Push-poll group unmasked

Group behind telephone survey reveals identity

Cindy Barks tells us that the push-poll against the "Taxpayer Protection Initiative" comes from the Central Arizona Partnership, punking Jason Soifer's Tuesday speculation. What she doesn't tell us is who's behind the CAP.

Not long ago a bunch of Prescott's more money-oriented good ol' boys came together because they didn't think the Chamber of Commerce was doing enough to make them rich. The CAP includes ex-mayors Simmons and Daly, former Senator and now Secretary of State Ken Bennett, and the big developers: the Fanns, the Fains, and Senator Steve Pierce. Their mission statement speaks of "a balance between economic and ecological sustainability in Central Arizona," which means to me, given their aggregate track record, less concern about the environment, and their method is to act as an alternate, more politically active Chamber. Check out the CAP site.

This is not the first less-than-appropriate act I've seen from this group in relation to the election. Jason Gisi stood up at the end of the Chamber candidates forum at Yavapai College and harangued the audience to vote for the street tax, which struck me as naked electioneering in what was supposed to be a balanced setting.

I have a feeling we're going to have to keep an eye on these people. It's clear they think they're above the rules.

That pesky subordinate clause problem again

Pretrial postponed for cat-killing case

I skipped this story on first read today, and so missed Today's Chuckle:

PRESCOTT - The county has postponed a pretrial hearing for a 21-year-old Prescott Valley woman accused of killing her cat because her attorney had a time conflict Monday.

Quite a few commenters pointed it out, too, I see, and used up most of the obvious jokes -- but that's just gilding the lily, imho.

It seems like the editors should get a different prize for this sort of thing. A raspberry, maybe?

Another false alarm on Goodwin PO

I expected as much. It turns out that once again the USPS finds that closing Goodwin St is "not feasible."

Since the previous post I've heard that I was wrong about the PO boxes, them in the know say they're now about half empty. Maybe I should go get one.

BREAKING NEWS: Goodwin Street post office won't close

Editorial: Plane boardings are a bright sign

I knew on Friday that we'd see an editorial on this, but I got it wrong: the unnamed Courier editor is very happy to support socialized air service. I'm so surprised.

It occurs to me that the debate over public transit makes an interesting parallel. On the one hand we reject bus service because it would serve only a small portion of the public, people who have other ways to get where they're going, and it will never pay for itself. On the other we love air service even though it serves only a small portion of the public, people who have other ways to get where they're going, and it will never pay for itself. And the editor seems excited about spending another $150 million to expand Prescott's Aeroflot facilities.

I think this disconnect is all about economic class: in Dear Editor's mind, what's good for the rich must be good for all of us.

And don't get me started on bike lanes again.

This is how it's done

Barney Frank vs. the Nazi smear:

What are you smoking?

Lesley shot this photo from Jerome this morning. Tons of smoke over in the Verde from the Taylor fire.

Geez, who's running the show today?

In the editor's haste to get this critical midday story (from Sunday!) up on the Website, s/he apparently forgot to think about whether it was intelligible. The reader is left to consider whether this was written by someone at the Courier, or just passed through from the sheriff's report:

. . . deputies where able to located McCracken after he called the cell phone of a witness.

Editorial: Gun-toters hurt owners' rights

As the story of the nutbar with the AR-15 hanging around the Obama venue in Phoenix goes national, further confirming Arizona's reputation for adolescent behavior, the unnamed Courier editor gets it right for once and comes down hard on him and other irresponsible gun owners. Today the editor deserves a big cookie and my full support. (It's a point, though: what else could he do?)

We can hope that this will help inform the future debate on sensible gun restrictions that protect society while respecting individual rights.

Letter: How about 'clunkers' for low-income folk?

Carolyn Wiseman is taking some heat from the commenters, but she has a point: if the goal of the program is to move people into cleaner and more efficient cars, why don't used cars qualify? Given the same mileage differential, replacing an inefficient car with a more efficient used car would cost the government less, giving us more bang for our bucks, and reduce the overall carbon footprint substantially compared to making a new car. But one anonymous commenter is right to the extent that the program is clearly more for the car manufacturers than for consumers or the environment.

Man faces charges after he alleged assaults estranged wife

Today's chuckle: Another pitiful fail by the headline writer and the page editor helps make up for the lame cartoon page. Hint: It's really not that hard to proof your headlines, kids!

The answer to the puzzle: Peeples Valley man charged with assault

ToT: People need to get health care facts

Kathy Lopez contributes some fact-based reality and mature thinking to the sense-starved health-care debate, and the Courier wins a point for giving her the Talk of the Town banner.

Unfortunately, like other contributors she lacks pertinent credentials, and she gives us a whole lot of numbers without backing citations. Providing sources would help convince a lot of readers, and a good editor would have asked for it.

Update, 4pm: In the comments, "Truth Doctrine" offers us the anonymous blog post that started the Hitler-image-as-Dem-plant rumor. Click here to read a response from actual journalist David Weigel, who investigated the allegation for The Washington Independent.

Propaganda 101: Why screaming works

Courier scooped again -- or just ignoring the story?

It seems there's some illegal election chicanery going on in everybody's home town. Funny we aren't reading about it in the Courier, innit?

Update, Tuesday: Three days later, Jason Soifer turns in a story that seems to assume everyone's already hip to it, and on reading it I'm left with the impression that the Courier thinks push-polling is OK.

Army Sergeant with Prescott ties shocks wife on return visit home

This is a pretty run-of-the-mill feel-good story, notable only for its headline, which is I'm sure drawing lots of eyes by implying something more interesting. I guess that's one way to sell papers.

