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May 05, 2009 02:58 PM UTC

Tuesday Open Thread

  • 65 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“He’ll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.”

–Oscar Levant, on politicians

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65 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

  1. But an article in today’s Gazette is somewhat interesting:

    http://www.gazette.com/article…

    In it Colorado Springs City Councilman Darryl Glenn (who was just re-elected last month to a new four year term) announces that he will be seeking a County Commissioner position in 2010.  (Glenn is also vice-chair of the El Paso County Repubs.)

    Couple of interesting angles:

    1) Is the excessive difference in pay between a City job and a County job (6250 vs 87,000 per year) pulling people away from municipal government?

    2) Is it right to run for re-election (while telling your constituents “you’re doing it for them”) and then less than a month later announce you’re on to bigger and better things?

    3) Given Glenn’s propensity to avoid tough decisions and only spout the “conservative, republican” line, are we breeding a new generation of politicians who are only interested in getting elected?  (Okay, that was a stupid question.)

    Like I said, maybe not much interest to the Denver crowd, but this is another indication that the El Paso County Republicans are breeding ideologues vs. leaders.

    1. …will ColoradoPols get this political news?

      This site in particular is of the habit of copying and pasting rather large tracts from … newspaper sites. Regardless of the finer points of copyright law, reproducing these clips instead of inserting links effectively deprives those sites of visits that can be sold to advertisers.

      Just one of the many, many problems with the Web, and especially blogs, in imagining they will replace newspapers.

      Another problem that jumps out: the absence of editors and editing.

      I haven’t really seen a great deal of serious consideration of how “democracy” could function without the press as we have known it, which is to say: a group of professionals with the resources to spend large amounts of time and effort covering all aspects of our society. How likely, for example, is a “sports only” Web blog to delve into the importance of athletics in social mobility, just to cite one example of a story that requires a good deal of research and development.

      But to get back to the beginning: I would strongly urge ColoradoPols to institute a new policy: live links to newspaper stories instead of cut-and-paste sufficient to obviate the need for links.

      1. The press as you have known it pretty much came into being during WWII. Prior to that it was very biased, there was no such thing as a professional journalist, and in depth reporting was rarely seen. Go back to the founding of our country and it was even more basic – broadsides printed with clear political bias.

        The other thing is that the system we’ve had recently did have strengths, but it also had weaknesses. It had a strong conventional wisdom that was rarely challenged. It was written by and managed by a professional class that came from the upper middle class which by definition meant they had a limited set of experience.

        And in many cases the reporting was poor. Look at the run up to the Iraq war where most of the press jumped on the bandwagon. That did not serve us well.

        And finally, even if this new world we’re heading into will be much worse than what we had (I think it will be better), so what. The economics don’t work for the old way. Some people miss house calls by Doctors – but the economics don’t work for that either.

        1. Who will devote the time to cover the often-boring stuff, like city council and school board meetings, that nevertheless produce decisions with big impact on citizens?

          If somebody who can make an effort to report things straight, then who will pay them?

          It’s nice to talk about an unspecified brave new world, but if this blog, and countless others, had no newspapers to draw stories from, there would be few topics for all of us to comment on.

          You’re the on-line guy…so what’s the answer?

          Or answers?

          1. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars and probably upward of 50 hours on the interviews I’ve done. I’m guessing I’m not the only one willing to put in that kind of investment. Nature abhors a vacuum and as people see that individual reporting will be read, they will step up to do this.

            1. Not to belabor the point, but the politicians you’ve interviewed have spent thousands of dollars and upwards of hundreds of hours producing slick brochures offering pretty much the same take on things as your interviews. They are what they are, but they’re no substitute for professional — by which I mean, not amateur — newsgathering, and to pretend otherwise is ludicrous.

              2. You see the Encyclopedia Britanica being far superior to wikipedia? I’ll agree that wikipedia has weaknesses compared to Britanica. But it also has a lot of strengths. And on balance, wikipedia is a superior product – that’s why it gets more use.

                This new model will be different. But professionalism in journalism has been a 2 edged sword. Think back to professional Dan Rather’s disaster with the supposed documents about Bush’s service records.

                When we have 40 amateurs putting in a serious effort on the political race, I think we will get reporting every bit as good as what we have had in the past. And in many ways better.

                And yes, that work will span the gamut from investigative to reporting to interviews to editorials. It will be of varied quality and written with varied skill. It will be intermittent. But the same is true of the total content on the internet, yet the good stuff does tend to rise to the top.

                1. I don’t want to get into a pissing contest with you–or to “be a dick,” to quote your favorite pejorative, journo that you are. From my viewpoint, the more you write about this subject, the more you demonstrate your lack of knowledge of, or experience in, the journalism of newspapers and magazines. BUT…

                  To take just one of your points: the suggestion that Britannica is to Wikipedia as Daily Newspapers are to ColoradoPols.

                  What Wikipedia does NOT do is put a headline for an article… “Ptolomy of Egypt” … and then copy and paste the article–or a significant chunk of it– from Britannica underneath it. That essentially describes a great deal of the way ColoradoPols (and other sites like it) “covers” politics.

                  There are a handful of Web sites that have what I’d consider a legitimate model –TPM comes to mind, a site that hires actual reporters and editors and is able to break real news– but even they rely heavily on newspapers as their underlying source of news. Their value is to read many sites and offer links to stories of interest. They do NOT rely on the copy-and-paste technique that is essentially a matter of ripping off someone else’s work without compensation (i.e., delivering more hits to satisfy advertisers), technical details of copyright law notwithstanding.

                  Wikis of all sorts are an entirely different matter–volunteers in lieu of paid professionals creating full-blown substitutes–more like, say, Mosaic versus Explorer. (Whatever happened to Mosaic and Tim Berners-Lee, anyway? Replaced Microsoft? Hmmm; didn’t think so.) Few if any scholars would accept Wikipedia as a reference in a footnote, I daresay, in part because there’s no way of understanding the validity of a work on a  subject about which you know nothing. Britannica gained a reputation over many decades of abiding by strict scholarly standards, including hiring scholars to write the articles!

                  Moreover, journalism plays a very different–far more central–role in democratic politics than Wikipedia plays in scholarship. Britannica is essentially for junior or senior high school students trying to dash off a paper–same as Wikpedia. Newspapers play a key role in watching over the tribunes, so to speak. Sorry to say, sites like ColoradoPols are nowhere even close to begining to approach the idea of thinking about the possibility of replacing newspapers in the adult game of politics.

                  Something may evolve over time…. but in the meantime, newspapers are failing now. It is a crisis of democracy that is much larger than widely recognized.

                3. What is your source for this quote:

                  wikipedia is a superior product – that’s why it gets more use

                  .

                  You make assertions with no backup and when challenged, most of the time, you just ignore the challenge.

                  This is my experience with wiipedia:  On the section on Peace Corps Colombia, they boasted about a document which they got from Peace Corps through FOIA. The document proports to be a list of peace corps programs in Colombia.  It is inaccurate. I had gotten the same list in reponse to a FOIA request for another piece of information. I appealed the FOIA response from Peace Corps and got accurate information.  That damm document is posted on wikipedia and has been for over a year.  ,,,,,,I am waiting to see if anyone corrects it.  No one has, because no one really cares or knows what the correct context is.  NO, it is not MY responsibility to edit the damm thing.  I am monitoring to see what the hell happens.

                  I think, David, you have the medium and the message all goofed up.  Just because you control the technology, does not mean what you post or distribute is accurate.

      2. I don’t know how big of a deal the copy-and-paste thing is as long as you don’t repost the entire article, especially if it provides context that you can refer to without having to jump in between pages–though I agree sometimes they go a little overboard with the Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.

        Anyway, you’re 100% correct that blogs will never replace newspapers. If they do, it will become yellow journalism of the worst sort. There aren’t any written ethical guidelines for bloggers, so if they do try to be ethical it’s through their own discretion–nobody has to worry about ruining a career by posting some slanderous garabage–and anonymity provides an avenue through which violators can continue posting under multiple user names.

        There might very well be a market for that kind of writing, but it will be our undoing if we decide to stop buying groceries and start getting Big Macs for free instead.

        It’s not blogs that are bringing down the newspapers though. Their unwillingness to adapt to the changing business climate until it was far too late to change is what will eventually be their undoing–if they can’t figure out some other way to survive.

        Information on blogs without the aid of newspapers, would, in the words of Lyle Lanley be “like a mule with a spinning wheel. Nobody knows how he got it, and damned if he knows how to use it.”

        1. there are actual “fair use” rules on reposting in blogs. The AP is proposing changes to that, but they’re also proposing changing the practice that allows Google News simply to link to stories, too.

        2. Even if they totally changed their approach today, they’re lost any competitive advantage they used to have from their previous position.

          And they are also trapped in their existing model. They cannot concieve of an approach that does not entail professional journalists, editors, etc. Yet that approach costs money and the market does not assign much value to that professionalism.

          1. But just because the market doesn’t assign much value to their professionalism doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly vital.

    2. I’m not talking about what should be, but how things are. Let’s look at people age 25 and younger (using my daughters as a sample of 3).

      They have never read a newspaper (except when I made them during the summer). Never. They don’t go to news websites. If an article or editorial is on the Denver Post site not only does that carry zero credence, they will probably never see it.

      What they do is hit the web via Google and Facebook. So the most credible news source is a link someone they respect posts on their Facebook page. The second most respected is the Google rank of an article.

      When filling out her primary ballot my oldest typed in each candidate’s name, read the first couple of Google links that looked valid to her, and voted based on that. (She voted for Jason Bane because I recomended him – but only after also Googling him to make sure he was ok.)

      It’s not just the Denver Post that doesn’t exist for this demographic, candidate websites don’t exist either.

      And for those worried about the death of “professional” journalism, read the Wisdom of Crowds and have some faith in the ability of the truth to bubble up when enough people are hitting an issue.

      1. They’re newspaper articles, mainly.  Especially from Google, if it’s current news: the link’s either opinion (usually with a link to a news article) or it’s a news article from a paper, TV, or other tradmedia origin.

        A few articles are now coming from places like Colorado Independent or Talking Points Memo that employ their own news staff.  But it’s not a lot…

  3. After Obama spent $350,000 of taxpayer dollars to have Air Force One dive bomb New Yorkers (for a photo op) – he refuses to release the photos.

    http://www.nypost.com/seven/05…

    Yep.  Apparently the administration will not be releasing the much awaited photos.  But, we will be treated to more of those personal photo’s where there isn’t even a photographer around.  Just personal family moments that help us realize what a great guy the One is.

    1. it wasn’t Obama that ordered the photo op, and he was PO’d about it…  

      But whatever Major Douche bag, your made up attack points are not a surprise.  

      Seriously, the anti-Obama folks are scrapping bottom these days, desperately hoping something, anything will stick as the GOP brand wilts.  On another site–in addition to COngressnutjob Bachman’s FEMA re-education camps, some of your compatriots are claiming Obama is already preparing to suspend elections forever and rule for life…

      What a freak show.  You must be so proud.  

      1.    And if for some reason Obama wanted to scare the crap out of people by sending Air Force One dive bombing somewhere, it would probably have ben over a city in a Red State, not N.Y.!

        1. You are sooooo ignorant.  Obama has no clue what his private airplane is doing?  You honestly believe that dribble?

          What a freak show.

          Airforce One is scheduled way in advance.  They have to have two standing by at all times in case they need to scramble.  Yet, you want the rest of the world to believe that Obama had no idea that Airforce One was being used for a photo op.  

          You are a fool.

          1. This might shock you to no end, but they use more than one plane for Air Force One. In fact, AFO is just a callsign that they call the plane while the President is in it.

            So, in fact, Air Foce One was not being used in a photo op.

            Don’t you think Obama has better things to do than to approve something like this?

            Oh, wait, is this the time where he’s completely incompetent, or a socialist dictator? I can never tell when he’s which with you guys.

            1. Obama is the cipher.  

              My understanding is there is an entire office–with staff even–that schedules the transportation needs of the Executive branch, and arranges things like photo ops of the plane sometimes used as AFO.

              But I’m sure Major Douchebag is correct–Obama personally scheduled it, ruthless dictator and incompetent Euro (Saudi) lackey that he is.  

              1. So he should have no problem releasing the photos.  But the transparent Obama administration is going to sit on those photos.  You know the photo’s his entire staff arranged without his knowledge.  Yep, those photos.

                1. Is it even remotely possible for you to post a comment that is not 99% bullshit?

                  The decision cam from one office–the WH office of military affairs or some such.  I’m pretty sure that there are now hundreds of WH staff in dozens of offices…

                  You are a complete moran and/or you have no integrity.  

          2. then President Obama may very well have had more important things to do than review every flight plan for each of the planes that’s used to transport him around.

            1. even when it’s encouraged. I sat at a table in Boulder’s Walrus Saloon, putting all the peanut shells delicately on a napkin, and felt weird when one of the staff came by and threw them all on the floor.

              I don’t know what it is, I just got a thing about it.

            1. Aurora is a very good city.  And, we have a lot of great burger places too.  Also brats.  Benders Brats on Buckley, a little south of Alameda, makes its brats and almost everything else themselves.  Great brats!

              We need to have a Pols get together at Dry Dock Brewing.  

            2. Do you know of only two towns in the world?  (Hint: There are others.)  But your ignorance on this issue also may explain your fondness for that sprawling suburb in which you reside.

              1. I promote Aurora for the men, women and business owners here. If a world class brewery is located in Aurora, Dry Dock Brewery, I am justified to promote it too.  I have pride in my city.  Hopefully others posting and reading on Pols are proud of their cities too.

                  1. at the Dry Dock.

                    Aurorans have had a terrible inferiority complex for decades, and there’s no end in sight. Until common parlance adopts the Census practice of calling this the Denver-Aurora metro area, they’ll always feel like the suffering stepchild.

          1. visited Conway’s Red Top on the way to the grave. But then again, I know plenty of vegetarians who eventually expired, so it’s not just the hamburger that kills ya.

          2. You’re enjoying your day

            Everything’s going your way

            Then along comes Debbie Downer.

            Always there to tell you ’bout a new disease

            A car accident or killer bees

            You’ll beg her to spare you, “Debbie, Please!”

            But you can’t stop Debbie Downer!

            2. …I say “had” because I was forced to take her down with the five pointed palm heart exploding technique.  She got on my nerves a little.

  6. 911 tapes released from the episode some days ago in which Matt Milner of the Colorado GOP was surrounded, prevented from exiting a building and forced to erase his tape at a union hall meeting featuring Michael Bennet.

    http://completecolorado.com/un…

    Imagine if Republican operatives intimidated a Democrat like this.  There would be civil suits, etc.

    2. It’s a he-said, she-said.  And only the union members have corroboration of their stories.  Your wingnut flack has only his own version of the story.

      Find a different issue.  This one is too phony for even you.

      Or maybe not.

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