Letter: Does most important news make paper?

I don't think Ms Holt would have written her headline as a question. She has a good point.

Editorial: Plan on aging is a bad precedent

Okay, so I read Cindy Barks' Thursday story about this Commission on Aging thing, and today I read the unnamed Courier editor coming out against it. But nowhere in the coverage do I see anything about what this proposed commission would actually do.

So I went over to the Mayor's 2050 site to have a look, and, after some digging around, found these snips:

Recommendations (to Council)

• Create a Commission on Aging for Prescott to aide (sic) the Mayor and City Council in prioritizing the issues and driving solutions for problems of older adults.

• Develop and execute an ongoing Adult Information Campaign for adults of all ages to encourage planning ahead for future health, family, and fiscal requirements.

• Create a central information and referral system – a one stop repository of information about all the existing public and private adult & senior services available- to promote the general public’s access to these programs.

• Enlarge the workforce of caregivers and other employees of senior industries by appropriately training, paying, and efficiently supporting them with information.

Recommended Commission on Aging Duties:
• Advise the City Council, Chamber of Commerce, and other City agencies on senior issues and on intergenerational programs of benefit to the community.
• Identify, improve, and develop services and opportunities for the senior population.
• Create implementation plans for programs, utilizing available community resources including volunteers.
• Establish the Commission on Aging’s long-range goals.
• Advocate on behalf of older individuals, including legislative actions.

After he cribs most of his space allotment from Cindy's story, the editor offers this smackdown:

"But a commission on aging would have even greater standing - on and (sic) equal level with the Planning & Zoning Commission."

Leaving aside that the 2050 group apparently uses the Courier's crack proofreading team, from what I read in the 2050 report, I don't see this proposal seeking any real power for the 'commission,' nor even any money to accomplish anything. The goals of the proposal are clearly well-meant, but tepid and I have to say vision-free.

The actual proposal to form the 'commission' reads much like the original proposal to create the nonprofit that operates Access13, amounting to seeking the City's blessing on a volunteer group. The difference is that in that case the City actually gave the group some significant responsibility along with its utter lack of funding.

Perhaps the mistake was in calling the proposed group a commission, which would indeed imply a certain significance to people who infer the relative power of organizations from alphabetical lists.

Maybe I'm still missing something, and there really is a subtle plot somewhere within the 2050 organization to divert more public funds for senior issues, or perhaps frog-march everyone under 65 into reeducation camps that feature daily screenings of South Pacific. If you know, enlighten me.

Till then it appears to me that both the Council and the editor have blown the whole thing out of proportion and reacted reflexively to ideas that no one's proposing. That said, I agree the proposal is a dumb one, but primarily because there's just no vision here worthy of special attention.

Busy weekend

Here's another great image by Ross Hilmoe.

I'll get back to the blog on Sunday, probably. Have a blast!

Thursday open thread

We all look at things differently. Share what you think.

Editorial: Increased pool fees better than closure

As I have in the past, I have to point out the unnamed Courier editor's habit of ripping copy from yesterday's front page, massaging it slightly, adding one or two original sentences and passing it off as an editorial. I appreciate that by staying within his comfort zone he doesn't do any damage, but I imagine that with a little more gumption he might be able to come up with something worth the read. Waste of time.

Letter: Innovative show sent Elks out with a bang

I don't imagine that anyone in the Courier offices remains unaware that Kim Kapin is the City communications director. So why does that title not appear on the letter? This is bald PR for the City, and the paper should inform readers of that.

If the City's PR flack feels compelled to pump up the event in this shady way, I suspect the event was another dud. Would any witnesses like to illuminate me?

Supervisors want to modify land-swap terms

I'd like to hear from anyone who knows more about this story, it seems like something important might be missing. The really odd thing here is the unexplained accompanying pic, a Remax promotional map of Prescott at resolution too low to read on the site. Is the Courier selling a new kind of ad?

Inside skinny on the Lowe's engineering?

One thing I love about open commenting is that sometimes someone who really knows something tells all. In a long comment under "the real truth," someone claiming to have worked inside City bureaucracy when the Lowe's deal was going through describes a series of shortcuts in the plan-approval process clearly designed to duck under the red tape and ram approval through quickly. Read it all.

It's unfortunate that there's no way to verify this story, since the commenter remains anonymous, but I got the impression s/he doesn't have that job anymore, and I think it would be a great public service if s/he were to stand up in a Council meeting and tell the story to the TV cameras. If this is true, it's explosive and it should get the City Manager (at least) relieved of duty.

I suppose it's too much to ask that the Courier assign a reporter to do the homework outlined by the commenter, check out those stamps and dates and verify this. It's work, but it'd be worthwhile.

Senate president taps Prescott rancher Pierce as president pro tem

This is interesting. I'd heard that leadership changes were coming because of the budget process collapse, but I didn't imagine that Burns might tap the utterly experience-free Pierce for anything like this. While there's not much real power in this position, it's an important statement in that it demotes Verschoor, who's been counted among the anointed for several sessions. Given the radical credentials of Gorman and Verschoor, this feels like a slight drift toward the middle, but it also might just be flailing. Burns has lost many allies over his handling of the session.

Keep an eye out, I have a feeling other important changes could be coming for the Legislature before the budget is in the bag.

Nice that the Courier continues to tag bigtime developer Pierce as a "rancher." I'm so fooled.

Verde News: Jerome declares urgent water shortage

Seems like Courier readers might like to know about this too. Maybe work it into an update on water conditions all over the area.

Hump day open thread

Now this is funny. And scary.

Council takes Lowe's to task

I can just see Cindy Barks struggling to keep a straight face while taking the notes for this. She was there when these same people were rushing through the infrastructure and engineering on the Lowe's boondoggle, so watching their ass-covering faux outrage now must have been pretty funny.

Editorial: Lion had a long life in 'big city'

So it appears I was wrong -- not one comment about the risk of the lion living in neighborhoods. Instead we see more criticism of Game and Fish for killing big predators around people, even this one, which was apparently already maimed beyond saving. I'm a little confused by those commenters who would have liked to see the bear caught, relocated and released so that amateur hunters would have a shot at it. Like stocking a fish pond, I guess. Brrr, it's weird out there sometimes.

