On our poor benighted courthouse square

Every year our plaza is forced to put on cheapo bling and gaudy makeup to work the street, attracting tasteless tourists for her pimp, the Chamber of Commerce. We call this "economic development," and the businesses downtown depend on it like an annual balloon of strychnine-laced street heroin, buying completely into the most-wonderful-time-of-the-year junkie's delusion. The rest of us stay away, repulsed by the open displays of naked avarice and the simultaneous degradation of our city and the majority religion.

Well, fine. Willing seller, willing buyer, more or less victimless crime, all that. What I don't get is why this supposedly high-profit endeavor can't pay for the decorations itself. Every year we taxpayers buy the makeup, spikes and colorful thong for the square in return for a small cut of the proceeds in sales tax. Apparently we can't even hire local people to string the trees, instead that money fattens the economy in Mesa.

This is a business promotion, and the businesses that profit from it should pay for it. It does nothing for business elsewhere in town, and I hear often that it's negative for them. Where is Mr Lamerson now, thumping his Constitution on the table, demanding that we reserve our scarce public funds for essential services? Oh yeah, he was the one making the stink a few years ago over a City Hall sign that wasn't Xtian enough for him, while running one of those junkie downtown businesses.

The moneychangers have taken over the temple, folks. Why must we pay for their advertising?

Editorial: Selling buildings is a terrible idea

I agree with the unnamed Courier editor today, this part of the budget plan is dead stupid for a number of reasons. But he clearly doesn't understand them.

As I pointed out in July, where the budget seems to authorize selling the buildings, what the state would really be doing is pawning them. It would retain control of the properties in what would amount to secured loans with open repayment. (Notice that Treasurer Martin called it a "mortgage." That's more accurate, but still a bit misleading.) Eventually we would buy them back, paying substantial interest, and the "buyers" (lenders) would make a bundle on essentially no risk. I haven't been able to determine what would happen if a building is damaged in the meantime, say by fire. Presumably the specific contract would take care that, but I'll bet a buck the taxpayers wind up holding that bag as well.

So any deal like this would result long-term in a large net loss of state funds into the pockets of the bankers. Anyone with a lick of street smarts knows that once you're at the pawn counter, you're on the ragged edge of impoverishment, and those three balls mean it's two-to-one you'll never get your stuff back at all.

So what sort of dummy would write such a no-win provision into law? This came to the legislature from extreme-right elements in the bureaucracy, supported in the legislature by bottom-feeders who are working every angle they can to kill off government. They're also insisting on major business tax cuts, so it has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility.

Presumably the editor has more and better information resources than I do, and this isn't hard to figure out. Reading past someone else's headlines would be very helpful in putting together an editorial position that properly informs the voters.

Wiederaenders: Will Prescott voters follow habit?

Tim tries to place the primary results in retrospective context, and his best analysis is that the people who get the most votes tend to get the most votes, except when they don't. Now there's an insight.

Waste of space.

Editorial: People realizing water is scarce

Here's another one of those Courier editorials in which the unnamed Courier editor does a copy and paste of a front-page story, gives it a light massage and a little spin, and calls it good. He seems confident in the knowledge that no one reads his stuff anyway, so why bother?

It's another opportunity lost on an important issue. The key pieces missing in yesterday's story were the per-capita numbers on those top-end residential users and whether industrial users were included. Commenters pointed out these factors, and I know the editor reads them religiously. He seems to want to put a positive spin on this, yet he accepts the numbers at face value.

Does he call for investigation of excessive use? No. Does he think we should look into further disincentives for excessive use? Apparently not. Does he care? It sure doesn't look like it.

So why write this piece? I'm damned if I can say. It seems he didn't think much about it. Just filler.

Let's grow a pair on this

Editorial: 'No' and 'lie'? Try 'get back to work'

The unnamed Courier editor comes out in favor of clean energy, investment in mass transportation, respectful dialogue and the President's plan in general. Among his usual cheering squad, heads will explode.

Editorial: News search turns up horrifying results

Do you notice that the unnamed Courier editor, apparently newly aware of his website's search function, is astonished to learn that he's been frequently budgeting sex-crime stories? Is this a multiple-personality problem, or what? In any case it's pretty weak beer.

High water users consume disproportionate share of local supply

I think the headline here should be "A Few Hogs Suck Up 35% of Our Water." I've been talking to people for years about getting a handle on conservation and the really egregious overuse we see so often, but this just tears it: we clearly need some seriously punitive rates at the upper end.

