Editorial: Taxpayers might be out of money

The unnamed Courier editor notices that the Chino Valley school override failed, infers that voters simply can't afford the additional tax, and expands that into a victory lap for the idea that any new taxes are bad.

We've certainly been hearing an awful lot of noise lately from people who think they are Taxed Enough Already, and they have a point. But what they and the editor fail to notice is that there's an important group of citizens who draw benefits from our society out of all proportion to their numbers and who are certainly not taxed enough: the rich.

These well-heeled folks have the resources to deflect the media away from themselves and frame the tax debate entirely on their own terms. But informed voters know that during the Bush years the tax burden rose on the middle class to the benefit of the top 20% of earners.

The editor is surely not in the lofty brackets that would have to give up a couple of toys to restore even the gross tax inequities that Reagan brought down on us. But he's clearly bought into the idea that the rich have no responsibility to give back, even where it means less education for our kids.

Letter: Radio electioneering gives undue advantage

Today's letter from Steve Chontos is probably directed at Councilman Steve Blair and his daily for-profit AM show, but it's an issue for me too, since I've been producing a weekly public-radio show with LD1 Rep Lucy Mason for over seven years.

Until last year the FCC allowed elected officials to maintain regular broadcast appearances even during elections if the content did not involve direct electioneering. Last year the rules changed, and now candidates whether incumbent or not are not permitted unrebuttable airtime.

But even at the beginning, under the old rules, I have always been concerned about the perception that the show might serve for political gain, and careful to avoid that sort of conflict.

I designed the show specifically to provide vital public information in the form of regular reports on what our representative is doing at the Legislature. This inevitably involves political opinion as she explains her bills, votes and choices. When she's been up for reelection we have very deliberately stayed clear of any talk about the campaigns, opponents or future plans that might be taken as campaign promises to keep the show clean and, most important, credible and trustworthy. We can't disconnect entirely from the reality of electoral politics, but I think overall we've been very successful in maintaining a public-interest program of high integrity.

In considering this issue, voters should ask themselves what's more important -- direct information from your elected officials on what they're doing and why, or reducing the electoral advantage of incumbents by shutting them up. Carried to its logical end, Mr Chontos' argument would ban any public speech by an elected official that does not include equal time by a political opponent.

Spanish Census banner comes down after complaints

Councilcritters Hanna and Blair seem to be making all the news lately, this time by demanding the removal of a banner in Spanish promoting participation in the census.

Never mind the blatant racism inherent in their indignation over something so benign (and so required by law, by the way). Forget that this entire region of the country was wrested by force from a well established Spanish-speaking culture only 160-odd years ago. What I want to focus on is how this cultural cowardice affects us all in terms of lost funds.

Joanna applies some good research in noting that ten years ago only 400 Hispanic residents of everybody's hometown returned their forms. I'd bet that represents an undercount of around an order of magnitude. I expect that the census professionals were able to fill in some of that with sampling, but it still means a significant loss of funds for the city and underrepresentation for us in both state and federal government for the decade since.

So because a few whiny hotheads are threatened when they see signs they can't read, we all lose money and political clout. In a citizen that's just stupid, but in a public servant that has to amount to nothing less than official malfeasance.

Update, Friday: This is getting some national attention -- Crooks and Liars featured the Courier story today.

ToT: Kirkpatrick 'Talk' feeds pablum

Dennis Duvall is a familiar name hereabouts for speaking out about our simmering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today he excoriates Rep Kirkpatrick for voting with the majority to continue war funding while selling the idea of fiscal responsibility.

I have to agree that her bill to reduce legislator pay amounts to showboating without real substance. If it were a detail in a larger bill that would do more to reduce waste in government, say, or otherwise offer us more value for our tax dollars, it would be a nice gesture. Standing alone, it's nothing.

Dennis' point about the money we're throwing away in Iraq and Afghanistan is well taken, and while I understand that the nest of snakes we inherited from the Bush administration will not be easily sorted out, I share his impatience with the Obama administration for not living up to its campaign rhetoric and showing clear commitment to getting us off those tar babies.

I have to say, however, that if I were in Ms Kirkpatrick's place I would probably be doing much the same thing. The war problem belongs to the administration, and with plenty of public voices pointing the president in the right direction, it doesn't make sense for a Dem Congress to create more problems. Further, Ms Kirkpatrick has been generally correct in representing the majority of people in this district, a principle we should all care about in elected officials. She's a freshman in a very complex situation and has a fine wire to walk anyway. Don't forget that making policy happen takes a lot more than one vote.

That said, all of us who care should communicate directly (and respectfully) with the Representative about the wars, jobs, health care, energy, education and real effort to rebuild our economy in smarter ways. Every sensible voice with a name on it moves the perception of what the majority wants.

Wiederaenders: Close the parks? At what cost?

Tim turns in one of his very occasional pseudoblog columns today on the closings of state parks and how much this money-saving measure will cost in real terms.

Tim's idle musings only scratch the surface, and he passes up an important teaching moment. Many Arizonans, used to simple answers and instant gratification, think that cutting the state budget is a simple matter. They rarely see or hear about the web of interdependent factors that government holds together, such that anywhere you look to reduce funding, you cause new costs elsewhere. Most government programs are not simple spending measures, they are designed and built to reduce social costs to all of us.

Tim's example, Homolovi Ruins, is a case in point. Until the early '80s it cost the state -- us -- nothing. To most citizens it was a relatively remote pile of old walls. To the Hopis it was an ancestral home and sacred site. To archaeologists it was a trove of information about the migrations and lives of Hopis. And to pothunters -- thieves -- it was an unprotected treasure mine.

The social cost of doing nothing about Homolovi was daily desecration and the steady loss of artifacts and knowledge. The state began spending a little money to help prevent this loss and educate Arizonans about their heritage. Closing the park puts the site back where it was, forsaken and deteriorating. And there's a new cost on top of the old -- the businesses that have benefited from visitor traffic in the park have to look elsewhere to pay their rent. You can't find these sorts of costs and benefits acknowledged in the state budget, but they are very real.

Extending the example to other areas is easy -- kicking people off AHCCCS raises costs for families and hospitals, eliminating support for the seriously mentally ill raises costs on families and communities, cutting the Department of Juvenile Corrections raises costs for counties. Almost any cut you can name comes with a contingent cost, often greater than the savings. Some kinds of cuts also trigger losses of federal matching funds as well, compounding the revenue problem. It's a management nightmare.

This is why the Legislature's adamant resistance to talking about raising revenue through taxes and fees is dead stupid. You have to have those options on the table to prevent spiraling down into bankruptcy. I'd have liked to see Tim take a couple hundred more words to make that point. It needs saying in the Courier.

Editorial: Missteps abound in shooting trials

Predictably, given the paper's long history of gun love, the unnamed Courier editor comes out in favor of Steve Solomon, and faults the cops and County Attorney's office for failing to handle the evidence-gathering well.

Could lawnforcement have done a better job? So said the judge, and that's all we really know. But the editor uses that lapse to gloss over the real issue of public concern: the fusillade of AK-47 rounds that Solomon fired off his property and into the wild, which Solomon himself said he did "for fun." Whether he knew there were people in harm's way or not, this was grossly reckless and irresponsible and it was only his dumb luck that this wasn't a manslaughter trial.