From the reality-based community

Paul Krugman, writing in the NYT:

"Sure enough, President Obama is now facing the same kind of opposition that President Bill Clinton had to deal with: an enraged right that denies the legitimacy of his presidency, that eagerly seizes on every wild rumor manufactured by the right-wing media complex. This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing."

Read the whole thing. It's a challenge to all of us to get up on our hind legs and push back.

Mathematicians love it, physicists hate it. Your Friday mind-expansion on the difference between really, really big and infinity.

Guest column: Cap and Trade bill bad for Arizonans

Now it appears we have a third category for local op-eds, adding "Guest Column" to "Column" and "Talk of the Town." I've noted before the use of "Talk of the Town" for out-of-town right-wing propaganda, maybe the editors got the message. (I know, dream on.) But putting that propaganda under a new heading doesn't much improve it.

For those who have other things to think about, the Goldwater Institute is an extreme-right lobbying group which has almost no remaining connection to the thinking of Barry Goldwater. It's the local enforcement arm of the Grover Norquist government-killing machine, widely feared among Republicans at the capitol.

Byron Schlomach's assertion that cap-and-trade will wind up baking Grannie to death in her condo because she can't afford the AC is classic fear-peddling of the lowest order. While everyone agrees the regime would raise costs to energy consumers, the darksiders are purposefully inflating cost estimates beyond reason, and ignoring the benefits in terms of direct returns of revenues to consumers as part of the program, restructuring of our energy infrastructure for sustainability (jobs!), and reducing the severity of global warming and its economic and social costs. Factcheck.org has plenty more.

Prescott Airport nears longtime commercial passenger goal

I can't wait to see the Courier editorial criticizing Commissar Wilson and City staff for supporting socialized air travel.

Prescott employee's discovery will save 2 million gallons of water per year

I think we can all applaud a hero of water conservation. I'm a bit put out that Cindy apparently didn't ask our City or County staff why it took so long to reach this dope-slap moment, but I guess I can understand it might be a little embarrassing, and we wouldn't want that. She gets a cookie, in any case.

Editorial: Line extensions hurt ratepayers

Today the unnamed Courier editor must make what he apparently sees as a Solomon-worthy decision between rural developers and electric utilities, and as the experienced Courier reader might expect, comes down on the side of I-me-mine.

Here's some background from AZJournal.com, which differs with the editor on when the rule went away and on whose initiative. The editor failed to mention that this came up on the official request of Navajo County, which no doubt is as developer-driven as Yavapai, but it ought to matter, especially given that the editor neglected to publish a news piece on this issue.

This story has a pretty low profile, and I have to wonder why it rates an opinion. Maybe someone the editor knows is worried that someone else might build a house on a neighboring property?

From what I read, the developers and growth-fascinated county officials want free extensions in a big way, and the utilities don't seem to mind one way or the other, so the ACC will probably reinstate the rule regardless of the editor's professed concern that he might wind up paying a few more pennies a year to run Fox News and old Westerns on his big-screen teevee.

I'm a little divided on it myself. Anything that slows human encroachment into unspoiled land seems like a good thing to me, but this could also affect the spread of distributed energy generation as more rooftops go solar and more ranchers build wind generators.

A flurry of letters

The Courier is carrying no less than eight LTEs today, all on the health-care debate, which looks a lot like a stunt to me.

Patricia Brockert tries to set the record straight on end-of-life counseling. Bill Holmes swears he'll be civil at the meeting that no lawmaker plans to attend. In the comments, Craig Mathews provides some interesting background on both the meeting and Mr Holmes. Tim Welte demands a pledge from Rep Kirkpatrick that she read the bill. Larry Lawlyes (sp?) and Paul Lopez call it on the obstructionist town-meeting strategy. Bernard Cygan is butt-hurt because Speaker Pelosi thinks shouting down your representatives is un-American. Sherry Denecker thinks the health-care reform is about letting old people die. And Robert Graybehl is just mad at Demmycrats.

I count three in favor vs. five against, better odds than we get on Fox. I wonder how many the editors left on the spike.

Fair and balanced

Media Matters has the numbers on Fox News and the health-care debate. How anyone can see Fox as a credible news source is beyond me.

Meanwhile, over in the Verde

Compare John Kinnamon's LTE in the Independent to the Courier's "Talk of the Town" below. That's what I'm talkin' about. This should be the Courier's editorial.

ToT: Elected officials have done enough

Barbara Briseno, whose only credentials seem to be that she's "concerned" and retired, gets "Talk of the Town" status for her standard wingnut rant containing exactly nothing that could be useful or informative. Circumspect readers would be right to ask why the editors use their precious page space in this way.

Might it be to simply provoke lots of heated online comments, thereby raising hit counts and justifying online ad rates? After all, everyone seems to so love reading idiotic arguments peppered with the personal attacks that the editor claims are off limits. If this is the plan, most of the commenters are just facilitating the lies and thickening the smoke screen.

If you care about the quality of the paper and public discourse, call the editors to account for fomenting a pointless food-fight and using personal attacks as a marketing strategy when it suits them. But don't take the bait -- stay out of the fray. There is nothing to be gained from engaging idiots.

Letter: America still remains a Christian nation

Gag me, yet another Xtian supremacist waving his persecution hankie. It's a waste of the reader's time, of course, but in the comments I notice George Seaman, a normally reliable defender of free speech, begging the editors to stop printing such letters. What I'm not sure George is noticing is that most of the responses seem to be calling the writer on his historical lies and logical tangles. This is how it's supposed to work -- you can say what you want, but you get to be accountable for it.

