A recent poll by the Center for the Future of Arizona revealed the loneliness and mistrust that can fester in the Grand Canyon State: Just 12% of Arizonans strongly agree with the statement that "people care about their neighbors here," a nationally dismal figure. The state in all its subdivided, air-conditioned glory is like a metaphor for the challenges facing the United States in the new century: a changing economy, rising ethnic heterogeneity, tense politics.
On Saturday, the affirmations of the old values of democracy echoed off the hardscape at Pima Community College, and were later punctuated with the sounds of classic patriotic marches played by the 62nd Army Band, dressed in combat fatigues, and a different set of classics from the Herencia de Cuco Del Cid mariachi troupe, wearing sombreros.