The editor's sole observation on this idiocy: "Testimony alleged that Solomon could be more responsible as a gun owner ...." Thanks, editor, for standing up for public order and responsible citizenship. Yeesh.

Feed-Your-Head Friday

Speaking of cellphones, here's an eye-opener on how you're going to be using quantum mechanics to call your mom.

Editorial: Safety must wait until next year

I think we can safely say that everyone agrees that texting while driving is stupid and dangerous. Whether we need a specific law for that is a different debate, and the unnamed Courier editor's inclusion of the single-digit results in Phoenix pretty deeply undercuts his argument.

But readers should know that the editor managed to get it completely wrong here: Yesterday, before deadline, the Senate in fact passed the ban on texting while driving. The editor failed to check his facts before publishing, another victim of Senate President Bob Burns' hamhanded handling of procedure in the upper house.

You gotta keep your eyes on the road, editor.

Hansen: Let's elect a better Congress

Another window opens on the mind of Executive Editor Ben Hansen.

Ben kicks off his first pseudoblog post in over ten weeks with a scintillating quote from a dictionary, finally proving long-held reader suspicions that he does indeed have access to one in his office. (Having established that, perhaps Ben will go on to look up the definition of "blog" and start using the word less ignorantly.) But then he immediately goes on to demonstrate how reading a definition does not necessarily lead to better usage.

"The traditional paradigm for choosing members of Congress is to re-elect incumbents." No, Ben, "paradigm" does not mean "something that happens often."

This is of course to introduce yet another reiteration of Ben's slapdash prejudices against politicians. Then, having painted all pols as venal and corrupt, he sets out suggestions for electing better ones. I have to wonder what these better ones would look like, since in Ben's world, once they're elected, they're corrupt -- by definition (urk, sorry).

He does get the first point right: Pay attention. He doesn't cover how to go about that, but I'd infer that he expects readers to try to get their information from the Courier, conveniently filtered through Ben's political interpretations -- like the other four points he offers.

Contrary to what he promises, three of those points are focused on incumbents in office rather than electing anyone. Here's a better idea, voters: if you want to be heard by your political representatives, you have to treat them as real people with a serious job to do rather than unindicted co-conspirators. Communicate clearly, succinctly and respectfully.

Notice also how point four illustrates Ben's lack of imagination and inability to control his propaganda reflex: "On illegal immigration, if you're a Democrat make them take a stand on amnesty. If you're a Republican, make them take a stand on getting control of the border." Classy, Ben.

On the final point, Ben clearly assumes that everyone identifies with a political party and trusts it, demonstrating how out-of-touch he is with people in general.

We all want smart, skilled, energetic and dedicated public servants. We will never get them by disparaging the profession and disrespecting anyone who strives to serve. Here are some alternative ideas for encouraging better representation:

1. Pay attention to your whole community, not just your pet issues. Keep an eye out for people who know how to bring people together and get things done, and talk to them positively about getting involved in public service.

2. Spend some time and effort building some detailed understanding of the issues your community faces. Don't trust your prejudices, which are what most people think of as "common sense." More than skilled representatives, a community needs informed voters to operate sensibly. How? Ask open questions as close to the source as you can get. Representatives are real people with office hours, and they will meet with you, read your letters and respond.

3. Show up at the forums, talk with candidates and get to know them as people rather than test them for the 'right' answers on your favorite issues. Vote for people who care about consensus and against those who are married to specific ideas.

4. Turn off your teevee. You won't find any useful information there.

5. Show up and vote.

6. After the election, advocate respectfully for what you want the community to do -- this is another kind of voting -- and don't act like a whiny baby if you're not getting your way. No one wants to hear from non-adults.

Man accused of shooting 70 bullets toward equestrians acquitted

I'm sure our community is relieved to know that if you're walking on a public trail and bullets start flying around you, there's no legal problem.

Column: 'Birthers' didn't sway lawmaker

I'm sure the editors were very happy to print this stunningly weak response to Saturday's editorial.

If I were so generous as to allow that Rep Tobin is telling the honest truth here, I'd also be forced to accept that he's completely ignorant of long-established Federal law and process in this area, has no idea what's been going on for over a year with the 'birther' non-issue, and is as politically naive as a cinder block. Quite honestly, I've met the man and I'm confident he's not that stupid.

Given that, this column is nothing but smarmy political theatre, obvious to anyone with basic intelligence. I do think Andy's naive enough to believe that he can get away with dissembling this way, like a six-year-old trying his first magic trick for the aunts and uncles. Never underestimate the power of human self-delusion. And it plays well to the extreme-right base, who are similarly deluded. But out here in the reality-based community it ought to get him laughed right out of office.

What's sad is that it won't. He'll run again, and probably win again. Is there no Dem in District 1 smart enough and organized enough to stand up and take the easy electoral pickings represented by Mr Tobin? Get to work, people!

School budgets could be slashed

You have to be very careful when you've got a news story speculating about things that haven't happened.

Paula's story, sourced entirely from a talk by the director of government relations for the Arizona Association of School Business Officials, is all about opinions and analysis of future possibilities. Paula does a lot of paraphrasing outside quote marks of what the man said, and writes it as if she is saying it herself on the paper's behalf. This is a high-school-level writing error. Further, the lack of a contrasting view elevates these opinions to the status of fact. Wrong, wrong, wrong, especially when you're dealing with analysis from an organization with a clear vested interest, like this one. The editors should have sent this one back for further research and substantial rewrite.

In fact the Legislature has several available options for dealing with the budget lacking the sales-tax extension, and ought to be encouraged to explore them all seriously. Instead, masquerading as analysis we get a misleading political frame: sales tax vs. school funding. While many Republicans will want to play it that way, it's really not that simple.

Today's Chuckle

Page-one headline: Butte-ing Heads. Ewwwwww, that's a real stinker.

Editorial: Progress by inches hints of miles ahead

This one is so obvious I hardly feel it's worth the trouble.

The unnamed Courier editor briefly tries on his fourth-estate hat, dusty from long disuse, and goes after the Dems for Charlie Rangel's slightly shady junkets. Not, apparently, because this is such a big deal, but rather for the much bigger fish yet to fry in the editor's ironclad pan of dark implications.

It's a pity the editor's long and storied history of blindness to the egregious corruption of Republicans has eliminated any credibility he might otherwise have on this issue. You've been too partisan for too long, editor, for anyone outside your breakfast-club cronies to care what you think of Dems.

If, on the other hand, you'd like to start building some political credibility on the off chance that you might need it some day, look to the snakes in your own nest. You could write every day for six months on Republican corruption, vice and venality at the national level and never repeat a name.

Better yet, stick to your knitting. You have no experience with Washington and no sources there. You're a small-town editor. There's plenty of work to be done here at home. Senator McCain is up for reelection, for instance, giving you enough material for a book, let alone a 350-word editorial.

Editorial: Democrats need to take a stand

The unnamed Courier editor gets after Dems to vote for a Republican initiative that would raid voter-protected conservation funds to keep state parks open. What's wrong with this picture?

