Tag: State Of Arizona

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Obama Speaks At My High School Tomorrow In Mesa, Arizona

Update 02/18/09: View video and more news on this event from Channel 3 in Phoenix.

President Obama will speak at Dobson High School in Mesa, Arizona tomorrow. I graduated from Dobson High in 1992.

Apparently they announced it monday morning and people rushed to the school to get tickets. Obama will be speaking in the school’s gymnasium which holds about 2000 people but there were only 400 tickets released.

ronaz08 on YouTube has a video of his sons waiting in line on Monday which shows at least a 1000 people lined up.

It’s interesting that Obama chose the state of Arizona, where McCain is a senator. Obama apparently didn’t inform or invite McCain to the event. The other senator for Arizona couldn’t change his plans.

“That’s too late for me to change my plans,” Kyl said. “In any event I wouldn’t be speaking. I would be standing there while he’s announcing something that I know nothing about. The time to talk about these things is before the fact, not after the fact.”

Of course, there are protests being organized.

Although I don’t miss living in Arizona I might have planned a trip back home if I could have acquired tickets for the event.

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Happy State Hood to New Mexico

The State Of New Mexico, the state I’m living in, became an official state this day in 1912. At one point the portion of the country that makes up Arizona and New Mexico was one whole Territory, and was split up into two states. More importantly New Mexico was first and Arizona was second, take that you Arizona scum! Oh wait, I was born in Arizona, DOH!

The incorporation of the modern-day state’s territory into the United States was a gradual process. The northeastern corner was ceded by France in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The remainder of what is now New Mexico was then wholly claimed by the Spanish colony of New Spain and its successor state (after 1810), the Republic of Mexico. The incorporation of this territory into the USA came in three stages: the portion to the east of the Rio Grande was claimed by the breakaway Republic of Texas when it seceded from Mexico in 1836; this territory was transferred to the federal government by Texas in 1850.

Most of the western portion of the state (to the west of the river) was surrendered by Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848. Finally, the southwestern corner of the state (the “boot heel”) was ceded by Mexico under the 1853 Gadsden Purchase. The Territory of New Mexico was established on September 9, 1850; under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, slavery was legal in the territory, but does not appear to have taken significant hold there. The eastern half of the territory became the State of New Mexico, which was admitted to the Union as its 47th member on January 6, 1912, the western half being admitted separately as the 48th state of Arizona on February 14, 1912.