Easily one of the most cogent presentations I've seen on the proper response to the credit crunch, from someone who's lived through doing it wrong. Readers should understand that Nomura Research is no liberal think tank, it's the Japanese equivalent of the research arm of Goldman Sachs.
The escape of three murder convicts from the private prison in Kingman is playing out like a slush-pile screenplay. Yesterday brought news (h/t to Cap'n Tom) of another amazing operation by Arizona's crack lawnforcement system, rousting an innocent family on the basis of a bad tip. I'm on the lookout for stories on the official response to the security failure at the prison, and why these guys were in a medium-security facility.
You'd think some of this might make it into the Courier, but I guess they needed the space to tell us that nothing's happening in the DeMocker trial this week.
The headline writer gets it right, for once. But like a stopped clock, this headline would be accurate every year.
Kids grow, and development happens regardless of whether our education system is properly funded this year or that. Our failure to invest in education at any given time means that kids miss learning opportunities. There's no second chance on second grade, not really. Missing a development window for a child has long-term consequences.
The unnamed Courier editor is jubilant here: "The 2010-11 academic school year . . . will be the year education makes a comeback in Arizona," arguing that the institution of the temporary sales-tax hike puts a big pile of new money into the schools. Sounds great, dunnit?
I hate to pop your bubble, editor, but you missed a crucial factor in the basis of your optimism. Before the sales-tax initiative, and to a large extent anticipating its passage, the Legislature, directed by Gov Brewer, slashed the state budget by 2 billion clams, including cutting education funding, by far the largest budget category, back to the 2006 level. The new sales tax is meant to replace most of that funding, but it only brings us back to less than zero. From a funding standpoint, our education system is therefore at least a little worse off this year and in the coming years than its already parlous state.
Even that depends on new sales-tax revenues meeting the Governor's optimistic projections. State budget cuts and the 1070 controversy are playing hob with tourism and conventions, and the construction industry is still on life support. LD1 Rep Lucy Mason is not optimistic that the sales tax will pull the ed budget back up: "We hope that it can even out, but more than likely that's not gonna happen."
I'm willing to allow that the editor simply does not understand what the Governor and Legislature were doing with the budget. It was confusing, after all, like the shell game it was meant to be. But one would hope that the editor of a daily newspaper would be a little more on the ball about something so important to our community.
Following up on a week in which the three Republicans vying for the two LD1 House seats appeared on the front page every day, we have another piece by Joanna surveying Republicans for CD1 on a question that they are bound to agree on. We'll get to that.
I don't think Joanna's the problem, rather the headline writer who persists in implying that no one other than Republicans exist. Today's "CD1 GOP candidates reflect on federal health care legislation" again omits the "primary" qualifier that would have made this a fair headline. Previously:
LD1 GOP candidates describe the legislation they'd introduce
Candidates tackle Clean Elections issue
LD1 Candidates: What should the Legislature do to help Arizona's economy?
LD1 candidates: Is SB 1070 helpful or harmful for Arizona?
State House candidates in Prescott forum Friday
This isn't rocket science. You just have to look at what you're writing and see it from the readers' standpoint. What is the plain meaning of it that the reader takes away? In all these cases, the headline says these are all the candidates, with pictures to define the list.
I'm obviously no fan of skimming the headlines and thinking you know what's going on, but it would be ridiculously naive to assert that even a majority of readers are more thorough than that. These headlines make readers dumber about the election, and if it isn't intended by the Courier editors, they're demonstrating incompetent neglect.
Wait!, I hear you cry, it's about the primaries, and there are no contested Dem nominations! Not so. We have important Dem primary votes for Secretary of State, Attorney General, Supervisor of Public Instruction and Corporation Commission, and the results of those elections will affect our lives as much or more than the LD and CD races. Will we see profile and debate pieces on them as well? Color me skeptical at this point. The Libertarian and Green candidates deserve good coverage as well, and it's the primary duty of a local paper to fairly inform voters about who and what they'll be voting on.
Now, as promised, about today's piece. Joanna, please. You're asking Republicans about the Affordable Care Act? How could their predictably uniform answers possibly help voters differentiate among them? Rather than informing voters about the candidates in a meaningful way for the primary, it's like you chose the question simply to foreshadow the discourse in the general race. It makes this article a complete waste of time, both for Republican partisans and uncommitted voters.
Next time, for gad's sake, ask about something where the party isn't in lockstep. I admit that may take a little research.
Update, Wednesday: Another one.
The next session of Congress will likely include some kerfuffle over the 14th Amendment, with much throwing of the "anchor baby" epithet.
Following up on something I wrote earlier in this space, I'm looking for the policy arguments in favor of birthright citizenship for all, including the children of illegal immigrants. I get that the 14th institutes this right, but what I'm not seeing are arguments to support why we want this right protected. Yes it's American tradition now, yes it's liberal and charitable, but I want to see a solid, cogent argument based on national interest. If you've read something like this, please post a link in the comments.
"Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts -- in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance -- vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes."
"This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy. More specifically, the new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one."
-- Reagan budget director David Stockman, The New York Times, July 31
"Armed and dangerous," last seen this morning at a truck stop in Flagstaff.
Tim Rutten: "Hysterical moral panic seems an apt description for our fevered political condition"
"My parents and in-laws are from the generation for which: TV was only a dream (come true); school buses were largely non-existent because farm kids hiked to school; seeing airplanes other than the WWI variety was a rarity; male teachers always wore suits, and women wore dresses - no slacks or shorts; air conditioning was a modern convenience - mostly for the rich; and WWII triggered many forms of mechanization."
Not long ago, in response to something I wrote in a comment on dcourier, an anonymous commenter wrote a personal attack on me -- one of a great many I've recieved over a couple of years. This time, rather than just ignore it, I posted another comment pointing it out to the editors and challenging them on whether they were enforcing their own policy. A few hours later my complaint was posted and the offending comment was taken down.
I thought this might alert the editors to the great many personal attacks that they allow through in the comments. It's important to enforce this code, since anonymous nitwits coming on and calling people names is enough to keep a lot of people with real lives from participating. But the attack level has not apparently abated. I hear and believe that the editors still often decline to post comments without indicating they have done so, leaving us in the dark about whether they're enforcing the attack ban selectively, occasionally, or not at all.
