A1: "Granite Gate annexation plan opens debate among residents"

Cindy Barks details how once again the City Council is in hot water for failing to discuss changes to a neighborhood with the neighbors before putting them on the public agenda. Architect and former Councilcritter Tom Reilly knows more about this than most, so his surprise at the reaction is likely feigned.

The story's OK, but the headline is misleading, giving the impression that residents disagree with each other, rather than pretty uniformly with the City action.

How it's done in the big leagues

An especially egregious example of editorial chicanery came to light today, involving The New York Post, operated by Rupert Murdoch (Mr Fox), "rewriting" an AP story under byline. This might be instructive for Courier readers.

Editorial: "Prop. 200 represents Arizona voter's will"

At last, a Courier editorial that is all original writing conveying a viewpoint with relative clarity. The viewpoint amounts to pointless flailing at a favorite inflatable punching clown, the Ninth Circuit, which did something the editor didn't expect, which is uphold the law -- we've grown so used to the other thing under the Bush adminstration, after all -- but the unnamed editor gets a cookie anyway.

As a poll worker I've had to deal with the effects of Prop 200 on the retail level, and believe me, guys, it's not just Dems and minorities who are pissed off about this. Those most affected among my customers have been older Republicans.

Letters: Love for Lovell

Tom Gatchell gives Terry Lovell another attaboy for facing down a whole planet of scientists with a brain so amazing it got him a job on KYCA.

Anybody else on this bus remember when those of us who understood the threat of atmospheric heating due to fossil-fuel use were the radical fringe? It's fascinating how people can deftly shift their arguments from 'we're the majority, so we're right' to 'we're smarter than the majority, so we're right.' The rub is that science may not accept a given theory, but once it does it never rejects it again in favor of the previous model, because the previous model has already proved inadequate. The boat's already left, folks.

Goodman: "Conservatives taking women out of the abortion debate"

Today's column, originally headlined "Politicians Playing Doctor," on the Supreme Court ruling is complete and only marginally harmed by the Courier's arbitrary edits and introduced errors. It slays me that the editors are compelled to 'improve' on work already done by some of the nation's best writers and editors.

A1: "Sewer upgrade costs could exceed $500 million"

So now we're getting an idea what the bills will look like for the large-scale growth the City has been encouraging for two decades. If the projections are roughly correct -- and for $300,000, they'd better be -- new sewer projects, no maintenance, no repairs, will cost $5,000 per living soul in Prescott, or $10,000 per person showing up to live here over the next 25 years. That's a fair bit higher than the impact fees on new construction, of course, but you can bet this cost won't be paid by developers.

Good work, Cindy.

A1: "Program teaches girls self-defense techniques"

Brava, PV! Shari Lopatin's story on the collaboration between PVPD and educators to teach girls about self-defense techniques demonstrates good thinking by both. I suspect it also has something to do with promoting women police officers to positions of authority.

Couple things: We learn that it's a new curriculum, and in the last graph one of the girls says it's mandatory, but we're left to infer that all middle-school girls will get this training. I'd also like to know how many girls are involved and whether girls in charter and home-school programs will be included.

A1: "Renzi steps down from more committees"

Joanna Dodder gives us a rundown on the sniff-test situations that Rick Renzi has been slowly simmering in since October, resulting in Friday's FBI raid on the Renzi business in Sonoita and his committee resignations. But she missed a couple of important details: Attorneygate and ROMP.

Update, 1pm: WSJ continues its coverage with new stuff, via Kos.

Editorial: "Tough laws better for impaired drivers"

Drunk driving is dangerous and stupid, and we need strong measures to stop it. On that I agree with the Courier editor here. Where we differ is that I think those measures should also be effective, and they should address the real problem.

Stopping a drunk driver by putting a lock on his car may stop the car from moving, but not the drunk. People share and borrow cars all the time, so while the innocent wife of the drunk is trying to get a balky machine to allow her to go to work, hubby is out in his brother's truck making mayhem unimpeded. The car is not the problem, it's the driver.

I wonder how the Courier would react to legislation proposing that the state put a breathalyzer interlock on a drunk's gun.

If a person is convicted of endangering the public with any deadly weapon because of substance abuse, that person must be prevented from doing it again until the substance-abuse problem is clearly eliminated. If that means physical restraint, so be it. The real problem here is that neither the drunk nor society takes this issue seriously enough. We're doing essentially nothing about the root cause, which is the easy availability of an addictive drug and a culture that encourages its abuse. If the Courier editor had thought to include some stats, it might have helped.

