figure.

I once met Len Munsil.  It was Sanctity of Life Sunday at First Southern Baptist Church, and Len Munsil was the president of the Center of Arizona Policy.  He joked about his attendance of ASU rather than UofA and on the reputation of lawyers he had to inherit.

His issue list looks strong on eminent domain abuse and illegal immigration.  In fact, he looks to be doing his best to distinguish himself as being stronger on the latter issue than Don Goldwater.

Internet-wise, Munsil had been the candidate using it best so far, at least for me.  The primary feature of his website is not a platform or fancy graphics; it’s a blog.  But recently, I noticed that my Firefox live bookmark for his site wasn’t working.  I didn’t take much note of it at first, but I took a look at his main site today, performed some investigation, and concluded that his RSS feed was completely gone, probably intentionally.  With that alone, Munsil isn’t going to get his propaganda to me very well, so my chances of voting for him in November just went down significantly.  Neither Goldwater nor Napolitano ever had RSS feeds to my knowledge, so we’re basically in a situation where Napolitano has the best-designed website (VERY professional-looking), Munsil has a blog with a mediocre design (lose the horizontal solidity please) and no feed, and Goldwater’s site looks like a 13-year-old designed it.  I started making money in amateurish freelance web design at age 14 or 15, but by golly not for a gubernatorial candidate.

The second issue I’ve found came up in the top post from the day I checked his site: John McCain has endorsed him.  McCain’s campaign finance reform act just killed free speech this past Monday (ht: Karen of Scottsdale), so I was hoping that a candidate from either side would be willing to give him the middle finger, but I’m apparently too hopeful of a guy.  Munsil’s website contains no mention of the term "campaign finance", so we can’t really be sure that he’s even against the bill.  His only critical mention of "clean elections" (besides the accusation flap from earlier) is that it’s "rife with problems." 

Searches on Goldwater’s site yield similar results with a few exceptions.  First, Goldwater didn’t have a Clean Elections flap, and mentions of "clean elections" include a column that explains why even conservatives are currently justified in running as Clean Elections candidates.  Secondly, as reported on the Goldwater home page, it looks like there might be a fake push-pollster out there trying to discredit Goldwater and/or Munsil.  What isn’t mentioned is whether either candidate is in favor of the Clean Elections law in the first place.  It would certainly be nice to get a statement against it from the candidates.

Goldwater looks to be more pro-gun at this point.  Without eminent domain or campaign finance / clean elections to argue, the Second Amendment is the primary issue.  Both of these guys had better shape up their campaigns.

After clicking a link on the right side of the Tucson Citizen local page, I noticed this morning that Gannett’s "Border Divide immigration debate portal" has a Jeopardy-style online quiz consisting of government-printed citizenship test flash cards.  Some of it is what you’d expect: questions about who wrote the Declaration of Independence, what the stripes of the American Flag mean, etc.

Then I started going through the 1,000-point questions just to see if I could get one wrong.  I’ll take U.S. Rights for 1,000, Alex.

Well, that’s actually kind of debatable.  Rights are important, but valuing one or the other isn’t pertinent unless you consider that without the right to bear arms, the government can easily take away the other two without redress.  Naturally, (a), not (b), is considered the correct answer in the government-printed flash cards.

Let’s move one question up: U.S. Rights for 800!

This one’s on Gannett, not the government, as the former made up the multiple-choice answers.  Way to mock the Second Amendment, you objective journalists. 

Update (8/11):  Police have released the names of suspects and deceased, none of whom show up on Facebook or university phonebook searches.

The Arizona Daily Star reports a shooting took place at NorthPointe Student Apartments late yesterday resulting in one fatality and one injury. Victims’ names are not released at this time.

Amid speculation in the article’s comments on increasing tendency towards crime among UA students, I should note that NorthPointe was one of many student apartment complexes using babes in bathing suits to get people to sign on.  Seems the advertising has mildened now according to what I’m finding online, but this doesn’t account for all of the student population living there now.  I’m willing to bet that sexual advertising would lead to higher crime rates considering the kind of students such advertising would attract.

The shooting occurs about 8.5 months after Tucson Police Department awarded them a "Crime Free Housing" award (quote from photo gallery; requires browsing)

The following is what I could garner of the complex’s reputation.  Input welcome in comments if you know more. 

• A reviewer on ApartmentRatings.com titled his review of the complex the following July 20th "Crime & Violence Should ‘Pointe’ You the Other Direction."  There are some positive reviews, but it’s only recommended by about 41%.
• A Google search of the Arizona Daily Wildcat’s pre-CollegePublisher archives turns up a party-atmosphere reputation.

Wondering why I moved out of the dorms?  It wasn’t just Residence Life’s social engineering; it was the Second Amendment.  One would hope university students would be smart enough to utilize it.