Andanh.com

Nemo Nicholas died instantly early Sunday, his car obliterated when it was hit head-on by a suspected drunk driving the wrong way on the Santan Freeway near Dobson Road.

One minute you’re in your own little bubble, hurtling down the highway like we all do every day, feeling safe and secure inside our speeding metal dome. The next second — and when another car is coming directly toward you at freeway speed I’m sure there isn’t much more than a second to realize what’s happening — you’re dead.

We don’t know much about Nicholas, a 35-year-old Chandler man. His family, still in shock, said Monday they aren’t ready to talk to the media yet. I don’t blame them. In the past day their lives must have become a living hell.

So we don’t yet have much of a picture of who Nemo Nicholas was. But I wish I knew. I’d like to be able to let people know who this man was whose life was taken so needlessly. Records suggest he may have been a pretty smart guy, one who earned a physics degree from a prestigious California college a decade ago and participated in some fascinating astronomical experiments during that time.

But we’re not sure.

What’s clear is that the suspected wrong-way driver, 21-year-old Alonso Pena Reyes of San Bernardino, Calif., lived. He’s in critical condition. But he’s alive.

Why does that always seem to be the way these things turn out?

Foreclosures continue to climb in metropolitan Phoenix, but at least more help is on the way.

During Monday's Cince de Mayo celebration, a human rights group invited people to step right up at take a whack at America's toughest sheriff. The group actually strung up a three-foot tall pinata with Arpaio's face on it and proceeded to beat the sweets right out of the thing. 

Ray Ybarra of the Puebla Center for Legal and Human Rights, told KTAR that the Hispanic community is fed up with Sheriff Joe Arpaio targeting people because of the color of their skin and as such he has no problem with encouraging people to take a symbolic stick to the sheriff.

``The real violence is coming from the sheriff," Ybarra said.  "He's out there separating families. He's the one that, as a result of his actions, someone comes home to an empty house. A child comes home and the parent's not there."

Ybarra went on to say that it's Arpaio who's sending the wrong message -- not him. "He's saying that human beings are not equal, that people do not have the right to live where they want to live, go to school where they want to go and love who they want to love. Unfortunately, I think he's the one creating all this violence and hatred in our community and not us."

Now, I don't know who Ray Ybarra is and I've never even heard of the Puebla Center for Legal and Human Rights, but  the guy's not doing the Hispanic community he claims to speak for any favors.

I've been critical of Sheriff's Joe's crime suppression patrols on the grounds that he's unfairly targeting Hispanic Americans, isn't being particularly effective in sweeping up large numbers of illegal immigrants and should be putting his efforts into going after the most dangerous of the illegal immigrants.

But to say that it's his fault that families are being separated? Oh please. He's not the one who chose to sneak into the country and he's not the one who put illegal immigrants into their present predicament. And yes, I imagine the sheriff would say that people do not have the right to live where they want to live if they didn't come here legally. In fact, I imagine most of us would

I sometimes wonder where some of these so-called  "leaders of the Hispanic community" come from. But since Mr. Ybarra claims to be one of them, he should know that doing anything to promote the idea of violence toward a law enforcement officer in these turbulent times is irresponsible.

Hope you saw the piece on today’s op-ed page defending the city of Phoenix’s $100 million subsidy for a shopping center. (I couldn't find it online but it's on page B5 of today's Republic.)

Turns out the city’s giveaway of half the sales taxes to be generated at CityNorth for the first 11 years isn’t a giveaway at all. According to the opinion piece, written by Donald Keuth, president of the Phoenix Community Alliance, and sent to the newspaper by the CityNorth developer's PR people, it falls under the category of  “municipal tax incentives for urban infill-development projects.”

“An incentive is a tool designed to encourage or motivate a particular behavior,” Kleuth writes, “in this case, building critical public infrastructure that promotes density.”

So what, you might ask, is that criticial public infrastructure being supplied courtesy of taxpayers for this “urban infill” project at the corner of 56^th Street and Loop 101, in the swankiest part of town?

Parking garages.

I know, I couldn't stop laughing either.

The Goldwater Institute sued the city over this joke, pointing out that it's a blatant giveaway and as such a violation of the gift ban in the state constitution.

Not surprisingly, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Robert Miles agreed with the city’s $450-an-hour attorneys, ruling that it's perfectly OK for a city to give away nearly $100 million in future sales taxes to a shopping center developer. Among the things you purchased with your $100 million: a new urban core that'll reduce traffic, pollution and congestion and new stores that’ll generate new tax revenue. And, of course, free parking! (Well, not exactly free. More like parking for the bargain rate of $100 million.)

