Optimists versus pessimists? Half full? Half empty? What a facile and fundamentally superficial way of evaluating life as it is. "I am an optimist so I am a good person. You are a bad person because you are a pessimist." Is that what political debate has come to in Arizona? News for Mr. Gabriel. If we read the AZ Republic we're all optimists. We want life to be better. We only have differences about the way it could be better. I think that allowing foreign companies to exploit our water resources for short-term profit is not a good thing. Those who support free enterprise think that it brings jobs, therefore it must be a good thing. It is always about choice. Nasty pessimists are full of "grievance and fear" according to Gabriel. You are wrong. I, like many Arizonans, want our State, rich in natural resources, splendid in wildlife and biological diversity, to be handed on to my children as beautiful and as intact as possible. I do not want to hand on a burned, dried out desert where water rationing, power outages, food shortages are a common occurrence. I am an optimist, I believe we can do that, care for people and create a viable society at the same time.