Talk of the Town: "Peace protestors not always so peaceful"

Jim Edmunds gets a fat chunk of the op-ed page to whine about what nasty people these peaceniks really are.

Near as I can figure, he's referring to Randal's column here as the trigger for his irritation, but it has little to do with the events he recounts.

I wouldn't be surprised if his description of his experience is accurate as far as it goes. Many, many people saw what was coming with Bush's adventure in Iraq, and were (and remain) very angry about it. Most people haven't much experience in expressing themselves with force, and have to be given some benefit of the doubt if they don't handle it with perfect aplomb. That they refused to allow a PR flak to tell them how to express themselves about this impending disaster is no surprise. You're a flak, you get yelled at, that's your job, Jim.

And let's not neglect that the peaceniks were absolutely on the money about what was happening and how it would turn out.

The tell comes in Edmunds' final graph, pulling out the old canard that if you're anti-war, you're anti-veteran. This is desperate rhetoric that neatly kneecaps his credibility. The reader will be forgiven for inferring that Edmunds still speaks for Rick Renzi, as I have little doubt that our Congresscritter would make much the same speech.

Editorial: "Recent crimes point to need for change"

Oooh, we knew this was coming, didn't we?

Anecdotes in the Courier, facts here.

Crime is less uncommon among poor people. The poor people in the quad cities are disproportionatley Hispanic. The problem is not immigration, it's class and the underground economy, just like everywhere else. Don't fall for the brown-peril scare.

Letters: Water

If you've ever thought you'd like to stop hearing about water, just forget it. We'll always be dealing with this issue in one form or another.

First we have Richard Clemmer rightly dunning the Queen Bee for threatening to obstruct the process of applying AMA rules county-wide. Maybe the public is catching up.

Readers may infer from the letter that Rep Mason did not welcome the addition of the unanimity provision. In fact she strongly supports it, seeing it as necessary because invoking these rules is an irrevocable decision and supervisors are single representatives of different constituencies, so everyone should be on board. It's true that one recalcitrant Supe can hold up the process. I tend to think that's an inherent risk of democracy.

Next we have Steve Norwood forced to clean up after a little squirty mess Rick Renzi left behind. Who gets the award for this one? Renzi, for making the mess, or the Courier, for neglecting to follow up? Isn't it a little odd that Norwood has to get this out among the LTEs rather than in the original story?

A1: "PUSD board votes down district-wide dress code"

A good news story has the quality of transparency. You can see through the facts to the deeper levels. Shari Lopatin provides us some of this quality today, allowing the PUSD Board's disorganization and emotionalism to shine through alongside the absurdity of the whole issue.

Les Stukenberg's photo adds a touch that's almost arch, bringing home, if you're paying attention, that there's been a lot of smoke and fury over this, but few regular folks actually give a rat's butt about it.

A1: "Council opts for interim arsenic treatment"

This feels like a nice, clean recounting of the facts. Cindy Barks gets a cookie.

Council's in a tough spot here, forced to work a day late and a dollar short, way beyond their collective expertise. Maybe they're starting to realize that willy-nilly expansionism, rather than moving Prescott out onto the highway of modernism, is more like speeding down the Spars. White-knuckle time.

A1: "Hispanic man in stable condition after shooting"

Mirsada Buric's police-blotter story today is good in that it covers a bit more ground than the bare police-report recitiations we often see from the Courier.

There's one big blue circle on my copy, however, around this:

The residents' inability to communicate with officers in English, hampered the investigation, ....

This is not in quotes, so it's presented as fact, and it speaks a strong bias. The neutral, factual version would be, "The language barrier hampered the investigation, ...," and given who is being served and who is serving, it might be useful to consider, "The officers' inability to communicate with the residents in Spanish hampered the investigation, ...." Never blame the victim.

That said, kudo to Mirsada for slipping this in at the end:

"There is some activity from time to time, but most of the time they don't cause that much trouble," she said.

Cartoon: Another whack at Pelosi

Anybody reading this blog (including you, Courier editors) already knows that the Pelosi-in-Syria story is a totally fake controversy, so we needn't bother about that. It just occurs to me that you might like to see a few of the cartoons the Courier could have run instead.

Every editorial choice injects a point of view. It's inevitable. And as you rack up those choices, both conscious and unconscious, a detailed portrait of bias emerges.

Wiederaenders: "New set of demons plague local veteran"

A veteran has a son in Germany who might go to Iraq. He's crying into his hankie and condemning the Preznit and the Speaker for not agreeing about how to handle the awful mess we're in there. In parting he says, "The fighting has to stop."

I have a nephew in Texas who's about to leave for his second tour in Iraq. I'm not crying into my hankie, I'm standing up with the 75% of Americans who agree that the Preznit must back down and get our troops out of harm's way. The fighting has to stop.

This, I think, represents a remarkable consensus. It's a pity Tim would apparently rather interpret it as conflict. Or is that what he really means? Does he really mean to say anything at all? Hard to say.

There's a cookie available for pointing out the typo in the headline.

Editorial: "Uninvited guests don't merit perks"

Indulge me in a brief parable.

You come home from a hard day at work to discover a stranger in your home filling your refrigerator with food and repairing your cable connection.

When you ask what he's doing in your home, he says his boss sent him based on orders you made because his services are cheaper, and he's just trying to make a living.

Pretty cheeky of you to complain about him, isn't it?

Let me point out just a couple of the many ways this piece is designed to make you dumber.

The 'thousands' (accounts vary from 5,000 to 75,000, vs 500,000 last year) who turned out for the weekend event in LA were not there "to protest President George W. Bush's immigration reform proposal," they were protesting the current situation and demanding legal status for millions of productive, law-abiding members of our community.