The Reps have decisive majorities in both houses and the governor's pen, if they could hold together, yet the editor doesn't point at Rep no-votes. Somehow this becomes a test of whether Dems are sufficiently public-spirited.

Then there's the actual issue that the Sierra Club (the only organization that the editor identifies as against the bill) is raising: that the funds are voter-protected, so following though on this idea would be illegal. Have the Reps finally jumped the shark, from the "Party of No" to the "Party of No Law If We Don't Like It"? I wouldn't vote for anyone, Dem or Rep, who would attempt to disregard inconvenient laws in such a cavalier fashion. I hope no one reading this would either, including you, dear editor.

The Legislature is stuck with the budget mess in large part because it cannot legally raid voter-protected funds. Suddenly there's an exception, and it just happens to be funds for an issue that Reps generally hate? C'mon, tell me another one.

If you really want Dem votes, how about raiding something like coal or cotton subsidies to keep the parks open? I don't hear that sort of idea bandied about.

To top it off, the editor decorates his online column with Rep Tobin's official photo next to the stern headline aimed at Dems. A casual reader would be forgiven for assuming that Andy is now writing editorials for the Courier, especially as this is exactly the sort of sentiment one might expect from the Republican whip. (To clarify, dear editor, official editorials, like this one, never get bylines or uncaptioned photos, especially head shots. This is just wrong, even online.)

Editorial: 'Birthers' seduce local lawmakers

I talked with Rep Mason about this today on the show. (Listeners: My apologies for the sound quality, I'm still trying to figure out how to get it right when both of us are on phone connections.) I said there and I'll say here that I agree completely with the unnamed Courier editor. It's obvious that the concurrent memorial is pure political grandstanding on the part of the radical right. The interesting thing is that it's not aimed at Dems, rather it's being used as a litmus test against moderate Reps.

What I got from the conversation with Ms Mason is something that neither the editors nor the commenters have apparently considered. It's this: if you're not a radical rightist or a Dem, the resolution is so far under your radar that it really doesn't matter.

I think this is a political blind spot, but I understand it. Obviously the federal government has clear process in place for determining the eligibility of presidential candidates, and obviously the President fulfilled those long before the radicals decided to create an issue out of nothing. But our state legislators are not any better informed about that process than anyone else who's not involved, so when the bill comes around that will send a postcard to Congress saying that Arizona wants presidential candidates to prove their eligibility, it's relatively harmless, whereas voting against it will give the radicals something to run against you.

Dems might be forgetting that the Republican party is in a civil war to decide who's running the show, the corporatists or the crazies, and the tactics in play are deadly. For Dem purposes, I think it's better if the crazies have the upper hand for a while.

It's a little over the top for the editor to decorate the editorial with the pic of Ms Mason, who only voted for the resolution, rather than Rep Tobin, who whipped it through the House, or Rep Burges, who wrote it. These last two are far more radical and have been favorites of the Courier editorial board, where Ms Mason has been often slighted by and far more critical of the paper throughout her four terms. Judy Burges wasn't "seduced by birthers," guys, she's a misspelled-sign-carrying member.

Another light week

I'll be away from my desk on vacation this week, so blogging will likely be light again. I'll check in when I can. Feel free to add open comments here on whatever strikes your fancy.

Editorial: Lawmakers spin wheels with bills

The unnamed Courier editor echoes a big chunk of The People's Business this past weeekend, pointing out lawmaker initiatives that pretty obviously waste the Legislature's time.

I'm not sure he goes far enough. More than "a few" are pointless, silly, venal or evil. It's worse in an election year (that is, every other year) as legislators trot out the hobbyhorses that they think will attract votes.

The trouble is, that's exactly what they're elected to do: express the will of the people as they see it. By their actions shall ye know them, and if they're not up to the task of office, it's not really their fault -- blame the voters who put them there and keep them there. It's pretty easy to spot the silly, and the incompetent, and the evil when they're running for office, if you pay attention and know what to look for. Dumb legislation ought to get them boosted out after the first term. To the Legislature's credit, only one of the bills the editor mentions, the divorce bill, is making any headway in the process. That's also how the system is supposed to work.

But hold on: The editor concludes that rather than spend any time on other legislation, "it is justifiable to ask them to concentrate on this (the budget) and only this," even after saying "many of these measures ... will be for the good of Arizona's citizens."

Perhaps the editor was otherwise occupied last year, when Senate President Bob Burns (who also appointed himself chair of the Rules Committee and so holds more power over lawmaking than any legislator in AZ history) decided arbitrarily to halt all other legislative processes until the budget went through. The upshot was that the session lasted into August, the bills that squeaked through in the last minutes were ill-considered, and despite two special sessions the budget never got finished anyway. They're still working on it, and they're already months late in getting started on 2011.

These are clear and direct results of legislative inexperience. Burns was elected Pres only because smarter and more experienced pols were termed out. Ken Bennett would not have made those mistakes. Inexperience across the board in the Legislature allowed the debacle to go forward. Here are the results of the term limits you so love, editor: silly bills, wasted time, venal behavior and a bankrupt state.

(Prescott cable subscribers can hear replays of The People's Business on Tuesday at 11:30pm and Thursday at 7am on Access13.)

Storm of protest

As an estimated three inches of snow fell on Prescott, hundreds gathered on the square today protesting what they called the "global-warming scam."

State lawmakers review alternative budget plan

Buried on 7A (and not on dCourier.com) we find this story of a supposedly mystified House leadership playing catch-up with a budget plan that's been making the rounds for a couple of weeks. It seems Rep John Kavanagh has no idea who it's coming from.

The Courier could have scooped AP on this one if the editors listened to The People's Business over the last couple of weeks. This is the bipartisan plan that Rep Lucy Mason announced on the show. She's one of the plan's prime movers, advocating for compromise up the middle of the political divide that's brought the Arizona legislature to a standstill.

By the way, Kavanagh is not being entirely truthful about not knowing where it's coming from. Rep Mason and Rep Bill Konopnicki were keeping the plan inside so that leadership would have a chance to sign on before they went public with it.

We'll have more on this week's show, 2pm Saturday and Sunday on KJZA (89.5 FM) and KJZP (90.1 FM).

Update, Sunday morning: Rep. Kavanagh responds in the comments. Here's a link to the story as carried on myfoxphoenix.com, including a big chunk the Courier left out.

Feed-your-head Friday

How figure skaters control spin speed, and how much fun you can have in a physics lab: angular momentum.

Editorial: Plan to keep Cubs in AZ is home run

Apparently the unnamed Courier editor has again forgotten that the editorial column is not a personal blog.

Stories about movie stars go in the entertainment section, stories about church services go on the religion page, and stories about sports go on the sports page. Papers traditionally do this so readers can conveniently toss out the useless pages en masse.

Stories about local sports a hundred miles away have no place in a local paper at all, and that doesn't change just because the editor happens to be interested in sports. Readers don't care about his saltwater fish tank or his stamp collection, either.

What's weird and noteworthy about this piece, though, is the editor's support for a new non-user tax to help pay for his entertainment. This follows his blanket refusal to accept any new taxes to balance the state budget just four weeks ago. Gotta have priorities, I guess.