So as an experiment, yesterday evening I posted comments on eight or ten articles, simply pointing out to the editors the clear personal attacks of previous commenters. The offenders included people at both ends of the political spectrum (although those attacking people expressing rightward opinions were pretty rare), and I simply listed them by the "comment by" title. I selected only those comments that were clearly aimed at a single person as attacks and nothing else. Examples, all from yesterday's edition:
from "Hey, Honky,"
Why you keep posting is a real mystery. You are like a one trick pony with zero analysis in any of your posts. I could post on your behalf because your views are so predictable.
from "Keith T"
Phil, It sure seems like you have an opinion on everything when it comes to the town government. What have you done for your community?
from "Poor little put-put"
Poor little put-put-Putin. He's almost as bad as donkey burro or barfut t. babbler. Oh, wait, you don't suppose...? Naah, couldn't be, right?
from "Joe Pandoli"
Keep drinking that Koolaid honky.
I don't know, or care, what flavor it is, I just know it's Red.
from "NotA Cop"
Oooh! Honky Brujo! Are we feeling picked on? Boy, are you displaying your ignorance!
from "Write Right"
Mike Mike - Do you really have the ability to be a successful business owner with those poor writing skills?? I think I'd seek a little more education before I put my pitiful writing skills on public display like that. This is a classic example of a huge part of our problem in this country, folks.
from "honky brujo"
C.R. you fall for that Fox Noise stuff everytime. Grow up and check other sources before send another inane letter to the editor.
from "Just A Thought"
Wow, Honky and Christopher* sure are sensitive! They must be two of the few who still get their "gospel" from MSNBC. C.R. was just being sarcastic to make a point. The Tea Party movement sure must be worrying you two. Just a thought.
from "Brilliance to go"
Absolute brilliance Honky. As always, we can count on you to make a ridiculous, meaningless comment. Blaming others for your problems never fixes anything.
I'm busy with another project, but thought I'd surface for a sec and pass this on from Candace, who's fished her limit of Courier LTEs this week:
July 20, 2010 -- Dear Editor:
Your story about the Clean Elections forum on July 15 was informative . . . as far as it went. But it only went as far as the Republican candidates! The headline, Legislative candidates debate top issues in Prescott, should have been preceded by the word GOP. As it is, you implied that those were ALL the candidates.
You could have served the public better with a complete explanation of why the Citizens Clean Elections Commission ran the forum the way they did. You stated that the Commission "requires all Clean Elections candidates to attend its forums. Candidate Noel Campbell of Prescott is the only Clean Elections candidate in the three-way LD1 race." And all of that would have been true if you'd put the word "Republican" in front of LD1.
There is a Democratic candidate in this race, Lindsay Bell. She's the only Democrat running; her primary run is uncontested. The Commission is required to hold a forum wherever a Clean Elections candidate runs in a contested election. There are two seats that are up for LD1, and there are three Republican candidates, one being a Clean Elections candidate. That's why there had to be a Republican forum.
And Lindsay Bell is a Clean Elections candidate, but since (with just one candidate) the Democratic primary is uncontested, she doesn't get to appear in a forum at this time.
Sometimes it feels like the Republicans consider themselves the only show in town, but I think as Prescott's newspaper of record, you owe your readership the full story.
Candace McNulty
Doug doesn't mention that the entertainment at Prescott BBQ Days will include Big Daddy D and the Dynamites, but no blame for that as it's difficult to find any reference to us or other performers in the event PR materials. FYI, we're playing on Saturday, 2:30-4pm.
The League of Women Voters, a rigorously non-partisan nonprofit dedicated for many decades to maintaining our political process by registering and informing voters, will stage a registration drive at Stepping Stones, 3343 N. Windsong in PV on Sunday, 9:30-11:30am.
The comments on the Courier's hamfisted entry about the event lead me to some concern that immigration peacocks and Tea-Party types will attempt to disrupt the process and intimidate Hispanic registrants. If you care about the integrity of our political process, you should consider showing up to provide some support for both registering voters and the League.
This week the City Council takes up the issue of algae bloom in Willow and Watson Lakes as well as the state of the creeks that feed them, and following up on Cindy's story yesterday, the Courier weighs in with an editorial and an LTE from Paul Peterson.
It's not news to anyone who's paying attention that the creeks and lakes are in pretty rough shape. How anyone can think it's a good idea to swim in them is beyond me. It's also no surprise that in talking about weeds and algae, both Council and the editor are focusing on a surface symptom that speaks volumes about much bigger underlying challenges.
I forget just how long it's been, maybe thirteen or fourteen years, since the county allowed the lakes to go dry and buddy Ross and I hiked across Watson from the boat ramp to the dam. But I clearly remember how ugly it was and must remain down there. As we stepped carefully from one dinner-plate sized island of dried mud to the next, we could clearly see the black, oily muck that makes up the bottom, and we couldn't avoid the stink of sewage and noxious chemistry from decades of thoughtless dumping in the creeks and accidental discharge from the treatment plant just upstream. The sepulchral skeletons of trees stand yards deep in this filth, their crowns festooned with lost fishing tackle and garbage. There was no evidence of life till we got to the dam and its ring of dead fish. That anything at all can live and grow in that toilet of a lake still amazes me.
But rather than take that opportunity to dig out and clean up the disgusting mess, the county just filled it up again and kept taking parking fees from swimmers and boaters. Beyond making it cleaner and safer, removing what has to be between ten and twenty feet of toxic crap from the bottom would substantially increase the lake's water storage capacity in the face of chronic drought.
Upstream, as we saw after the last big winter storm, we have cracked, broken and poorly secured sewer lines crossing the creeks. We also have huge amounts of lawn and garden fertilizers washing off into them. In every other freshwater system in this country, this sort of pollution is the most important source of nitrogen feeding the algal blooms, but the editor fails to mention it. I mention it here as one thing every homeowner can do to help: ditch the chemicals (or, for you literalists, stop ditching them) and seek out healthier ways to make your home look nice. (Hint: It's cheaper, too!)
It bears repeating that Prescott has the largest concentration of regularly flowing creeks in the state, and they are a big part of what makes this such a beautiful place to live. It's long past time we as a community halted the abuse and began investing seriously in restoring and maintaining their health, and not just on the surface.
The unnamed Courier editor writes, "Often when a child "misbehaves" in the eyes of adults, it's because a real need is falling on deaf ears." What s/he doesn't write is that more often, the child is motivated to misbehave by imaginary fears, ignorance and immature thinking. That's exactly what's happening with 1070 and today's editorial.
"So, where have all these agencies been?" bawls the editor. Answer: Daddy has been working, honey, he can't pay attention to you right now. Our federal agencies have been working the real problem, not the imaginary ones. Southern border enforcement is getting more resources now than ever, by far.