PS to the awful headline writer: "still remains" is irredeemably redundant.

Editorial: Lots of people are really upset

Over the very busy weekend I didn't have time to take on this piece of disinformational crapola, and I wanted to be sure I could get into it in detail.

For once the headline is right, but that's about the end of it.

First off, the unnamed Courier editor pulls the 'enemies list' leg with the "White House website where people can report opponents of the plan." A good friend of mine and loyal Republican told me about this on Saturday, and I took a look at it. I'm certain I'm not the first to report that this is an antenna for picking up on disinformation about health care so that the White House can deal with it. They don't care who the source is.

He then warns darkly of the gubmint cutting off Grandma's medicine because she's too old. This and the 'enemies list' thing are both among the completely and demonstrably false ideas circulating in wingnut land designed to whip up uninformed, fearful people to vocally oppose the program. In this respect the editor happily joins the right-wing media in "organizing the opposition," which apparently means "lying to people to get them scared enough to do crazy things for your benefit."

The editor cites the recent Q poll asking whether voters approve of "the way Barack Obama is handling health care." I'm totally in favor of public health care, and expect I'll support whatever he can get passed, but I would have responded with 'disapprove' on this question too. "The way he's handling health care" is not the same as "public health care," yet the editor spins this poll result as disapproval of the whole effort.

The editor moves to WSJ poll results that show formerly undecideds lining up against "Barack Obama’s health care plan" -- which as far as I've seen does not actually exist. The editor fails to note that the next question on the poll was whether the respondent favors "a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would compete directly with private health insurance companies," and the results show the favorables slightly ahead. A little further down, we find this:

31. Now I am going to tell you more about the health care plan that President Obama supports and please tell me whether you would favor or oppose it.

The plan requires that health insurance companies cover people with pre-existing medical conditions. It also requires all but the smallest employers to provide health coverage for their employees, or pay a percentage of their payroll to help fund coverage for the uninsured. Families and individuals with lower- and middle incomes would receive tax credits to help them afford insurance coverage. Some of the funding for this plan would come from raising taxes on wealthier Americans.

Do you favor or oppose this plan?
Favor....................56
Oppose ...............38
Depends (VOL).....3
Not sure ..............3

So when people are presented with the actual ideas involved, they overwhelmingly approve.

The editor writes that "respectful dialogue requires openness with the public about how the plan will work," implying that people at the town hall were mad because Rep Kirkpatrick wouldn't talk openly with them. The truth was quite the opposite -- the "organized opposition" was angry, raucous and determined to drown out what she had to say -- and they succeeded.

The Courier editor is actively participating in the nationwide campaign of disinformation designed to save the bacon of the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies at the expense of every American, selectively twisting and spinning semi-facts into received wisdom, burying the truth under layers of deceit. This is the worst kind of evil in the newsroom, and he should be facing the same sort of criticism from Courier readers that he is sending against our elected representatives. From the look of the comments, he's getting it.

Letter: Community Cupboard needs donations, too

I kinda thought the Courier might get a little grief for favoritism in its food-bank coverage last week.

Editorial: Cyclists, city can reach a solution

Once again the unnamed Courier editor pats the little cyclists on the head and explains that they're really not yet big enough to go on the adult rides.

I have a bike, but I've used it three or four times in fifteen years. When I ride my moped I generally stay out of the bike lane, which is for slower traffic. My perspective on this issue is as a driver.

When there's a bike on the road, it legally owns the entire lane, just like a car. If cyclists really got exercised about this they could start riding according to the law -- in the middle of the lane -- and slow us all down.

Cities install bike lanes not to please the cyclists, but to improve traffic flow. The editor's idea that we'd be spending money on a "tiny percentage" of street users is exactly backward. It may be that the rhetoric of the cyclists encourages this misunderstanding, because for them its a huge safety issue. But that's no excuse.

The editor suggests Willis as an alternative to Gurley. I suggest the editor try driving his car (or his truck, more likely) from downtown to Yavapai College, or the Prescottonian, or the Peavine Trail using Willis.

Lost in this whole public debate is the proposal to place large landscape islands down the middle of Gurley St, eating up a lot of lane space and creating new opportunities for traffic entertainment. Have we learned nothing from the corner plantings around the square, or Rosser St?

Letter: It's time to speak up for local landmarks

Tom Cantlon was the Courier's token liberal columnist before Randall Amster, so I count this piece as a semi-column.

The core of it is rousing us rabble to stand up for Sharlot Hall Museum and the old post office. I want to confirm here that public involvement -- writing letters and email and making phone calls -- is effective in getting the attention of state legislators and shaping their views of public opinion. I'd suggest contacting not only Ms Mason, Mr Tobin and Mr Pierce for our district, but other rural legislators, legislative leaders and the governor as well. It really does matter.

A detail toward the end of the letter caught my eye, the idea of turning over the closed post office space to the museum. Readers who are paying less attention might conclude that Tom advocates moving SHM over there once the state sells off its land and buildings. Nothing like this will happen, of course. The state may pawn the museum, but the arrangement would be more like a secured loan (at high interest cost!) than an actual sale. Still wrong, but not so catastrophically wrong as to leave the museum homeless.

But speaking as a former museum professional, given its mission there's really not much SHM could do with the post office space other than turn it into an exhibit in front and storage in back and in the basement, and that only given enough money to staff it. Not really practical.

The New Socialism

Pursuant to an exchange we had earlier in the comments, here's an interesting perspective from Wired. It seems a whole lot of people besides me are coloring outside the dictionary lines in talking about socialism. Hint: by reading this, you're involved, comrade.

