I don't usually cut and paste, but....

Here's a thought-provoking article:

http://reason.com/news/show/122456.html

Well, bless my soul......

The Quincy School Board is having productive discussions. Am I reading the right newspaper?

In other news, John Wood Community College's publicity machine got some more free coverage by having the college's trash picked up.

Odds and Ends III

One part of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics states,

"Journalists should . . . shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity."

So on a lark, I used the handy-dandy campaign contribution tool recently posted on UMR's blog to see how our local journalists were doing on that score. Didn't find a single news staffer who contributed to anybody's campaign, although admittedly my search was not exhaustive.

Conclusion: 1. Local journalists are scrupulously following the SPJ's Code of Ethics; or 2. They don't get paid enough to have spare money lying around to donate to anybody; or 3. Some of both.

Now the publishers are another story. They contribute, although less heavily than one might expect. Does a publisher's political involvement influence news coverage? Depends on the publisher. William Loeb's notorious Union-Leader in Manchester, N.H., was horribly biased. Other publishers keep a Chinese wall between their personal views and their publication's coverage. I have not noticed a great deal of favoritism in the Herald-Whig's political coverage, although if pressed I might say it tends to favor middle-of-the road, don't-rock-the-boat candidates. I did note back in 2006 that the Whig gave Andrea Zinga 58 inches of coverage as opposed to 16 inches for Phil Hare, and then endorsed Zinga....but on the other hand, it endorsed Blago too.

For the record, the publishers' political contributions, as identified on Hynes' website, are below. You can make up your own minds as to whether these politicians (or in one case, a ballot committee) get unbalanced news coverage.

Dave and Mary Oakley
Friends of John Sullivan – 200.00 6/20/03
Citizens to Elect Jil Tracy – 200.00 8/06-10/06

Harold and Kathryn Oakley
Citizens to Elect Jil Tracy – 395.00 7/06-10/06

Peter A. Oakley
Citizens for Lisa Madigan – 100.00 12/15/05

Peter Oakley
Citizens for Lisa Madigan – 100.00 9/24/02

Ralph Oakley
Citizens for Lisa Madigan – 100.00 7/31/02

Ralph and Lisa Oakley
Citizens to Elect Jil Tracy – 250.00 9/12/06

Lisa Oakley
Sheriff Fischer Committee – 200.00 9/23/06

Thomas Oakley
Citizens for George Ryan – 5,000.00 6/25/01
Citizens to Elect Tom Cross – 250.00 6/12/07

Oakley-Lindsay Center
Friends of John Sullivan – 750.00 8/03-8/05

Oakley-Lindsay Foundation
Yes for Quincy Committee – 3770.40 3/8/04

Odds and Ends II

Cute front-page feature on the singing bus driver.

"Point Bloink Range".....damn clever headline.

Odds and Ends

Haven't posted much lately because nothing in the news has been particularly interesting to me. Somebody on the Whig used "flaunt" when the correct word was "flout" the other day, and I couldn't even rouse myself to correct it.

I've accumulated a few observations, nevertheless, that I will toss out in no particular order.

I doubt if an after-hours beatdown outside a tavern constitutes a black-on-white crime wave, but frankly I don't know enough about the incident to comment on it and will refrain from speculation. I know that violates the blogger's oath, but so be it.

Speaking of which, the collective IQ of anonymous commentators on local blogs seems to be declining lately. UMR complained recently that few people comment on the interesting articles he links to....perhaps the reason for that is that people actually have to read the articles.

I understand but don't entirely agree with the fixation city leaders have with "saving" downtown. If developers had asked for the kind of infrastructure and tax break package awarded to the Second and Front project for somewhere else in the city, would they have gotten it? I would guess not. I can be as nostalgic as the next person, but perhaps it's time to recognize that most retail activity has simply shifted to Broadway and quit trying to keep downtown on life support. By the way, how's that Newcomb Hotel project going?

Time to do some paying work for a while. More random thoughts later.

The News, Translated for the Hearing Impaired

“In light of us starting with limited services and scrambling to get a full complement of planes so we can have a full schedule ... (the agreement) is not a driving issue” at this time, Howell said.

Translation: Go to hell, Quincyans. Oh, you wanted to connect your St. Louis flight to a flight somewhere else? You are so spoiled.



There will be no construction timetable established until funding is identified, Park District Executive Director Mike Parks said.

Translation: Maybe another elderly sports fan will kick the bucket one of these days.



Ceremony
to be held
on site of
wastewater
project

Translation: Don't you wish you lived in an exciting town like Coatsburg?



Despite living in a wide-open area prone to severe weather, Crigler said he and his neighbors didn’t worry about their safety.
“It’s just one of those things you kind of laughed about and then go on,” he said.

Translation: I'm an idiot living in a house trailer. What did you expect?



Curran said the OLC was aided in its financial recovery by several strong months of revenue from the city’s hotel-motel tax, which is used to help operate the center.