The unnamed Courier editor hopes another cat moves into the vacated territory, lives long and prospers. He gets a cookie today.

Letter: How would lawmakers like RIF letters?

Steve Harbeck takes legislators to task, wondering rhetorically how they'd like to work without pay or knowing whether they'll have a job in the coming season.

Um, Mr H, that's exactly how it works for your state representatives every two years, when they have to go through the election process from scratch, putting their lives on hold again to work for you for a pittance. In this particular week the letter is particularly ironic because our supposedly part-time legislators have been working for over two months for nothing while a few power-crazed radicals have held up the process and left everyone else sitting on their hands.

Letter: Rodeo ceremony snubs non-Christians

I read John Lorant's letter and said, well, duh, you knew that was gonna happen when you bought the ticket. But I also knew at once that this would bring a hail of stones from hard-ass Xtians, and from the looks of the comments -- four pages so far, more than I've ever seen -- we can expect to see letters on this for at least a month. Now that's entertainment!

Open thread, Tuesday

A nice shot by Lesley from our recent trip to the Mendocino County coast.

Since you're reading this, so you're not vacationing, there are several gigs this week to check out: jazz jam at The Raven Thursday 8-10, the trio at Tlaquepaque Friday afternoon, the quartet featuring Susannah Martin at Ken's Creekside in VOC Friday 9-12, and Big Daddy in front of the PV Harkins on Saturday 5-9. Hope to see you out and about.

Scene from my window: Talking nonstop, holding his cellphone to his left ear, a driver tries to manhandle his street-sweeper with one hand through a U-turn among the parked cars in front of my house, wiping out some edging and narrowly missing my fence, backing up nervously, then sailing back down the street, leaving the usual dirt cloud and muddy trail behind him and missing the gutter completely. Who trains these guys?

And just for fun, a nine-minute instant mind-expansion on what this means to a physicist or mathematician.

Prescott's lion finally loses to urban perils

The story-under-the-story here is what really fascinates me. We learn that Game and Fish collared a mountain lion living inside the city limits and tracked it for three years to study its habits. What we don't see in Joanna's story is whether the City or Game and Fish informed the people in those neighborhoods about what most residents would see as a risk that little Janie might be plucked out of her sandbox and dragged into the bushes for lunch. I don't have any argument with the science, but I gotta wonder about the informed-consent part of it, and I look forward to the comments.

Editorial: Money gets more and more scarce

Today the unnamed Courier editor illustrates a couple of very basic propaganda/marketing techniques: oversimplification to confuse, and recasting events to fit the desired narrative.

Never mind that there's a whole lot more to understand about the budget situation, both fiscally and politically. The editor wants to spoon-feed you a simple good-guy/bad-guy story. The bad guy is the governor who wants to tax you and spend the money on stuff you don't need. The good guys are the noble anti-tax legislators who won't "break faith with their constituents." I'm surprised he didn't throw in a scene from High Noon to add some thrilling drama.

Readers who understand basic logic will notice that his argument is founded on a cracked premise. He writes, "Many of Brewer's fellow Republican lawmakers won their legislative seats on promises of no tax increases," implying that those Grover Norquist-inspired anti-tax pledges so adored by the extreme right have a real vote-getting effect. Since blind anti-tax zealotry is only shared by a small minority of voters (generously, 12-15%), and they have no one else to vote for, it's obvious that they can't really affect a close race, even a Rep primary. They take credit for what they didn't do just to puff up their importance, and it often works in the public mind, giving them more influence on legislators than they truly warrant. I've seen the threatening stuff the Goldwater Institute and its attack dogs circulate to legislators, and folks, I gotta tell you it's definitely ugly and I'm sure scary to spine-challenged pols.

The truth is that the radicals who 'signed anti-tax pledges' did so not because a significant body of their constituents demanded it, but because they truly believe, like Norquist, that the best government is a dead one, and they don't give a rat's ass about the majority of constituents who would prefer that politicians engage their brains before making law. These are the same pols who have been holding up the budget process (in the train-robbery sense) for months. Contrary to the Courier editor's narrative, they are really the black hats in this movie.

The white hats are the sensible moderates, including the Governor, who are trying to get through the hail of black-hat bullets before the deficit train runs down Little Nell Arizona. Ack, enough!

So why does the editor want you to accept his Bizarro recasting of the story? Because he's in the gang with the bad guys. He would happily deprive you of needed government services like infrastructure, education and health care because he's got his and he truly believes that he shouldn't have to pay for any more. It's a short-sighted, adolescent worldview, not conservative at all, but radically anti-government. And he'll wrap himself in the flag to pitch it to you.

So if his narrative is so twisted, what about his supposed paradigm-shifting point, that "states are out of money?"

It's easier to see in California, where in '78 the anti-tax zealots won the day and instituted tax rules designed to bankrupt the government. It took a couple of decades, but it worked. Meanwhile those darksiders got to work on financial and corporate deregulation to maximize profits, and we found ourselves holding the bag on a hollow, deindustrialized economy and a financial system looted by gangsters. The issue is not that the states are out of money. It's that the bad guys stole it. And they've got the gall to feed us D-Day's line from Animal House: "You fucked up -- you trusted us!"

This particular paradigm hasn't shifted. Our system is basically sound, but it needs repair, particularly a big hole in the wall of the vault. If we can reindustrialize based on clean energy production, play hardball against the corporations who demand to use our infrastructure for free while draining us of money, and keep the professional gamblers from playing high-stakes roulette with our financial system, we'll be able to get back on track. But we weren't insured for it, so we'll have to pay to fix that wall, no question about it.

Open thread, Monday edition

It's a great day out there, I hope you're having fun too.

Quote of the day:

"When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or you know maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, “Man that doesn’t do us any good — women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country.” I don’t think it bodes well for her, a statement like that. Because, again, fair or unfair, it is there, I think that’s reality, and I think it’s a given. I think people can just accept that she is going to be under the sharper microscope." -- Gov. Sarah Palin, August 2008

Editorial: Every agency needs scrutiny

As might be expected, the unnamed Courier editor is all over the idea of knocking over the Department of Education. Public schools have been a bugbear of the right since they began, and eliminating any chunk of the bureaucracy is attractive to the anti-tax and anti-government crusaders. Notice that he paraphrases (read: misquotes, adding grammatical error) the representative as saying, "diminishing if not eliminating the Department of Education could save a substantial amount of money as well as enhancing local control of schools," both consistent right-wing memes.