Hat-tip to MikeD for the link.

Leisure-time Wednesday

Are you getting some time off?

Letter: Kirkpatrick not ready to talk health care

Duane Mumper wonders why Rep Kirkpatrick is not planning any town halls on health care reform. Could adolescent teabagger BS be a factor?

Or maybe she's just too busy getting things done.

Tax scam inundates county

Like many around the state, I got one of these bogus tax-reduction letters over the weekend. It's good that the Courier went after it, and apparently Bruce Colbert got in deep enough to talk to a hired call center as well as the county assessor.

One thing Bruce apparently missed, and which caused me to throw the thing on the junk pile unopened: on the front of the envelope, to the right of "PROPERTY TAX INFORMATION ENCLOSED," is a box saying, "THIS IS NOT A GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT." I'd call that "the most glaring clue."

Why so little capitol coverage?

It continues to surprise me that The Verde Independent is able to find space for news from the state capitol, but the Courier apparently can't.

Here are a couple examples from today's Verdenews.com:
John Pelander state's newest high court justice
Still no state budget: 16 votes needed to meet Brewer demands

While the Courier front page is padded with fluff like this:
Tim's Toyota Center offering week of public ice skating
What is it, where is it?

These papers share resources, ownership and even some personnel, but they're quite different in terms of editorial choices. Editor-ial choices.

Here's the sort of thing we might see if the Courier editors were more interested in statewide issues:
10 new laws that got lost in the shuffle
Renewable energy bill may resurface in special session

Editorial: Food Bank needs steady cash flow

The unnamed Courier editor gets a cookie today for stumping up some support for one of our local food banks. There are many programs operating here, of course, and we shouldn't neglect any of them.

Gittin' Yer Health Care On

We've got two bits on the op-ed page today related to health care, and that makes a nice jumping-off place for a little rant.

First, Tina Blake, billed as a "Yavapai County Community Member" (I think a hack of Yavapai County Community Health Services Member), urges readers to take a class and take control of their own health. In Prescott this is on offer Fridays at the YMCA.

Then there's the Talk of the Town column by Tom Bromley, credited as a retired NY state health care administrator, who sees the need for public health care, but can't quite see how we'll pay for it.

It's a fortuitous coincidence that these appear on the same page.

Bromley's thesis seems to depend largely on the idea that including 45 million uninsured Americans will incur enormous new costs, as if they're paying for it all out of pocket now and they'll pay nothing for it later. I think five seconds of thought about that pretty well dissolves it.

This is not to say that a "robust" public health-care system will cost nothing, of course. What so many of these commenters seem to miss or gloss over is that as a nation we're already paying for all of our health care, that cost grossly inflated by waste, excess bureaucracy, a strong bias for acute care over preventative care, and massive profit-taking. Reducing those costs is what makes these systems economically sensible, and it's also what scares an industry grown fat on the status quo.

What's a lot fuzzier is the huge potential for reducing costs simply by working to prevent health problems. This is practically impossible under our profit-motivated system, and that factor deserves a lot more scrutiny and thought from voters. The YCCHS program is a perfect example of what government is compelled to do that private industry simply won't. Imagine what's possible when reducing costs by making people healthier becomes a primary goal of the entire system.

Here's a smart, easy read today from the LA Times by a Canadian doctor comparing the US and Canadian systems and the lessons we could learn from Canada if we'd deign to take a look.

Lesley contributes an interesting list:

Countries with universal health coverage

Afghanistan*, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq*, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United Kingdom

*Universal health coverage provided by United States war funding

PS: Props to Grundlecat in the comments for pointing out the headline malfunction on the LTE.

Editorial: Gasp! Breathing rests with Senate

The unnamed Courier editor urges readers to help get a cap-and-trade system passed through the Senate, something every other developed economy has done long since and proved worthwhile both environmentally and economically. I sure wouldn't have expected it, but I'll take it, and thanks. But he seems to go out of his way to undermine his objective.

The references to the refinery accident, "brown stuff" and "America's lungs" seem pretty well unrelated to the issue of atmospheric CO2 that cap-and-trade would focus on. Pollution would fall as coal plants phase out, yes, but that's beside the point of the legislation and bound to confuse the reader. The incompetent headline-writer's reference to breathing just aggravates the error.

I gotta wonder whether the editor has even a sliver of a clue what he's talking about. Thanks, editor, but no thanks -- this sort of thing does not help.

Column: Assertions cast religion in bad light

Here's the third op-ed piece I've seen labeled "Column," the first writ by a regular contributor. Does this signify that the editors take George Seaman as seriously as Randall Amster, or is it a demotion for Randall?

Randall attempts to call intolerant, absolutist Xtians on their anti-Xtian ways. But he tries so hard to be nice about it and sidle up to it slowly, I imagine most readers will have moved on before he even mentions his real topic. It's like he's taking the role of Aesop, talking slowly under an olive tree on a lazy afternoon, the reader lolling at his feet waiting for the clever twist that gets to the moral of the story.

You have to hit it harder, Randall. You don't lead a column about religious discourse with a reference to Social Security, it just confuses people. Get to what you mean, state your thesis clearly, then back it up.

If your editor was doing his job, he'd be giving you these tips himself and guiding you, because when the paper reads better, it sells better to readers.

Letter: Post office closure will speed USPS obsolescence

I have to mention this LTE from yesterday, in which the writer opines that forcing everyone in town to rely on the Miller Valley PO will likely lead to career problems for the persons making that decision.

It's all of four sentences long. So why couldn't the headline writer figure out what Mr Johnson was saying? How did we get yet another op-ed headline that says something quite different from what the writer intended? Idiotic.

