What with some catch-up to do on major projects and recording for a new jazz album, I'm gonna be pretty busy this week. I'm also learning to find my way around the new Courier Website, and I won't say much about that until I get used to it. If something really egregious comes up, you'll hear about it.
Now that Rep. William Jefferson (D-Cash and Carry) has been indicted and Speaker Pelosi has indicated she's not down for shielding him from Justice (as Hastert did), we can expect that he's in for a slow media roasting and a relatively quick exit from his seat. We can also anticipate that the Courier editor will applaud the professional way it's being handled by the Dem leaders, and admit he underestimated them on June 1. I'm hoping to see some credibility-building on this one.
I was sort of thinking that the unnamed Courier editor was doing all right today. He properly slags the Wal-Mart shills for their petty BS, expanding on the A1 story with some actual analysis. Then we get to the end, where he shoots himself in the foot with yet another gratuitous cowboy reference. Ecch.
Al's promised followup on his May 21 column enumerates a few of the many ways that the Preznit's awesome adventure in Iraq is a clusterfuck of monumental proportions, he almost says directly Get Out Now, and we should be grateful to see the majority view of the American people showing up on our local opinion page for once. Maybe that's why Al is doing it -- he knows that the editors are unlikely to print anyone who really knows what's going on over there, and he's got the opportunity, which in this situation amounts to a public responsibility.
All I'd ask for in addition, Al, is a pointer or two so that a less informed reader can find her way to authoritative, trustworthy sources.
OK, the letters aren't much today, I'm talking about the little "Online Comments" box, where we see three thumbs up for roundabouts.
John K mentioned in comments here that the roundabout story was heavily read, so I imagine it got a lot of comments. I wonder whether anyone did a tally on support vs. disaffection.
Paula Rhoden continues the series on county departments. This one requires more spelling out than usual, since few of us ever come into contact with it or understand what it does. That's fine, as far as it goes. Paula's coverage does not improve on the Courier's previous work in this series as steno to the government, no surprise.
There's a telling quote at the end, however, and I wonder whether Paula fully understood it when she put it in. The fiduciary says, "... In reality, a public fiduciary is the defacto client. We are the person we are protecting," managing with one sentence to be both patronizing to the people she serves and self-aggrandizing while she thinks she's expressing good public service. This is a cultural trait down at the county building that we all ought to pay a bit more attention.
Well, maybe I'm just more interested in "local, local, local" than the editors. For the second day running we have a "ToT" lifted from a radical-right doublethink-tank. Background here and here, have a look for yourself. Just do your homework and check out their numbers at the sources, these people are very slick.
And what might be the point of having a New Yorker comment on immigration policy in a local Arizona paper under a "local" slug? Consider the implications....
Today we get the gratuitous reference to moldy pop culture in the headline, where it is thankfully brief. Other than that there's nothing new here on Friday's A1 dictation job, except perhaps a little more effort to cover up the holes in the methodology. Should readers take that to derive from simple ignorance of statistical science, or semi-conscious effort to prove out the Courier editor's bias?
I notice that the plane still seems to be flying OK.
Like most people outside of Congress, I agree that our rules for making legislation are way too permissive about unrelated amendments,and the culture that's developed is horrible. But it's not OK to only bitch about it when your favored team is out of majority.
Three views from a parent, a student and one of the founders of Kestrel High. Nobody's happy with the administration.
We knew this was happening, but I hadn't seen the alarming turnover rates before. It's really a strong indictment of how our schools are being run, and the blame can probably be widely distributed among the legislature, the various boards and education authorities, and school administrators. This also puts a slightly different spin on how less desirable teachers are getting into our classrooms.
Even though teachers cite pay as an important factor, Shari Lopatin didn't give us any numbers on that. It's been covered before to an extent, but it should have been here. According to the American Federation of Teachers, Arizona ranks 31st among the states in teacher pay, averaging just under $40K. That's not terrible, a little below the midline, until you compare with California at #1 and approaching $56K on average, with a comparable cost of living.
I was pleasantly surprised to see number agreement in the headline where it's been reliably out of sync before. Progress?
The various bits of information here add fun to a continuing story, but they're not really hanging together into anything informative.
The headline bit is that Townsend will sue Hambrick over $2.9 million that she says he owes and he says he doesn't, related to a Safford real-estate deal. But we learn nothing about why the sum is in dispute. Are both parties being coy about that, or is Joanna Dodder not asking the question? I expect the former, but as a reader I'd like to know that a question remained unanswered. Without that, the story does more backhand damage to both parties, and one of them is probably less deserving of that.
In familiar style, the unnamed Courier editor squanders more than half the column on a simple-minded parable to illustrate that Ryan Erickson is admirable for trying to help fellow BMHS students with pocket-change grants, saying nothing that wasn't in the news-side puff piece. Must've been a slow day.
Boring, but essentially harmless.
You probably saw this coming. Not content to bury the opposition at the polls, the well financed Wal-Mart shills have marshaled their lawyers to escalate the pissing contest. Perhaps the court will see it for what it is.
I think the editors could have hit this copy a little harder, though. As with previous stories on this legal battle, it's messy and confusing.
Today we get a couple new angles on roundabouts, one from local celeb and blues fan Alan Dean Foster.
What was it Tim was saying about the Courier's editorial mantra? "Local, local, local," wasn't it? And "Talk of the Town" certainly implies a local source, right?
So I'm fascinated to find the "Talk of the Town" slug over a piece lifted directly from the Cato Institute's house organ, The American Spectator ("Free at Last," April 30), scribbled "special to the Courier" by well known media whore Doug Bandow. Having been forced out of Cato, a couple of years ago Bandow washed up on a desert island called Citizen Outreach to continue his radical libertarian ranting, subsequently expanding to the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
I admit to a brief flirtation with libertarian thinking back in the '70s, but I grew out of it. Since the Reagan era this market has been cornered by rich people taking advantage of weak, angry minds to push the idea that the only good government is a dead government, and they're pursuing that goal by any means necessary to make themselves richer. But scan their stuff yourself at the links, you don't need me to tell you how sophomoric and dangerous it is.
That the Courier editors are shoveling this insidious crap at us under their 'local' slug ropes me off, though. Go ahead, tell me this is an accident. Now tell me another one.
Three important local stories that the Courier ignored in May:
May 2: Renzi calls for investigation of Justice Department "electioneering"
May 3: Dems back Renzi on DOJ probe
May 12: Mary Kim Titla declares candidacy for AZ-1
Add yours in comments.
I'm expect that the Courier has been getting the press releases from CAZREN and others about this event, and hope that it'll send someone to cover it. There'll be a lot of hopeful, positive stuff and opportunities for cool photos. Will the editors pass it up?
The subhead on Doug Cook's story of continuing private-sector incompetence with public monopoly is a little misleading. "Lack of water leads to warning" should instead read "Cascading fuckups piss off customers."
Mirsada Buric's lead:
Obtaining a driver's license is perhaps the first meaningful sign of independence for many teenagers. However, motor vehicle crashes continue to account for the greatest number of preventable deaths of children in Arizona.The real lead:
Motor vehicle crashes continue to account for most preventable deaths of children in Arizona, but Arizona is finally doing something about it.