Editorial: We need less blame and more solutions

On first read of today's offering by the unnamed Courier editor, you might think, "well, that certainly sounds reasonable." Who can argue with "Honest solutions and personal accountability"?

But taking a look into the right-wing codebook I boosted from the cloakroom at the Hayworth fundraiser, I find some hidden messages.

Code: "Good, because voters will have their say at the polls when it comes to foreign and domestic policies. Last month's shocking Massachusetts Senate race defined voters' strength in numbers."
Decoded: "Virtuous voters elect Republicans."

Code: "But voters will have to endure endless campaigns designed only to confuse, distort and generally raise rabble - hardly the hallmarks of a productive society. But is helping society the true agenda? Not in an election year."
Decoded: "Politicians only care about winning elections, and lying is the only way to do that."

Code: "The voters are acutely aware of what's wrong with our system."
Decoded: "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

Code: "Access to 24-7 information, solicited or otherwise, magnifies the flaws and expands the blame game."
Decoded: "When the media notice that Republicans are doing everything they can to block all government functions and can't seem to keep their pants zipped, it's just political blame-gaming."

Oh yeah, and how about "Honest solutions and personal accountability"? The codebook says: "Simplistic thinking and you're on your own, bubba."

I've got a better idea. When you're in Congress and the other party holds the largest majority in living memory, you accept that the voters said something pretty clear last time and get out of the way, like when you weren't picked for basketball that time. When the majority invites you to bring your ideas to the table, you show up, argue your points, and look for ways to advance compromise. It's called cooperation, and it's wildly unfashionable since Newt began his scorched-earth campaign, but it's how the system is supposed to work.

So no, we don't need less blame, we need less blameworthy actions. We need more statesmanship and devotion to public service. Look for that in your candidates this year, and where you find it, support those candidates.

Reagan Loves the Tea Party

That is to say his son Mike, high priest and oracle of the Reagan cult, thinks he would if he were, you know, alive. Today on the op-ed page he announces his new ReaganPAC "to seek out and support those candidates who share the principles of my father." I've got an idea who that is:

Republicans to Nominate Zombie Reagan in 2012

Regular readers know what I think of Mike Reagan. But today there's a little chunk in there that I can agree with wholeheartedly: "... too many have quickly dismissed elected officials and potential candidates because they failed to (live) up to every possible expectation. If we are to accomplish our goals, we must remember that while our elected officials are imperfect, they must also be our allies."

He's trying to get a halter on the Tea Partiers and bring them in line behind the GOP, of course, but responsible citizens of all stripes would be wise to bear this in mind rather than treat all public servants as unindicted co-conspirators.

I love this guy's work

Letter: Court ruling forgets 'we the people'

Jeannette Myers writes protesting the recent ruling giving corporations free rein to spend as much as they like for or against any candidate for public office. Some of the commenters would have it that this is just another left-right tussle, 'cuz they loves them some right-wing Supremes. Turns out it's really not.

Today's WaPo reports poll results showing clear majorities left, right and center strongly against this ruling and the political environment it would have us all live in.

Like health care, this is an issue that should unite us in doing something positive about it. Instead we see our corporate media creating spurious controversy, dividing us and conquering us. The opposition leaders in Congress oppose any effort by the majority to head this disaster off. You who identify with the right have to ask yourselves, seriously, who those guys are working for. It's clearly not you.

Editorial: Proposed library fee sparks outrage

Most days it seems that the unnamed Courier editor has no difficulty cutting and pasting yesterday's front page into the editorial column. On this subject, however, it took from Thursday, when Cindy was writing up the Council retreat, to Tuesday night to come up with this little finger-wag. OK, it was a holiday weekend, there were a few dull, canned editorials already in the pipeline, and he didn't get to his desk to do anything about it till Tuesday. Anybody could understand that, right? (Well, except for Thursday and Friday. Dunno what happened there.)

What it tells me is that the paper is on autopilot not just on weekends but around them as well, susceptible to the Friday-news-dump strategy, and perfectly willing to be well behind the curve in responding, when it suits. Play the sleepy-small-town card.

PS Editor: You endorsed those boneheads for election, remember?

Changes at the top?

I normally skip completely over ads, so I'm three days late in noticing a box on A2 about a "coffee with the editors" scheduled for tomorrow and soliciting ideas and input for improving the paper. Fine idea.

What strikes me is that Exec Editor Ben Hansen's picture isn't in the ad, but that of formerly retired editor Karen DeSpain is, slugged as an editor, and she doesn't appear on the masthead. I smell change afoot. Karen is well regarded in the community and has been missed since she left the paper.

Where's the outrage?

Since Cindy's story on Friday I've been wondering when we might see a Courier editorial on the City talking about charging for customarily 'free' public services like the library and public parks and trails.

They're not free, of course. Our taxes pay for them. Now the City, or at least certain Council members, would charge us again to use them.

The free public library in particular is an American tradition that speaks loudly of our commitment to open government, education, free thought and responsible citizenship. I would think a newspaper editor, of all people, would understand the implications of making access to public information more difficult based on economic class, and say something about it. Something loud.

Format changes

Last week's revamp of the Courier's online offerings are overall very positive, I think.

The sleeker dCourier pages eliminate lots of clutter, fluff and advertising and look more professional, though I would like to see somewhat larger headlines to help distinguish the stories from one another. The home page is still a mess, trying to cram too much in, but it's easy to bypass.

I'm having fun with the new DailyCourierPages.com site, which brings back online pages as printed, following a long hiatus. The navigation and zoom work smoothly and much more quickly than the old version. Zooming in to read takes a little getting used to, as the zoom feature is maybe a little too sensitive to mouse movement, but you get the knack after a while. I'd only ask for a second zoom level for those of us who try to avoid getting too close to the monitor.

On the comments feature, I have to say that "requiring" first and last names, but disclaiming (above it, in red!) that you can use a pseudonym sort of defeats the purpose. Registering commenters with real names will lead to fewer but more responsible comments. You might also consider giving registered commenters pride of place and putting anonymous comments lower, or maybe a larger typeface for registered comments.

Here's a cookie for the IT department. Now marketing gets the challenge of making money on it.

One thing, though: The narrower pages of today's papers make the six-column format hard for readers. The lines are just too short. Go to five and you'll make it easier for your readers and have more interesting layout choices in the bargain.

U.S. debt will keep growing even with economic recovery

I guess the editors missed me over the past week, so to lure me back to my desk, they gave me this great big Monday-morning present, guaranteed to piss me off. They ran a politically charged opinion piece as news.

But wait, there's more. Having chosen this AP op-ed by Tom Raum for a box on 6A, they cut it on both the hard copy and dCourier to eliminate what little balancing information Raum used in favor of the Obama administration. (Sorry, cutting an outside story on the Website, where there is literally no space limitation, is just wrong.) Here's the original story in full.

I can understand it when subtle propaganda works its way into news stories. People often write from unexamined assumptions about the world and don't realize it. But this is far from subtle. The assertions of fact without references, the assertions of other people's motivations, the use of obvious opinions as facts all mark this clearly as an opinion piece. No editor could miss it. This was not a mistake, folks.

