Why is one always left with the sense of half a loaf from local reporting? Stories will go on for pages, even for days, without ever connecting the dots or providing a true context. They may beg the Big Picture — the overriding trend or practice that might actually make us care; instead we get the Little Picture. Crackers and cheese instead of the prime rib.
On The Times side, today’s banner is about a humble Sammamish vendor who makes fire-resistant t-shirts for the military. Seeking to expand his business from the Army to the Marines, the guy ran into InSport, a big corporation whose megadollars lobbied an “earmark” for t-shirt contracts — can you believe this — without a bidding process. Welcome to our post-Halliburton, no-bid-contract world…although the story doesn’t actually go all Big Picture like that. What we have instead is the reliance on polite talk for corrupt practices: bribes and kickbacks become earmarks and sole-source contracts. I for one would be interested in this guy’s suggestion about what to do, and how he might vote in 2008. Make me care…heck, make him care about the story.
Of course, even relatively tame investigations like this won’t happen under media consolidation, which is set to go forward today despite near-universal opposition at public hearings, in congressional hearings and from anyone with half a brain. In the hmmm dept., the story got A1 treatment from The Times and nary a Top 10 mention from the P-I. For today’s Reader Quiz and the chance to win a trip on the purple streetcar, can you tell me which newspaper is locally owned?
The P-I does, however, wring its hands over the closing of the Crocodile, days after anyone who cares knew about it (or suspected its imminency), the taxonomy of the scoop (I think it was The Weekly this time) somehow escaping the pit-bullish reportorial skills of the newspaper staff: “Word of the closure spread like wildfire Monday through the city’s music blogs…” Oh come on. I told my daughter about this last Thursday. And no mention of the Big Picture here either: The Showbox gets sold, the Croc shuts down. Other than being small crowded venues for up and coming bands but sitting on prime real estate prized by greedy developers, they have nothing in common.
The Times also takes a stab at relevancy with an update on the let-nature-run-its-course theory of disaster management. Dot not connected: Floods are hardly a “natural” occurrence, as The Times itself showed Sunday with the Chehalis debacle. “Flood risk is only going to get worse, scientists say. That’s because of two converging trends: climate change and development…” How about the trends of “insatiable greed” and “self-destructive stupidity”? Too Big Picture…
Finally, we bring you a new feature, inspired by Goldy’s and my debate yesterday, the Local Headline That Ran Elsewhere. Today’s donor is The New York Times, whose lead Business Day coverage, The Price of Growing Fuel, features a Portland brewery owner looking really disgusted at the skyrocketing price of barley. Also pinched by a hop shortage, some breweries are even going out of business, leaving us HAs with lamentably fewer places to cry in our beer. With that, we provide a radio segue only a true aural rebel like Goldy would ever use, to our weekly reminder for Drinking Liberally…Darryl, take it away!!!
Paul says every story in every newspaper must be all-encompassing, big picture stories. That small stories profiling one person’s problems serve no purpose. He says a story must always tell the “whole story,” (whatever that means), or should not be written at all. I disagree with Paul. I think profiling local people’s problems in local papers serve a purpose. If people then wish to research the issue further, in this case earmarks, they can.
Also, Paul, why do you call developers “greedy developers,” and not simply “developers?” Is it because they would want to put a taller building on a property which is surrounded by other taller buildings, but currently their property has only a single story structure on it? Wanting to build a taller building makes them greedy? I’m curious to hear your logic.
@2
Profit = Evil
Government = Life
Don’t forget where you are…
This is HA land.
BS,
Wanting to put buildings up to the edge of local creeks and rivers without any buffers, and fighting any and all attempts to protect watersheds and shorelines, is what makes developers greedy.
@2:
Actually in the reality based world:
Republicans = corrupt and inept
Katrina, Brownie, Abramoff, Safavian, Bremer, Gonzalez, Ney, Craig, Duke Cunningham, Cheney, Rove et al. – I don’t even need to enumerate all the criminals and this is just a short list. Not to mention the huge budget deficits.
Old Abe Lincoln is turning over in his grave at what you have done to the GOP.
@5
So correctnotright says that “all Republicans are corrupt, and no Democrats are corrupt.”
That’s good to know you believe something so idiotic and so untrue. I will now know to discount anything you have to say in the future.
@6
BS, does this mean that you are going away and not coming back?
Do your trolling somewhere else.
Bye
And speaking of Republican crimes, have you all been following the Don Siegelman story concerning the Alabama Governors race of 2002? It’s a case where the Republican political machine in Alabama stole the election from Siegelman, then put him in jail for complaining about the theft.
Let’s plug in our gubernatorial candidates in 2004 for an illustration.
