Friday, March 25, 2011

'Folk Summit' brings genre's heavy hitters

I just need to point out that Bruce's piece implies that Tom Agostino created "The Folk Sessions" on his own. I'm sure that Tom would not slight the contribution of Alexa MacDonald, who co-hosted the show for years and co-organized the weekly live mini-concerts that evolved into the current series.

Also: KJZA's primary frequency for the Prescott area is 90.1FM. Use 89.5 north of Prescott Heights and in PV. KJZA is not affiliated with NPR.

Wiederaenders: More wasted space

Would someone please point out to Tim that his Friday columns are a whole lot more like Jerry's chatty back-page filler than anything pertinent to an op-ed page?

Like a magpie, he seems drawn to bits of shiny trash, like the annual how-dumb-Americans-are story. I mentioned this the other day, and Tim falls into the same old hackneyed response, picking up the results as if they're entirely new and implying that people are way dumber now than they were in the day.

The thing is, this survey has been done since the late '40s and the results have been more or less consistent. Every experienced newsman knows this -- or should -- because it comes in on the wires every year. It's non-news, and how most editors handle it is anti-news, because it disinforms the reader and passes up the important opportunity for discussion of public policy relative to education that the study was designed to provoke.

Editorial: Freedom for me, not for thee

The unnamed Courier editor commiserates with Councilman Blair on how proper enforcement of fair-housing law will allow icky group homes near respectable people and their precious property values.


It's not really about real-estate value at all, of course. It's about prejudice, class chauvinism, and reality-avoidance. Blair is already and justifiably world-famous for these. Everyone sharing these systems should be encouraged to move into gated HOA conclaves, where they can exercise their pathologies in private under the watchful eyes of tinplate Nazis in golf carts. Kind of a reverse-Soweto approach. Putting them outside the city limits would keep them off our Council and out of our voting mix as well. I'm liking this ....

Gad, editors, grow up, would you? This is infantile.