Slow blogging this week

I'm having a visit with one of my oldest and dearest friends, so there's not a lot of time for the paper. I notice big unannounced changes in the look of dcourier.com, and I'll have comments on that once I have a chance to get used to it. For now it doesn't seem that the editors are doing anything egregious or particularly interesting this week.

Something's missing -- again

I've been looking for the Courier's coverage of this week's press release from Rep Kirkpatrick on the budget, but nary a word.

It seems that our Mr Tobin can get his press releases printed anytime, but our representative in the big game is only covered when she's being criticized. A local newspaper monopoly ought to do better for us than that.

It's Feed-Your-Head Friday

What's cool about the seventh planet, and lots of talk about its funny name, which could have been George.



This silliness about the pronunciation might be avoided if English-speakers weren't so habitually bad at pronouncing classical words. The Greeks called the mate of Gaia Ouranos, and that was Latinized as Uranus, which in Latin is pronounced "oorahnoos."

Bonus: The Greek creation myth featuring Ouranos as a primordial player is wild and fairly gruesome, a fun read. Before you click through, a trivia question: From what dismembered organ did Aphrodite spring?

Signs of improvement

I've been a little hesitant to say anything that might jinx it, but I've been noticing that copy editing on the Courier has been much better of late. The rampant, glaring typos and embarrassing headlines that have been standard fare in the paper for many years are lately much diminished. I don't know who should get the credit for this, but here's a cookie for whomever you are. I'd love to hear from inside whether there have been relevant policy changes.

Editorial: A 'virtual fence' to nowhere?

The Bush administration's teevee-inspired border boondoggle turns out to be as unworkable as Reagan's "missile defense shield," and we're all just so surprised. But for once the unnamed Courier editor isn't hopping up and down about how the Feds are doing nothing to "control" the border against the illegals who are the root of all evil. While he doesn't really take any position, today he seems relatively thoughtful as he dips a few spoonfuls from the AP story (did this run in the print edition?) and scatters some numbers from 'studies' published by reactionary think-tanks.

Between this and the gun thing on Tuesday, one might wonder whether there's been a change in someone's medication this week.

Horse charity told to redouble efforts to win over neighbors

After years of searching, a charitable nonprofit providing disabled kids and adults with a very special, therapeutic service finds a permanent home, but can't get all the neighbors to sign off. If the comments are any indication, there's going to be some public pressure about this. If you'd like to help, here's the HwH website for a start. They can use it.

I've met with these people and put them on the radio. Their service is terrific and their community spirit is palpable. How anyone could think they and their ten horses wouldn't be the best sort of neighbors is utterly beyond me.

Update, Friday: I see the editor agrees.

Sweat Lodge organizer James Arthur Ray arrested

This is a nice, solid, researched and balanced news story, giving the subject its due without rehashing too much of the play-by-play that we've seen too often before. Lisa gets a cookie.

Editorial: Why do violent felons walk free?

If I read this correctly, the unnamed Courier editor is advocating mandatory life sentences for every violent offense. It would be fascinating to hear the editor argue this in a case of, say, a drunken bar brawl in light of the actual cost of incarceration and the inevitable effect this would have on his taxes.

Public safety matters, but perfect public safety is simply not possible in a nation that values freedom. Criminals will exist, cops and innocent people will be hurt and die, as long as we value our humanity more than imaginary safety. It's part of the price of liberty.

Before lightly dismissing the idea that our culture of adolescent worship of guns and violence might have had anything to do with this problem, the editor asks a few plaintive rhetorical questions demonstrating only his lack of imagination. Were he a journalist, he might have taken a more constructive tack with this and put those questions and others to some of our judges, prosecutors, corrections professionals and maybe a psychologist or social scientist. He might have got a good, informative story out of it. Instead, we get this pitiful waste of space.

Editing note: The editor leaves a crucial fact out of this piece, assuming that everyone knows it: the alleged shooter was in prison here for nearly four years on aggravated assault and related charges (AZ Dept of Corrections). That omission makes his argument nonsensical within the piece.

Editorial: Pearce's gun proposal sounds great to felons

The unnamed Courier editor displays some common sense in protesting Sen. Russell Pearce's attempt to roll back restrictions on firearms, even identifying Pearce correctly as "radical," qualifying for the cookie. I'm grateful that the Courier has lately been consistently applying a more nuanced position on guns than the blind devotion it did previously. It's just too bad the editor's not a little better at journalism, however.

Yesterday, before deadline, the bill passed out of committee carrying amendments addressing the editor's expressed concerns. In other words, the editor wound up writing about a different bill, getting his editorial completely wrong. Here's the update.

This might be just an "oh well,things change" moment, but the readers wind up utterly misled on the content of the legislation, so any input they give their representatives will misfire.

A newspaper editor should understand that the legislative committee process is where a raw bill gets hammered into something the body can vote on, and it's rare that a bill doesn't change substantially in the process. In Arizona it's relatively easy to find out online when a bill is being considered in which committee, and the state offers streaming real-time video of many committee hearings. It's not like the editor couldn't know what was going on.

A skilled journalist would have either published this before the committee process, when constituents still had time to weigh in on the raw bill, or held his fire until the bill was out of all committees and appeared on the floor agenda. On this the editor jumped the gun. (Sorry, sometimes I can't resist.)

Will we perhaps see a followup on the current bill?

Editorial: Make better use of 'call to public'

Befitting the regular Monday dump of press releases on the front page, here the unnamed Courier editor takes on a topic of kindergarten complexity -- public comments at City Council meetings -- and manages to live up to the challenge by saying pretty much nothing.

Windbags are a professional hazard of public meetings, and we have to face the fact that these opportunities exist every bit as much for the windbags as for anyone else.

Windbags do what they do because they don't feel they're being heard, either by the public officials they're addressing or by others in their daily lives. The only good way to reduce incidents of windbaggery is to build and resolutely reinforce a culture of caring respect, so people clearly understand that the officials aren't using the Council table as a wall between higher and lower classes, while reinforcing respect for the time of everyone in the room. But Council members must accept that windbaggery will happen on occasion, and they're drawing their pay in large part to put up with precisely that. Skilled leaders know that just expressing that they care to hear what the windbag is saying will reduce windbaggery by 20% out of the gate, and other leadership techniques can help a poor communicator get to the heart of what he wants to say and step down.

Even when those don't work, it's far better to have Council and the public put up with a windbag than to have the Mayor gaveling people off the podium to avoid hearing what they're saying, and the difference between worthwhile speech and windbaggery is in the ear of the beholder. The First Amendment does not say "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, unless it's boring or takes too long." Council must bear in mind at all times that they are elected to serve the public, not the other way around.

Note to editor: Where you wrote, "the presiding officer has the right to reign in a speaker," that should be "rein in." Given all the Western movies you so love to quote and our town's cowboy reputation, your readers expect you to know a little more about the terminology.

It could have happened

Editorial: High-speed rail won't make enough impact

Today the Courier extends its reputation for hipshooting into the area of transportation policy.