But as Rep Mason has laid out directly on The People's Business, her ideas are not as simplistic as either extreme will paint them. It's not really about saving money so much as spending less on administration and more on teachers and classrooms. It's not so much about enhancing local control, but rather about giving teachers more freedom to teach.

I think it's entirely possible, even likely, that there is a lot of redundancy and essentially useless activity going on in the DofE building. Rooting that out, eliminating it and moving the money into classrooms in a safe and useful way will be a massive legislative undertaking. I can confirm that Lucy's got the energy for it, but she'll be pretty much alone against an impressive bulwark of entrenched interests. In any case, the entire discussion is premature, as was the Courier's query to Superintendent Horne, because nothing will even begin to happen on this before next session, and then not without a great deal of work to gather allies and formulate some concrete proposals. Lucy isn't a hip-shooter.

I'm sure she'll thank the editor for his support, but it's looking like the Courier will be among her many fair-weather friends on the right trying to hijack her ideas for their regular agenda. With friends like these ....

Amster: Noise competes with information

As a professional propagandist I have to admire the establishment meme that the online world is all noise compared to the corporatist bunk that passes for big-market journalism. While I wouldn't say that Randall is totally falling for it here, readers might be excused if they take away that message, thanks to some cloudy writing and the ever-undermining headline writer.

The really amusing part is that the darksiders claim to believe that free-market competition can solve all problems, yet since the Internet began freeing our information market, they consistently denigrate it as worthless. That sorta smells of vested interest to me.

I look at it through the other end of the telescope. Just as more stuff to buy at big-box stores has generally reduced our quality of life, the vast expansion of information access we've experienced has had decidedly mixed results in terms of informing and educating the electorate, because so few people have the media savvy to separate jewels from junk. But it's inescapable that more choice has opened space for higher-quality writing and thinking, in large part because the lower overhead of the Net (you don't need a printing press anymore!) reduces the media's dependence on monied interests. That's truly independent thought. Darksiders hate that.

For me it's both positive and negative that just as anyone is allowed to get their message out, everyone's accountable now and anyone can throw bricks at it. This is the sort of lively media environment that would have been more familiar to readers of the yellow-journalism days early last century, when specialized political-issue papers multiplied like bunnies, sold on the basis of sensational headlines and their rhetoric was often over the top. Eventually government and corporate interests got a handle on that, just as now they're trying to get a handle on the Net. You'll want to keep an eye on that.

I'm sure the Courier isn't paying Randall enough to make him happy to bend over and take the regular tongue-lashings he gets from readers. But Randall, that's how it is now, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it. Whining does not help.

Sen. McCain talks about health care, Sedona effort

Joanna gets an interview with McCain, but like many other experienced journos she wasn't able to get him to say anything. It's no surprise to me, and you can't blame the reporter, but I don't see in the copy any reason to carry this non-story. Maybe it's just designed to add some front-page ballast to the puff piece on McCain's new campaign HQ, er, local office.

I'm struck that most of the commenters really excoriating the Senator seem to be coming from the extreme right.

Holiday open thread

Some cool summer imagery from the Cascades by Ross Hilmoe, who really needs to get out shoooting more often. Enjoy!

Editorial: Is sacred honor still within us?

The unnamed Courier editor treats us to a little unintended irony. Nuff said. I'm taking the day off -- if you don't count the radio show and a gig with Big Daddy D at the Raven tonight. Happy 4th!

TGIF Open thread

Thanks for helping me get this off to a great restart! Start your holiday weekend off right -- check out the Ahwatukee Concert Band on the square at six tonight, then have dins with the trio at 129 1/2!

Top comment of the week today from Darren, responding to the letter about over-coverage of Michael Jackson. Bravo, that's how it's done!

I think it's a great idea on this weekend in particular to go back and read the document we're celebrating, as well as some of the background. I'm also reminded that other peoples have declared their own sovereignty as well, before and since, and there are a lot of good, inspiring stories there too.

Editorial: Brewer should veto guns in bars

Oh yes, I don't think there's any question that legalizing concealed carry in bars is a bad idea. I work in bars a lot, and I sure don't like the thought of encouraging this, even though I realize that there are probably many people doing this illegally now, particularly women, who have a better reason for doing it than men. So let's applaud the unnamed Courier editor for taking a sensible stand on a gun issue, where so frequently in the past the Courier has been the NRA's panting lapdog. As it stands the bill's language is really stupid, as the editor points out.

Of course, let's not forget that if it passes and some really awful things happen, it could turn public opinion even more against all the gun-totin' going on in this state. But that factor should not cause us to question the editor's sincerity. Not a bit.

1pm: Hilariously, several commenters accuse the editor of radical liberalism! Yup, darksiders eat their own young.

Letter: Watch how Congress spends our money

I'm pretty sure I've read exactly this before in the site comments, but I can't remember exactly where, it's been a while back. I've noticed this a couple of times over the past year. Following their unfortunate habit of doing what they like with reader submissions and controlling the message, it looks like the editors are promoting occasional comments to letter status -- occasional right-wing comments, mind -- even though they have a box on the opinion page specifically for selected comments. Now why do you think they'd do that?

Power to the people: Committee files petitions to get Taxpayer Protection Initiative on city ballot

Cindy Barks' front-pager is factual and clearly not designed to cover debate over the merits of the initiative -- which surprises me given the Courier's usual editorial practice around political issues. But there's a certain glow of approval in the headline that leads me to suspect the editors may decide to support a yes vote on this despite its connections to the water issue and what I see as the likely follow-on vote to kill the Big Chino pipeline.

It may surprise some readers to learn that while I would very happily turn off the tap on that boondoggle, I don't support this method for doing it.

I've spoken with George Seaman at length about this. George insists that while he supports the initiative he is not in a leadership position, and that while many of the people involved have been in the pipeline fight for years and there are no other projects of eligible size on the horizon, the initiative is not about the pipeline per se.