Dino Rossi wins the election by 3000 votes, then, after all the poll workers and elections staff goes home, the Democratic elections officials go in after midnight the day after and “recount” the election. The result, Gregoire wins in King County by 1500 votes, after which the Democratic Secretary of State certifies the middle of the night theft by 11:00 AM, and the “certified” results are announced by Gregoire at her “victory” press conference. Rossi asks for a manual recount and is denied. Afterward, Rossi cries foul to the press only to be prosecuted by the Al Gore Justice Department and jailed on a trumped up office for contributions charge when he was State Senator. Rossi is held incommunicado in a Federal prison. The Federal prosecutor in the Rossi case turns out to be the spouse of Gregoire’s campaign manager.
Now, if something like that had happened in Washington, all the Republican whiners around here would have a righteous case.
Nothing like that did happen here though, since all the votes were counted, in the open, under the observation of representatives from 3 political parties. But, since it happened to a Democrat in another state, Rethughs are just fine with holding Don Siegelman political prisoner.
At the risk of sounding cruel, which I truly do not intend to be or to convey, one comment I have not read on the floods and the ensuing disaster may deserve some mention.
The victims of this disaster are clamoring for relief and immediate Government action. I have sent relief money and feel a heavy heart for the folks that are suffering from this every hour of every day. On days like this, when its raining again, I wonder how they are doing.
Having said this, I have to note that these floods have pounded the most conservative county in Western WA, and the staunchest group of anti government and anti land use planning communites in Western WA. These communties heavily supported property rights ballot measures in 1995 and last year, have been virulent in their opposition to any planning for flood plain protections, and opposed planning that would insure the integrity of farmlands, forest and green spaces. Now, the wrath of mother nauture has combined with this never implemented planning to wreak havoc on their homes and communties.
And these same anti govenment people, who are also virulently anti-tax, now come screaming for fast and immediate action from government.
I for one, believe in a common good and a common welfare That is why I don’t mind paying taxes for postive public acts. One of my holiday wishes is that after this experience, these people may actually rethink their anti tax, anti planning, anti government outlook, and at least have a better appreciation in the common good and the common welfare.
Call me hopelessly naive, but that is my wish. And I truly hope they get a chance to enjoy a warm and comfortable and Merry Christmas, and that their communites come back from this tragedy stronger and renewed.
-Tom
I wonder if we could sue oil companies for flood damage? Hmmmmmmmmmmm…
Paul
I think consolidation is the foreskin on the problem of media consolidation. Circumsize it and you still get have a prickly issue.
The reral problem is an erosion of the intelligencia. For those too young to remember, the Marxist crowd saw the intelligencia as a class in and of itself. This class was very evident in France and Russia and less so here. Even so, the role of the intellectual in American and British policy was a lot more then most moderns realize for the simple reason that portrayal of ideas is verbotten on the mass media.
A huge change happened after Vietnam with the discreditation of the “best and the brightest.” We wernt as a society from having MacNamara as Secty of Defense to a series of less than inspiring politcal jacks .. Les Aspin, Dick chaney, Rummy, Cohen among them. Can anyone imagine any of these dim wits running WW II or the cold war.
Part of this issue, it seems ot me, is reflected int he painful transition to blogdom. The role of traditional thought journals, Foreign Affairs, New Republic, National Review, etc is being replaced by the IMB (irreducible minimal bit) journalism of KOS and, sorry to say, HA. Fortunately, we still have the Economist, columnists still write for the NY Times and the WA post, Harpers and the Atlantic remain good reads … but the influence of these jounrals on our leaders has dimmed.
I personally hound the wen looking for aomething more, but have found very, very little. Without the Economist I might decide to ove to Aldus Hucley’s dystopis.
There is one glimmer of hope … THE DEBATES
These may well be the worst TV ever, but I am impressed that we have gotten unique insights into the crew of who would wanna be Prexy. The media, IMHO, are missing a huge story here when they groove on hairdoes and faux pas rather than content. Ron Paul and Biden have both had a huge impact because of this unique event.
Here’s all the reason the country needs to throw democrats the fuck out of office next November.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ray18.html
Shit… HTF can we have a dingbat like her in charge of ANYTHING?
Tom: You are hopelessly naive.
re 12: She’s not a dingbat, you are.
Earmarks for T-Shirts? That’s old news. Sen. Murray created earmarks for t-shirts that are fire resistant to the army and forced them to buy these t-shirts. The thing of it was that if the shirts did catch on fire they had a tendency to melt and not burn. To much synthetic fiber in the shirt. Now I don’t know if this is the same company (have to do some actual research rather than type out a comment), but the end result of Murray’s earmark was that these shirts can’t be worn in battle and are just sitting in the armies warehouses. Our tax dollars at work!