The unnamed Courier editor poo-poohs the paltry 13 billion clams the President is proposing for high-speed rail as inadequate to the task of building a national high-speed rail network. Of course, no one has promised any such thing. From the WSJ:

"Building a high-speed rail network like the one in Western Europe would likely cost hundreds of billions of dollars, but Mr. Obama called the $13 billion effort 'a first step.'"

Perhaps the editor does not quite understand that a first step is necessary to getting anywhere at all. I'm sure he wouldn't be applauding the President if he proposed spending, say, $250 billion on high-speed rail over the next ten years -- a little less than we've already spent on the war in Afghanistan. But no, in the reactionary mind a step forward, if taken by Democrats, becomes a half-measure.

The editor is also miffed that the plan doesn't include us mountain states. (I have to wonder where the editor was when our genius city fathers decided it was a good idea to rip out our local rail line and sell off the land, but never mind.)

From The New York Times:

"The government has identified 10 corridors, each from 100 to 600 miles long, with greatest promise for high-speed development. They are: a northern New England line; an Empire line running east to west in New York State; a Keystone corridor running laterally through Pennsylvania; a major Chicago hub network; a southeast network connecting the District of Columbia to Florida and the Gulf Coast; a Gulf Coast line extending from eastern Texas to western Alabama; a corridor in central and southern Florida; a Texas-to-Oklahoma line; a California corridor where voters have already approved a line that will allow travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two and a half hours; and a corridor in the Pacific Northwest."

There's a reason it's called "mass transit" -- it's designed for lots of people to use. Look at the graphic, editor: the lines are where the people are. The city of New York by itself has half again as many people in it than the entire state of Arizona. You want bang for your tax buck, right?

Once again the editor parrots the talking points of the reactionary right without analyzing them or bothering to try to understand what he's criticizing. My best advice to him: stick to your knitting and keep it local, where you have at least a chance of knowing what you're talking about.

Side note: All the facts and a lot of the actual writing in the editorial are lifted from Mark Clayton in the Christian Science Monitor. (Note to editor: Unattributed copying of another's work is known in the trade as plagiarism.)

Update, 11:30pm: I sent part of this piece as a comment on the editorial, and it appears the Courier editor flushed it without a trace. Classy, boys. That sort of behavior is why I keep this blog.

Update, Monday night: Documenting my charge above before the stories roll off into the Nethernet:

CSM: President Obama’s $8 billion plunge into 13 high-speed rail projects nationwide has the potential to become either his “Eisenhower moment” – moving the US into a new phase of transportation modernization – or just a dead end “drop in the bucket."

Courier: On Wednesday, President Barack Obama spoke about a federal spending freeze, but not until 2011. The next day he unveiled parts of the second stimulus, including $8 billion toward high-speed rail projects. It will be either his "Eisenhower moment" - moving the country into a new phase of transportation - or just a "drop in the bucket." ... What Obama is doing as a substitute will result only in a dead end.


CSM: “It really is only a drop in the bucket of what the nation will need to get the kind of high-speed rail network it needs,” says Jack Schenendorf, who was vice chairman of the a blue-ribbon commission that studied the nation’s transportation needs in a 2008 study. “Obviously, for high speed rail, it is a good development. But it will take a lot more money to get these systems built out.”

Courier: "It really is only a drop in the bucket of what the nation will need to get the kind of high-speed rail network it needs," said Jack Schenendorf, who was vice chairman of the a blue-ribbon commission that studied the nation's transportation needs in a 2008 study. "Obviously, for high-speed rail, it is a good development. But it will take a lot more money to get these systems built out."

See where our editor even cribbed a typo? Cut-and-paste for sure. Naughty boy.

Update, 11pm Monday: Well, well, well, there are situations in which the editors will stoop to correcting mistakes online! An anonymous commenter alerts me that the editorial has been changed, sometime in the last four hours, adding attribution of the copied bits to the CSM. Pity he didn't get the typo while he was at it. Must've been in a hurry.

Letter: Equality must apply to everyone

Just read this great letter that cuts to the bone.

Editorial: Officials try to work around voters' will

I've been thinking about this one since it went up, but haven't had time to get to it.

The editor blasts legislators for having the unmitigated gall to try and walk back laws that "the people" gave us by initiative. He's talking yet again about term limits, his second editorial on the subject in three days. This writer wonders whether he'd be as protective of an initiative he doesn't like so much, but let's leave that aside for the moment. There's plenty of stupid here to deal with already.

His argument is that "the voters have spoken" on term limits -- 18 years ago -- and while he doesn't refute that "they deprive lawmakers of institutional knowledge and give too much influence to aides and lobbyists," to him that decision is carved in stone, apparently because it is infallible. Like the Pope.

He tries to reinforce this with Rep Tobin's aborted move to reintroduce as a bill the payday-loan industry's failed initiative of a year and a half ago. The editor sees a parallel there that evades me.

"A government by the people is supposed to be one in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them," says the editor, citing a principle of American civics that as far as I can tell he made up on the spot. Our system is not direct democracy, that doesn't exist anywhere. In representative government, supreme power is indeed vested in the people, but it is by design not exercised by them.

Our little direct-democracy option, the initiative process, was designed and built well over a century ago, and acts like it. It's primitive, allowing nefarious players to take advantage of us in many ways, and it's morphing into government by advertising. The idea that "the people" are behind most initiatives is either blindly naive or actively malicious. The idea that a few sentences scrawled on a bar napkin can pass through the initiative process and become good law is plain stupid, and most initiatives really are nearly that poorly vetted.

But the crux of the editor's argument is that "the people" can't be wrong in passing through these things. We've given term limits 18 years to prove out, and what we see is growing ignorance, disorganization, disarray and even corruption in our legislative bodies as a direct result. The state is functionally bankrupt, our Accidental Governor is trying to get her way by screaming at people, and our amateur Legislature is arranging duckpins on the poopdeck of the Titanic and thinking about a nice lunch. It's past time to repair this crucial mistake and start rebuilding our political culture.

The real 'duh' moment here is at the end, where the editor implies that the Legislature will pass this through the regular process and "the people" won't get to vote on it. The bill in process is a concurrent resolution, which if passed will result in a ballot measure. There's no other legal way to get around an established initiative. A newspaper editor ought to know these things.

Your political future

Mills sets up website in run for governor

It's funny, I must have missed the Courier stories about the candidacies of Dean Martin, Terry Goddard and the other front-runners for actual nomination. But we get the press release from our semi-local gun god verbatim as a news story. I have a feeling we know how this is going to go in everybody's hometown newspaper.

Embattled Obama declares in speech, 'I don't quit'

I've got just one thing to say about this AP story: In eight years of unending public controversy, the Courier never once associated the word "embattled" with George W Bush. Just sayin'.

Editorial: Are Olympics worth the cost?

Regular readers know that I was born without the sports gene and could not care less about the Olympics or any other spectator sports event. As a mediated pastime I consider sports less harmful than, say, eating bugs, but I'd still be happy to see the whole international-combat-via-sports thing dry up and fall off as we humans move through our social adolescence. I wouldn't bother to write an editorial on it, though. It's just not that important.

