Missing: Another Walgreen's robbery

My spies tell me there was another robbery at the all-night Walgreen's in PV that was hit last month. Courier readers might like to know about that, as well as what the PVPD has done about it.

A1: "Human Resources works behind the scenes for county employees"

Paula turns in a nice puff piece on a county department, promising regular installments. I suppose that Monday is the day for this, since no one's working on Sunday to get actual news. It just seems like this would fit better on B1.

By the way, Mr Vigneron's name shouldn't be so difficult to spell.

A1: "A common voice"

Paula Rhoden reports on a meet-and-greet between local seniors and a couple of our legislators at the Adult Center. Both pols and seniors come off as whiny, and I gotta wonder if that's an accurate characterization.

Online edition: Monday blues

John K, are you working today? I found a bunch of busted links in the online edition.

Blog: "Blair's "taco" comments aren't too intelligent"

I'm a little behind here, as I don't check the blog section every day, but I'm keeping an eye out to see whether traffic picks up.

John Kamin makes the first mention I've seen in the Courier of a story I pointed out on April 4, and doesn't pull the punch, so he gets a cookie. I've got a couple niggles and a prod, though.

Niggle 1: Blair wasn't referring just to illegals, but rather to everyone of Hispanic heritage. In the back of his mind, I'm sure, was the Lincoln neighborhood's common nickname among Prescott natives: Taco Flats.

Niggle 2: He angered more than the direct targets of his derision. There are a lot of us out here who think this sort of behavior is absolutely out of bounds for a public official, radio host or no.

Prod: 'Jackass Flats' has sort of become the derisive name for PV, but it didn't start that way. It was the standard name for the area until about '66.

A1: "Immigration, water issues top City Council agenda"

Cindy Barks' regular Monday agenda rundown is pretty dry reading, but important in that we all get a nudge to show up and say something about the issues involved, rather than a report on what Council has done after the votes have been cast.

I've been here long enough to remember when Council followed a pretty strict no-debt policy. How things have changed, eh?

A1: "Assessor explains agricultural designations"

Paula Rhoden runs it down, but nowhere did I find why it's a page-one story.

Free at last

DC's Emancipation Day marks the beginning of the end for American slavery.

Talk of the Town: "The alternative to global warming stinks"

Ah, good. Tim W told me a few weeks ago that he was working to facilitate public debate about the climate crisis. So here we have the opening remarks from the tiny minority of people who call themselves scientists, don't think humans are changing our climate and don't think climate change is necessarily a bad thing.

I'm no scientist, and Terry Lovell is -- he teaches business and computer science at YC. No meteorology or climatology, nor any earth sciences, for that matter, but what the heck, he understands the scientific method, right? And apparently he believes he understands it better than the rest of the scientific community, which views climate change as not only human-caused, but threatening to civilization worldwide.

One thing Prof Lovell apparently does not understand is the difference between the CO2 you exhale, "you global climate criminal," you, and the CO2 spewed into the atmosphere in burning fuels taken from underground. This tells me that he may have skipped the class on the carbon cycle.

But I'm no scientist, so I'll look forward to another prominent and long Talk of the Town next week from another scientist, one who joins the vast majority of her peers worldwide in calling for immediate, decisive action to limit CO2 output and the extent of the impending climate disaster.

Thanks for doing this, Tim, your readers could really use some solid information about this issue.

Editorial: "We need more culture, less pop"

The unnamed Courier editor riffs incoherently on this week's cannibalistic media feeding frenzy on Don Imus, wrenching things around to find a way to work in a whack at his favorite inflatable punching clown.

• When she was first lady, Hillary Clinton allegedly called a campaign contributor a "Jew bastard."

I gather this little meme has been circulating among the Bill-Clinton-is-Satan crowd for a while, but I hadn't heard it before, so I checked it out. I was not really surprised that the private he-said-she-said moment in question allegedly happened in 1974, rather before she was Mrs Clinton, let alone a resident of 1600 Penn Ave, her accuser was a campaign staffer rather than a contributor, he was disbarred for malpractice and mentally unstable, and she released a written apology from him.

You gotta wonder whether this meets the Courier editor's normal standard for reporting facts.

Did I mention that the cartoon running next to this editorial (link is busted) is another whack at Hillary? Anyone else think someone's got an obsession going here?

In the comments, early-riser Jane goes after similar distortion of Rosie O'Donnell, who's also been a frequent Courier target recently. Think we'll see a reply?

A1: "Initiative on sales tax could make ballot"

Okay, so we have a new group of half a dozen people getting started on an initiative to make the temporary 1-percent City sales tax permanent. But there's an important piece missing.