Small venue clubs have been slowly going away for years. The Rock Candy was the first to go and started the downward spiral for the small venues. It’s getting harder and harder to turn a profit in these clubs due to people just not going out to them. If you don’t have a huge name band coming there rarely is a large crowd in the club. Where has our music scene gone?
What’s next? The government forcing the military to have School Yard Heroes play on base? Come to think of it I may support that earmark.
Lucy, I appreciate that, you are probably right, and I prefer being naive to being like too many of them.
Tom
The Crocodile closes.. sniff..
Only went there once. It was a good show and the smallness of the place really added to the experience.
Gentrification sucks.
@15 CORRECTION!!!
It wasn’t Sen. Murray that set the earmark for the T-Shirts. She earmarked something else. Sorry Sen. Murray…
It was Rep. David Wu, D-Ore that earmarked the T-Shirts.
Sen. Murray earmarked a boat for the Navy. The thing is that nobody wants it and the Navy can’t use it. You can view the story
@15 CORRECTION!!!
It wasn’t Sen. Murray that set the earmark for the T-Shirts. She earmarked something else. Sorry Sen. Murray…
It was Rep. David Wu, D-Ore that earmarked the T-Shirts.
Sen. Murray earmarked a boat for the Navy. The thing is that nobody wants it and the Navy can’t use it. You can view the story at the Seattle Times. Search Sen Murray Earmark. 5th story down.
Where is Claude Raines? I am shocked, shocked.
Next thing someone will wann know hoe Ike became a multimillionaire or what mysterious post gubernatorial fountian is feeding the Locke family?
The last time something like this happened, ol’ Luther posted his treatises on the door. Has the tme come for reform of governmint?
Let see:
1. No polititian may have children. Exisiting children and spouses may run for office unless he/she is divorced and or disowned (Sorry Jeb, Good news Hill)
2. On election all personal finds in excess of $5 mill are donated to the nstional campaign fund. Elected officials will then receive a life stipend fixed at pay levels that match the equivalent military grade. (Sorry Jeb, Sorry Mitt).
3. The governminty will provide housing at comparable levels to military. E.g. a Senator is rough;y a rear admiral, a congressman a full Commander. This benefit, will not be taxable.
4. Upon or before selecting the political life, politicians must enter a national seminary and be ordained. This shall require a minimum score of 700,700 on the college boards (sorry all you guys).
re 16: I hope your grandchildren appreciate your trusting spirit and naivete.
re 19: The issue is politicians selling us out to corporations.
Got it?
Okay, just in, the FCC just voted 3-2 to support the media consolidation rules. Hmmm, I wonder which commission members voted which way? Wow, hard to figure that out.
I am also very sympathetic to the points made in 11 that this is just scratching the surface of the problem. (Although not in total agreement in your choice of source material, but do agree that we owe it to ourselves to find sources of real analysis, integrity, and critical thought in our journalism-and yes, it does exist. You go man, and keep reading.) The problem lies not in the stars, or the media, but in us. This deserves far more comment and discussion.
Nonetheless, this vote is truly an outrage. It is one more affront to Democratic process. It is one more piece of a legacy that may truly destroy the credibility and the integrity of the American experiment in an open Democratic Republic. And it does threaten our access to a broad base of opinion and information that is essential to our Democracy. (Oh, and open Government? Gee, now they think they don’t have to even turn over guest lists to the White House for the Prez and VP under FOIA requests. I guess knowing what oil execs and military industrial complezx lobbyists and CEOs were visiting Bush and Cheney is a threat to national security.)
The hubris of this adminstartion knows no bounds. And we will be paying the price for decades, maybe longer.
BTW, get a copy of the new bi-weekly New Republic, and read the article on the slow death of book reviews and critical thinking in newspapers that has occurred already. As an avid reader of real in depth book reviews, (hey, easier than reading all those books, too) I found it fascinating. It also runs into several areas and sheds light on how deep this problem runs in our lack of a broad intelligensia.
God help the Republic.
Tom
Chris on The David Goldstein Show
Are you the Chris that reads the incoming emails on the show? I love you, guy! I think Goldy should ask your opinion on-air more often. Because it proves that you don’t have to be what many might see as a pedantic elitist (sorry, Goldy) to have a liberal, reasonable, and enlightened viewpoint on current events.
what mysterious post gubernatorial fountian is feeding the Locke family?
But…but….I thought Mona was a journalismist?
Tom @23: Bush, and before him Rush, have made people proud to be anti-intellectual in this country. It’s a sad fucking state of affairs, frankly.