The comparisons to the ridiculous waste of Scottsdale and Vegas are an obvious editorial diversion so high up in the story. What people do elsewhere is not pertinent to what we do here -- except what they're wasting in Scottsdale in large part comes from here.

The graphs say we're doing better, and that's all good, but look at the scales on those graphs -- on a zero-based scale, those changes would be pathetically shallow.

Cindy could have been more detailed in the section on pricing, but what's there shows just how weak our "incentive" system really is.

Retreading the TPI

Doug Cook describes the issue and reiterates the arguments on the "Taxpayer Protection Initiative" (gad, I hate that title). This may be boring stuff for those who are paying attention, but we have to keep in mind that most voters aren't, so an occasional rehash is a good thing.

Vision 2050 identifies challenges facing Prescott

Paula barely skims the surface of what's in the 2050 report, and from her description Council seems to have told the group to basically take a hike. It'd be nice if the Courier were to better inform the voters on what's really in the report, I'm sure it would provoke some interesting public discussion. You can read the executive summary here.

Eyes rolling

The AZ Republican confirms what I've been hearing about creepy old Fife Symington "considering" another stab at governor, "regardless of Brewer's plans," saying, "I would be very surprised if the Republican base sides with her in a vigorous Republican primary." Leaving aside his reelectability, which is low imho, I think he's getting a good reading of the political tea leaves. Ken Bennett has all but declared a challenge as well, and I think the odds are better than even that after the ugly spring session that's coming Brewer will cede the field.

The events of Brewer's tenure so far and a primary fight on the Rep side create a lot of room for a solid Dem candidate. Many are looking at AG Terry Goddard, who's sitting now where Janet Napolitano was before she became the most popular gov in living memory. But Symington beat him once before, and I'm hoping for a candidate with a little more horsepower.

There's a political aeon between now and the real campaign season, but that's what it'll take for any of these people to get in position for a credible campaign.

Red mud

No time for blogging, I'm in Sedona helping friends clean up after the flood. Here's a shot by Lesley from yesterday at Tlaquepaque.

Update, Sunday: Did anyone else notice that the Courier hasn't carried a word about this national story in our backyard, involving our friends and neighbors?

The President speaks

The Courier carries the full text of yesterday's speech on health care, hard on the heels of the speech to school kids on Tuesday. Tim Wiederaenders noted on his pseudoblog that it took reader "requests" to get him to publish the latter, so maybe this is all more reaction than journalistic sense, but I'm feeling generous today. Have a cookie, Tim.

Editorial: Border control remains the key

The unnamed Courier editor returns to one of his favorite themes: that amazing high-tech border wall that will keep the scary brown people out of Arizona. "Once we have that minimal control," he intones, then we can start dealing with the problem of illegal immigration.

Too bad the sort of "minimal control" he has in mind is so far beyond practical reality as to make it literally impossible.

With moon-shot priority he wants us to build a 500-mile physical barrier and staff it with enough guards to stop thousands of desperate people from penetrating it. Remember the 87-mile Berlin Wall. Now imagine six of them in a row, across rugged desert terrain. And that's just for Arizona.

No, he doesn't really mean it. Since it can't be accomplished by anything short of a police state, the whole "control of the border" meme is nothing more than a political protest sign that the right knows it can use over and over again to rile up Americans who are scared of brown people.

What the editor and his pals just don't seem to get is the inescapable logic that if 12 or 20 million people are living in this country illegally, there must be room for them in the labor force. Sure, a lot of legal Americans are out of work now. But we're also hearing that a lot of immigrants are going home. This is not a coincidence.

Almost everyone coming over the border would do it legally if they could. Our "illegal" problem is not one of enforcement, but rather an artificial scarcity of legal status imposed by our government in the form of quotas and delaying procedures, much of it rooted in racism.

Immigrants, by and large, are not looking for citizenship. They're looking for work. Forget the "path to citizenship" distraction, focus on the path to payroll taxes, and we'll clear up 90% of this issue in a jiffy.

How not to edit

So I'm reading along on today's "Special to the Courier" (read: press release) piece on the PV World Arts Festival, that annual "mecca of excitement" (koff), and out of nowhere I encounter,

"Musical entertainment will begin at 11 a.m., a half-hour after Persephone arrives at the main stage ...."

