Arizona Statehood, a Dummy Explanation

Map of Arizona

One of our founders used to write for a well-known but now-defunct site that published product reviews from "everyday people." After the site implemented member forums, it was common to find an ongoing discussion, often flame-filled, of the notion that everyone can write well. He was in the "That's bullshit!" camp, arguing that it's just as unlikely as everyone being able to sing well or everyone being a better-that-average golfer: the bell curve is just not in favor of the notion. That doesn't stop some folks from trying desperately to get better through practice -- and, they seem to think, "If you have to practice, you might as well get paid for it!" That's apparently the mantra of Isabelle Esteves, who flogs a keyboard for WritEdge.com (and a few other places); specializing in semifactual and poorly written travel advice, among other topics. Today, Iz is going to tell everyone "How Arizona Became a State."¹

As far as we know, Esteves got (most of) the facts right in her article; we didn't fact-check everything. That's no big deal: after all, even a fifth-grader can pluck random facts out of Wikipedia and assemble them into paragraphs. No, we're here to point out some of the bullshit Iz wrote in her attempt to look like a good writer, much of which falls into the category of "maybe you should have read that through before you published!" Let's take a look at some of Isabelle's more interesting information (or not), with our comments:

"On February 14, 1912 Arizona became the 48th state in the Union... allowing the United States to extend unbroken from sea to shining sea.." Sorry, Isabelle, but the USA already extended "unbroken from sea to shining sea" in 1912: California, Oregon and Washington were already states by then and the Union Pacific Railroad had already connected the two coasts. "Arizona is a land as old as any in this hemisphere." We're not sure what that means: geologically (if so, it's not a defensible claim)? culturally? what? She seems to be addressing Anasazi culture, but that's not certain. "[In] 1540... Francisco Coronado arrived also in search of the illusive gold." We just bet Esteves meant "elusive," but she might have stumbled on a more apt word while misspelling it! Talk about your blind pigs and their elusive acorns!

"The hostility of the native Indians discouraged attempts at settlement..." We suspect that Isabelle meant "Native Americans" here, since Native Indians were pretty much confined to India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries... "In 1752 the first fortified city was established at Tubuc..." There's no such place in the state: did you mean Tubac, Isabelle? "...Mexico ceded the northern part of Arizona to the US and the remainder came in when it was purchased..."  Esteves passed up a golden chance to share some important information; that in 1853, the United States paid cash to Mexico for the final piece of territory necessary to assemble the 48 contiguous states, the Gadsden Purchase. She doesn't even mention Gadsden!

Some of that's semantically wrong, some of it's factually misleading, and some of it is woefully incomplete. All three problems suggest that 1) Esteves needed to do more careful research and 2) not everyone is inherently a good writer (but you knew that, right?). Interestingly enough, Isabelle was the "travel channel manager" at Helium.com, one of the many content farms that went to the great Panda zoo in the sky. We guess it her appointment was based on sheer quantity, since we doubt it was for quality. Whatever the case, she's still "special" -- she's the Antisocial Network's Dumbass of the Day for writing that article!

¹ This website is now defunct, and archive.org's Wayback machine never made a copy of the post. Oh, well, no loss...

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