The Preznit is so far backing legislation sponsored in part by AZ Congresscritter Jeff Flake. That this compromise is seen as insufficient for people forced to live without rights is no surprise, but the people who are protesting this approach with even greater vigor include Russell Pierce (R-Bizarro World) and his anti-immigrant acolytes -- the Courier editor apparently among them.

And while there were illegals among the crowd, no one did a survey on legal status. Which is more likely: that the rally consisted of all, a majority, or even a significant number of illegals, or that most of the people there were legal immigrants and immigrant-rights advocates standing up in solidarity to draw attention to the second-class status of their neighbors and friends?

The Courier editor either does not understand the complexity of the issue or is purposely working to whip up yet more pointless political frenzy. Take your choice.

A1: "PUSD teacher admits to viewing porn on school computer"

I hope Mirsada's recounting of the court judgment closes the door on this awful story, and I hope we can keep in mind the rest of our local teachers, who are doing a difficult job for low pay and little thanks. This doesn't make things any easier for them.

A1: "Students, staff speak out on proposed dress code"

Shari Lopatin delivers the goods in a range of quotes illustrating the various feelings in school about the dress-code issue. With the caveat that there's no telling from this whether there's a consensus opinion, and that would be good to know, this seems like a pretty good job.

We learn a couple surprising things here: that wearing beachwear or your hat on backwards is a 'privilege' (now that's aiming high, eh?), and that teachers are apparently as resistant to apparel rules for them as the kids are. My bet is a new dress code ain't gonna happen -- nobody actually affected seems to get the point.

A1: "Police seek 4 suspects in home invasion"

Shorter Mirsada Buric: We don't know anything more about these stories than we did yesterday, but they were sure sensational, huh?

So why front-page a retread of the weekend police blotter? I'm drawn to the concatenation here of two quite separate stories without so much as a subhead between them. As an editor I might like to do this if I saw connecting threads. So what are the common elements? They both happened in PV, they both involved the PVPD, they were both sensational, and they both involved Hispanic perps. Hmm.

Lurkers: Just for you

From various comments I've received in the analog world I know there are a lot more people reading this blog than me, Lefty and MJ. I'm planning to get around to figuring out how to add a hit counter, but till then, whether you like us or not, I'd appreciate a comment just to let us know you're here. Cheers!

O'Reilly: "Rosie is sinking her ship with vitriol"

A little light entertainment for your morning coffee. Identifying O'Donnell as a spokesperson for 'the left' is as goofy as putting O'Reilly up as the voice of 'the right,' rather than the radical nutbar entertainment industry, in which both are leading lights.

From 'The Rosie Factor,' as originally headlined (see it before it sinks), the Courier left out this bit referring to Disney, which I find particularly amusing:

If it fires O'Donnell, the left will attack the company on free speech grounds.

Wanna bet, Bill?

For the record, in removing 220 words from this 560-word column, the Courier editor carefully preserved Bill's points, editing graph-by-graph, and I think only inadvertently turning his lead into a fat joke. Compare that to the Goodman slashing yesterday.

Herron: "County Web site makes tax research easy"

I generally like Al's approach to controversy, where he says, "OK, let's check out whether this is true" and patiently dismantles wackiness. That's what he's after here, and I strongly support the idea of making sure you understand the real effect of your new assessment before you start jumping up and down and calling for bodily harm to the assessor.

But Al, I have to say I wish you'd go after this with a little more umph and point of view. I get the feeling I'm reading Heloise.

Editorial: "Editorial: Liquor Board must look at location, too"

Maybe the Courier editor is being charitable to Council, but this reads like he's chiding the hapless bureaucrat for not having the right responsibilities. That might add a new level of bumbling to make the story funnier, but leading off with suicide in the standard gratuitous pop-culture reference kinda breaks the mood, and pretty well obscures the editor's point.

Letters: Whiskey Row Alley

After a two-night gig over the weekend I almost started my own rant about this. The alley is rapidly degenerating back to its pre-improvement state. What bugs me most is the nightly scatter of burning butts from the new back porch at Matt's. What a pigsty! The new state law cranking up May 1 will do nothing to change this, I expect.

Is it worth a little attention from our local paper to help poke the Row merchants into cleaning up their act?

Cartoon: Donkeys watch TV

Maybe I'm thick, I just don't get it. Somebody 'splain it to me.

Update, noonish: Here's your link, Lefty.

Slow news day

No news is good news, as they say. If there's really so little going on in town, we should be thankful. On the other hand, maybe the entire news staff had the day off yesterday.

Use this to comment on the 'stories' I'm skipping over today, mostly barenaked press releases.

Editorial: "Easter, a special day around the world"

Oh, do me a favor. The editorial page is not the place for your personal choices in jumpin' juju, those belong over on the Religion page -- or, the way you've written it, maybe Sports. Ack.


Update, 6pm: Think I'm being harsh? Try it from this angle.

The world's 2.1 million Turtlists are rejoicing today as they mark the day they believe a giant turtle rose from the sea, creating the world we live on today.

The other religions of the world and the 16 percent of the world's people who are nonreligious see it as just a story, but what a great story it is. The Great Turtle so loved the world that he took it upon his own back, showing the world the path to enlightenment.

If it is just a story, it's the best ever told, because more than two millennia later, Turtlism is the No. 1 religion in Turtlestan. More than .3 percent of the world's people claim it.

Islam ranks second with .21 percent of Turtlestan's population with 1.3 million. Hinduism is third with .14 percent of the population and 900,000 adherents. Judaism claims .022 percent with 14,000 adherents.

Whatever one's religion, let everyone enjoy his or her major observances. Today is the holiest day for Turtlists, and a great day it is.