"How many of their people have (set) foot in Arizona to observe firsthand the problems challenging the state because of illegal immigration?" Answer: They're doing it, sweetie, you just didn't notice them. Most of the decision-makers have indeed at least toured the border, and commanders on the ground are certainly reporting up the chain. Their top commander, Secretary Napolitano, was lately the governor here. If they don't see the problems you expect them to, isn't that a clue that maybe your ideas need rethinking?
"As for the one we know of - Janet Napolitano, our former governor - we can only wonder why what she says and does now is so different (from) what she did before becoming secretary of Homeland Security." Response: Don't fib, baby, Daddy doesn't like it. As governor she repeatedly vetoed previous versions of 1070 because they were equally illegal, and refused to deploy state resources illegally even as she repeatedly asked the Bush administration for more resources in response to the public concern whipped up by Republicans. Now she is allocating and managing more border resources as she advocates striking down 1070. The inconsistency escapes me.
"Why has it taken Arizona's measure to get the federal government's attention?" Answer: Daddy was already doing it, honey, you didn't see him. Responding to right-wing outcry dating back to early in the Bush years, the Obama administration was ramping up border enforcement long before Senator Pearce (R-Bizarro World) got his legislative temper tantrum signed by the Accidental Governor.
In the midst of all this crying and cracked framing, the editor pulls up a side issue: "What too many refuse to accept is the fact that Arizona is not a racist state. People here do not want to round up illegal immigrants, most notably Hispanics, and walk them down the plank." Sensitive about that, are we? I agree, Arizona is not a racist state. That should not be taken to mean that Arizona is home to no racists, either on our streets or in our houses of state. The editor can't pull the "some of my best friends are Mexican" ploy while supporting a law that specifically targets brown-skinned people both legal and illegal for harassment.
I'll bet the editor would have written that Prescott loved its many Chinese-American residents, too, as they were being run out of town in the '40s. You can't ignore the racist and political motivations for this phony issue, editor, and maintain any pretense of objectivity or maturity about it.
It comes out: For Tim, the Constitution is a "technicality."
For no reason I can see, first Tim extensively quotes a press release by Speaker Kirk Adams that's nothing more than a clumsy political frame for the legal issue against 1070. Then he indirectly lays out the true purpose of 1070, which is not to pass court muster or do anything about the phony "immigration problem," but simply to stain Democrats and anyone else who rightfully stands against it as "immigration lovers" -- to win election points. But even though it's right there in print, I have a feeling that Tim doesn't quite connect the dots on this yet.
Yes, the federal court will strike 1070 down -- it's clearly illegal -- and yes, that may push some undereducated citizens to vote R in November. If voters were better informed about how our layered government works, this schoolyard ploy would fall flat, but there's no hope of it at this point. Whether it will be significant in federal-level polls is an open question, and we're already expecting more radical rightism in the statehouse, so I don't see it altering the political landscape much by itself. It may help balance those who come out to vote for medical marijuana, raising participation in the midterm overall.
As for embarrassing the President, Tim, I'm afraid Mr Obama has much bigger fish to fry than worrying about the antics of Jan Brewer, Russell Pearce and Sheriff Joe. Let's have a little perspective, shall we?
The Smoki kick just goes on, although I expect it's is a conscious effort to publicize the current exhibit at the Smoki Museum, which is not a bad thought. Perhaps the editor should spend some time at the exhibit himself. In writing today's editorial, he clearly hasn't read the literature closely.
In defending the intentions of the old Smoki, he kicks right off on the wrong foot:
"Laboring under the misconception that the Native American culture was vanishing, the group decided to put on a show mirroring Southwest and Plains Indian dances."In point of fact, in the late teens and early '20s traveling, professional Wild West shows were popular entertainments, and the Prescott business community simply decided to try raising money by putting on an amateur version. The fake Indian dance was only one scene in the show, and there's no evidence that it was researched at all, or that it had any more to do with the idea of preserving Indian culture than the contemporary minstrel shows of the South were about preserving black culture there. For them it was just a goof, like the Kiwanis jug band.
"The Smoki Museum is striving to make amends for slights the Native American people feel by incorporating their input in planning the exhibit "The Sign of Smoki: Art & Artistry of Prescott's Smoki People." ... a plan is in the works to bring together tribal leaders in a discussion that would conciliate any bad feelings that remain over the Smoki People"The editor is about five years late to the party.
One of the unnamed Courier editor's most reliably comic riffs is when he attempts comment on economic issues without reference to any understanding of economics.
In lieu of anything useful, Tim (it has to be Tim, since he addresses his readers as "folks") gleans a pile of conflicting and mostly misleading bullet points from teevee pundits and throws them out in no particular order. Around this he wraps a few data percentage points from the City budget director's presentation, and concludes, if I may paraphrase, "Well, I dunno, but it sorta looks like things might be getting a little better."
I would love to see the Courier apply some resources to understanding and communicating the City's budget situation and strategies. I've about given up on that, I'm afraid. Instead we get uninformed surface coverage, uncritical stenography of City bureaucrats, and pap like this.
The reason Tim's seeing so much talk on his teevee about "the question of a double or second dip in the recession" is because both the US and Europe are following the same strategy the Hoover administration established in 1932, turning a cyclical recession into the Great Depression. Nobel winner Paul Krugman has been crying in the wilderness about this for a couple of years while politicians with no better understanding of economics than Tim has drive us all over the cliff with them. Krugman explains why, if you want to know, it's worth the read.
I didn't intend to comment on the second part of this piece, which the Courier should have written after we released the film and the Smoki Museum opened its Smoki People exhibit in 2006, but a graf near the end begs for clarification.
Along with most of the quotes and historical scenes in the the piece, Bruce lifted this scene from our film:
Ann Oudin wrote an Internet blog after reading a newspaper story about the Hopi protest in Prescott. "It (snake dance) is the most mesmerizing thing I ever saw," she wrote. "Once you see them, you will never forget them."The scene shows a pair of hands typing on a text-only '80s computer as the quote rolls on its monochrome-green monitor. How Bruce managed to imagine this as a 'blog' is just embarrassing considering that Ms Oudin was writing in 1990, the word 'blog' wasn't coined till around 1998, and she wrote that letter to the Courier, which is where we got it.
As Prescott's annual cowboygasm and animal-domination festival winds down, the unnamed Courier editor favors us with yet another pious paean to truth, justice and the American Way, managing to subvert all three in his obeisance to heroic myths.