Tlazolteotl @ 24
I would be that guy reading the Instant Messages. Thanks for the support and thanks for listening.
“For today’s Reader Quiz and the chance to win a trip on the purple streetcar, can you tell me which newspaper is locally owned?”
I suspect neither of them, if you could see a complete list of the fishwrapper’s shareholders and where they live. How many Blethen relatives are there? Probably a lot. Do they all live locally? Probably not a fucking chance.
Paul — you’re a clueless douche.
Your oh-so-precious Local Headline That Ran Elsewhere was a P-I front-page story two months ago.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....-A-001.pdf
Edit that post and tell the world you fucked up — you know, like a real newspaper would with a correction.
Congrats on your career as a pretend journalist. No shifts left at Ivar’s?
@27 Chris .. you are a braver man than I!
@23 … Do come to DL? Sounds like it would be fun to meet.
In re my post 11, I am not entirely comfortable with your claim that I am describing a POGO problem. POGO sais we has met the enemy and they is us. That was and is true but it is also a fatalistic POV.
Rather, I see this as a reason to shape my behavior. For example, a major reason I support Obama is that he an intellectual and had gathered bright people. This contrasts with HRC who seems to me to mistake administration for policy. Even her SO, Bill, has never IMHO shown any interest in policy. He governed like a CEO, That is very different then a Jeffersonian President who sees a cause to be followed. The only other Dem who seems to me to apporach this standard is Edwards. As much as I dislike the guy’s life style, I am always impressed by the dpeth of his thinking.
The sadness of the right is the lack of intellectuals. Yje closest might be Huckabee. His reality is repulsive to me BUT, he does think deeply. Romney seems to me to be an inferior clone of Hillary. If the right did not have its arse twisted about tis head, SHE would be their candidate!
On the local scene, part of why we go to DL is for the fun of meeting bright people. Frankly, some of the minutia that obsesses Goldy is beyond me, but he and others there have a lot of depth that gives me hope.
As a segue, I have eondered how each of the following would deal with the “scene” at DL
Tolstoy
Chekhov
Bulgagov
the screen writers for Cheers
Gene Rodenberry
Neil Simon
Hemingway
Kafka
Mark Twain
Horsey
Fun exercise for a creative writing class? Personally, I would be most interested in what Tolstoy would do. Imagine the cast of characters:
One problme .. we need more females and truly crazy people!
If DL is an incipient intellegentia, then who is who? Do we have a Madame deFarge? Is Lenin sitting in a corner plotting?
We could use Stalin’s bank robbing talents!
18/19 Can it be converted into a ferry?
@13 convert into a ferry?
NOPE, better than that. They can be used a shigh sped transporters for rich folks who need ot get to Seattle fast.
Lets just call it class warfare and get over it!
“Malt barley supplies remain tight due to quality issues with this years crop, but we expect both feed and malt supplies to continue appreciating through this winter.”
from smallgrains.org/article.aspx?id=6488 discussing the latest USDA report.
If malt barley doesn’t get enough rain, the quality goes down and it is sold as feed barley.
Mark obviously thinks intelligence is impossible without a penis, because the only thinking he does is whilst playing with his.
Wouldn’t be surprised if the Croc had to close due to employee skimming (theft). It’s the number one reason restaurants and clubs, even popular one’s, have to close due to financial reasons.
Paul said: “Stories will go on for pages, even for days, without ever connecting the dots or providing a true context.”
Just like the blog threads written by Goldy and his minions!
Harry Tuttle: Bringing up Dino Rossi and the 2004 election, Ummm… I’m sure you remember elections superintendent Bill Huennekens right? Well Puddy remembers!
Remember the 348 provisional ballots fed into the system and added to the recount vote total before they were verified? What did ol’ Bill say? “Did it happen? Yes. Unfortunately, that’s part of the process in King County”.
Or why did the King County ballots counted outnumber the real voters list by 3,539? And then we have the jive excuses arrive.
YEAH YEAH, I know the Moonbat!s will bring up the “you lost the court case. But to the malleable minded ignorant idiot Moonbat!s go back and read what Harry Tuttle wrote above before you get your little pee pees all hard.
There is no comparison.
#22 Talk to the Mattel Toy Hand. Not only did these liberals take good jobs from middle class Americans but they allowed our children to become poisoned.
Yes good Mattel democrats – cheap labor liberals who poison our children.
Did you know charities are rejecting Mattel toys? Ain’t that a hoot?
24: You nailed Goldy correctly.
Good job.
#10 Stop using your car and maybe you’d have a position. Use wood to heat your house and maybe you’d have a position.
Otherwise more talk from your bung hole.