Lambro: "How did Tech gunman escape notice?"

Today's Lambro focuses like a laser on school officials for failing to have Cho illegally committed, or something. I checked the original, titled "Lessons of Virginia Tech," and while it's about 100 words longer than the Courier version, it unaccountably contains no mention of the guys who sold the weapons to this wacko. Maybe it just slipped Don's mind in the flurry of Republican talking points flying out of his ass.

Letters: PC, global-warming lies, and water

In today's letterbox -- oddly enough, all from locals -- Jeff Tate stands up courageously for the right of rich broadcasters to insult innocent women, Ronald Kotfila stands up courageously against worldwide scientific consensus, and Jim Hamm asks whether, given that we're short of water, we ought not to stop dumping so much of it in the garden. Dumb question, Jim.

B1, Jackson: "Surprise: NAU is in Prescott, too"

Jerry's inside column isn't meant to be serious, I know. But breezy folksiness can be taken too far.

I and the rest of the YC Performance Hall crew appreciate Jerry's giving us some credit, but please don't connect us to the performance on Saturday, that was largely an embarrassment. The Ink Spots did okay, but the Four Lads were losing it, Marilyn King gave us nothing but pathetic croaking, and Pete Barbutti's act was totally Naugahyde lounge.

A1: "The Luer rocket lives on"

Online readers saw this earlier in the month, and it's sort of interesting, especially to old-vehicle crazies like me. But I'm old-fashioned in another way as well: I'd much rather see actual news on the front page of my local newspaper. These regular fluffy photo pieces are a waste of valuable space that should be working to inform the reader.

A1: "Amendments help protect victims"

I suspect that the editors tried to punch up Mirsada Buric's relatively dry summary of detail changes to victim's rights legislation. Instead they punched it out -- out of bounds for a news story, anyway. The headline, lead and bits inside take a clear editorial position, soft-pedaling the downside of the changes that Mirsada details farther down.

A1: "Sunday stabbing victims are recovering"

Two guys using knives inappropriately on the same day does not make a connection between them. I beg you, Mirsada, stop knitting unrelated crime stories together, it just creates chaos on the page.

Herron: "Einstein's concept of God seems best"

Egad, Al, you must really enjoy poking that nest of hornets. Didn't you learn your lesson last time?

Seriously, it occurred to me that we'll never see a piece like this on the Religion page, where it really belongs. Pity.

Editorial: "City's hard work pays off with rating"

In which the editor repackages yesterday's story, adds one sentence to the head and one to the tail, and calls it an editorial. Whew, I hope he was able to get some rest afterward.

I'll bet it went over real well among the good 'ol boys down at the Lone Spur.

Letters: Gang sign in the Courier! (gasp!)

Today's lead letter from Beverly Jolliffe expresses shock, fear and anger that the Courier would provide a platform for the vicious, scary horribleness of a bunch of hick gangsta wannabees doing Presbyterian rap. I'm not sure which is funnier.

The second, from Michelle Harrington of the Center for Biological Diversity, attempts to spank the City Council for not stepping up to the adult table on Verde watershed issues. Hate to tell you, Michelle, but Council doesn't care. Her missive does add some accidental context to Cindy Barks' Monday rundown of the Council agenda though. Anybody else notice how much alike the names of the water groups are? Makes it sorta confusing for the casual reader. Coincidence?

Finally we have another standard out-of-town brown-peril rant, made slightly more amusing by Tom Steele's comment, in which he attempts to spell a common three-syllable word.

A1: "Granite Creek cleanup is an Earth Day success"

Doug Cook gives us a tour of the volunteer effort to clean up the creek and the park, but I've got an unanswered question: Why does it take a massive effort by students and nonprofits to get this done? Is it the City's policy to let the creeks go until some civic-minded volunteers show up? From the looks of things there was a huge amount of trash in just this small area -- granted, a flood basin that catches a lot of floating crap when the rains swell the creek, but right next to what should be our premiere recreation park and along the trail that's supposed to be a primary crosstown walking and biking route. Does the City make any effort at all?

A1: "Collapsing colonies"

Joanne Twaddell visited with the folks at The Honeyman and talked about bees, squishing a national agricultural crisis down into a nice human-interest story. It's a pity it didn't include some expert references on just how widespread, severe and sudden this crisis has been to put it in context and make the reader smarter about the big picture here.