His lead graf only infers that he hasn't done much international traveling. For those of us who have, the first impression of returning to our home shores is barbed wire, armed guards, bureaucratic hassle and suspicion, neatly expressing how most Americans view the world outside as both threatening and uninteresting (encouraged, of course, by their self-centered corporate media). If you've spent any time outside the wire, you know that America is generally regarded, with good reason, as a witless, greedy, bullying, self-absorbed hegemon, so seeing that flag is a far more mixed experience than the editor's teary relief on getting back safely from his weekend in Rocky Point.
Following the standard script written by the first modern propagandists to pump the first World War, the editor hops to the blood and treasure we expend to "preserve our freedoms" in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where the only freedoms we uphold are those of multinational corporations to continue exploiting the resources of poor people and sell them crap they don't need, and those of our favored churches to continue marketing their superstitious crusades. The wars we fought for our freedoms ended in 1815, folks. Everything since has been empire-building, resource acquisition or blowback for same.
The Courier editors danced on the sidelines waving pompoms as the second Bush administration worked assiduously to dismantle the freedoms and rights that today's editorial purports to praise. To me this demonstrates a stunning cognitive disconnect, and the editorial provides an example of how this disconnect comes about.
Looked at overall, the editorial's message is that the editor worships the flag. A flag. A thing, a symbol. His fascination with the symbol allows unscrupulous people to manipulate him by manipulating the propaganda around the symbol. So an illegal, aggressive invasion of a country that cannot threaten us, or turning innocent people and children into fine red mist to prop up a corrupt but apparently compliant puppet state, becomes a "fight for our freedom," and questioning it becomes subversive, even treasonous.
If the editor were to see the hard reality of what this 'fight for freedom' means to the people whose freedoms we steal and whose lives we destroy for it, I believe, truly, that he'd be a lot less facile about what he writes around it. But, lacking any useful experience and thrust into the pundit's chair, he falls into the trap of cracked mental shorthand -- war equals the flag equals our values -- and he mires what could be a competent mind in the sticky cotton candy of unquestioned premises and sacred falsehoods.
If you hope to honor the principles on which this country was founded and the people who fought and died to secure them, read the whole document. In particular, absorb how our founders defined tyranny:
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Bruce takes on a feature series about the amazing and ridiculous "Smoki people" in tones that promise authoritative history. Save yourself some trouble and confusion, don't bother with this, just go to the museum and study the exhibits there, including the permanent Smoki People room (which I helped build a few years ago).
It's a story that requires some research and background to tell properly. In working with director Jerry Chinn on the film mentioned here, I was exposed to the broad range of perspectives on the Smoki story and nuances essential to understanding what led these good-hearted people so far off the rails.
As we said in the marketing, if you don't know the Smoki story, you don't know Prescott. Don't let the Courier's loose accuracy and surface treatment impede your knowledge. If you're interested, go to the source.
Today's Feed-Your-Head-Friday feature explores cognition and Donald Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns." Juicy!
The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1)
Maybe I'm confused about how this is supposed to work, but usually, if you set out a thesis, aren't you sort of obliged to back it up with something related to that thesis?
I've read it a couple of times, and I have to say today's editorial is, well, incoherent. I'll just jump over the lead graf, which reads like a transcript from an intermittent cellphone connection, and try to parse the unnamed editor's argument.
It appears that the editor is incensed that Mexico has joined the legal challenge to SB1070, in defense of the civil liberties of Mexicans, because he thinks Mexico is so bad at protecting civil liberties within Mexico. Hence the "hypocrisy" in the clunky headline.
As examples he cites Mexico's high unemployment rate and drug-related violence in the northern border towns. (Admittedly, this may well be all the editor knows about Mexico beyond its beer brands.) But neither of these has anything to do with civil rights protections, unless he thinks that Mexicans have a constitutional right to a job or an orderly smuggling market, which I tend to doubt.
Then he jumps to the Arizona boycott resolution by Chula Vista, which is pertinent to his thesis presumably because it has a Spanish name.
What the editor means to say, of course, is that he thinks Mexico should stay out of the legal battle over this legislation. There are straightforward ways of expressing that based on actual facts and cogent reasoning. He's just got tangled up in a lame attempt at snark. (Warning, editor: comedy is the hardest kind of writing. I should know, I screw it up all the time.) A better approach is to preserve the dignity of the editorial column and treat it more seriously.
For instance, you wouldn't imply to your readers that Mexico has filed an "actual lawsuit" against Arizona when in fact what's going on is that Mexico has filed a friend of the court brief in support of the existing federal suit. This is the standard way for interested parties without legal standing to legally express pertinent interests to the court. It's not scary, it doesn't cost us anything extra, and it won't alter the outcome. Calm down, 'kay? And try to spend a couple minutes on research before you decide what to write.
You might also want to consider what you would want your government to do if you heard that Mexico was about to start rounding up Americans with dodgy status in Mexico, running them through the prison system for X years and deporting them back here. If I know the Courier, you'd be calling for armed invasion. Makes an amicus curiae seem pretty mild, dunnit?
Having broken the news that started the whole Blair-vs-mural hubbub, which went international and brought a whole lot of unkind attention on our fair city, now the Courier editors have had enough and wish it would just go away. Show's over, nothing to see here, move along.
Taking their cue from Mayor Kuykendall ("The public wanted the opportunity to speak, and now we're going to put this behind us"), today the unnamed Courier editor has decreed that further discussion of the topic is officially boring and we should be done with it, even promising additional censorship of the letters and comments. Nice.
This controversy touched a raw nerve in our town and opened a dialogue that's been a long time coming. It's no surprise at all that a lot of people want to be heard, nor that many are staking out extreme positions, nor that the champions of the status quo would like to vacuum the genie back into the bottle. It's an embarrassing story, and Prescott's customary way of dealing with embarrassment is to sweep it under the rug.
But is that any way for a news organization to act? Tim Weideraenders shows that this is a preferred approach in telling us he doesn't watch TV because tampon ads gross him out. After restating his own position, Steve Stockmar declares the argument over, clearly expressing the short attention span of the media in general and the public at large, as well as the typical offhand hubris of journos in deciding what's important and what's not.
Steve, Tim and the Mayor all seem to believe that their function is to lead the people in how to think, and what happened yesterday is not important. But they're all missing both the core of the story and the opportunity it presents, and forgetting that they are all in their chairs to serve the public.
Councilman Blair, Superintendent Kapp, Principal Lane and a bunch of racist yobbos all did things that were deeply offensive to the Miller Valley kids, their parents and teachers, and a large part of this community. Mr Blair has got some deserved blowback from his constituents and suffered some predictable cost in his commercial relationships. Messrs. Kapp and Lane walked their actions back and apologized, but that should not get them off without public discussion of how things are done in our schools, and how important political deals are made in secret among friends.