Election Q&As

Today's is the second in this series, in which the Courier asks all the candidates to write answers to the same question in 65 words or less.

Now I'm not particularly wordy myself, but 65 words seems like an awfully tight restriction if you want the voters to learn anything worthwhile. One might infer that the editors are limiting the candidates for space if Cindy's background preamble to the question didn't take up at least half the story. I also notice that sometimes she includes candidate quotes up there too. So we have the form of a level playing field without the substance of allowing every candidate equal and sufficient space to answer the question.

I know the editors probably think they're making fair rules for these things. I just wish they would think through what they're doing, so that the result will be better for the voters and the paper. It's this sort of incompetence that makes people roll their eyes whenever you mention the Courier.

Update, Tuesday 3:30pm: I had the feeling that the answers given in the Courier sounded an awful lot like answers at the candidate forum last week, so I asked my neighbor Paul Katan about the Courier's process. He told me that his answers are indeed new and written entirely by him for this series, so Cindy was not cribbing from the forum recording.

He mentioned that part of his answer to the economy question was left out of the paper, and he complained. I see on checking the Web version of the story that the editor has gone back in to add the omitted section in bold, with a note that the omission was a mistake. I think this may be the first online correction I've seen.

Proof of your magnetic personality, your Friday instant mind expansion.

Editorial: Kirkpatrick has long road ahead

Blah, blah, blah. It's so enervating to have to read the unnamed Courier editor going off yet again on "getting control of the border" and such (as if he were willing to pay the gargantuan cost of anything that might even approach doing that), that I almost missed him holding his nose and noting that our rep in Congress did several things that he likes. If ol' Ranger Rick Renzi (R - Military-Industrial Complex) had done exactly the same thing it would probably have rated a page-one story with a pic above the fold.

And do I read it right that the editor is proposing to subsidize the citizenship process for 20 million illegals? Somebody pinch me.

STATE BUDGET: 2 Prescott institutions on potential sale list

It's a telling event when the state proposes to pawn state buildings, including the House and Senate office buildings, several prisons and our own Pioneer Home and Sharlot Hall Museum. Joanna smartly includes the eventual cost of the proposal high up in the story -- it appears the state would be paying 1.2 billion clams for a loan of 735 million.

Is it just me, or does this seem more than a little insane?

None of our lawmakers has gone on record in favor of this Grover Norquist government-killing wet dream so far, but I'm reasonably sure that the Dept of Admin didn't just come up with this on its own, that's not how bureaucracies work. I'll be talking with Rep Mason about this on The People's Business this weekend, 2pm Saturday and Sunday on KJZA, 90.1 FM.

Busy Thursday

Not much to read in the Daily Disappointment today other than another opportunity for me to rant about the Elks, which I'll spare you, dear reader.

Do yourself and your community a favor, though, and show up at the League of Women Voters forum at Yavapai College Performance Hall at 6pm, meet the candidates and think about Prescott's future.

What the heck do I know about running a theatre?

I don't usually respond to anonymous challenges, but this commenter makes a fair point in response to Friday's post about the Elks debacle. I'm putting up a new post because Friday will soon scroll off the front page.

The commenter says:

You state previously, the editor gives no reason except they said so, yet you do the same thing on this piece. What is your expertise here?

You're right, I basically assumed that everyone knows how long I've been working this row.

I've been a technical theatre professional since 1972. I joined IATSE while still in high school, and after college I worked as stage manager to the Grand Rapids (MI) Children's Civic Theatre for three years as my first regular gig. Over the decades I've handled every job in theatre but makeup, from loading trucks to business and artistic management, to method training for actors, to the pit.

My last major gig was designing, building and managing the first two seasons of Arizona Classical Theatre, which involved building the largest temporary structures ever to appear on the Square and Granite Creek Park. Unlike most theatre operations, when I was managing everyone got paid. Not much, but everyone.

I've performed in and produced or helped produce many shows at the Elks, including the musicians' benefit for Katrina victims.

I got involved with the Elks issue when I was a board director on the Prescott Area Arts & Humanities Council, and we were invited into the discussion when Prescott College abandoned its lease and the Arizona Foundation was looking to unload the theatre. Along with other theatre and arts professionals, I looked into the integrity of the building and its economic viability, resulting in a PAAHC recommendation that the City reacquire the Elks and turn its operation over to a nonprofit to run.

The City Council under Mayor Sam Steiger took our ideas and tossed out the parts that would make it work. There's a long story there and since, but I'll skip that rant for now.

A few years ago I wrote an overview to help clarify the situation at the Elks for Read It Here, part of which is still online here.

I still work occasionals as a stagehand at Yavapai College Performance Hall, just to keep my hand in. It's not something you give up before you're dead.

I hope this answers the question.

Another Wednesday

What are you puttering around with today?

Editorial: Hurtling health care train needs to slow up

Some of the commenters have already pointed out that the unnamed Courier editor's "hurtling" train has been an awfully long time coming. But the editor knows that, of course. He's just transcribing the Fox News chyrons, which furnish everything a good Republican foot-soldier needs to know about anything.

Why are we in a hurry, editor? Because out here in the reality-based community we're impoverished, bankrupt, chronically ill and dying for the lack of a civilized health-care system.

Clear models have been in place and working since the 1940s. We know what to do and how to do it. What's holding up the train has always been the entrenched insurance industry and its corporatist soldiers, like the editor, who don't mind how much it costs our society as long as they get theirs.

