Editorial: "Questions abound around shooting"

Yeah: one of my questions is why the unnamed Courier editor can't seem to spend more than five minutes writing an editorial.

For example, did anyone else notice this paragraph-long sentence fragment?

This terrible tragedy and how officials analyze the underlying motive and how the shooter, a man who reportedly went first to a coed residence hall in search of his girlfriend and shot two people then showed up two hours later at an engineering classroom building, was able to kill another 30 people and himself.

But for once the Courier editor comes up with a useful thought around a gun incident:

Who was the shooter, what drove him to do it, and what signs did people miss that might have allowed counselors or law enforcement to keep him from going through with it?

Relatively speaking, this almost rates a cookie.

A1: National news

For the record, I'm covering what the Courier does, so I'm not planning to post on dropped-in wire stories. There are occasions where a local paper really has no choice about running a national story prominently, and since it seems that everyone is focusing on this one right now, the Courier might be seen as out of step to do otherwise.

In response to this I'm sure we can look forward to an editorial defending the right of whacked-out students to keep and bear arms on campus.

Wiederaenders: "Don't be a zombie behind the wheel"

In this long ramble about paying attention when you're behind the wheel, I'm thinking I see a clue as to why the Courier has so far ignored the many calls from readers for investigation of the yellow-light and radar-camera practices in PV: Tim lives there, and he thinks everything's fine.

A3: "Analyst has her doubts about the future of healthcare"

If our local paper's mission involves informing voters on the issues that will affect their futures, Derek Meurer's story from the Arizona Town Hall should have been on A1 in place of the history talk by the Holocaust survivor.

The speaker on health care clearly pulled no punches, and we read about some of the reactions, which come across as largely skeptical. Was that really the case? No way to know without attending in person. Some responses from our local health-care leaders might be informative as well.

A1: "Police suspect same teens in second robbery"

At last, the Saturday-night story arrives, in which the same guys do the same robbery exactly one month later. We learn that PVPD has nothing on them and hopes for a tip.

Maybe I'm in the wrong line of work.

A1: "City officials agree 1-percent sales tax should be permanent"

In the followup on the announcement on Sunday, Cindy Barks once again firmly soft-pedals the impact on open-space acquisition from Rob Behnke's initiative. Clearly City officials have some reservations about it, but we don't learn much about why. It feels like this story went to press a few days before it was ready.