The Mayor blew an important and rare opportunity for sensible dialogue to address the day-to-day injustice and high background radiation of unacknowledged racism that splinters our community under its Leave-It-To-Beaver facade.
All of us overfed, comfy white folk would like to think of ourselves as friendly, open people who wave and greet passersby and treat strangers as new-found friends. But we all know or should know that we don't respond that way to all strangers, or even all of our neighbors. The majority here has grown comfortable in not seeing the ones who are different, or poor, or young, or mentally challenged, and there's constant pressure to make them even less visible. Many of us are in deep denial about how Prescott is changing with the world around it and refusing to go along, making Prescott increasingly neurotic.
This is news, one of the biggest news stories in our community. Refusal to talk about it, including by our local media, has built up the pressure we see being released now.
Rather than pulling the curtain and telling us the show's over, the Courier should be leaning into this story, seeking out the reasonable voices and different viewpoints, challenging rhetoric with facts, and pushing for answers to the very important questions it raises. Proaction, not reaction.
I don't know how long the story will sustain itself. Americans really do have the attention span of a gnat, after all, and in its current form the dialogue isn't very productive. The status-quo types will probably win. But be warned that the issue of racism in Prescott will not go away, it will only repressurize and emerge somewhere else, uglier and more recalcitrant. The editors have only kicked the can down the road.
The editor chastises residents who prefer parking on the street rather than the city garage on Granite, with a headline discounting any excuse. Here we have mainly a failure of imagination, I'm afraid.
Consider someone who wants to buy something downtown, say a large ceramic pot, and faces the idea of carrying it across the square, around to the alley, up the alley and up several flights of stairs.
Consider someone who's planning dinner at Murphy's and a popular show at PFAA.
Consider the working musician (me) who has to show up at the club during the dinner hour and unload for the gig -- on Cortez St.
We have to face facts here: the garage is only practical for able-bodied people with destinations from the square on the east to Sharlot Hall Museum on the west, south to about Carleton and north to Willis. The eastern and most of the northern blocks of downtown are too far for most people even when parking is at a dire premium and you're able-bodied, leave alone those who are over 60, have little kids in tow, or are carrying more than five pounds of goods.
The idea of more and better signage to direct out-of-towners to the garage and other free lots is a good one. Forbidding downtown workers and juries from using on-street parking would be huge (although hard to enforce). A second garage on Union St, as per the original and smarter plan, would be better for the east side and far more visible and attractive to tourists and juries. Inside the garage, moving the spaces reserved for City vehicles to the top deck would probably raise garage occupancy by a third, since I'm sure lots of people give up looking when they see that block of white cars and trucks.
A lot of people complain that they're scared to use the garage because of poor lighting and nasty people hanging out there. Lighting in the garage is fine 24/7, but the alley behind the Row isn't exactly inviting all the time. A couple of electric four-place golf carts with drivers to ferry shoppers (free) around the square and to the garage might go a long way.
The central point is that the parking situation downtown has always suffered from inertia in accepting things as they are and a severe dearth of the necessary imagination to create multidimensional, positive solutions. Angled parking on our busy, narrow streets down there is dead stupid and we really need to upgrade or get rid of it entirely. Closing the streets around the square to cars would vastly improve the quality of the experience for everyone, and we ought to be doing some big-idea traffic planning to move in that direction. Simple public people-movers could knit downtown together over a much larger area than the frontage on the square, good for both visitors and businesses.
But standing up on the editor's soapbox, berating people to go park in the garage and belittling their concerns and practical needs is not going to help one bit -- particularly considering that the Courier so recently abandoned the downtown area.
Prescott man gets 10 life terms in prison for kid porn and unsavory pursuits, and his name is what?
Christian Royalty?
Oh, that's rich.
A great piece appeared in the Republic today confirming what the reality-based community has been saying for years about the phony "immigration issue." Just go read.
Jay Rosen has a great think piece up on his blog offering a new way to look at press bias: Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right: On the Actual Ideology of the American Press. Definitely worth a look.
Thanks Bruce, and we hope we'll see you at The Raven tonight. For more, check out the Big Daddy D website.
Horizon's pulling out, and I'll bet Great Lakes won't be far behind. They can't make it work without public funding.
Courier headline today, p. 10A:
Dissatisfaction with Obama on oil spill mirrors Bush/Katrina criticism
Every other outlet's headline for the same story:
Obama defending Gulf effort in Oval Office address
Say no more.
The idea of an editorial sit-down with readers is great, giving them the opportunity to talk and the editors to hear about how the paper is working for the community, ideas for change and improvement, kudos for what's right and accountability for what's not. What's not to like? But the point would be having the editors actually listen to the readers. Is that's what's happening here?
Reader Bob Bockrath ... discussed the differences between facts and opinions in editorial pieces.The fact/opinion question apparently went straight into File 13, and we get boilerplate about editorials that regular readers will instantly spot as hokum. This was the only bit where an editor even appeared to reply to a concern, leave alone offer a solution or change.
"We have an editorial board that meets regularly to discuss positions we will take on editorials," Courier Editor Tim Wiederaenders shared during the discussion. "The editorials are opinions of the newspaper and of the board, not of an individual writer."
Rand Paul nationally and Russell Pearce locally are leading a nutbar charge against birthright citizenship, the concept that anyone born on US soil is automatically a citizen. Pearce is even proposing new state legislation to prevent the issuance of birth certificates to the children of illegals, thereby, he imagines, impeding the citizenship process, which is of course a federal function. It's another election-year stunt from our shadow governor, and he knows it'll go nowhere, but he can keep it in the news and use it to get himself and other nutbars reelected.
The senator is going about it in completely the wrong way, for clearly the wrong reasons. But at its core the idea has some merit, and I think we should be talking about it in a way that's rather less unhinged.
First let me set some bright lines on what I'm thinking. It's not the same as Pearce's proposal. There's no question that the 14th Amendment grants birthright citizenship to anyone, legal or illegal. Congress wrote it this way over the express objections of the amendment's primary drafter, who wanted to include a provision for lawful presence of parents in this country. That was the 1860s, the US still had half a continent to populate, and Manifest Destiny was still public policy.
Things are different now. The entire world is overpopulated and migration pressures are strong and complex. Beyond the charitable aspect (the nice side of paternalism), I just don't see a clear public good in granting citizenship to babies born to people who are not lawfully here. Appeal to tradition if you like, but I'm not sold.