Why does it have to be 1,000 pages, editor? I'd like to count up how many of those pages are in there to try to mollify you and your industry overlords with exemptions, loopholes and sweetheart deals demanded by the corporations, just because Democrats are determined to be inclusive, even though they know that in the end the Rs will vote against them anyway. The result is looking to be another hopelessly watered-down, ineffective waste of time, I fear.

So, editor, you're getting your wish. Your guys have derailed the train again. Be happy.

Letter: Barking dogs drive newcomers to brink

It's not really surprising that Wayne Holmes feels so besieged by barking dogs. I experienced something similar myself when I moved into my current neighborhood. It takes some work to find the relevant chunk of City code, and some hassle to prepare a complaint that the PD will attend to. Here's the code:

5-2-5: MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS:
(A)
1. All dogs, hybrid dogs and hybrid cats shall be kept and maintained in such a manner so as not to disturb the peace, comfort or health of any person residing within the boundaries of the city. (Ord. 3026, eff. 12-24-92)
2. It shall be unlawful for any person to keep or maintain a dog or hybrid dog which is in the habit of barking, howling or otherwise disturbing the peace and quiet of any person within the boundaries of the city. For purposes of this section, a dog or hybrid dog shall be deemed to be in the habit of barking if it is proven that the animal barks, without justification, for five (5) or more continuous minutes on two (2) separate occasions within a thirty-six (36) hour period. (Ord. No. 3026, eff. 12-24-92)

The key point: you have to prove your complaint, unless you can get an officer to hang out for a few minutes and hear for hermself. It's a PIA, but you're not powerless.

I have to say that writing an LTE on something like this is a waste of energy, though. Wayne doesn't mention that he's even talked with his neighbors about it. Is he acting like a neighbor, or a victim?

Editorial: Closing P.O. isn't end of universe

The unnamed Courier editor poo-poohs the reader letters and comments about the proposed loss of service at the Goodwin Street post office on the square. We can reasonably infer that the editor doesn't go there, so he doesn't care. Typically, in his myopia he's glossing over several important considerations.

The square is the beating heart of our vibrant downtown area. Living here for a long time, it's easy to forget how unusual it is to have a historic city center that is healthy and thriving, and how fragile it is if neglected. Our downtown works because it offers a healthy range of business and government functions in a walkable space.

I expect that most residents don't realize that the Goodwin St building is more than a post office. Along with City Hall and the county courthouse, it's the third leg in the government tripod, the historic federal building, including the district court and other functions upstairs. It's also an impressive historic structure, its warm, woody interior embellished with WPA art and the subtle smell of brass.

In the context of other government functions, it just makes sense to look for the post office on the square, and the postal function is the building's biggest draw. It's a place where we can count on meeting friends and acquaintances in passing. Last I heard there was still a substantial waiting list for those quaint PO boxes with the 86301 zip code. Closing the office will reduce foot traffic on the square and for downtown in general. (And let's not forget that people work there who eat lunch.)

Then there's the question of what happens with the building if there's no post office in it. There's little danger that it'll be torn down, I'm sure, but an empty space there is unacceptable, and converting it for other use would destroy much of the building's historic character, also unacceptable.

No, editor, the sky won't fall. But losing the old post office would be bad for downtown business, bad for Prescott's historic district, and bad for the community as a whole. The Courier long since abandoned downtown physically, and it's clear the editors are willing to abandon it generally.

Update, 6:30pm: BearWhizBeer asks whether anyone actually asserted that losing the PO meant the end of the universe. I've gone through the comments on the original story, and found no one predicting either the end of the world, as the editor says, or the end of the universe, as the breathless headline writer gave us.

Column: It's time to stop runaway spending

Here's a second case of turning a longish LTE into a "Column," indicating a new category on the op-ed page. In it retired finance exec Paul Border as Jacob Marley rattles the chains of the old order to scare readers about the progressive agenda of the Obama administration, pushing the 'socialism' button repeatedly and prophecying doom and catastrophe if we actually start taxing him and his rich pals a little more.

It's a load of ectoplasmic hooey, of course, and you've heard it all before. But considering the health-care "compromise" (read: capitulation) that's making headway in the committee of Max Baucus (D - Health Insurance Industry) today, I'm not feeling hopeful that Americans will drop this smelly fear-mongering and stupidity into the toilet, where it belongs.

Pregnancy center moves, educates clients

Jerry Herrmann turns in a pleasant little story about nice people doing nice things for young parents, and manages to keep out any trace of the organization's religionist, anti-choice mission. Follow the links on its cagey website for proof.

I don't mind coverage of outreach by religious organizations per se, they're part of the community. But actively disguising a religious group's agenda is wrong, as this one does with young women seeking help, and it's doubly wrong for the Courier to abet the deception.

Editorial: Added bureaucracy counters plan's aim

The unnamed Courier editor may be right that the county is going in the wrong direction with its plan review, but from this there's no way for the reader to evaluate that opinion, because the editor simply asserts that the direction is wrong because it would add new committees. He does not tell us what the functions of the committees would be, who would be on them, or how they would go about their business. He would have us infer that the people working this issue and recommending this change are doing it for no good reason.

Newspapers are about communication: informing the voters about what's happening, to facilitate better decisions on public policy. That's why the press is in the Constitution. But rather than tell us the what, why and how of this and showing his reasoning, the editor simply states his conclusion based on a single arbitrary factor that he doesn't like.

Perhaps the editor has a reasoning process that led to this. But his editorial reads as if he would prefer to avoid that process and whip up his readers to oppose this idea in as much ignorance as possible. This is a base and basic propaganda technique that deserves nothing but rotten tomatoes.

