For more than 30 years, two words — “East Valley” — did more than anything else to put a vibrant, growing, destination-in-an-of-itself region on the map. Without them, this area may well have remained the land of Nod: A sleepy place whose residents do little other than shift positions every few hours.

For several years, Arizona has had a law that, unlike many other laws whose hifalutin-sounding names have nothing to do with what they’re about, has one of the clearest names: the Stupid Motorist Law.

Now that June is boiling up all over, as a public service this column will provide, especially to new arrivals, unsolicited advice on summer survival in the Sonoran Desert. When you’re not covering yourself in aloe vera juice to relieve a scalding sunburn, when surfaces inside your car are noticeably less than molten, when you’re watching someone else on TV being carried down from Camelback Mountain giving a thumbs-up to the camera — that’s when you’ll thank me, um, I hope.

I can’t think of a country that doesn’t have something like Memorial Day. Whether democratic or totalitarian or anything in between, national honors are paid annually to those who have given their lives for their countries.

I can’t think of a country that doesn’t have something like Memorial Day. Whether democratic or totalitarian or anything in between, national honors are paid annually to those who have given their lives for their countries.

When our nation’s founders wrote the language in the First Amendment guaranteeing the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances,” there were no words describing the form of that petition.

Time marches on.

I have to admit that this column is going to have few readers. For one thing, here is the only mention it will have of the name Jodi Arias. That’s it. Sorry.

Screening the film adaptation of George Orwell’s “1984” isn’t exactly the most festive way to celebrate one’s upcoming birthday, but after reading the Tribune’s “Nerdvana” column’s recommending it this coming Friday, I couldn’t help but reserve a seat.

About 15 years ago I had what I believed to be the solution to our incredibly poor record of electing government officials of — how do the appliance makers refer to it? — quality and reliability: