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Posts published in January 2007

A KOIN in the bloody fountain

January 26, 2007

televisionYou can understandably argue, as some did in response to Kari Chisholm's Blue Oregon post on local TV news today, that focusing for criticism on Portland's KOIN (Channel 6) is, as one put it, "shooting fish in a barrel." The newsroom has been heavily destaffed and defunded since new ownership took over last year on what the local industry now knows as "Black Friday."

The problem is, the list of stories he cites for a recent KOIN newscast - an endless litany of crime, reported crime, maybe there might've been a crime, someone thought there might be a crime, there wasn't a crime here but here's video of one 2,000 miles away - seemed out of the norm only for the surprising absence of auto accidents and house fires (again, if not local, then somewhere else). The problem he cites is real enough on local television news almost everywhere in this country and certainly across the Northwest: There's very little news worth watching on local TV news. (The Chisholm post above and all the many comment attached are well worth the read.)

A sample comment (with which we have some sympathy): "How is it possible to have a well informed debate among the electorate when a huge percentage of eligible voters are being dumbed down by endless mindless drivel on local and national television? Granted it is everyone's constitutional right to watch as many hours of Dukes of Hazard reruns as they choose (God Bless Daisy Duke!), but how can I be expected to sleep at night knowing that the future of my children and grandchildren will be determined by the same people that made 'Dancing With the Stars 2' the most watched ABC non-sports show in 5 years?"

We'd like to continue this discussion. Here's what we'll do: We'll watch two other better-funded stations, second-place KPTV Fox 12, which airs local news at 10 p.m., and market leader KGW NBC 8, which airs at 11. (The earlier evening news is not scheduled to air on KGW owing to a Trail Blazers basketball game.) We'll see what stories each covers before their main weather or sports break, whichever comes first. And compare those stories to the local lead stories in today's and tomorrow's Oregonian.

Back after this . . .

Compromise

January 26, 2007

There's something likable in this as a matter of procedure, stance and politics, whether or not as policy: Announcement of a compromise over $43 million (to date) of Statehouse construction, in the dispute between Governor Butch Otter and leaders of the legislature.

The legislature was firmly committed to construction of two new floors of office and meeting space underneath the current basement floor. Otter, as he had said bluntly in his campaign last fall, was opposed.

Apparently, the deal struck involves one floor instead of two, and there may be other elements as well.

However that eventually looks, there is this: A governor and legislature in Idaho that had a disagreement and then - instead of getting huffy about it, as so typically has happened - they compromise.

What a concept. Here's an idea that, whether either side realizes it at the moment, can make them both look good.

Vista mania

January 25, 2007

Next week will be the peak of ballyhoo for the new Windows Vista operating system from Microsoft, as founder Bill Gates does time on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and a wave of commercials hit the air, and stores open early on Tuesday to accommodate the crush of buyers of the new OS.

Windows Vista logoWell, maybe. Or maybe the days of big excitement over new big OS developments is over; the air doesn't feel like it did when Windows 95 (which was a good deal more revolutionary for the Windows users of its time than Vista is now) made its deservedly big splash.

Here's a contrary point of view from Jeremy Allison, an open source advocate, at ZDNet:

There's simply no excitement about it. Most quotes from businesses are about how much of a chore it will be to upgrade, with warnings about how much old software will be incompatible and how people will have to buy new machines just to run it. No one actually wants this new system, except Microsoft and some of the hardware vendors who are desperately hoping Vista will revitalize moribund computer sales.

I think the day of the big-bang operating system release will die with Vista. This kind of upgrade has become obsolete. It might have made sense in the age of disconnected computers, where an upgrade involved a PC technician going to each desktop with a CD-ROM, but with the advent of Internet-connected PCs it's crazy. People want to simply keep patching their existing systems remotely and securely until eventually all of the original code has been replaced and you're running a new operating system.

He sees Vista, in other words, as overreach, as a kind of tipping point (he uses the phrase) where the Microsoft business model of the 90s - new operating system, all new applications, loads of money on the table - no longer works so well, and progressively less well, partly because there's too little practical benefit in exchange for too much money spent.

We'll see. The next year or so should mark interesting times at Redmond.

DISCLOSURE Ridenbaugh Press uses Windows, Apple and Linux OS computers. We started moving harder into the Apple and Linux worlds last year in part to avoid being caught up in the eventual Vista-related expenses. A year ago, the bulk of our work was done on Windows machines; now, a majority is on Macs, with more transition toward Linux in the works.

Airless

January 24, 2007

The current number of bills introduced in the Idaho House so far this session is 50; we can remember when more than that were introduced before the session even commenced. The number in the Senate is 45. These seem like unusually small numbers.

When we inquired of the legislature's bill-writing staff, we were told the numbers aren't radically smaller: "There are six fewer bills introduced this year than last at this time. Typically the first session has a lower bill volume than the second. The only thing I can think that might be a bit of a curb at this point is the Capitol Restoration."

That's one way to look at it. There's also this, from the bottom of an Associated Press piece on the Statehouse project: "Lawmakers say the focus on the wing standoff has sucked the oxygen out of the 2007 Legislature. Amid the distraction, the total number of bills drafted this year is at a five year low."

Spreading it around

January 24, 2007

Aquick stat: This from a David Postman blog post on Washington House Speaker Frank Chopp's press conference today. Can hardly imagine the ingenuity it took to accomplish what Postman notes:

"Of 62 Democrats, 58 are either committee chairs, vice chairs or hold a leadership position. I don't know who the four are that aren't leaders, but I'm sure they get plenty of direction from the 58 that are."

Earmarked

January 24, 2007

Aizona U.S. Representative Jeff Flake, a Republican, evidently is going to war (now) on congressional earmarks - those specified pieces of federal spending which members place to benefit their home turf. He has, for one thing, introduced legislation (HR 631) to combat them: "A bill to prohibit Federal agencies from obligating funds for earmarks included only in congressional reports, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform." His co-sponsors include one member of th Northwest delegation, new Idaho Representative Bill Sali, whose district includes northern Idaho.

Maybe of more moment (and somewhat like long-ago Senator William Proxmire), Flake is taking to highlighting an earmark of the week: Such declarations can sometimes pick up considerable national attention. His most recent such, as it turns out, is aimed at Idaho, specifically northern Idaho:

"This week’s egregious earmark: $150,000 to Lewiston, Idaho for completion of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Project. 'Any more earmarks like this and not even Sacagawea will be able to lead us out of this fiscal wilderness,' said Flake."

[And a hat tip to the correspondent who alerted us.]

Next, forgiveness?

January 23, 2007

You may recall our December piece about the Wal-Mart conflict in Chelan, about the store built in contravention of city ordinances and rules, where the construction of the store and hiring of employees continued unabated while the lawsuit challenging the building continued. And continued unabated even after a judge had issued rulings against Wal-Mart.

It may be the first time a Wal-Mart store has actually been built, only to be stopped from opening. There is even a chance it will be torn down (which is more than a lot of empty Wal-Marts have been) - its critics say they will be seeking as much.

The basis for the stoppage sounds more picky than it is. The project started not a a Wal-Mart development (apparently at least) but as something called the Apple Blossom Center, for which the city signed off on a “planned development district” with specific terms. Those terms included a variety of commercial developments, with a maximum size limit of 50,000 square feet on any one. That limit, as the judge notes, was never changed by the city, which last fall stood by and watched Wal-Mart and its developer, Pacland, build a stand-issue 162,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store.

“Here,” Judge Lesley Allan concluded, “this court is left with the definite and firm conviction that the city erred in granting the two permits at issue.” That meant the court voided the city’s building and grading permits.

The store was supposed to open yesterday, at 7 a.m. And so it did - notwithstanding that Wal-Mart had and has no valid building permit for the store, notwithstanding a judge's order issued only last week. Anyone else - even someone building their own home - would not be allowed to use or occupy the building under such conditions.

Wal-Mart, apparently, is beyond all that. Its stance seems effectively to be: Try and stop us. Permission? We need no permission; nor, for that matter, do we really need forgiveness . . .

Business savvy

January 23, 2007

Always helps to have someone looking over the should of anyone who has discretion over money. Might have kept Farhad "Fred" Monem, once one of the smart guys who kept costs down (was he one of the "smartest guys in the room"?) at the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Instead, court documents say he he was caught with $450,000 in kickback money and other goodies from businesses he'd been dealing with.

The spotlight in the Portland news coverage on this has been on Monem (who, we should remind, has been accused, not convicted). But an equally bright light ought to shine on the food wholesalers who were the other part of the equation. It might even give a moment's reflection to the backers of extensive privatizing; Monem's role as a state executive may have made the situation easier to catch.

Right to Life, negatively reviewed, by . . .

January 22, 2007

On Saturday, a mass of Boiseans, maybe 20,000 or so, marched in the streets of downtown Boise to demonstrate their peak priority - celebrating the Boise State University football team. (The Idaho Statesman says "We've got video of all the excitement.") A few hours earlier, there was another march, attracting about 500 people, organized by Right to Life of Idaho.

It got little attention. But it generated a ferocious negative review, and not from the left, either: This comes from Dennis Mansfield, whose anti-abortion record in Idaho is quite clear. His post on the rally is a must-read on current Idaho politics.