The unnamed Courier editor (guess who) intones the gun rules with religious fervor -- I'm reminded of Heston and the Ten Commandments -- to wag a finger at the VA security guard. He rails against the world he himself creates.
Update, 2pm: He's talking about this, Lefty, from Wednesday.
Update, 6:25am Sunday: Link fixed, I hope. That was odd.
Mike from Pearl's Place details a series of whiny excuses for Whiskey Row businesses turning the alley into a stinking mess. Fine, Mike. Did you at least cc this to the City Manager?
There was a time not long ago when the businesses would have got together on this shared problem and made a solution happen rather than wait for someone else to fix it for them. At the very least they would not be allowing their neighbors and employees to make it worse.
Sorry, Marie, the only 'crying out for help' that Cho was doing involved more ammo. We can probably have fewer of them, but we'll never completely eliminate the dangerous psychopaths among us. And as long as we tolerate so many who think like Mr Brunstein here, eagerly awaiting the chance to personally save the world using his hip-mounted manhood, we're manufacturing them faster than we can medicate them.
Update, 12:50pm: Link fixed.
It looks like Dewey is going to get its gated enclave on the old farm. After all, "We can't stop growth. Growth is inevitable," chants a longtime Dewey resident, doing the mental yoga of bending his desire for "nice homes" around his rural nostalgia and through his lust for property value. Whatever.
Yo copy editors, y'all clearly need a refresher on verb agreement. I'm seeing way too many of these: "A vocal group of residents still oppose the plan, ...."
It just steams me that the position statements of our Governor on what will surely be the most important issues of our time wind up buried in a wire story on the Business page. What are they thinking?
Set conveniently below the turn on the Renzi story, the first Dem declares for Renzi's seat, focusing on vet's issues. The rush is on!
This AP repackage of stories from the last couple of days includes a little whine from a Coconino pol about the rumor that Renzi will give it up. This is a a bit silly, since Renzi himself was the original source.
AS Russi refers to this from April 11 in calling out City Manager Norwood for doing no more than toe the legal line on water impact assessment. I think Russi may be overstating the City's position somewhat, but we've still had no fact-finding by the Courier about this, going back to the Renzi quote covered on April 3.
Following that we have a fascinating little movie script about breakfast at an unnamed local elementary school, not to be missed.
The unnamed Courier editor correctly points out that the numbers on City wastewater services are mounting up. Lay those numbers next to the proposed costs of diverting the base flow of the Verde River into Prescott toilets and you do indeed start to talk 'real money.' But conveying that information is a news-beat job. Editorials are about taking a position, and in this case the editor missed an opportunity. I get the feeling there's a certain unease about all this in the Courier office, but he's not willing to go further.
There are plenty of people in town who've been expressing unease about this issue for years while the Courier poo-poohed them. Now faced with the hard numbers, the Courier goes wishy-washy. Progress?
Oh, and guys, I know the Senate Minority Leader has been much on your minds with the Renzi thing going on, but our public-works director is still called Craig McConnell. You knew that, of course.
Departing from recent practice, in its obligatory page-one picture/fluff space the Courier today is carrying a human-interest story that angles in on the very real public issue of child abuse. Here's a cookie for Mirsada Buric and the editors.
Earl Burden gets in a massive whine because the City isn't buying into his wacky dream of artificial beaches on our lakes. Oy.
A few years ago, when the water was almost entirely drained from Watson Lake, I hiked with a pal across the center of it. It's an impressive landscape, ringed with weird rocks, dotted with the ghostly white heads of still-rooted trees draped in lost fishing gear, all buried dozens of feet deep in stinking black muck. Why anyone would think it safe to swim in that cesspool is utterly beyond me.
Then there's Willow Lake, nothing more than a marshy floodplain, more fit for grazing pronghorn and cattle than swimming -- well, wading, really. A beach on the edge of this puddle makes about as much sense as socks on a chicken.
Thanks to the Courier for showing us just how out of touch some of our neighbors are.
Leaving aside the dumb headline, in which a thing can somehow 'strive,' Cindy's coverage points out very clearly how short-sighted codes impede useful downtown development, and how pressure from downtown landlords and businesses may be turning that around. Good stuff.
No kidding.
Cindy Barks' story has a lot of good, clear info. But what's going on at the end? Of the 15 pitiful souls who managed to show up for this meeting, only one appears -- the guy who thinks that this should all be handled by private companies. I smell something missing here.
Joanna Dodder mixes it up with the wire reports to provide a good overview of this breaking situation. What was a blog rumor early yesterday has developed into Arizona pols on both sides lining up for a possible special election. Renzi's not dead yet, but his pals have already rented the hearse.
Apparently Grant Woods (the former AZ attorney general, no?), now working as a lawyer for Rep Renzi, revealed a big lump of unreported cash last week to reassure prosecutors that all was on the up-and-up. Will it work?
The Hill:
"Failure to disclose a large payment properly would be a violation of House ethics rules, but more significantly, prosecutors could use it as evidence that Renzi knew the transaction was illegal and tried to hide it."
In a piece that for some reason didn't make it onto the free site, zoology prof Richard Clark drones on wonkishly about the basics of water budgeting, warning that because we're taking out more than is going in, we're gonna run out.
Pretty basic, I think.
Why is it that our various legislators, supervisors and Councilcritters don't get it? Maybe this piece, a difficult and stodgy read unhelped by a cloudy headline, is an example to answer that.
In his first words the unnamed Courier editor gives away his highest priority in this issue: "The view."
That's really what it's about, isn't it? We don't mind having the positive effects of the work these people do, we just don't want to see them. We don't even care whether they're illegal, really, only that they're brown and untidy.
Farther down we get a nice little frame for the Governor's decision: if she signs it, she's courting independent voters, if she vetoes it, she's courting Hispanic voters. Of course there's no chance that she'll decide on the basis of whether she thinks it's good law, right?
By the way, guys, it's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, not "Immigration Customs and Enforcement."
The letters column today kicks off with a guy who thinks taxpayers need more say in how their money is spent. Here's you clue, Dave: it's called a vote.
In the middle we see a familiar comment from MJ, cross-posting to the Courier online comments system. Go MJ, and I encourage all readers here to do the same.
Finally a Vietnam vet confirms just how awful those peaceniks are by repeating the legend of returning troops being taunted and pelted with shit. Like everyone else I've heard these stories, but also that no one has ever reliably confirmed they actually happened. Anyone have a good source?
The nice, straightforward information piece by Joanna Dodder comes with a light dessert. This bill has been part of Rick 'Richie Rich' Renzi's new greener strategy, but he's had to hand off to Raul Grijalva and isn't answering phone calls from the press. Awww.
The public contention seems to be focused on which passenger air service to use. But about halfway down we learn why it's a public issue at all: the 1.7 or 1.8 million bucks in public subsidies to provide the service.
I'd have liked to see a declarative sentence stating exactly where this money is coming from. If I recall correctly it's all federal, but readers would be excused for inferring that since the City Council is voting on it, it might involve some from our local coffer.
It would also have been interesting to read a response by Mr Lamerson, for instance, to the question of why he supports federal subsidies for business travelers.
