Letters: "‘Happy Holidays’ is an appropriate sentiment"

My letter as submitted:

Editor:

I noted Councilman Lamerson's objection to the 'Happy Holidays' sign on City Hall in your story of Dec. 17, and I happened to take a look at it as I went about my business today. I feel compelled to offer my support for the decision-maker behind that sign and deplore the media-manufactured controversy that Mr Lamerson is abetting.

There is, of course, no 'war on Christmas.' I don't know about Mr Lamerson, but I've been seeing and hearing the 'Happy Holidays' greeting since the 1960s, and I'm sure it's older than that. What some people are worrying about now is the conscious choice to make the holiday period more inclusive, in the very spirit of community that is supposed to suffuse this part of the year. To contend against that and in effect declare Arizona's Christmas City as being exclusively for Christians is simply un-American and an affront to all of us who value religious liberty.

'Happy Holidays' is a perfectly appropriate sentiment to trumpet from the top of a public building in which decisions are made that should represent us all. A declaration of religious affiliation, however benign the intent, is clearly not. City Hall made a good decision.

And as it appears in today's online edition:

EDITOR:

I noted Councilman Jim Lamerson’s objection to the “Happy Holidays” sign on City Hall in your Dec. 17 story, and I took a look at it as I went about my business. I feel compelled to offer my support for the decision-maker behind that sign and deplore the media-manufactured controversy that Councilman Lamerson is abetting.

There is, of course, no “war on Christmas.” I don’t know about Councilman Lamerson, but I’ve been seeing and hearing the “Happy Holidays” greeting since the 1960s, and I’m sure it’s older than that.

What some people are worrying about now is the conscious choice to make the holiday period more inclusive, in the very spirit of community that is supposed to suffuse this part of the year.

To contend against that and in effect declare Arizona’s “Christmas City” as being exclusively for Christians is simply un-American and an affront to all of us who value religious liberty.

“Happy Holidays” is a perfectly appropriate sentiment to trumpet from the top of a public building in which decisions are made that should represent us all.

A declaration of religious affiliation, however benign the intent, is clearly not.

City Hall made a good decision.

Fellow editors and others who believe details are important will note the arbitrary (and wrong) changes in quotemarks and graf breaks. I see the proper use of single quotes in the headline, so I can't infer that it's just a stylebook thing. More important are the changes from "Mr" to "Councilman." The changes in the first sentence are clunky, but clearly done for space -- after the arbitrary graf breaks blew air into it. It could be worse, but I have to ask myself: what is the purpose of the extra work someone is putting into the letters? For my answer, I look at the results.

Here's what you're supposed to be doing with letters, folks: Print them as submitted to the best of your ability -- meaning that your only reason to change anything is for space. Readers don't care about your stylebook and their choices do not reflect on you editorially, so there's no point in messing with them unless you intend to control what they're saying.

Editorial: "Border control only way to stop tragedy"

First, thanks to the unnamed Courier editor for mentioning that "Not every illegal who makes it across the border" is a cop-killer. It would have been nice if the quote were more on the order of "Vanishingly few illegal immigrants are cop-killers or violent criminals of any kind," but the truth on this issue would be a lot to expect.

OK, editor, you and grandstanding Phil Gordon want to exhort the country to "secure our borders," and you malign every elected official in this country by implying corruption that keeps them from doing it. In your world, that's logical. So do your readers this respect: show, in detail, how that job can be done, with numbers and engineering.

A whole lot of very smart people have been working on this problem for decades and conclude that not only is it not practical in economic terms, it's not possible, period. You think you're smarter than all those experts, fine: put up or shut up. I think you're blowing smoke up the asses of your readers just to keep them stirred up and fearful enough to keep voting Republican. Prove me wrong.

Talk of the Town: "Defensible space code infringes on rights"

Carla Renak rails against the nanny-state idea of requiring her to maintain defensible space against wildfire. I'm with you, Carla, if I don't have to pay for the fire department to defend your home when the flames are coming.

This is the point. We have rules because people aren't sensible enough to be responsible with their freedom, and they wind up costing us all.

Editorial: "Democracy depends on voter participation"

Hmm, nice juxtaposition. ON A1 we find that the challenger squeaked past the three-term mayor, and on the editorial page we have the unnamed Courier editor complaining that only 53% of voters were involved. Could it be that the editor figures that more voters would have changed the outcome, since obviously the result was the wrong one? Interesting idea, since most cities are ecstatic to see 30% turnout for off-year council polls.

I'll say what would choke the editor: Good job, Prescott voters. You're more involved than most, no thanks to your "Agenda of Excellence" paper.

A1: "High school sex-ed play stirs discussion on drugs, pregnancy"

The lead -- did Shari Lopatin really write this?

PRESCOTT – Sex, drugs, pregnancy, abortion. It sounds like the recipe for a film festival in New York or Los Angeles.

I almost choked on my noodles. What a slap in the face to the high school and to the students who are working hard to help inform their fellows about really hard subjects, just to work in a jab at -- who? People who make films? People who live in big cities? Gack. A high-school paper wouldn't stoop to this.

A1: "Council pulls plug on traffic-calming barricade"

I was at the meeting because I live in the neighborhood affected by this issue. First I'd like to say that I'm pleased the Courier didn't feel the need to cover the excessive, racism-tinged ranting about the brown peril that we all had to sit through before Council could get to its agenda.

Cindy Barks' story focuses on the specific barrier on Prescott Heights Drive that focused discussion, but she apparently ignores the real issue that got Steve Blair hot and actually moved the Council to talk policy: that the advisory Traffic Control Committee was effectively setting policy on its own, and the barrier went up without input from Council or the city manager.