George was able to address some of my concerns about the initiative. I've looked at the text and it seems to be competently written. But I won't support it.

Governance by popular initiative was one of the great progressive ideas of the late 19th century, and many of the new states of that time built it into their constitutions. The upshot for us in Arizona in the early 21st century has been a general hog-tying of government at the behest of narrow, monied interests, often based outside our state, using simplistic and misleading propaganda to stampede people into hasty and ill-considered decisions -- exactly the sort of thing that representative government was designed to prevent.

I hasten to add that I don't think this particular group has a hidden agenda or is using malicious tactics, although if Cindy's competent coverage is any indication, the insistence that it's not about the pipeline is clearly not sticking.

Rather, I'm concerned that putting this idea into play will bring exactly the sort of acute and arbitrary problems we see every year at the capitol into city government, and prevent the sort of big, long-range thinking we most need.

Its supporters think it's reasonable to trust the voters to make better decisions on big spending than their elected officials. Its detractors will say trust the elected officials, not the mob. My concern is that if this thing wins we'll have to trust the propagandists, who are cagier than both and generally win the fight. Speaking as a professional propagandist, I say don't trust us, brother, this group will rob you blind and make you feel good about it.

Marines exchange fire with Taliban in searing heat (update)

This AP story mysteriously dropped out of the sky onto the Courier website this afternoon. The paper's usual practice has been to use wire stories as inside filler and leave them off the site, since the site doesn't need filler to support the advertising on the edges. Maybe we're seeing a change in policy, and maybe someone just goofed up.

But this may spark up another round of controversy over local vs. general content, with some demanding that the paper furnish national news (with what pages? That takes ad revenue) and others demanding it keep the messy old world off their doorsteps.

I can't see how the Courier can either make any money with or do a useful job of national/world news, and there's plenty of that available already. (If you want that through the Courier site, think partnerships and sponsored links.) I think it could do a lot more with state news, particularly what's going on at the capitol and how it affects rural AZ. But hard local news should always be the main game.

5pm: I notice on VerdeNews.com just the sort of hard info I suggested above. We should see this in the Courier every week, at least. I notice some good original writing over there from the capitol as well. How is it that the Verde crew can afford this, but the Courier won't even carry it?

Open thread, Thursday edition

See anything strange today?

DeMocker remains in jail awaiting trial on one-year anniversary of Carol Kennedy's death

Something about this piece smells bad to me. First I notice that other than marking the anniversary of the widely beloved teacher's death, there is no actual news here. We get the all the news value from the ridiculously long headline. Nothing's happened, there's no new information. Then there's the defense attorney making assertions about the evidence or lack of it, while the prosecutors must follow the straight and narrow path and refrain from comment. I have to wonder whether the defense isn't playing the Courier for a mistrial. In any case it looks like a poor use of column inches.

Editorial: Let's behave like adults on budget

The unnamed Courier editor tells us that all politicians are venal and corrupt, then plaintively asks, "Is it too much to expect adult behavior from all concerned?"

As far as I've seen, and I watch pretty closely, the Courier neither wrote nor carried anything about the budget process until the session was already officially over. It failed to note that the legislative leadership ignored Gov. Napolitano's sensible and on-time budget proposal, thinking they'd get a better deal from her successor. It missed that Gov. Brewer refused to give the Legislature any budget plan other than press releases until a couple of weeks ago. It ignored the process in the Legislature, where a few radical rightwingers held everyone hostage to their idea that the best government is a dead one, and where both House and Senate leadership held up all other business while they worked out pointless deals in back rooms, leaving the bulk of both bodies twiddling their thumbs for months. It failed to share with us that the Legislature and the Governor were working on budget shortfall numbers that were a billion bucks different, predicting this cartoon train wreck over two months ago.

The editor's inclusion of the Dems in his broad slander of everyone down there is particularly idiotic, since the Dems have had exactly no input on the budget or anything else since Napolitano wisely moved on.

No, editor, it's not fair to smear the blame across all desks and both sides of the aisles. This mess can be very clearly laid to the proudly stupid radical rightists in the Legislature and our own Governor Peter Principle, who oddly enough is as close to an adult as we've seen down there in her clear understanding from the beginning that we aren't gonna get out of this jam without some new revenue.

It's supremely easy to say that we can solve a budget problem by "saying no to spending." What's not so easy is identifying exactly where to cut that won't hurt people we can't afford to hurt and create more problems and cost elsewhere. It's an article of faith that government spends too much, but like any faith, it's based more on myth than science.

The solid core of the budget collapse is that Arizona's economy has been based for decades on building new houses, stores, roads and infrastructure, neglecting the industrial and agricultural bases necessary to make that growth sustainable. Any 13-year-old Sim Earth player could have told us that this was coming 20 years ago.

Our collective failure to walk around this obvious hole in the road came about in large part because of our active discouragement of smart, visionary people from getting involved in the political process, leaving it instead largely to the zealots and egotists who don't care that people like the editor constantly accuse anyone in the game of corruption and venality. It's self-fulfilling.

If we want better government, adult government, we have to spend the effort to separate the wheat from the chaff, ignore party labels and encourage smart, competent and committed people to do this important work. It ain't for the money, that's for sure, so let's at least try to give them some respect.

But, almost as important, we need to pay attention to the process and insist that our elected representatives get the job done in a sensible way. Essential to that is good, factual information about what's going on, as well as good thinking and analysis based on that information, and that's where our news professionals have the most responsibility. That's you, Mr Editor. You failed to inform the boss that the employees were screwing around in the powder shed, after you egged them on for years to screw around in exactly this manner. Boom. Now you point the finger. Spare me.

Talk of the Town: 'La Raza' has land title backwards

Judy Dutko writes, "One of the precepts of La Raza, which means "The Race," is that the U.S. stole the American Southwest from Mexico." First I went to the la Raza website to check that statement, and found these:

The term “La Raza” has its origins in early 20th century Latin American literature and translates into English most closely as “the people” or, according to some scholars, as “the Hispanic people of the New World.” The term was coined by Mexican scholar José Vasconcelos to reflect the fact that the people of Latin America are a mixture of many of the world’s races, cultures, and religions.

