Odds and Ends

Really nice column in Saturday's religion section on the topic of forgiveness. Economical with nice movement from personal to general and back again.

The huge package in Sunday's front section about the Monroe City soldier felt stretched to me.

I've long been mystified by the Whig's choice of news from around the nation. The paper is usually sensitive to a fault to the delicate sensibilities of its readers when the story is local. But boy, all bets are off if the story isn't from around here. There's a particular fondness for gruesome animal attacks. If an alligator grabs a golfer in Florida, a bear chomps a child in Montana, or a python eats its owner in New York, Quincyans will be in the know.

Not a news post, but......

Cubs vs. Cardinals, key series, a city full of fans of one or the other team, and Insight shows......a poker game.

I have dawdled about switching to satellite but no longer.

Summer Doldrums

Slow news week in Quincy. If it weren't for an overabundance of sensational murders, the Whig would be almost all features and updates. You know you're in a slow news period when the two top stories in Sunday's City/County are about recreational races.

Stop the Presses

A guy was shit on by a bird while playing in the Park Band. Details at ten.

I like an amusing anecdote as well as the next person, but "Life in These United States" this is not.

On a happier note, someone at the Quincy Society of Fine Arts knows how to calculate percentages of increase or decrease correctly. That's almost a lost art in itself.

Torts, Schmorts

Excellent follow-up story in the Whig Tuesday about the tort fund mess. What this story really needs, though, is a "Fund Accounting for Dummies" story at some point as it develops. Public body accounting is probably the most arcane, difficult subject that regularly makes it into local news. How many "funds" do school districts have? What are the laws regarding what can be done with the money in each one? Why can't districts just shift money from one fund to another when their needs change, like individuals do? (I know, it's the law, but why is it the law? What good is served by strapping school districts with all these requirements?) This is one area where there are definitely no dumb questions, and where the level of the audience's grasp of the situation cannot be underestimated.

Golden opportunity for a nice bunch of explanatory graphics.....seeing all those percentages and dollar figures in paragraph form just made my eyes glaze over. I had to run out, borrow some money from the children's education fund, and put it in the beer fund as an emergency measure.

Tort Fund Ruling

Reported by KHQA on Saturday.....not in the Whig till Monday. A win for the junior varsity.

Balance

Total number of paragraphs in this morning's story about Matt Blunt signing an anti-abortion bill: 20

Number of paragraphs quoting proponents of the legislation: 20.

Number of paragraphs quoting or referring to opponents of the legislation: zero.

Hmmmmmm.

The Vacation Pile

Just back from vacation, sorting through the enormous pile of Herald-Whigs that the neighbor kid saved for me. Looking though them en masse leads me to observe:

Lots of excellent feature stories. I might just identify feature writing as the Whig's strength.

The Saturday photo feature is a great idea. This first one was a bit hard for me to read, but that could be just because I'm not used to the layout yet. After a few times, it may seem easier to navigate. The Whig's photo staff does excellent work in general.

The Saturday phone-in feature is always fun. I like it better when there's one idiotic phone-in, such as the guy from several months ago who called in asking why the Mexican flag was flying over a public building in Hannibal, when it was actually the Missouri state flag.

One of the cities I visited on vacation also did a real estate transfers column in its local newspaper, but listed the purchase price as well....much more interesting as a result.

Many motels provide you with a "complimentary" (they actually add 75 cents to your bil) copy of USA Today, which is a sad, pitiful thing to try to read. Local newspapers should make deals with local motels to provide copies of their newspapers instead. You get a much better feeling for a locality reading its local newspaper, and the quantity of international and national news in a local paper is sufficient for most people. USA Today is not worth 75 cents, or even 50 for that matter.

The poor local Presbyterians. Their denomination isn't intolerant enough for them. I found it interesting that their elders were only mentioned once, late in the story....my recollection of Presbyterian governance is that the Board of Session (elders) are supposed to run the church. They appear from the story not to be especially important or influential, more just a rubber stamp....or perhaps that's just a reflection of the way the story was structured, not the way the church is actually structured.

Beautiful spread on the kayakers. It's nice to see a real honest-to-goodness photo/story package.

The Whig--and every other medium I read--missed a story when they ignored or downplayed Matt Blunt's flying around the state in Charlie Sharpe's airplane. This is a guy who took the state to court--and from there to the cleaners--a few years ago....and now the governor is accepting his largesse?