FORE! We hear from some city employees that Tucson Parks and Recreation Director Jim Ronstadt has been dancing a happy little bureaucrat's jig ever since Rocking K President Chris Monson announced the start of Phase 1 of the mega-development in the Rincon Valley. Ronstandt has a special interest in quadrawealthy Don Diamond's luxury resort and housing development--golf courses. Since the future billion-dollar Rocking K development sits just outside the city's southeastern limits, some city pols think annexing Diamond's project would pay big tax dividends. It no doubt would; the big question is whether those tax dividends will cover the cost of providing services to the future residents--little civic perks like police and fire protection, garbage pickup and parks. Which brings us back to the links. The original Rocking K plan for four golf courses has been trimmed back to three. Diamond's group has indicated a willingness to "give" the city enough land to build and manage two of the courses. As part of the deal, Diamond would be willing to "donate" additional land to the city for the development of additional parks--at taxpayer expense, of course. It's a real win-win situation: Diamond would get to tout his three golf courses and the city would get to build, staff and manage at least two of them. And yes, we taxpayers would again be subsidizing that amazingly rich money wizard Diamond. He is truly Arizona's undisputed King of the Deal. But wait, golf fans--there's more! There's also growing speculation about the city's interest in annexing the westside resort community of Starr Pass, which already features an operational 18-hole course and has plans to add a new nine-hole course. And let's not forget yet another new 18-hole course to be featured in the "solar village" going up on the southeast side. Of course, the possibility of Tucson annexing Starr Pass and the Rocking K is currently nothing more than nervous speculation. But whether these developments wind up in or out of the city, you can be sure subsidies from Tucson Water ratepayers will be used to support their infrastructure to provide water to keep their greens green. HE'S NOT HEAVY, HE'S MY GOVERNOR: It's not that we dislike or hate Don Diamond. Far from it. We admire his four decades of proven moneymaking abilities in our community. And he continues the time-honored, if not exactly honorable, Tucson tradition of selling off bits and chunks of this unique desert bio region to out-of-town rubes at sometimes shocking profits. Hey, it's just entrepreneurial smarts in high form. No, what bothers us about the Don is his immense influence on our local politicians. We know we've said this before, but it bears repeating in light of last week's news: It seems Diamond is the biggest contributor to Gov. J. Fife Deadbeat III's legal defense fund. We suppose it's somehow appropriate that Diamond, who is almost a law unto himself in our Podunk metropolis, would see fit to aide the wealthy scion of East Coast privilege--Symington--who obviously believes himself to be above the law. And to Diamond the $10,000 gift he's made to Symington must seem like mere piffle, less than chump change; it's the gesture that counts. Don't get us wrong--we're not spewing outrage here, we're not even particularly upset. It's a fact of life in our supposedly classless society that the privileged and mighty look out for their own. And we're sure the many hours of camaraderie the Governor is rumored to have experienced on Diamond's humongous yacht moored down in Mexico count for something as well. We just thought it was interesting, that's all. Like watching actors in a glittery soap opera, far removed from ordinary life. Sigh. HELP THE GUV--BUY AN ESTES HOME: Of course, the thousands of local Estes Co. homeowners in the middle and lower income brackets were probably pleased to see some of the profits Bill Estes has made off them go to help our beleaguered Guv. Only $5,000, mind you, but isn't saving Fife worth it, despite what those union pension fund whiners allege? OH, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE: When religious zealots of whatever stripe see fit to drag their God into the arena in an effort to persuade us of certain important issues in public debate, we feel it imperative to examine the roots of the religion being thrust upon us, a free and independent-thinking citizenry. Which brings us to that abysmal Cal Thomas column in last Thursday's Tucson Citizen, the gist of which is that God Almighty may have been behind the tragedy of TWA Flight 800 as well as the Atlanta Olympics pipe bombing. Funny, but it wouldn't surprise us. The Jehovah of the Christian Right whom Thomas apparently worships is a mean-spirited, psychotic murderer who's been known to wipe out entire