So when the unnamed Courier editor spends his daily inches to feign a question and opine clumsily that the Olympics are "so, so worth it," I have to laugh. So worth what, exactly? The games have never cost our community one thin dime, and the editor will get them for free on his teevee (albeit amid a relentless commercial assault that would melt my brain). It's just a non-issue.

So we come to the question: why did he write this? Logically all I can come up with is that the editor is so bored with our puny local issues that he's wrapping his brain in the primary opiate of the masses -- television -- and parroting its navel-gazing self-absorption, making its concerns his own.

So the editor offers an unintended public service here, exemplifying the danger in the same way a certain pan of frying eggs did some years ago -- this is your brain on teevee. Just say no.

Editorial: Term limits exist for good reason

The Legislature is considering a move to repeal term limits, and the unnamed Courier editor is predictably steamed that any politician might have the temerity to resist one of his favorite policies. He casts dark aspersions on their motivations, as usual, and farbles on about how we need a running clock to keep lazy pols from "wasting time" in office. Legislation is such an easy job, after all.

I've been there on a weekly basis through over seven years of legislative experience with Rep Lucy Mason, heard her stories (those we talk about on the radio and those we can't), and watched her evolution from fresh-faced, idealistic freshman to hard-bitten, tempered senior. I have no doubt at all that she is a far smarter and more effective legislator now than in her first term, and that no one comes into the job with much useful understanding of how the state works or any knowledge of the players involved.

Term limits shift institutional memory and organizational power to staff (who, if they're doing their jobs correctly, do not impart it to legislators) and lobbyists (who use it at least selectively and often strategically). A less-experienced Legislature overall means slower and lower-quality training for freshmen. A more tenuous institutional culture empowers newbies to reinvent the wheel with a square rim and call it innovation.

It's hard for people who are already convinced to understand, but the train wreck that we're currently experiencing at the Capitol is largely the direct result of inexperience in the Legislature and the Governor's office. And the Courier would have us not only maintain this as received wisdom, but extend it to Washington. As if our national politics aren't sufficiently dysfunctional.

Perhaps most convincing to me on this issue is that the freshman Rep. Mason was a true believer in term limits, and by her junior term she was completely convinced that the policy is idiotic, not because she will be unable to continue working 72 hours a week of constant frustration and flak from people who think she's a criminal for $25K a year, but rather because she really does care about effectively addressing the problems we face as a society. I don't always agree with her policy choices, but I'll defend to the end her sincerity and abilities in public service. She's better for her experience, and that's the sort of legislator I want working for me.

Term limits arbitrarily prevent me from voting for the representative I want.This I consider a substantial impairment of my most basic constitutional right. The editor makes his living on the First Amendment. One would think he'd be more protective of the body of that great document.

Editorial: No tax hike, even a 'temporary' one

The unnamed Courier editor is happy to spout off about refusing to raise taxes in any way. Why shouldn't he? What has he got to lose? Hating taxes is about as against-the-wind as hating bin Laden. It's too bad that public policy just isn't that easy.

Our state has a structural problem with its revenue policy. What I mean by "structural" is that the problems are built into the structure. What we're experiencing now is inevitable given the policies we've been using, and smarter people than I have been telling our leaders that for years. It's ironic that the editor quotes the old aphorism about insanity and in the same breath demands that we keep doing what we've been doing, which is blocking all necessary changes in tax policy except those that impoverish our state services and ultimately ourselves.

New ideas indeed, editor. And where are yours? I'm sure your state legislators would love to hear them.

Maybe the commenters were right ...

In today's NYT I notice an AP story on that jaguar who died at the hands of Game and Fish a while ago. It seems not everyone is convinced it was all on the up and up. Will the Courier carry this one?

Update: Here's the link to the story in March.

Stopped clock

I can't imagine that frequent over-the-top commenter Tom Steele is the best public face for the stop-the-prison group, but this time he's done his homework and happens to be right.

I'm persuaded by a contact inside the corrections industry that all the waving of arms is unnecessary, however. CCA's standard MO is apparently to get this sort of kerfuffle going on the local level, which sometimes leads to a local study, which sometimes leads to a state study, which sometimes leads to new state-supported business for CCA, usually someplace other than where it started. That's where I'll bet my five bucks.

Snow day

I'm out of town working on a major life-change project, so blogging's been light, sorry. It could be like this into February.

I have to say that while I can't vouch for their accuracy, I like the way the Courier has been keeping the weather-related stories flowing on the website. I imagine the newsroom is fairly jumping with people trying to get the latest and best information they can, and feeling the glow when they get it right and on time. For you hard-working Courier folks, a note: it should feel this way most of the time. Whatever the story, dig in, get it and get it right, and the job's way more fun.

Stay dry!

Editorial: Americans impatient for promised change

The headline is right, and the last line is right, both in ways the editor didn't intend. The rest is just horse hockey.

It's amusing to see most of the commenters doing just what the unnamed Courier editor is doing from their various political perspectives, and that is seeing what they all prefer to see in the Mass Senate election. The teabaggers see populist revolution, the Republican stalwarts see mass repudiation of Dems and Obama, and Dems see failure of Obama to deliver on campaign promises.

Near as I can tell, all of these may be minor factors, but all miss the obvious. The Mass Dems ran a campaign of entitlement with a candidate who largely didn't bother with voters, and lost. It was their seat to lose, and they did.

Nationally, neglect of the Dem base by the Prez and congressional leaders is becoming a serious problem. Reactionaries show up reliably to vote because they run on fear, but progressives need inspiration. Democracy is designed to operate by compromise, and I appreciate that principled people will try to work that way regardless of the tactics on the other side, but the unalloyed gutlessness of the Dems in pursuing vital change in our health-care system, failing to follow through on getting us out of Bush's military adventures and rescuing the investment portfolios of the Wall Street warlocks has caused widespread disgust among the base. I couldn't say from direct knowledge whether this was a significant factor, but the exit polls seem to indicate it was.

Be that as it may, the editor is playing out of his league again. Stick to your knitting, editor: keep it local. You don't generally have the gumption to research the stories that are near at hand, leave alone what's going on so far away.

Old Elks fire curtain reveals original artwork

Regular readers know that Courier coverage of the Elks is a regular feature here, and indulge me. This piece appeared over the weekend.

Cindy couldn't know that her lead --

For nearly 100 years, the asbestos fire curtain stood as a safeguard between the sometimes-combustible activities on the stage of the Elks Opera House and the people in the audience.

-- draws a chuckle from every theatre professional who's worked the Elks.

The fire curtain, known in theatre parlance as the asbestos, is a required system in every theatre since the 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago, which in killing 600 theatre patrons brought in many new rules for theatre safety systems and procedures. Asbestos systems are designed to bring the curtain down automatically to contain fire on the stage. They can be triggered manually as well.

Until it was taken down a few years ago, the Elks asbestos had been frozen and inoperable for at least twenty years and probably a lot longer. The Elks Theatre (is not, never has been and never could be an opera house) was almost exclusively a movie house for many decades, and so didn't need a working asbestos until Yavapai College took it over in the late '80s. The college never provided the funding to bring the theatre up to code, and so this and many other systems remained in neglect through the Prescott College period (when I rejected it as a venue for the Shakespeare Festival as unsafe) and the City's takeover.