What's funny about this is that Blair admits that he and Council voted to set things up this way, assigning policy power to the committee by default if Council didn't object. They apparently didn't read the memo the TCC sent them, and everyone just did their jobs -- except Council, of course.

Cindy writes, "'When somebody closes a road down, it's not traffic calming; it's traffic closure,' said Councilman Steve Blair, who allowed that such measures had been 'a sore spot with me for a long, long time.'" Here she or the editor distorts what Blair meant. I remember him saying it, and the "sore spot" was the way the TCC is handling policy decisions. He doesn't like closing streets either, but let's try to keep the quotes straight. This concern will lead to a larger change than removing a street barrier, but the Courier story doesn't tell us that.

I'm not dead

I just needed some time off. I'll try to get back into the rhythm here, but it'll probably be gradual. Thanks for hanging in.

A1: "Law enforcement issues arise at candidate forum"

In her second graph Cindy Barks mentions that water and growth dominated "much of the discussion," but coverage of these more important issues didn't make it into her story. Instead we get the non-issue of illegal immigration and the sexy-but-stupid idea of red-light cameras. Whether Cindy did this on purpose or not, or perhaps got a memo about it from the editor, it shows how editorial choices can insidiously influence the public discussion through omission and refocusing.

A1: "Council candidates split on city's handling of open space"

Cindy Barks again adds some good facts to supplement the responses of the Council candidates. I really don't get why these stories don't run together.

I just love how they all trot out the "willing seller" canard. Of course you have to have a seller, that's indisputable. It's just not relevant to the question. See, if it's a parcel that would qualify for open-space funding, it's by definition already open space and the City has no effect on the issue by trying to purchase it. The point of the funding is to acquire parcels that go up for sale to prevent development in important spaces. The question voters should be asking is: How many qualifying open-space parcels has the City failed to acquire that were subsequently lost to development?

PS, editors: The proper style for naming our community access channel is Access13, no space. I know: I named it. And I sent you style sheets twice.

Editorial: "Bridge collapse might prevent other tragedies"

The unnamed Courier editor comes up with a surprising scoop today: the revelation that "tens of millions of dollars" earmarked for New Orleans levees "in recent years ended up in politicians' pockets." That is one helluva story, and having it discovered and carried first by a small Arizona paper makes it Pulitzer material. I'm looking forward to the facts and substantiation on page one -- I'm just a bit puzzled because we usually run that story first.

Or could this be just another case of the editor using his op-ed space for a random rant more worthy of the breakfast chatter down at the Lone Spur? I guess it's a clue when he writes of "infrastructure" as a "fancy word."

Thomas: "Rupert Murdoch is not the media Satan"

Nutbar Cal responds to his own Bizarro interpretation of the Ignatius column yesterday, both pieces on something that matters not one whit to Courier readers. Do I detect a little media navel-gazing in the Courier editorial offices?

Heads up for this weekend

We have a commitment from the Governor to appear for at least a large chunk of "The People's Business" this week with Rep. Mason. You can look forward to some wide-ranging discussion of current state and local issues. That's Saturday and Sunday the 11th and 12th at 2pm on KJZA, 89.5FM.

If you can't get the show over air, contact me privately and I'll try to make you a copy.

A9: "County property tax rate will decrease while collections increase"

This is just the sort of boring, factual information that voters need most to understand if they're to participate positively in our system. It's what a local paper is for.

A1:"Candidates all voice strong support for public transit"

This time Cindy Barks adds some practical meat to flesh out the issue framed in the candidate question, good show.

Ignatius: "Heyday of Wall Street Journal is long past"

This is an inside-baseball piece of zero value to local readers. The editors could have run his column from last week, "Sept. 10 in Waziristan" (free registration required), but chose this instead. Y'all go ahead and tell me what that means.

Editorial: "Board has to go by what it approved"

Duh. Waste of space. Again.

Wiederaenders: "Terrorists win with atmosphere of fear"

Tim's got the right end of the stick today, but he fails to wield it with authority.

Yes, the public is unreasonably afraid of terrorism, and everyone needs to calm down. But Tim's analysis of why this is happening is a little soft, perhaps because his own industry carries so much of the responsibility, and the organization he helps manage is quite happy to sell newsprint on fear and facilitate official fear-mongers. So another opportunity for self-examination and positive change is wasted. If the Courier editors really see the problem here, they are in better position that most anyone in town to do something about it.

Parting shot, Tim: "UFO" is not a synonym for "alien spacecraft." If something is flying and the authorities don't know what it is, it's a UFO, that's the correct term. So the TV newscritters didn't report the "possibility of a UFO," they reported a UFO sighting. Failing to clarify this for your readers reinforces ignorance among those who don't know and undercuts your credibility among those who do.

A1: "Big Chino water: Chino officials, others concerned over rule changes"

Joanna Dodder has a big job to do here in informing the voters about the biggest, most acute problem we have in front of us. Her problem is that it's so eye-crossingly technical and has more characters than a Tolstoy epic. Hard reading, but important.

A1: "Candidates' opinions mixed on Big Chino pipeline"

Cindy's doing a good job with it, I just think the assignment is wrong. Why do we need a summary of what the Courier editor thinks is newsworthy on the front page when back on A7 we have the actual full-length responses from the candidates?

We still have to deal with how the questions are put and the way that wedges the responses, but in my view the more direct the communication between subject and reader, the better. Today's readers (the few that are left), especially younger people, require a lot less media hand-holding.

Editorial: "Grown-up 'water fight' is no laughing matter"

The unnamed Courier editor is at least consistent. Again today he repackages the front page and says nothing. Hint: Assign the space to someone who cares.