SEEING IS BELIEVING . . . By Bishop, Excentric Authentic Scrivener
Optimism consistently outruns the water supply…………………………..Wallace Stegner
Once upon a time it so happened in Cornville, Arizona that an invisible man dropped by a dental office to make an appointment. When told by the receptionist just who was in the waiting room, the dentist snapped “I can’t see him.”
Ludicrousness aside for a moment there is more than meets the eye to that dentist’s crack. It is said in West Sedona salons that truth is the child of time.
Undeniably, gentle reader, the dentist’s refusal to see, when applied around the Verde Valley, and up and downtown Sedona, suddenly takes shape and rises up like a mammoth ogre that dares us to stare in its face, into its one eye. Indeed, to print the list of citizens around here that fail to see the world around them might threaten the ink supply in this scrivener’s printer.
Truth Never Dies But Leads A Wretched Life…………………………….Jewish Proverb
Cut to a dazzling late summer afternoon in West Sedona, visualize a secluded rocky spot where the 36-foot high Amitabha Stupa, a sublime form of sacred Buddhist architecture, looms high seemingly able to touch billowing nimbus clouds. Gathered there were dozens of citizens celebrating the U.N.’s International Day of Peace. Walking for Peace was the theme, thus many walked prayerfully around the Stupa while others worked to organize baskets of donated canned goods to be distributed through the Sedona Community Food Bank that distributed 200,000 pounds of food last year.
Amidst the music and the chatter, a thin middle-aged lady took the mic and proceeded to drop a surprising bomb.Back from Africa where poverty is widespread she announced that the level of poverty in this area stunned her: who knew that 35 percent of the public school students in Yavapai County were “food insecure”—meaning they are never sure where their next meal is coming from; what’s more at least 300 young people are homeless and hungry. Gentle reader, in our area, for far more people than is realized, The American Dream remains the American Myth.
THE RECYCLING MYSTERY:
Another irrefutable component in Sedona which needs to be discovered by more people is 23-year-old Sedona Recycles, a non-profit community recycling center on Shelby Drive widely regarded beyond Sedona as the most successful one-of-a-kind facility in Arizona, probably in most parts of our nation. Processing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of material annually. SRI leaders are dedicated to giving every material a real chance to be recycled into something new, rather than filling landfills to the brim.
Shelby Drive is not hard to find, so why don’t more people recycle? Do they not know that millions of dollars of waste containing zinc, aluminum, plastics are being buried forever, a feat tantamount to burying cash, whereas in mainland China, landfills are being excavated to recover precious materials. They care over there!
OUR SUN HAS BEEN DISCOVERED:
So fashionable has it become for citizens to mock Arizona leaders for being a backward gang of flat-earth society retrogrades. Were reliable newspapers still existing, like the sheet you are reading right now, the truth would be told: Arizona is part of growing solar deployment which saw the U.S. install 976 megawatts of solar panels in the last quarter. California led the pack with a record 521 megawatts installed. Arizona was a big part of the equation, with power plants such as Agua Caliente and Copper Mountain Solar 2 coming online.
Arizona and North Carolina will combine for about 400 megawatts of solar installs in the second half of the year. Overall, installations were up 23% in the second quarter. Leaving California behind is a massive new solar plant near Gila Bend built by a Spanish company. When it is up and running soon it will be the largest Solar power plant of its kind in the world, so is Arizona truly so backward?
WHAT HAPPENED TO LIVE THEATRE?
The moaning is growing louder among some of the more cultured cognoscenti in and around Sedona—admittedly not a large group. Indeed there has been cause for the moaning and whining given the skyrocket rents and counterproductive decisions by cultural czars now faded from memory. But wipe away the tears!
Isn’t irony wonderful? When clouds are darkest, shafts of hopeful sun pierce through them: Red Earth Theatre is emerging among us. Wipe away the tears for the so-called good old days. Thanks to four women, that between them are from three countries, speak five languages and love theatre. “We are a homeless organization thus avoiding out-of-control rents,” one of the women, Kate Hawkes, an Australian, explained in a small boite on the outskirts of town. “You can say we are a multicultural gang of experienced, passionate theatre aficionados from Cottonwood and Sedona traveling the valley, offering theatre on the doorsteps of communities without real local access to a live theatre.”
What a fresh, relevant and welcome addition to Sedona, Cottonwood, Camp Verde and beyond—and so far from the hands of politicians. Soon, we shall see performances and workshops in schools, at the Old Town Center for the arts, and elsewhere, too. “Looks like we got here just in time,” mused Hawkes.
So much info in so few words. Totosly could learn a lot.