There was no previous reference to Persephone, so I had this vision of the hapless Greek queen of the underworld handing out plaques, and maybe a pomegranate or two.

A check of other lazy outlets for press releases found the full story over on Read It News, identifying Persephone ("and her special brand of family fun") as the event emcee, which isn't much, but it's better than the hack job the Courier did.

If a piece is too long for the space, by all means trim it. But do us all a favor and at least skim what you have left to see whether it still makes any sense.

Today's Chuckle

In a letter, Don Grise excoriates the Courier for not covering his event and accuses the paper of chronic "journalistic bias to the left." Humor is always based in a grain of truth -- almost everyone in the country is to the left of this guy, even the Courier editors.

Wednesday Whirl

Here's one of this summer's best bits of crop art so far, shot by Steve Alexander.

Editorial: Those found guilty of DUI should pay rent

Here's another example of big-picture thinking in the Courier editorial suite, where a 3x5" snapshot is considered big.

In a one-day holiday sweep, backed by critical underfunding and lack of manpower, our lawnforcement agencies nabbed almost a thousand people on our roads threatening our lives. Given the majority that they had to have missed, and how many more they let get by every day, this ought to be hair-raising. All the unnamed Courier editor can think of in response is more fines for the perps.

These figures speak of a massive unaddressed social problem, combining our established culture of lawlessness with our most commonly abused addictive drug.

Treating alcoholism with punitive fines is a lot like trying to treat diabetes with whippings. It's stupid. Addicts don't have a choice about whether to drink, and it necessarily clouds their judgment about what they're doing. Ask Mayor Simmons. The possible penalties just don't enter the picture when it matters.

The only thing additional fines can accomplish is a little bit of state revenue enhancement, more impoverishment (and need for public services, eating that revenue) for the perps, and a lot of public revenge. This may be enough for the editor, but it's not enough for me. Has he noticed how our drug and alcohol treatment programs have lost funding and staff? Has he noticed that there are maybe two DPS officers working the highways of Yavapai County at any given time? Has he thought about how those factors might contribute to this danger? I sure don't see it in this piece.

Amster: Cable show lets all voices be heard

Randall uses today's column to promote a show on Access13, which all sounds very nice. The paper should have noted that he is a board director of the nonprofit that operates 13 and 15, and has been for years.

And when did he get the demotion from regular columnist to "Guest Column"?

The readers are laughing

Editor Ben Hansen has posted one of his occasional columns on his pseudoblog page, in which he describes himself as "a pit bull about spelling, grammar and usage" whose "staff often accuses me of being too manic about grammar and usage." Pity he can't even seem to proof his own column successfully. Perhaps that explains why the paper is daily so riddled with errors.

It's always good to start a speech with a joke, it gets the audience in the mood. He probably learned that at Toastmasters.

What he really wants to tell us is that the commenters on the paper are a bunch of ungrammatical, spelling-challenged boobs, and that he's a hero for getting it right on their behalf. He describes how he edits "an average of 200 online comments every day," "And, thanks to some recent changes in media law governing the web, we have the option of editing for spelling and grammar."

I don't know what Ben could be reading in law that allows him to imagine such extraordinary license, but just for the record, no. Just as it is unethical to alter a quote in print, it is unethical to edit a letter or comment posted by anyone who did not specifically submit it for editing. If it has a person's name on it, the reader should be able to trust that it's what the person wrote.

Rather than attending to his real responsibilities for coverage and quality of the paper, Ben is frittering away his time managing reader comments, a job that should go no higher than an editorial intern. For Ben this is the fun work, and it's really about power. In it he is exercising his long-held claim that he can change anything that comes to the paper in any way that suits him, and he gets to exert control over his critics in the bargain. In the past this has gone as far as altering the substance of columns by nationally syndicated writers to say the opposite of what the writer intended. That sort of practice and attitude, centered on controlling the message for political and personal reasons, is one of the primary reasons for this blog and at the heart of what's most wrong with our local daily.

The ordinary reader sees the spelling and grammatical errors that plague every page, left there by this "pit bull about spelling, grammar and usage." The subtler and more serious problem is control of the message and spin on the events that he stentoriously claims as his right, and it's for this that Sam Steiger long ago dubbed our paper The Daily Disappointment.

Update, 2:30pm: The column is no longer available under his blog title. How odd. The link above still works.

Update, Thursday 3:30pm: The piece is reposted in the proper place. I've relinked it above. I wonder whether my prodding had anything to do with it.