A Buddhist's Diary, February 20th 2009

These photos were taken at the town of Ajo in southern Arizona.
Ajo is a mining town, and like many towns in the West I think it was a Phelps Dodge place.
Phelps Dodge built elegant city centers in their company towns. In the town of Morenci I am told, they destroyed the town to get at the copper and then built another town. Ajo is now a struggling but beautiful place, blessed with some lovely buildings as well as run down workers' housing. Phelps Dodge built a town called Playa in New Mexico in the 60 or 70's. I drove by it one day and found a whole neat little town with working traffic lights and not a soul in sight! It had never been inhabited. Now Playa is an urban warfare training facility. Phelps Dodge was eaten by Rio Tinto I think. And the Chinese are buying Rio Tinto aren't they?

Does any of this matter?