The alternative is that the editor is truly expressing his entire thought process on this: he sees new committees, so the proposal must be bad. If this is really the case, I have to pity the poor fool.

Okay, so let's take a look and try to parse what the editor is talking about. It seems to derive from a June 7 story by Bruce Colbert about a Development Services proposal to the Planning and Zoning Commission. The July 22 (current) draft (PDF) is here.

I notice that the editor uses the Williamson Valley Community Organization to back up his objection. But it's clear in the preamble of an earlier draft of the proposal that the WV group's primary objection (keeping corridor plans exempt from community plans) is completely different from the editor's (more committees). Moreover that wall protecting corridor plans apparently came down before the current draft.

Here's the part the editor doesn't like:

4. Committee Structure
a. The community planning process shall be organized by a two tiered committee structure as follows:

(i) Plan Advisory Committee (PAC): The PAC is a permanent standing advisory committee appointed by the Board of Supervisors and acts as an overall steering committee for all community plans and a liaison between the County and the community. The PAC shall consist of two (2) DSD Development Services staff members and a representative from each Supervisor’s District, for a total committee membership of five (5). The PAC shall review recommendations from the Community Advisory Committee and provide recommendation on all draft plans or amendments submitted to the County. The PAC shall confirm the membership and organization of the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) for individual community plan processes. Committee members shall serve at the pleasure of the Board for terms of four (4) years and may be reappointed by the Board upon term expiration.

(ii). Community Advisory Committee (CAC): The committee members are suggested by the community and confirmed by the Plan Advisory Committee. DSD County staff shall be included in the CAC committee membership. Committee appointments shall be made with the goal of providing a representative cross section of interests within the community area. The CAC is responsible for conducting the community participation/input, developing the draft plan or amendment and providing recommendations to the PAC.

As I read this, one committee forms from the community temporarily to negotiate and write the plan. That seems pretty basic -- you don't want County P&Z writing your plan for you. The other committee is permanent and designed to oversee these CACs.

If we only have one CAC working at a time, I expect that the PAC would be unnecessary. P&Z could handle the oversight directly. But Yavapai is a large and growing county, and once things get rolling I can imagine three or four of these four-year processes going on at once, maybe more. That's a lot of added oversight work to a busy schedule, and I can see the argument for adding this layer. I'm not saying this is the best way to handle it -- I don't know enough about what goes on inside and the personnel proposal for the PAC could easily favor entrenched interests -- but I can see the argument.

It would rate a cookie if the editor had bothered to cover the issue with even this light a look. But he didn't. Readers have a right to demand more.

Another reason to avoid anonymous comments

I happened to see a little story on Think Progress this weekend that seems apropos of my continuing windmill-joust at anonymous commenting. The US Attorney for the western district of New York is investigating some comments, posted under fake email addresses to the website of the Wayne County Star, about a story involving an immigration raid on a local farm. Example:

“watcha doing to mi wifey, no checky her papeles. she no legal, but she havey benifit card. oh wait, take her and I get me a applehog till I go to Mexico. Viva la Raza!!!”

Someone looked at some source code, and it appears that this and several others, covering a weird racist exchange among commenters, originated in computers at the Department of Homeland Security.

This isn't a difficult hack, and it ought to make readers wonder whether some of the comments we see on the Courier site are similarly cloaked to avoid legal or political repercussions.

Fourier analysis for guitar players, courtesy the University of Nottingham, your instant brain expansion for the week.

Editorial: Common sense takes another hike

Once again the unnamed Courier editor trots out his expertise in traffic engineering, proving by mere assertion that he knows more about it than anyone actually involved and being paid to do it.

What's really interesting is the editor's emotional response to even having a proposal about bike lanes heard by Council. I doubt that anyone among the cycling advocates is even marginally hopeful that Council will approve this idea. But the editor is sputtering in anger that Council would even entertain it.

I wonder whether the editor ever noticed that we have bike lanes in regular use along MonteWhipple, a major artery carrying more traffic than east Gurley at higher speed through more complex terrain. We have lanes in use along Rosser, a much more complex and narrower roadway with entertaining obstacles and random parking. And we have a whole lot of streets narrow and wide all over town that serve bikes and cars at the same time with no separated lanes. Yet the Courier has apparently failed to cover all the blood in the streets that the editor so vehemently purports to fear.

Maybe the rest of us are just better drivers than the editor is.


Here's sometihing the editor hasn't read on bike-lane engineering.

Elks renovation contract up for approval

Surprise, surprise: hardly begun, the Elks project is overrunning its budget, and the City is tossing the object of the restoration over the side hoping to save the high-priced contract it failed to negotiate properly.

This is what comes of having people who know nothing about theatre operate one.

The City is trying to do a major renovation of an old but structurally sound specialized building with no money, no significant expertise, and no responsibility for the outcome. Every move it has made in the Elks has been wrong-footed and impeded the next. The socialites who are raising funds for it are good-hearted, but clueless about the actual cost of what they're proposing or how to make it work.

Mark me, this project will ultimately cost over five million clams, and at the end of it we'll have a pretty but essentially function-free white elephant. That will put the Elks in permanent danger of abandonment and demise.

Turning this around before it becomes completely hopeless will involve bringing in our community's theatre professionals and refocusing the project on creating a space that will serve real acts in a real economic context, not the cloud-cuckoo land that the foundationers imagine.

Finally, just to maintain my reputation for shouting at traffic: it is not, never has been and never could be an opera house. Gad, I wish people would stop calling it that, it's nothing but hick chic.

