Does anyone have a solution for America's "Arizona problem"? The once-peaceful cactus colony is now an embarrassment to a nation that has many, but nothing quite like this. It really should've been obvious for years: When you move billions of elderly white people to an area with a large minority population and then take away everyone's money and houses in an overnight market collapse, everyone gets all worked up, and they all have guns, and the legislature responds by crapping out strange, violent pieces of legislation that should only appeal to dogs but get a decent reception among delirious broke people, too. And then someone shoots a member of Congress, which may or may not have anything to do with anything.

But Arizona's fever soon will be broken, and its citizens will learn their manners. It's not because there's a plan to fix the state's housing market or economy, or because Congress has passed comprehensive immigration reform, or because the state has stopped giving every newborn dozens of semiautomatic handguns and grenade launchers (for self-defense). It's because an Arizona university will create a "civility institute" for some famous ex-politicians to slap their names on.

The University of Arizona - whose Tucson campus President Obama used for his nationwide address on civility after the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords last month - will announce on Monday that it is establishing an institute to promote compromise among opposing political parties and views, the organization's director said on Sunday.

The honorary chairmen of the foundation, to be called the National Institute for Civil Discourse, will be President Bill Clinton and President George H. W. Bush, said the director, Brint Milward, who also leads the university's School of Government and Public Policy.

Dr. Milward said the institute would focus on political disagreements "from the grass roots all the way to the top."

This is more exciting than when the president sets up a task force to study something for a couple years and then make non-binding recommendations in a report read by no one. Go Wildcats! Viva "Poppy" Bush!

[Image via AP]