(I work in the translation game, and deal daily with the misconceptions of amateur translators and resulting problems, so this doesn't surprise me a bit.)

Another misconception about NCLR is the allegation that we support a “Reconquista,” or the right of Mexico to reclaim land in the southwestern United States. NCLR has not made and does not make any such claim; indeed, such a claim is so far outside of the mainstream of the Latino community that we find it incredible that our critics raise it as an issue.

Ms Dutko, who claims to have been a high-school teacher, goes on to detail a version of the history of American acquisition of Mexican territory by settlement and war, asserting that it proves that the U.S. took this land legally. But on several readings of this account, I can't see how the reader could conclude anything other than that the U.S. took the Southwest from Mexico by force, not just by stealing, but by armed robbery. George Seaman gets it right in the comments. Then she tops it off triumphantly with "Contrary to La Raza's claim that we stole the Southwest, note that Mexico held title to it for only 27 years." Um, I suspect that if Ms Dutko owned a car for 27 years and someone came with a gun, threatened her with it and drove off in the car, she would likely conclude that she'd been robbed.

OK, so we have a writer who freely spouts untruths about a favorite right-wing whipping boy, then applies her historical knowledge to prove the idea she intends to disprove. Why should I care?

It's like this. Had the editors left the piece as an LTE, there'd be no foul. The reader could take it as the hamhanded rant it is. But by elevating this ignorant, radical-right harangue to Talk of the Town status, they give it the paper's endorsement as a worthwhile, professional view. Bad choice, guys. If you really want to promote these dumb ideas, at least pick someone who doesn't trip over her own shoelaces doing it. Columns are also subject to fact-checking, or at least they are in professional operations.

Oh, and could someone please go back through the records and find the kids Ms Dutko taught in school? They probably need some remedial help.

Open thread, Wednesday edition

What did you notice today?

State workers to report to work as scheduled (update)

This short piece, credited to Paul Davenport (AP), appeared early this morning. Given the usual depth of Davenport's reporting, I have to think the Courier chopped it down to almost nothing, and I'll watch for it elsewhere on the web to check it. For now, here's what real reporting looks like, and oddly enough the Reps don't come off looking quite so good.

But I'm sure the Courier waved the red machete on this one because there just wasn't enough space on its website. (If you buy that I've got a great deal for you on the Pioneer Parkway bridge. Cash only.)

I expect this is a placeholder for another press release from Andy Tobin shortly to tell Prescott what really went down.

4:39PM: OK, I found it at azfamily.com, and my news nose did not lie, the Courier only ran half the story. Here's the rest:

The Arizona Legislature completed action on budget bills to implement most of a compromise $8.4 billion budget negotiated with Gov. Jan Brewer. However, lawmakers omitted a sales tax increase that Brewer wants to help reduce spending cuts.

The Senate approved the bills early Wednesday morning, about three hours after the House's action just before midnight Tuesday.

Lawmakers missed the Arizona Constitution's deadline of midnight for approval of a new state budget.

The bill's ultimate fate remains in question as it is now up to Brewer to decide whether to sign or veto them.

Spokesman Paul Senseman won't say what Brewer will do, but he says Brewer still wants the sales-tax measure.

Health-care debate v.2: The Maw of Charybdis

We're seeing steady letters on this issue and even a Chris Bergman column over on the pseudo-blog page, but trust me: you won't see anything intelligent about public health care in the Daily Courier. The darksiders have had 15 years to prep and sharpen their misinformation since the Clinton-era health-care debacle, and that will be the bulk of what you hear -- fear-mongering, statistical lies, economic lies, false equivalencies, and finger-shadows that look like big nasty teeth. Try to avoid buying in.

There are a lot of people who truly understand what the right to health means and how a public health-care system actually works. The vast majority of them live outside this country, in countries that are mostly almost as rich as ours -- in fact, the entire developed world plus. And while every group of people on the planet has its 15% share of malcontents and complainers, in all of postwar history not one of those countries has reversed a commitment to the health of all its citizens. The vast majority of the world's rich people -- everyone but us -- pay their taxes and enjoy real health security at low cost. Try to let that soak in. Most of us can't even imagine what it feels like, we're so accustomed to the crazy system we've built.

The darksiders would have you believe that every other rich country in the world is committing economic suicide and marching its hapless populations into Stalinist concentration camps for some dark purpose they won't try to describe. It's just not so. These systems, while as imperfect as any other human endeavor, really do work, and work far better than ours does. Truly. I lived in one of them for seven years.

So if you really want to continue feeding the vampires of the drug and insurance industries, open another vein and be my guest. But if you care about quality of life and security for your children, your parents and even yourself, please take this issue seriously, become informed and help move us all into the 21st century. We can't afford another 15 years till this opportunity comes around again.

Editorial: City let down those who need transport

The unnamed Courier editor stands up for those without cars and against the City bean-counters who've pulled their ride subsidies, anticipating that the state may not provide the accustomed major portion of the funds. Bravo.

I might be a little more enthusiastic if I hadn't been reading the same editor telling us for years that Prescott doesn't need public transportation. It leaves a tinny aftertaste, a bit like crocodile tears.

Letter: Illegal immigrants generate more money than they cost

I don't care for Mr Server's clunky sports metaphors, but he has the facts right, and we see this point made so rarely that it's worthy of note. Here's some research to back him up:

The Wall Street Journal, in its "Monthly Economic Forecasting Survey: April 2006," conducted from Apr. 7-11, 2006, asked 46 economists this question: On balance, has the U.S. economy benefited more than it has been harmed by its current population of undocumented workers? Two of them answered that illegals bring more harm than benefit. The other forty-four agreed that they bring more benefit. There are many more good examples of balanced studies.

There is a lot of subtle spinning around this issue to watch out for. When you see someone reference census data about illegals, for example, bear in mind that the census will more often find those illegals who are easiest to find -- settled people with families. That inflates average family size, and subsequently inflates estimates of education costs. People who actually study this issue scientifically agree that the issue of immigrant cost to society is a boogeyman.