Reporter rates WYGC one of the top places to recover

This little celebrity piece points to something that I've always found interesting about Prescott: the healing and rehabilitation industry is huge here. From the Veterans' Hospital to the many alternative healers in private practice, we have healing going on everywhere. The rehab sector by itself is very big relative to the size of the town, attracting people statewide as well as out-of-staters, celebs included.

If this is something that Prescott is especially good at, I think we ought to do more to encourage it as an economic engine, which in turn will help mitigate the impact of the inevitable small percentage of failures on our streets, under our bridges and in our flophouses.

The rehab industry gets a bad rap for the people who fall through the cracks, but I think I'd rather have those impacts than the effects of more big-box retail, for example.

Thursday featured comment

Re the non-coverage of the 'tea party' protest last Friday, Midge in Prescott:

"I have great respect for the Tea Party people at their grassroots level. Unfortunately, the Astroturf elements took over and used your legitimate protests for their own ends. You know who I mean -- the biased TV and radio personalities looking for ratings, the white supremacists who used your venues to try to increase their memberships, the birthers and other conspiracy theorists who garnered notice at your expense, etcetera ad nauseum. Your legimate complaints have been overshadowed and tainted by being associated with those others. The political blowback has been fierce. Hence, your own legimate movement has lost its good name and newsworthiness. It's a dam' dirty shame. Carry on your cause without the wingnut circus, and you will eventually be heard."

The radical rightists have yet to realize that their antics are driving people away from the whole side. They won't listen -- thankfully, for both their entertainment value and their political effect, i.e. pulling the respectable clothes off rightwing ideas and showing them for what they are underneath -- but you tell 'em, Midge!

Editorial: Let's stress light, not heat in races

Overall I can go along with the sentiments that the unnamed Courier editor expresses here. But there are a couple of subversive elements to the piece that I have to point out.

The first is his setting up the online comments as useful in indicating something about public opinion more generally, and giving himself a pat on the back for putting the facility into the site. I needn't say much about the logical disconnect there.

More subtle is his assertion that "The mike was theirs. They all said everything they wanted to say about themselves to make their case," and by implication the Courier is acting as a transparent conduit from the candidate to the voter. This is false. The editor or his writer has been injecting information into the candidate stories from outside the interview context, things the candidate is not saying, without identifying the difference. That skews the articles, in at least one case in favor of public controversy showing the candidate in a negative light.

I would have chosen a more investigative, fact-based "who-is-this-person" approach, but the Courier editor volunteered to do what amounts to electioneering for the candidates. To then go in and slyly undercut the ones the editor doesn't like is dirty pool.

Racetracks campaign for slots as budget solution

Rep Tobin wants permanent casino gambling at racetracks, including our own fairgrounds, to address the dearth of state revenues, and sets this up as the alternative to temporarily raising the sales tax. The industry estimates that this might bring in close to half a billion clams to state coffers in 2012. That of course does nothing about the problem we have right now, and Joanna's story leaves out the actual budget gap of over two billion and rising.

Expanded gambling looks like free money to Mr Tobin, and to a large extent I suppose it is, since local rather than state authorities will be left to pick up the tab for the resulting societal problems. But more to the point, it would allow the Legislature to look like it's doing something about revenues without taking on the structural problems that got us here in the first place. Neither gambling nor a temporary sales tax will fix the deficit, that's a false dichotomy. The gorilla in the room is residential property taxes, among the lowest in the nation, designed to promote unsustainable growth in housing.

Like any other homeowner I'm not wild about paying more in property taxes. But I'm also unhappy about what's happening to the state and my community as a result of our collective unwillingness to provide the funds necessary to maintain quality of life. More gambling and its social impacts reduce quality of life for all of us, and sends truckloads of cash out of state to shady interests. We should make a better choice.

Wednesday open

Now it can be told.

Editorial: Honeymoon ends for Obama

The unnamed Courier editor writes, "it's heartening to see that he is no better or no worse than any of his predecessors." Read that again.

One might argue that the editor just isn't very good at communicating what he means, but on reflection I think this reveals an inadvertent truth: the editor does not want an extraordinary or effective president, and by extension does not want effective government. This reflects the fashion for radical libertarianism that weighs down this country so heavily.

This further reduces doubt that the editor will consider it victory if our president fails to win effective health-care reform, fails to get us out of Iraq, fails to bring bin Laden to justice, fails to repair our economy, or fails to rebuild our education system for the 21st century. Our editor is clearly more interested in cheerleading for a political team than contributing to addressing our very real societal problems.

For shame.

Police deploy Peacekeeper

The Prescott PD gets to roll out the new toy it unveiled last week -- to bust a nonviolent non-offender with an entertaining penchant for self-decoration (and, perhaps, because of it). This is clearly a case of having a new hammer and looking for nails. How much did this pointless exercise cost? What would it have cost last week? Who ordered this deployment of both equipment and expensive personnel? Has it become PD policy to roll a SWAT team for every apparent break-in?

This incident amounts to outrageous buffoonery that diminishes the credibility of the Prescott PD as well as us as a society. Will the Courier follow up with appropriate questions? I won't hold my breath.

Editorial: Good journalism died with Cronkite

The unnamed Courier editor leaps onto Walter Cronkite's descending coffin decrying the state of journalism today and setting himself up as the last bastion of goodness and light. I'm sorry, Editor, but Cronkite would take one look at your work and send you to the mail room.

The key to maintaining your ethics is constant self-examination. Ask yourself the tough questions, seriously, challenge yourself to be toughest on your own biases, and drive the snakes out of your own nest.

Short of that, and given the Courier's history of political favoritism, the headline reads rather like triumphalism.