For readers of the Daily Courier in Prescott, Arizona. Comment and discuss. Be nice, now.
I jumped at this headline, but then I read the lead. Standard usage of "reconsider" in this situation implies a change of mind about the issue. What's actually happening is that the council is meeting again to move the issue forward on the same track. The headline is misleading, probably just an ignorant mistake, but the sort that makes my teeth itch.
The unnamed Courier editor seems surprised and discomfited that a developer might do something other than he promised to gain commercially from public indulgence. References to turnip trucks and 'born yesterday' crowd in, but we needn't go there, because I just don't buy it. This is ass-covering.
Guys, you know how the business operates, and you knew that guy would turn around and raise his middle finger to everyone involved as soon as he got the chance. You could have been more skeptical when the controversy was happening, and you could have given more credence to the legitimately concerned neighbors rather than dismiss them as cranks. Your shaking a finger now insults the intelligence of your readers. You ought instead to be apologizing for your complicity in creating the problem.
The sky is blue, water's wet, and what Americans spend on sports is stupid. Tell me something I don't know. Al's narrative is completely predictable up to the last graph, where he makes the jump to his favorite angry-letter-generator:
"I sit here wondering why we humans are so crazy. I can explain it fairly well as a result of about 100,000 years of human evolution. Would someone please explain it to me as God’s handiwork?"This is just calculated to draw amusing responses from people who are intellectually ill-equipped to defend themselves. It's hardly fair, Al.
Every year as July 4 approaches we see more stories like this one about animal-domination sports. Its prominent placement makes it clear that the editors are completely bought into the idea of the rodeo as a premiere cultural event. I think it's possible that they don't realize how many of us see the rodeo as a cultural embarrassment that ought to be in the same dustbin with cockfighting, bear-baiting, dwarf-tossing and pitting slaves against lions for entertainment, and see what happens to our town over that weekend as a huge pain in the ass.
What they do realize, I'm sure, is that the events of rodeo constitute sport, and commercial sport at that. If they feel it's worthy of coverage, fine, I'll just ask that they put it where it belongs: in the sports section.