Fortunately, Miles is not the last word, much as the Thomas J. Klutznick Company and the city of Phoenix would like it to be so. It took the Court of Appeals to overturn the often-city-initiatived, always-Superior-Court-approved practice of taking people's private land through eminent domain and giving it to developers when clearly the constitution outlawed such outrageous practices. Who can forget the 2004 landmark ruling in which the Court of Appeals finally put its foot down, ruling that Mesa couldn't seize Randy Bailey's land because city leaders wanted a hardware store where his brake shop had always been.  It's simple, the court said, after reading Article 2 Section 17 of the state constitution. ("Private property shall not be taken for private use, except for private ways of necessity, and for drains, flumes, or ditches, on or across the lands of others for mining, agricultural, domestic, or sanitary purposes.")

Hopefully, the Court of Appeals will now read Article 9 Section 7 and return us to the days when cities actually were required to follow the law banning gifts -- even (gasp!) to developers. And I quote:

“Neither the state, nor any county, city, town, municipality, or other subdivision of the state shall ever give or loan its credit in the aid of, or make any donation or grant, by subsidy or otherwise, to any individual, association, or corporation, or become a subscriber to, or a shareholder in, any company or corporation, or become a joint owner with any person, company, or corporation, except as to such ownerships as may accrue to the state by operation or provision of law or as authorized by law solely for investment of the monies in the various funds of the state.”

Barack Obama is criticizing Hillary Clinton for saying that she would massively retaliate against Iran if it were to attack Israel.

The criticism is well-founded. The United States already provides an implicit guarantee of Israel's security. An explicit guarantee would simply increase the extent to which Arab countries in the region hold the United States responsible for Israel's actions.

Worse, Clinton has been doling out security guarantees in the region like they were candy. In the Pennsylvania debate, she said that the United States should extend security guarantees to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and "others" as a counterpoint to Iran developing a nuke.

The Bush doctrine calls for the United States to be an active and forceful agent of democratic change in the region. That doesn't serve U.S. interests.

Neither, however, does offering security guarantees to the existing autocrats.

This is The Republic's Cardinals Insider column for Monday.

Over the past 20 years, the Cardinals' offensive line has been tinkered with more than a vintage car and undergone more makeovers than an aging starlet.

The club used high draft choices and spent big money revamping it. Players were benched, signed, drafted, cut and moved from position to position in what seemed like a never-ending search for competency.

It's a football axiom that continuity on the offensive line leads to success. Yet from 1988, the year the team moved to Arizona, through last year, only once (1996-97) did the Cardinals keep the same five offensive-line starters in the same positions for two consecutive seasons.

This year might be the second.

At minicamp, the starting offensive line was the same as it was for opening day 2007: tackle Mike Gandy and guard Reggie Wells on the left side, Al Johnson at center, and guard Deuce Lutui and tackle Levi Brown on the right side.

The advantages of keeping that group together were obvious Sunday in the last of five minicamp practices, coach Ken Whisenhunt said.

"(Sunday) was a big day for us when we were putting in some of our packages things," Whisenhunt said.

"We're checking things at the line of scrimmage, and the communication there is already light-years ahead of where we were last year.

"That's the benefit of having a line that's been together for a year. So I think it will help us in meshing together in the run game, such as the combination blocks, and it really helps us in pass protection in identifying blitzers and identifying fronts."

Someone such as Wells, who bounced between guard and tackle his first three years, especially appreciates the continuity. Now, he's at left guard for the second consecutive season.

"You really just kind of pick up where you left off and progress, in a sense," he said.

There should be some concerns, however, about the unit's depth, especially at tackle. Lyle Sendlein is a competent reserve center who also can play guard. Elton Brown is a guard who also played some tackle last year. But that's it.

When receiver Larry Fitzgerald's contract was delayed, much was made of the Cardinals supposedly missing out on acquiring several key veterans. But the biggest loss was backup lineman Keydrick Vincent to Carolina.

Coaches like some of the young tackles in camp, but the club likely will search for a veteran lineman all the way until the start of the season.

Staffing shake-up

The Cardinals are planning to restructure their pro personnel and scouting departments over the next several weeks, though what form that structure takes remains unknown.

General Manager Rod Graves declined to reveal his plans, but sources said it could include the promotion of Steve Keim, the team's director of college scouting, and possibly Lonnie Young, a college scout who supervises the western part of the country.

Graves also is contacting a handful of candidates for what appears will be an addition to the staff.

He reportedly has talked to former Denver General Manager Ted Sundquist and former Jaguars pro personnel director Charles Bailey.

Both were fired this year.

The Cardinals' pro scouting personnel department, which was composed of two people, will be empty by the end of the month. Pro scout Rashaan Curry was fired last week, and Jim Stanley will retire at the end of the month.

The Cardinals traditionally have had one of the smaller personnel departments in the NFL. The size of the staff might not change, but the names sure will.