Making that change would require the full megillah of a constitutional amendment to specify that the mother must be lawfully present in the US or a territory, including good visa status. (I don't include the father because paternity isn't always clear; if the birth is happening in the US, the mother is here. Duh.) Since the 1980s the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa have made changes like this, specifying parental citizenship or minimum residence requirements. I think we can afford to remain a little more liberal than that.
I'm not among those who feel that the children of illegals are a huge problem, certainly not large enough to warrant a constitutional process to address it. But we clearly do need an entirely new regime for immigrant workers, giving much broader legal status and bringing everyone into our systems for worker protection and taxes. This modification of our traditional approach could be a reasonable measure to offer the right in making a deal for sensible immigration policy, and that would be a huge gain.
It's worth thinking about, we can hope a little more clearly than Messrs. Pearce and Paul.
(Hmm: a tasty treat -- the Pearce and Paul Nutbar!)
An ironclad rule of logic is that if one of the premises is bad, the conclusion is bad as well. The primary tactic of a skilled debater, whether on the school team or the courtroom, is to go after the weak premises and shoot them to pieces. And one of the primary techniques of the propagandist is the unquestioned premise, a basic form of disinformation.
It goes like this. Say you want to prove that the sun moves around the earth. You point out that everyone can see that the earth is flat and no one falls off, therefore the earth isn't moving, therefore the sun must be moving. Just slip that "common (non)sense" premise in there, and your mark swallows the argument whole. It's as easy as pie. But it requires either self-delusion or the intent to delude, as well as a pliable mark. Us readers, in other words.
The unnamed Courier editor manages to work four unquestioned premises into today's editorial, which is ostensibly on immigration reform but is really about getting more Republicans elected. I know, just go with me for a sec.
The editor's argument, in logical form, boils down to this:
Premise 1: The federal government is "neglecting its own immigration enforcement."
Premise 2: The federal government is "unwilling to enact positive immigration reform."
Premise 3: If the federal government will not enforce immigration law, Arizona must.
Premise 4: SB1070 would be effective in enforcing federal immigration law.
Conclusion: The federal government should allow Arizona to enforce immigration law as per SB1070.
Just look at those premises! I'll bet you didn't think he had it in him to make such breathtaking leaps! 
What we have here are not facts, but rather talking points -- ideas designed to persuade you to think in a certain way. The unrelenting media narrative holds that the border is out of control and the feds are doing essentially nothing as illegals overrun the country causing havoc, crime, cracks in the earth, hail of toads, what have you. Anyone who knows otherwise is forced to show over and over again in tedious detail that these concerns are just not justified by reality. But those who are paying enough attention to know generally have jobs, families and real lives, so they get tired. The media machine never gets tired, especially of a story that generates beucoup moola.
Some facts:
The federal government is spending more resources and personnel on the southern border than at any time in history. To the editor, that's "neglecting."
The federal government cannot "enact positive immigration reform," much as our president would like to. That's the role of Congress, one in which the minority party is using every available tactic to block any initiative by the president or the majority party. To the editor, that's "unwilling."
Recession, not enforcement, is reducing the number of illegal immigrants here: illegals are leaving our state in droves, causing reasonable concern about further depressing our economy.
If its backers are being honest in how they're selling it, SB1070 is essentially toothless. If it's not, it's likely to exacerbate the crime and other problems we already have and add new ones, licensing bad cops, vigilantes and garden-variety racists to go after anyone who looks sufficiently brown, including Puerto Ricans and Indians. What the bill amounts to is a legislative temper tantrum, and that's causing reasonable people to step back, but I'm positive it doesn't scare the criminals one bit.
Finally, on the idea that the states must do what the federal government won't (to their satisfaction): Let's say there's a gigantic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and huge amounts of oil are threatening the coasts and industries of five southern states while the oil company who made the mess dithers around trying to save its investment in the well and avoid paying the cleanup costs. By the Courier editor's logic, because Louisiana doesn't like how the feds are going about fixing it, the state would be justified, even obliged, to nationalize (state-ize?) the oil company, direct the leak fix and take on the cleanup costs itself. You do the math.
The editor packs all this wrong thinking into his unquestioned premises. (Why bother thinking when the media are doing it for you, after all?) His conclusion is rotten to the core as a result, but in the context of the unrelenting narrative, it looks fairly reasonable.
Underneath, the message is quite pointed and partisan. See, in the editor's world, "positive immigration reform" is code for "closing the border and sending them all home," and that's the only approach the Republicans will talk about. The smart ones know the idea is preposterous in the real world, it just can't happen, I don't care how much money and manpower you propose to throw at it. But they also know that as long as they beat the drum, they have an issue that scares voters and gets them elected, and, as proven over the last decade, once they're elected they don't have to do anything about it, they can just keep beating that drum. It's perfect. A continuously winning issue that can't be resolved.
In the real world, "positive immigration reform" means eliminating the artificial shortage of legal routes to work, bringing all immigrants onto the level playing field of workplace protections, minimum wages and withholding taxes, and looking after U.S. economic interests in a flexible and skilled workforce. When the editor writes on those ideas, I'll consider the possibility that the Courier is turning a corner on the issue. But however reasonable it may appear on the surface, today's editorial is just the same old scary drumbeat. On with the stampede. Watch your step, there's a cliff over that way.
The story of the Whiskey Row crosswalk is often told as Prescott lore, and there are many variations in the details. It may be that it's so often told that no one feels compelled to research the facts, but it would be nice if we could count on the unnamed Courier editor to take an interest in separating lore from reality, or at least not confusing them further.
I've been in town longer than Tim has, and while that doesn't confer any special knowledge, I may have heard the story a few more times. I've never before heard the idea that the City eliminated the crosswalk, rather it was ADOT, the reason being that Montezuma Street is officially a state highway (89), and unregulated crosswalks are not allowed on highways. One of the remarkable things about the crosswalk -- and I'm talking secondhand here, I haven't confirmed this with ADOT -- is that it is the only unregulated crosswalk on a state highway in Arizona. I've also never heard that when Sam painted the crosswalk he was operating only as an outraged citizen. Sam's reputation for stunts and gaffes while drunk is well established in the lore, extending to his failure to appear for his mayoral speech at the Y2K event ten years ago.
Some will say it's not fair to kick a man while he's down -- Sam suffered a severe stroke some years ago and is no longer able to defend himself -- but knowing him, I'd say he'd be the first to laugh at the idea of sanitizing his image for posterity.