Adventures in Be-Mod

Some of my friends really don't get why I spend any attention or effort on the Courier. "Why do you bother with that rag? Nobody with any sense reads it anyway." I've found that last shot to be more on the mark than not. Newspaper circulation and readership is plummeting everywhere, ask anyone who knows, and in our current parlous economy I hear that Courier ad sales are in the toilet as well. Just stick a fork in it, it's done, right?

Well, I make an important part of my living by writing for a newspaper, so I have a direct stake in keeping newspapers alive. Beyond that, I truly believe that local papers are an important part of the glue that holds communities together. So whatever condition it's in today, it's worth saving and improving. No alt-weekly will ever have the kind of effect that a local mainstream daily can.

What ropes me off is that the people most responsible for keeping our local paper alive and healthy are doing such a poor job of it. Rather than respond to the changes in the industry brought by online content, they cling to outdated models and methods as the print edition slowly diminishes to convenient birdcage size. I can put that down to incompetence and failure of imagination. The nub of the rub, though, is that you can't hope to surf the wave of change if your content isn't up to it, and in that area, through incompetence, ego and disregard for the integrity and care that today's more sophisticated readers demand, the Courier editors and many others just like them are actively killing their own papers.

They are a threat to my profession and our community.

I can't fire them, I can't much hope to educate them, and after years of trying it's clear I can't persuade them. All I can hope for is enough readers demanding a better product -- good ol' market mechanisms -- to get them looking over their shoulders and trying to avoid the pain, like lab rats picking the food door that doesn't shock them.

Behavioral modification. -=zap!=- It's fun!

Editorial: Let's hope new Lowe's trees take

Today's experiment in automatic writing by the unnamed Courier editor scores about par with his handicap. What amuses me is that the Courier once again fails to acknowledge its cheerleading for the Lowe's deal, including the laughable (and ultimately frightening) engineering plans for both ends of that property. You helped make this happen, guys, and you'd gain some props for admitting it, doing more to help get it cleaned up, and using your editorial clout to help prevent future atrocities.

Recorder's Office warns of solicitation letters

Here's another case where the story and the headline don't match. From the headline we expect to read about another scam going around. From the story we find out that our bureaucracy is specifically saying it's not a scam. Was this just a clumsy way of drawing eyes to an essentially boring story, or yet higher-order incompetence in the headline department, which has been the running away goofup leader this year? You call it.

Rodeo madness

Just to remind everyone, I don't care about sports, even when it's covered as news, although I'll also warn you that when you read about sports outside the sports pages it's probably because someone pays the paper a lot of money for it hoping to sell you something. I'm particularly skeptical about sports that involve the abuse of animals, and I just hope one day we will have evolved beyond that, or at least properly criminalized it.

Chamber names tobin top representative

It looks as though this Tobin press release went straight to print without so much as a glance by an editor, which I fear is pretty close to standard practice in the Courier office these days. You couldn't even get the Representative's name properly capitalized in the headline? Really? If I was Mr Maurer, I'd be looking for a better return on the Chamber's money than that.

The key question for readers: How exactly is this news?

Kinkade Gallery gets a good front-page brown-nosing

Regular readers see these Courier-style infomercials frequently, but not so often anymore on the front page and rarely with so many smarmy poeticisms adding spittle to the advertiser's bootlicking. I recall the Courier's embarrassing paean to anti-artist Kinkade last year as well. Since other regular quarter-page buyers don't get this sort of attention, I have to wonder what this particular company has on the editors. Maybe they're just entranced by bad art.

Tuesday open thread

I don't intend to write on everything that comes up, but the plan is to put up one of these every day so you can share what matters to you and point out what I've missed. When I get time, I'll add links to the piece you're referencing if you don't know how.

Return of the Unwelcome Ombudsman

With one exception this blog has been off air for about a year and a half on the theory that the Courier's opening of a full commenting feature would make it directly accountable to readers where it wasn't before. So I gave that a good solid try, and while there is certainly more reader response going on now and evidence that the Courier editors respond to it, I've directly confirmed the rumor that they still refuse to respect readers enough to follow a consistent and reasonable comments policy. Instead they are maintaining the practice they've always followed with letters, and that is to edit them as they see fit, without regard for the reader's expression or even intent, and without admitting they've done so. That's against the rules and custom of modern journalism. So I'm back here, where at least I can say what I think needs saying without the risk of censorship or respins by second-rate hacks who've forgotten what integrity feels like. Welcome to Courierwatch v2, readers, you few but mighty.

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.

Another enervating Monday

Today's paper is so dull I don't even want to deal with it. Ack.

Editorial: "Street initiative was extreme micromanaging"

The unnamed Courier editor reluctantly admits that Rob Behnke's failed initiative was a bad idea, falling in line behind the Chamber of Commerce and every City Council candidate. Too bad he fails to mention that on April 18 he was all for it. Typical.

He can't resist a jab at our hard-won rules on spending for open space, the elimination of which was the hidden agenda of the Behnke campaign, and scores a touchback.

A1: "State rule changes would help Prescott's Big Chino water plans"

Joanna Dodder does some good spadework on the quiet little water war going on between Prescott and Chino Valley. Most of what you need to know is between the lines.

Short version: Prescott city officials are finding themselves increasingly isolated in defense of their stump-headed arrogance, and if they don't get it together and start following proper procedures they could wind up wasting huge amounts of money for nothing.

Talk of the Town: "Minutemen are heroes, not vigilantes"

Mel Oliverson puts his hand up as a proud member of our local self-appointed guardians of racial purity to address their acute PR problem. He shows just how big that problem is and how little he understands it by peppering his piece with disinforming fear sparks and codewords: "infectious diseases," "narcotics," "intellectual integrity," "ruinous effects," and "flood of illicit immigrants" in just three graphs, not to mention "the undesirable impacts on the long-term nature of our revered 200-year-old inherited culture" -- does anyone here have any doubt about what that means?

The Courier is doing its readers a service in providing Mr Oliverson a platform for showing his intellectual underwear, though I'm sure the editors see it rather differently than I do. Reading this further convinces me that there should be no tolerance in our community for these brownshirts, and eventually they will cause some serious trouble.

Bugging out

That's probably it for this week and most of next, I'm headed north for some R&R. I'll look in now and then for anything really egregious. Enjoy!