Quoting from the initiative, we see, “Starting Jan. 1, 2016, funds from the 1-percent Transaction Privilege Tax shall be used exclusively for ‘street maintenance.’”

Presumably this use of 'exclusively' references the current uses of the tax revenues for both streets and the acquisition of open space, and would eliminate the latter. Open space has been an issue of major contention since the campaign to approve it in the first place, and it's no surprise that some people might want to knock it out.

But Cindy's story only mentions the open-space angle in the background graph. It seems clear that this could easily be the primary motivator for the initiative backers, especially considering that they hope to pass it eight years before any possibility of implementation. That demands exploring.

If it's on A1 it's a news story, and shouldn't be treated as a simple inside-page press-release dump. Did Cindy do this, or the editors?

A1: "City takes stance on downtown violations"

The most interesting angle in this story for me is the very first clause. Yes, it's good that City bureacrats are doing a little something to catch up with this problem, but where were they when it was happening? It required multiple complaints, including LTEs mentioned previously here, to get any movement.

Then there's the bit at the end, wherein City Kitchen Sink Czar Mic Fenech lusts to spend another 80 grand of our money on a machine, plus the man-hours to operate and maintain it, to do what the property owners are already legally required to do on their own. I'll look forward to more on this, Cindy.

A1: "Mayes shares ACC's ideas for water conservation"

I'm glad Doug Cook was there for the presentation by Commissioner Mayes, and his story on it has a some good nuts-and-bolts information, particularly about the purview of the the Corp Commission around water companies, that voters don't often get much chance to learn about.

The editors could have hit this one a little harder and made it easier to read, but I won't nitpick all that. I'm more concerned about the headline. Yes, ideas for conservation are in the story, but only in the last three graphs. That's not how it's done, guys. An average reader coming to the story looking for what you're promising will be disappointed and leave off reading by the third graph. Spend another fifteen seconds and headline the story you have rather than the one you vaguely remember from skimming it.

Letters: Yellow lights again

Never underestimate how exercised Americans can get when it comes to traffic.

I'm very impressed with the initiative that PV residents are taking over the yellow-light and radar camera issue there. Beyond the triggering irritation, an interesting story by itself, the people's response to it has become a fascinating news story on which the Courier is so far unaccountably mute. Go PV!

Editorial: "Rule-breaking ATVs make forest dangerous"

Here's another from the teenaged intern the Courier is apparently allowing to write editorials. Guys, it's great that you're helping the kid learn, but it's not really a good idea to allow him to send it to layout unedited.

There's more to writing an editorial than rewriting a story from yesterday and adding "this is icky."

Talk of the Town: "Local citizens stepped up to help others"

Courier editors, it's clue time again: This is not an opinion piece. It's most of a news story written by the people involved, doing your job for you.

Today's mind-teaser: What sort of psychology does it take to lead someone, say a Courier editor, to see a simple story of people helping people as a political position?

A1: "PV: Proposed rule would crack down on graffiti"

Ken Hedler's council report is pretty good considering the eye-glazing meeting he had to sit through to get it.

Kids used to use chalk for graffiti, now they use spray paint and expensive markers. Hint: that's because their parents give them money.

Lambro: "Hillary's numbers are slipping already"

Another insightful analysis from America's most unsubtle Republican Party tool, the political 'editor' for the Washington Times (aka The Moonie Times).

I detest this writer, but in the interest of public service I held my nose and read the original column, "Her aura of invincibility is fading fast." I found that, while it's still pretty obviously designed to promote Republican talking points, the Courier's 274-word edit of the 816-word column manages to make Lambro look even worse than he is.

The Courier's headline points to the agenda that will take no one here by surprise: The Courier hates the Senator from New York, and takes every opportunity to slide another hatpin into its Hillary doll. Look at the two versions, see for yourself.

A2: "PV police ID possible suspect in home invasion"

I've got no problem with the story itself, it's simple police-blotter stuff. Today's editing lesson involves what happens when you forget the meaning of a word you use frequently.

There's a lot of very lumpy gravy in the copy, but I'll focus on the worst. "Possible suspect" here is just wrong. What you, the Courier reporter or editor, mean to say is either just 'suspect' or 'possible perpetrator.' Treating 'suspect' as interchangeable with 'perpetrator' leads to all sorts of nonsense, not least in how you relate to people who have been accused of crime.

Further reading: Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style," chapter 13.

Blog: "The professional "Poor Kids" can play"

John Kamin follows through on his promise to feature more local music on the local-music blog. Here's a cookie.