If we're talking about putting up an historical marker, what we need is an official account, researched and confirmed, from someone with the authority to tell it. Another hipshot from the editor only muddies the water further. Prescott cares about history. I have to hope the editor does too.
Update, Tuesday: Daveinprescott asks, "Do you know anything about "The Prescott Western Heritage Foundation"? I have never heard of this group before and wonder what their involvement is with the local politics and why they'd be interested in putting this guy up front and center as a symbol of Prescott's past-as if it's something we should all admire? Is this a sizable group? Who are its members?"
Good question! This "group" filed with the Corporation Commission as a tax-exempt nonprofit on May 4 of this year, stating as its purpose "to provide charitable opportunities for children to a) participate in performing arts productions; and b) to participate in educational seminars and classes in the theatrical arts." Its articles of incorporation state that it will have no members, so it consists of just two directors: sculptor and Western art booster Dennis Gallagher, and former councilman Rob Behnke. Mr Behnke signed the filing and the organization's official address matches his home address.
Mr Behnke was on Council during Mayor Steiger's term, and is one of the prime movers of the foundation raising money to renovate the Elks Theatre, which the City purchased under Sam's leadership.
It's not clear to me how ennobling a crosswalk with Sam's name plays into theatrics for children, but the world's a funny place, y'know? I expect Mr Behnke came up with the idea on his own and is using the foundation's name to make the effort look a little bigger, gad bless'm.
Sandy Griffis may be qualified to speak on the topic of hiring local contractors to remodel our schools, and what she has to say may be cogent. But it's hard to tell, because short of a few illiterate, drug-addled rants in the comments, this is the worst-written piece I've seen in the Courier in an awfully long time.
The language is murky, full of industry jargon, as if written as a personal letter between people with deep background on the issue. The syntax ranges from clunky to impenetrable. There are so many hanging adjectives it looks like a style preference.
While I have to wonder whether an introductory paragraph is missing from the top, I can have little doubt that the column pretty much came over the transom in this condition, since even a third-string Courier copy editor would have done something to clarify the acronyms and clean up hopeless garble like this: "The project delivery must be appropriate and as a community citizen it is important to ensure that each procurement and the selection process has been appropriately qualified and again, for the well being of our community and to ensure that local is used it is important to watch the weighting of criteria and data." Yikes.
I'm not saying that the awfulness of this particular piece does any significant damage to the body politic. But for me it's hair-raising in that I have to infer that the editors are either incapable of handling technical language, incompetent to determine that language this bad needs fixing, unwilling to put any effort into a prepackaged column, or simply not at their desks and the machine is running without an operator. In any case this is no way to build credibility for a news organization. Get your act together, people!
Merry Nebeker, speaking entirely free of critical thinking or pertinent expertise, carries water for the extremists, lamely attempting to divert attention from the nastiness of the racists in our community and the antics that made Councilman Blair internationally famous last week.
She toes the lines well grooved by many of the hipshooting commenters -- that the mural is an inappropriate political statement, that it damages an historic building, and that critics are impairing Mr Blair's right to free speech. None of this is supportable in the slightest by facts.
The mural is by the kids and for the kids, primarily their own expression of ideas to help them be healthier. Because the largest image in the mural is of a non-white kid, the reactionaries see something different. The kids don't.
While the school is old, the part with the mural -- a cafeteria added relatively recently -- is neither old nor distinguished architecturally in any way. That's a classic red herring.
And Mr Blair has not only been allowed to express whatever dumbass ideas he has, he's been encouraged to do so and paid wages to do so for years -- up until he said something so dumbass that it threatened his employer's revenue stream. Now he gets to be a dumbass on his own dime, and if the recall effort is successful, as a private citizen rather than public official. The extreme right has grown altogether too comfortable with the idea that they can say stupid, hurtful things without consequences, but that doesn't come from the Constitution, sorry.
My question, again, is why this overlong LTE was promoted to a column under the Talk of My Ass slug. The writer has no expertise or even a fresh perspective. This is a waste of time that smells of old fish -- herring, I think.
Not bad!
There's a lot to like about today's editorial. Where in the past we've grown used to seeing the unnamed Courier editor take sides and hector the players on his own simplistic ideas about how to achieve a sustainable water supply -- or, more often, to protect the interests of developers -- this time he holds back on the ego and firmly advocates more serious effort to find solutions that work. 
Rather than tell the players how to think, he urges them to get to the necessary thinking. His tone is deliberative, reasonable, and impatient with those who have proven more concerned about themselves and their control of power than the real needs of our communities. On the issue of exempt wells, for once he focuses on fact over ideology, but again resists the urge to prescribe. Most notably he upholds the highest principle of the free press in holding official feet to the fire on this vital issue. No pointless digressions, no silly metaphors, no empty filler. Bravo. Here's a cookie.
I hope this is an opening shot in a serious campaign to move the process forward. A lot more needs saying about the vested interests -- and here I'm talking about money -- that have been sabotaging agreement on safe yield for far too many years, and about individuals in positions of power and responsibility in thrall to preconceived ideas or failing to do their homework. Voters need much more depth of analysis on the costs, impacts and real benefits of the pipeline idea, and the practical need to follow the clear intent of law in proceeding with it. Everyone has to take this issue very seriously, and while he has some long-neglected work to do in building editorial credibility, the editor is in position to lead by example. This is a very positive start.
The unnamed Courier editor expresses mild consternation about the racist epithets being hurled from the street and Councilman Blair's bonehead comments about the mural. To that extent the editor is on the right side of history. But the editorial is so wishy-washy and slapdash I can't give him much credit for it. It reads too much like one of Tim's pseudoblog columns -- a reactive screed knocked off in his free time without much thought behind it. He speaks of outrage in the community, but not in the editorial office. In the end, he minimizes the whole issue. Disappointing.
What Mr Blair has done, taking into account his pattern for this sort of behavior, is unconscionable in a Council member. Saying he ought to be more careful about what he says is nothing but a nod and wink. The offense he has given to the community as a whole and the kids and educators at Miller Valley in particular merits serious consideration of his fitness for office. There ought to be no question he should resign immediately rather than put us all through a recall fight. Yes, editor, "racism is alive and well in 'Everybody's Hometown'," and our continuing tolerance of Mr Blair as a representative of the community is the clearest evidence. It's shameful for our city, and it's shameful that our local paper is complicit.
Update, 12:30: An anonymous commenter links me to some deeply ugly stuff. I think we can all, right and left, agree that we don't want our city represented like this.