Editorial: "Gulf between 'legal' and 'ethical' is vast"

I guess Paula Rhoden's story on taxes reminded the unnamed Courier editor that he's still mad at Vic Hambrick. This was disappointing because from the lead I was thinking I might read that the Courier is finally ready to walk away from the Bush fan club. (I really don't get how the editor can write this stuff without having his head explode from the dissonance.)

Anybody see anything new here compared to, say, this*? I don't.

* Don't try to use the link to the original story, it's gone.

A3: "Lamerson stresses basic services in bid for council"

Part four features an unusually ugly photo of the councilman and a lot more quotes.

A1: Tax revenues up; tax rate down

OK, remember back in April when we got our assessment cards and everyone was complaining about how taxes are going sky high? I wrote then that I wasn't reading anything about the actual pricing mechanism for property taxes, which vary from year to year at the whim of the Supes. Well, here it is at last, showing how all that gnashing of teeth was a little silly: tax rate down to its lowest in ten years. The Courier could have easily explained that at the time.

Of course, your property is valued higher than ever, so you won't likely be paying less. Still, the tax bite doesn't match the Courier's bark in its shameless attempt to disinform and stir up a 'taxpayer revolt' that would cost us all a great deal more.

A1: "Committee begins process to block Young's Farm rezoning"

Oops, did I say the Monogram saga was over? I don't suppose we can hope for a new script (Big Money gets its way, ragtag citizens group makes a stink, Big Money wins anyway -- you know, PV Wal-Mart, Williamson Valley, Verde River, etc.).

Maybe I should be selling peanuts in the stands. "GITcher goobers HEEERE!"

Talk of the Town: "We must tap into domestic oil to control costs"

Hold the phone, we've got another ringer. So to speak.

Once again the Courier is trying to pass off extreme-right DC propaganda as coming from a local writer. The "Talk of the Town" slug means, um, what was it, Tim?

"LOCAL, LOCAL, LOCAL!"

Oh yeah, I remember now, thanks.

"Local" like the Heritage Foundation. By all means, look it up.

If you have any trouble parsing this BS, let me know, but I think anyone reading this probably knows the score on ethanol, on corn prices, and on ANWR. These bunnies just don't stop.

Missing: Kirkpatrick declares for AZ-1

So far the Courier seems to have missed the declaration of another candidate to replace Richie Rich Renzi, this one sitting state Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick. Maybe something from AP will filter in, since apparently the Courier staffers are all too busy watching cops out the windows.

Update 11:30pm: Ah, here it is, only a couple of days late. Can we hope to hear about the other candidates now?

Editorial: "Let's hope Wal-Mart ordeal is really over"

Yet more waste of editorial space. Note to the unnamed Courier editor: the top-left column is not your daily diary of non-events.

A3: "Katan pushes for policy changes in water, economic development"

The third installment in Cindy Barks' series on Council candidates is free of untoward characterizations, very good. I know Paul is given to saying unusual things, but even so I have to think that Cindy got at least one quote that was better than "I want to get elected." Oh well.

A1: "SWAT team terminates search, does not find gunman"

I read right through this piece wondering when the unfortunately named Joanne Twaddell would get around to telling the story that rates half the front page, only to find no story other than a bunch of PVPD guys got up in jackboot mufti made a big show of trying to arrest an empty motel.

Then, at the very end, comes the clue: all this happened next door to the Courier operation in PV, and during the search police placed the offices "in lock-down" (oooh, how dramatic). Courier employees were involved, so we get a simple failure to maintain proper perspective on what amounts to nothing.

Joanne doesn't tell us who reported the shots in the first place -- a Courier employee, perhaps?

Letter: "Only two ways to deal with water problem"

Franz Rosenberger gives us a nice lesson in framing the water issue.

Talk of the Town: "The words of historical leaders affirm faith"

John Perry responds to Al Herron's column on July 16 and staunchly defends his faith. Too bad he got Al's point backward: not that "faith in God leads to tyranny," but rather that would-be tyrants routinely use religion to advance their ambitions. In his way he reinforces Al's argument by demonstrating the common blind spot among the religious that allows them to be so easily manipulated. Moo.

Letter: "Celebrating guns in wartime irresponsible"

Hmm, here's a familiar voice. Go Miles!

Editorial: "Those who scam the elderly are detestable"

Now here's the unnamed Courier in fine form, standing manfully in the arena of public opinion, muscles flexed artfully, demonstrating his champion finger-wag at an opponent who's chained to the corner post.

I'm thinking I'll send a case of Wheaties down to the editorial office. Someone needs to buf up.

Editorial: "Mass transit almost as elusive as world peace"

I laughed out loud at this headline. World peace and mass transit. I mean, really.

In the weeds of the copy I get the sense that the editor read the A1 story, but didn't understand it at all.

This illustrates the downside of computers: you can take someone else's work, chop it up and spit it out as something new without passing it through any thought process whatever.

Editorial: "Ambivalence plagues Young's Farm site"

I'm a little behind, but I couldn't pass this one up. Someone, please, tell me what a 'plague of ambivalence' looks like. I feel like I'm reading Brautigan here.

The unnamed Courier editor gets a point for using for using 'fatuous' in a sentence (albeit a pretty clunky one), but loses it again for failing to note the irony.

A1: "Police make arrest for attempted murder charges"

It's not Mirsada Buric's fault. That headline writer has got to go. Grammar does actually matter. Here were your easy choices:

"Police arrest man, charge attempted murder"
"Police make arrest, charge attempted murder"
"Police charge attempted murder"

(Except they weren't actually police per se, they were sheriff's deputies. Ah well, details, details.)

These would have required just a bit more imagination:
"Attempted murder charge for Glendale man"
"Cafe shooting results in arrest"
"Glendale man arrested in BCC shooting"
"Abused bus passenger exercises 2nd-Amendment right"

OK, well maybe that last was over the top, but you get the picture. It's just not that hard.

A1: "Verde group struggles to get money"

Well. Republicans make a big show of addressing a problem, then fail to back it up with the necessary resources. I'm so surprised.

