So, last weekend I called up Goldy to ask how the new job was going. I was, shall I say, a bit underwhelmed by the volume of Goldy bylines on Slog.
“Look…”, I said, “Paul Constant, the freaking book editor, is kicking your ass in number of posts.”
“Yeah…well there was a lot of paperwork on Wednesday…”
Then Goldy intimated that he hardly had time to post because he was working on some “longer pieces.” It sounded plausible, but I had some lingering doubts.
Perhaps getting up in the morning, getting dressed up for work (you know, putting on a pinstripe navy blue blazer and chaps), and heading to the office was really hard for Goldy—it messed up his head for writing. Or maybe he was rendered dysfunctional all afternoon because he couldn’t take his mid-day nap. Who knows.
Well my doubts have been allayed for the time being. Today’s edition of The Stranger contain a news piece by Goldy entitled “The Welfare State”:
When our state’s rural Republicans toss around pejoratives like “socialism,” “redistribution of wealth,” and “welfare state,” they’re usually hurling them at the People’s Republic of Seattle and the Democratic legislators we send to Olympia. As a commenter on the Spokane Spokesman-Review’s website recently carped: “Eastern Washington… has always been shorted/slighted where state expenditures are concerned! Nearly to the point that we don’t exist!”
[…]However, the money is not exactly moving in the direction most Eastern Washingtonians suspect.
Goldy pulls together some pieces he has blogged on over the past weeks to nail an important and under-appreciated point:
The irony here is not that those who benefit most from state spending are paying the least; that’s kinda the way these things are supposed to work. No, the irony is that those rural communities that are most dependent on the state—whose roads and schools and other essential public services couldn’t possibly be maintained without generous state subsidies—are also those least likely to vote for the tax dollars necessary to sustain these services.
So…with a 1 kiloword news piece in the print edition, I guess Goldy has done alright for week one. I’ll be generous and give him a B+.
But, geez, Goldy, for week two? At least try to keep up with the book guy.