Update, midnight: It appears KYCA doesn't want this sort of representation either: Blair Fired from Radio Show
Could someone in editorial authority please change the title on Richard Haddad's pseudoblog to something like "The Christian Corner"? He doesn't post columns often, but they're getting more religionist every time and farther away from his stated topic area. Today's offering wanders deep into Wacky World.
The unnamed Courier editor indulges in a little wishful thinking. It would be sort of endearing, really, if it weren't so, well, dumb.
We have four stories from the police beat today: a drunken alien masher, a suspected child molester, a fugitive teen, and a DUI suspect. This last, of course, is the son of a rich and powerful land developer and state legislator.
Let's talk about special treatment.
A reliable factor in choosing what becomes news is that people want to know more about people they know more about. So it's natural that the Nelson Pierce story went on page one rather than with the others on page three. But it's also convenient in that it separates the guy with powerful connections from the dreary hoi polloi.
Comparing the raw police-book story in eNews with the more massaged Courier version, fascinating differences emerge.
Mr Pierce's name appears in the lead paragraph of the eNews story. In the Courier lead, he's "a man," and his name is relegated to the second graf. (The headline writer comes later in the process.)
The domestic-disturbance context runs in the second graf in eNews; in the Courier, it's third.
In the police report, he was shirtless and sweaty, with black and bloodied fingers. Those details do not appear in the Courier.
The police report says that on being informed he was under arrest, Mr Pierce "said that he wanted to run off." No mention in the Courier.
The police say they informed him that the full drug test was voluntary, and he expressed "he did not wish to participate in that evaluation." No mention of that in the Courier.
"Pierce admitted that he was addicted to heroin and uses this drug every few weeks," says the police report. In the Courier, "he knew what he did was wrong and that he is addicted to heroin." Later in the police report, ""Pierce indicated he felt what he did was wrong, but didn't feel like he was impaired, though he admitted to having a problem."
Mr Pierce's father, the Senator, gets three grafs to characterize his son's problem as addiction that deserves support and sympathy -- rather than endangering the public by operating a vehicle while impaired, for which he was actually arrested. He expresses concern that the news might hurt the wife and kids -- the same wife who called the cops to have the perp removed. I didn't notice a quote from the wife, which might have been interesting too.
It's natural that there's more interest in what Mr Pierce's powerful father has to say. What's not natural is holding the story for a day to gather only sympathetic quotes, or trimming out ugly details that would certainly appear in any ordinary crime story. I have to wonder whether Mr Bluemke or Mr Gann have friends or relations who'd like to say something in their defense -- in public, ahead of jury selection. (The friends and family of Mr Lopez-Nava, of course, probably don't speak English, so for the paper, they don't exist.) But see, they're not interesting enough, so they don't get that opportunity.
The Pierce story reeks of special treatment for the powerful and privileged -- exactly the sort of thing an independent, protected Fourth Estate was designed to resist. This does not say good things for the new Courier editorial team.
Cindy and Paula did a good job letting Councilman Blair vent on race, clearly pointing up the core of the story on criticism of the Miller Valley School mural. I have to wonder whether Mr Blair should really get so much credit for riling people up -- I'm not wild about that mural myself, for quite different reasons -- but given his history of race-baiting and generally dumbass remarks in public, he deserves it. "Diversity, it's a word I can't stand." Now there's a great little campaign bumper sticker!
I dislike the Miller Valley mural for the same reason I dislike the old mural in Council chambers -- pointless, self-congratulatory sentimentality and not particularly good art. I'm also getting a little tired of seeing murals from a single source all over town. Mr Wall is making a personal career on public money meant to support diverse community projects. If we're gonna do this and celebrate diversity, let's spread the wealth to some diverse artists and styles. Better yet, let's quit with the murals already. Remember the old Hillside grocery mural? I like it better now.
There is one common criticism the project doesn't deserve, though, and that's historic desecration. Miller Valley School is an historic structure, yes, built in 1916, but the muralized addition is clearly no older than the 1960s and not historically or architecturally significant.
What the reporters apparently did not explore is the shocking spinelessness of school officials in changing the mural to better suit the racists. In a paper known for an ironclad rule against the passive voice, that voice is used to hide who ordered the changes. I know Mr Wall would never alter the art on his own in this fashion.
PS, 3:30pm: Wow, 122 comments so far! And notice how many of them are under what look like real names. Good show, readers! Steve Stockmar also has a column up on the subject.
Update, Friday: Comment count now over 200, and over 50 on the editorial!
From the Republic, an incident on Sunday night: Vandals tag 18 vehicles, 3 homes in Prescott Valley is an unedited PD press release, something the Courier knows how to do, and timely in terms of finding the perps. The Courier should have run it yesterday.
Ditto this: YCSO Seeking Hit and Run Vehicle/Suspects
Update, Friday: They show up today, here and here. Perhaps the editor would like to explain why his local crime stories are coming in so far behind other outlets.
The Courier editor says he thinks an informed and vigorous electorate is a good idea. I can't write a response much better than this comment by Elijah Middlebrook:
Dear Mr. New Editor,I might add, however, that if he is at all concerned about the paper's reputation and building its credibility in the community, Tim could do worse than to write a byline column on his vision for the paper and how he intends to address the sort of concerns that Mr Middlebrook expresses. Set a standard, publicly, for yourself and your staff to meet.
I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments. Please help us avoid being "easy sells" by improving the coverage of city and county politics in the Daily Courier. Please encourage your reporters to do real investigative journalism rather than just repeating the information that is given them. The voters of Prescott need your assistance. Only you can transform the Courier into the kind of paper we need to be an informed, critical thinking electorate. The current approach to covering local politics and news is grossly inadequate. Thanks for listening.
Hat-tip to Mayor Wilson for alerting me to yesterday's story in Prescott eNews on the arrest of Nelson Pierce, 33-year-old son of LD1 Senator Steve Pierce, on a raft of charges related to heroin, meth, X and acting like an idiot.
Lynne posted the story at about 5:30pm yesterday, before deadline at the Courier, and Tuesday is usually police-blotter day at the paper anyway, so I don't see an excuse for not running it in today's edition.
Maybe the assigned reporter had already gone home or whatever, but this was a big fail for the editors as it's so easy to infer that they buried the story out of concern for Sen Pierce, who is running for reelection. If it doesn't show up online by about 10:30 tonight, readers should definitely smell a rat.
Update, 6:30pm: And it appears.
Our former mayor has an interesting exchange about this today on his Facebook page with Tricia Lewis of Lewis Marketing & Public Relations, which claims as clients, among others, the City of Prescott, Country Bank and Fann Environmental.