I've been reading that the McCain's Straight-Talk Express is wheels-off, in flames and over a cliff. Could it be, I dunno, his famed ego and arrogance, or might it be more about his talking about sober independence as he does nothing but pander to the extremists and toe the party line? What a loser.

Candidate profiles

The Courier started a series yesterday on our candidates for city office, and has so far managed two fouls off two pitches.

In yesterday's piece on Steve Blair, Cindy Barks is pretty careful to ensure that characterizations of Blair are left to the man himself, so the paper doesn't get involved in any qualitative judgment of what he's done. Unfortunately the headline writer tossed this professionalism out the window with glee. If you mean to quote someone, use quote marks.

Cindy chose a little drama for her lead today in the piece on Alan DuBiel, characterizing him as "persistent." I've seen him walking my neighborhood in the sun, and sweaty is not a good look for the man, so the adjective may seem inescapable, but it's still against the rules in a political piece.

No regular Courier reader will be surprised if the paper isn't completely circumspect about how it handles political candidates -- or even sitting officials. This time around, though, I'd like to be surprised at its professionalism.

What I've pointed to today are details many might consider niggly, but over time details build up in the voter's mind, and a monopoly paper's most important duty to society is to inform its voters properly, with facts, not bias. I intend to keep an especially close eye on campaign coverage.

A3: "D-H council approves commercial rezoning at Young's Farm"

I suspect Doug Cook is happy to file this report in hopes that the Monogram story is finally over and he can get on to something more interesting. Some analysis on how the plan has changed since it entered the approval process would be nice, but Doug seems to be touching all the bases with his quotes.

It would have been amazing if the council had approved anything other than standard California commercial development for that corner. The only questions were whether the town would let them leach wet waste into what's left of the river and whether people would be able to use the riverbank as a park. Maybe a last installment to sum up?

A1: "Feds urge regional plan to avoid hurting Verde species"

And our local representatives apparently don't care what our federal agencies think. As usual, we get a lot of talk and no action from those who can make a real difference.

I'm reading a little frustration into Joanna Dodder's piece as well, like she couldn't get a straight answer from anyone in public office here. You just keep after 'em, Jo, you're on the right side.

Editorial: "Dewey woman rises above meth addiction"

Heartwarming. Admirable. Waste of space.

Talk of the Town: "'F-shaped' barrier not a valid solution"

Tom Gilbert, who "bases his comments on 40 years of driving in California," offers a complete design for saving lives on 69, which seems to involve mostly traffic lights for the convenience of Diamond Valley residents. I expect I could come up with some sort of design as well, based on 35 years of driving all sorts of places. I don't imagine ADOT would take me any more seriously than they will Mr Gilbert. You see, Tom, the state hires people with actual training in traffic and highway design to do this sort of work. I wonder how you felt at ATT when amateurs were trying to tell you how to do your job.

In America everyone knows more about traffic than anyone else possibly can.

Cartoon: What else can I do for you?

It wouldn't be a recognizable Courier Op-ed page without a little disinformation to play on the readers' fears and ignorant prejudices. This piece, featuring a guy on a beach towel who looks an awful lot like Iraq PM Nuri al-Maliki is particularly odd this week, after he publicly announced that it would be quite happy to do without American forces "anytime they want" and expressed that the our military is paying no attention to what Iraqis need as we shred them randomly in their homes.

Does anyone on this paper read the papers? Just askin'.

Editorial: "A drop in the bucket is still welcome"

Nice. Totally reactive and reactionary, of course, but mostly harmless, and the water-pistol simile is sorta cute. Mercifully short, as well.

More meta: I notice the editorials are all there today under the Opinions tab on the free site. Good job, IT.

Talk of the Town: "Will Young's Farm site be a blight or source of pride?"

I've met Frances Barwood and I like her. She's doing the right thing in trying to get people talking sensible needs and vision over fears. I'm not sure that she's right in betting on the Monogram horse, though, and she seems to be saying that D-H should take what's on offer because the only alternative is worse. The thing is, a working, assiduous P&Z system will help make the thing as good as the law allows.

I'm sure there are some people hopping up and down over there because they can't have the farm back. But those are not the people who should get first dibs on the public mic, and they don't make or break the issue. Let's concentrate instead on what works best for both the community and the owner long-term.

A1: "Prescott council supports fixed-route bus system"

I especially like Cindy Barks' lead here, which adds some historical context often lacking in these stories. As expected, Council has chosen the think-as-small-as-possible option, which will lead to a decade or less of patchy service that won't serve the needs of the community before it collapses and gets labeled as a pointless public boondoggle, thereby dragging down better ideas. The transit advocates are happy that something is happening at last, but the necessary vision and commitment to useful scale is nowhere to be seen. This will be a waste of public money, but not for the reasons its detractors assert. If you won't do it right, Council, leave it for a smarter group, who will.

A1: "Wednesday event highlights Verde River challenges"

Joanna Dodder covers a new report from the Sonoran Institute that further confirms what we all know about pumping the Big Chino -- that it threatens the base flow of the Verde -- and essentially (but not overtly) criticizes what we've allowed to happen over the last ten years. It's a good, clear story on what I'm sure is an eye-glazing document, and interested (non-working) readers should consider checking out the meeting tomorrow morning.

Here was an opportunity for some editorial context and analysis that could do some good. Tim even sidled up to it in his column, but ultimately only dropped a hint. We need to reject the false growth/no-growth dichotomy and start working with sustainability as the top priority, and the Courier should be out front on this rather than hanging back and worse.

Editorial: "Williamson Valley tussel heads to court"

Yup, there's a controversy in WV that's been in the news for years. The unnamed Courier editor is interested enough to fill the space, but not enough to actually take a position. Well, on the bright side, he's not disinforming the voters this time.

The only thing that make the piece entertaining is the headline writer struggling with the spelling of 'tussle.' Yikes.

Meta: Again today I had to run a search of the free site (on 'tussel,' fwiw) to get a link to the editorial. As of 10:30am today the only editorial under the Opinions tab is from the 14th.

Wiederaenders: "Drought plays major part in pumping"

Tim figured out that the water in his well is related to rain, and less rain means less water underground. Very good!

Parting shot: The 20-30-year drought idea is near the optimistic end of the projections, Tim.