The City's plans for "renovation" have so far not publicly included the necessary equipment and safety-system upgrades to pass a state inspection and open legally. I hope the City's not going to be surprised by this.

County supervisors oppose pro-union bill

Linda (or her editor?) steps right off into deep doo-doo:

"Hoping to stop a bill that would require states and local governments to unionize some employees, ..."

The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which passed the House in '07 with bipartisan support and remains stuck in Senate committee process, would not require any government to unionize anyone. Put it down to incompetence if you like, but this is exactly the wrong impression the radical corporatists would have you believe, and therefore the Courier is either taken in by the propaganda or complicit in it.

The bill's purpose is ensure the rights of police officers, fire-fighters and other specifically public-safety workers (hence the name) to form and join unions and to bargain collectively. If you don't think they should be allowed to do that, you should rightfully oppose this bill. The rest of us think it's perfectly OK, and that unions are not the threat to this country that the right loves to characterize. But allowing people to unionize, I'm sure every reader must agree, is not anything like the same as requiring employers to create unions.

I think the Courier ought to be getting a ton of letters and comments on this little agitprop move. It's ugly.

Feed-your-head Friday

The sun's low, but spring is ahead. At least it looks like it.

Editorial: HUSD should pick needs over wants

The unnamed Courier editor expresses just the right amount of ironic outrage over HUSD entertaining the idea of building a swimming pool instead of science labs.

This follows the the standard formula of rewriting yesterday's front page, but he covers the presented alternatives that I noted missing yesterday, as well as the astroturf controversy, and takes a firm stand on what he thinks the board ought to do. Much more solid and reasoned than usual. A cookie for you, ed.

Police urge people to lock cars to reduce burglaries

Lisa reports ten car burglaries in two weeks. She doesn't tell us where this is happening. We're left to wonder whether bad kids are prowling neighborhoods or the Row or the nasty dank parking garage or church lots or Wal-Mart or what. This failure makes the story both scary and useless. Ack.

Tourism study: If Prescott spends, people will come

The City Manager spends ten grand on a tourism consultant, who tells us that we need to spend more money on tourism promotion, presumably to some degree on more consulting. Cindy gets the facts right and seeks out more, that's all good. But the most fundamental question remains unexplored: what do we have to sell to tourists?

Everyone who lives here and didn't grow up here understands that Prescott is a great town in many ways, but that doesn't entitle us to any tourism dollars. The Courier inadvertently provides an example of what's wrong in its choice of a photo to accompany the story.

What the City bills as a "bluegrass festival" is one of the most amateurish hick-chic events I've ever seen in a city this size. The organizers take the path of least resistance and least cost, making an event that no one really cares about. Why should anyone come?

The rodeo is a reliable draw, but its demographic is pretty sharply limited, and the town takes on an exclusionary attitude when those people show up.

Meanwhile shows with more openness and vision, like Tsunami, are hobbled by lack of resources and forced to keep their goals attainable -- and second-rate.

If the City, PACT, PDP, the Chamber and our business community at large were to really get behind a quality arts-related event that spreads out over downtown and lasts for more than a couple of days, those advertising dollars could pay off in loyal repeat business. I've seen this work well in cities that had far less to offer than Prescott.

That missing baby case

Our 24/7 newstainment industry spits out hundreds of stories every day. What leads the editors to think that this particular one is more relevant to local readers than any other? There's no local angle, and from the looks of things it's already being covered pretty heavily on teevee (a drug I haven't touched in many years).

I recall a case a few years ago in which a Prescott man stole his child from his former wife, fled out of state, was eventually caught, tried and jailed, with nary a word about it in the Courier.

The only factor I see different here is that it's a woman doing the kidnapping, which leads to the conclusion that the editors are a lot more interested in the father's-rights angle. Gotta keep control of those women. y'know.

Fah. Waste of space.

Editorial: Project is a matter not of if, but how

The unnamed Courier editor says that there's no choice, we have to build it, even though home construction has crashed like an airliner through the City Hall roof, so we better pay for it. As if he had nothing to do with bringing us to this pretty pass. Shrug. Get over it.

Once again the build-or-die crowd hoists the community on its rank petard and fakes ignorance of a predictable outcome.

A responsible editor would be writing about how short-sighted Council and staff decisions over a decade forced the City into a legal corner it can't escape. About what amounts to an historic shift in City fiscal policy brought about by accident, for no useful purpose. About what this switch from conservative, pay-as-you-go spending to borrow-and-build bonding might bring, and how it fits in the context of the recent wildly popular Prop 400.

Instead, we have one of the genius cheerleaders for the uncontrolled, cancer-like growth that brought our economy low telling us that we just have to deal. Act of God.

Talk to the hand.

Mason: Making Arizona more competitive is key

I'll be asking Rep Mason about these business tax cuts this weekend on The People's Business (2pm Sat-Sun on KJZA/KJZP, 89.5 and 90.1 FM). I hope the Courier editors have something planned to follow up on this and explore how it makes sense to substantially reduce business taxes in the context of a crushing budget gap.

This idea came up in the Governor's negotiation with legislative leaders. The deal would have created a tax package to include new revenue through the temporary sales tax and expanded property tax base along with minor cuts in taxes on business -- a classic compromise. But apparently the radicals in charge of the Legislature decided they really didn't have to compromise anything, betting that the Accidental Governor will just roll over. They may be right.

PS: AZBlueMeanie has a very cogent take on Blog for Arizona.

HUSD Governing Board considering new aquatic center at Bradshaw

Yikes. Bond money (borrowed money) is available to use at BMHS, and the HUSD board thinks a swimming pool ("revenue flow"? Ack!) is the best way to spend it. Paula goes along with the gag unquestioningly, not even bothering to list alternatives presented to the board, leave alone what other schools in similar position are doing.

Here's a clue: We spend public funds on schools to make smarter kids. Neither swimming nor any other form of physical exertion for its own sake makes kids smarter. Waste of money.

The only person who seems to have his head even half in the game here is Richard Marks, in a quote near the end. Is Prescott Valley or the Courier smart enough to follow that rabbit trail?

Bobcat wasn't rabid, but ...

Joanna bases her story on a fact -- that the officially murdered cat's body tested negative for rabies. But pretty much the entire story consists of justification for killing it. Protesting too much?

The previous story included enough of that, but the editors felt compelled to pile it on here. It amounts to what feels like excess in defense of the PD action, which leads me to suspect that someone's afraid the PD really did overreact.

The context over the past year of an unusual number of rabid animal attacks and an even larger number of avoidable animal deaths at the hands of officials is inescapable. What with the followup editorial, I get the feeling the Courier is taking sides on the whole issue. Maybe that move out of downtown into the Prescott Lakes boonies wasn't such a good idea.

Editorial: It won't hurt to wait a bit longer

The Courier thinks we should hold off on more stimulus to see whether what we've done is enough to bounce the economy back. Historical note: that's what the Republicans thought in '33 as well, and they got Roosevelt to back off, putting the economy deeper in the toilet for another eight years. Just sayin'.