nations--women, babies, children, old men--mainly because some of their penises weren't neatly trimmed, and they were in the way of his buddies, whose penises were. It's right there in the Old Testament, folks. We're not talking Mr. Niceguy, King of Rationality, here. This Supreme Being once gave a perfectly nice, respectful guy boils and worse just to watch him squirm. And old Cal thinks maybe his God is at it again, visiting His wrath upon America because we permit abortion and other such "abominations" unto the Lord. He paraphrases an idiot country preacher as saying "we are fooling ourselves if we take for granted that the protective hand which guided us safely through our nation's founding and through wars and economic downturns will remain unconditionally in place." Yeah, and we're sure all those guys who got their heads, gonads, arms and legs blown off in all those wars had good, old mean-spirited Jehovah on their side, too. But He was probably just too busy blowing up Gooks and Krauts and Japs to save our own boys, some of whom undoubtedly were God-fearing types. And the founding fathers? The bright ones didn't even believe in the twisted claptrap you're spewing, Cal. Look it up. We were also tickled by the irony of Thomas quoting Abraham Lincoln, perhaps our greatest president, and one of our most astute politicians, who noted the nation had "forgotten God" and was therefore being visited by the plague of civil war. Lincoln said many things in his effort to preserve and later heal the Union. We'll give anyone a free lunch if they can tell us what church Lincoln attended regularly. In fact, he didn't. And we doubt he put much stock in the bullshit doom-and-gloom of country preachers, either. The truth is, Jehovah didn't blow up TWA Flight 800, and He didn't put that crappy pipe bomb in that Atlanta trashbasket. It was that other invention of mean-spirited religious zealots, Satan. And by relentlessly spewing the corrupt, ignorant trash he's famous for, Cal Thomas is obviously his agent in this sorry-ass world. Oh, and Jesus--remember Him?--is really pissed at you, Cal. CITIZEN ATTABOY: OK, so we regularly beat up both dailies because most of the time they deserve it. But it's nice to note that real reporters can survive even on a Gannett paper. We'd like to take this opportunity to point out that in the middle of the many screw-ups, somebody at the Citizen has allowed Carla McLain to put out some good stuff lately. Recently she exposed the horrific conditions at the Willcox dog pound, let everybody know about a local stable's murder of an innocent horse, and told us that the once fabled St. Mary's Burn Unit is basically no more. Thanks, Carla, and keep up the good work. WHILE TELEVISION NEWS IS GETTING WORSE: Ink-stained newspapermen used to accuse electronic airheads of "rip and read," the practice of going to the wire services and tearing off enough copy to get through a news broadcast. Too bad we can't return to those days. There used to be a whole lot more wire service news for an intelligent news person to rip and read, and news programs actually told us something. No more. Now much larger news staffs waste our time with inane interviews and voice-overs from people who have far less grasp of what is relevant, as well as often shallow local follow-ups on national stories. Por ejemplo: During the coverage of the recent TWA explosion Channel 13 interviewed a security guard at the Tucson International Airport, which is a little like covering the bombing of Pearl Harbor by talking to a sailor--or somebody who once lived in Hawaii. Not only is this not news, it isn't even very interesting. But it complies with the shallow formulas common in most TV newsrooms. The local TV news turkeys are all fighting each other for the bottom of the pile of viewers and bragging about their "share" of the audience. But the chase for greater irrelevance is decreasing the total number of people with three-digit IQs viewing this crap at all. So editorial staffs are desperately pushing the envelope--downward. We were better off and got more real news when they had somebody just ripping and reading. IF THEY CAN FIGURE IT OUT IN PHOENIX.... Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza and a couple of his colleagues in Maricopa County actually came out for impact fees for education. That's right, folks--even a cementhead like old Skippy has figured out there ain't enough money to pay for all this much-touted growth without charging some of the people who cause it. If the Rimszas of the world can figure it out up there, could our mayor be far behind? Will George Miller join his counterparts or will he just keep rolling along with the developers who elected him? Your move, George.

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