Translation: Next time Grandma comes to visit, drive her by the OLC. 'Cause she's footing the bill for that puppy.

Nouns and Verbs

I know this may sound old-fashioned to some, but I think "pastor" is a noun, not a verb. Ref. yesterday's Whig, 1-C.

Random Drug Testing II

The last post drew some lively comment, which I certainly appreciate, so I think I should expand my two-sentence remark.

I'll set aside the question of the tests' accuracy and assume that they're perfectly accurate. So should schools conduct them? I don't think so, and here's why.

First, they're testing the wrong people. In the Silurian Era, when I was in high school, everybody knew who the dopers were. And they certainly weren't the kids going out for Quiz Bowl or cheerleading. They were the kids hanging out in the parking lot, snickering at the uncool ones who were staying late for band practice or basketball. Random testing for extracurricular activities is a waste of money. Some might point to Highland's one positive in nine years of testing or Palmyra's zero positives as an indicator that the testing is working. But to me, it's more like the punchline of the old joke about the guy selling elephant repellent: "But there aren't any elephants within a thousand miles of here!" "See how good it's working?!"

Second, it puts school officials in the position of Junior Narcs. There's already enough of an us vs. them mentality in schools between students and staff without adding this to the atmosphere. "Welcome to Our School, You Suspicious Character."

So why are schools so eager to conduct random drug testing? Because it's a comparatively inexpensive way to make the grownups--parents, board members, and school officials--feel good that they are "doing something" about drugs. If you really wanted to tackle drugs in a school, you'd hire some trained people to walk the halls, go through the parking lots, stand outside during games, and most of all just talk to the kids, not in formal anti-drug presentations, but all day every day, looking in their eyes and catching scent of their clothes. But that would cost a lot more than the $2,000 or $3,000 a year it costs to send a few urine samples to a lab. Do we really think Palmyra or Highland are "drug free" because their random samples came back clean?

Random drug testing

Let's see, $2,000 to $3,000 a year for random drug testing, and the Highland district has had one positive test in nine years....that's $18,000 to $27,000 to kick one kid out of marching band or whatever. In my mind that's a pretty poor investment, especially considering the false positive rate of those testing firms.

Good News

Meanwhile, on the next block, some honest-to-goodness real businesspeople are buying a nice piece of real estate downtown and fixing it up for office space.....and without loans from the city or outrageous claims on eBay.

Fish in a Barrel

"Most of those making inquiries have been reluctant to invest because they want to see more big manufacturing recruitments into the city, rather than small retail additions, Jansen said."

followed by

"He said local customers need to stay loyal to locally owned businesses in the central business district." (also known as small retail additions)

This Maine Street Tap debacle is just too easy to make fun of.

John Brodmann

Over the weekend,the Whig had an excellent profile of John Brodmann, retired chemistry professor at Culver-Stockton, who has been there for 50 years now. I met Mr. Brodmann fourteen or fifteen years ago and have had the pleasure of seeing him occasionally since then. He's the kind of man whose picture they should put in the dictionary next to "college professor".....kindly but demanding, always had time for students, worked with them and counseled them day and night. Every college student should have a mentor like that. Who knows, if I had met him thirty years earlier, I might have gone into chemistry instead of the humanities.

Amusing typo on the sports page....the columnist wrote that the QHS football team "didn't have any reason to hand their heads." Question is, who would they hand them to?

Weekend News

Nifty graphic on Friday's front page showing the sources of income and outgo for the school district. I'm not sure how many words a picture is worth, but that picture certainly summarized the school district's situation nicely. There's only one slice of that pie that has any significant amount to be cut if the tort fund appeal is lost: salaries & benefits, i.e., big layoffs. And you could empty out the 14th and Maine office and still not get anywhere close to the $4.47 million reduction Mays is talking about. And since sports and performing arts have such monster constituencies in Quincy, my guess would be that those layoffs will come in the places where they would be most politically painless but, unfortunately, will hurt kids the most -- ordinary classroom teachers. Watch those class sizes go up at Baldwin and in the K-3 schools. So what if they pluck a $600,000 figure out of the air and reduce hiring by that much? That only leaves $3.9 million to go.

Maybe the school district should start operating a casino. Hey, if it's the magic solution to the state's budget shortfall......

Saturday's paper had a heart-warming article about how Roy Blunt is going to lead Missouri into the Promised Land of "faith-based" initiatives, i.e., government support of Christianity. I wonder how many of the state's 262 contracts with "faith-based" organizations are with organizations that are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, Native American, or any of the many other religions that exist on this earth.

Sunday's headline about arts organization budget cuts overstated the problem: There won't be any "curtain calls" and nobody said anything about "drastic impact." The actual cuts to local organizations, described in the story's body, represent roughly 3 percent of the QSFA's budget, a bit more than 3 percent of the Community Theatre's, and something like a tenth of a percent of the Art Center's.