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A fat advocate

The NYT has a Page One story on a woman who advocates fatness, being fat and evidently thinking fat. Never in all my born daze. BULIMIA BE DAMNED.

UA mysteries: Why is Robbins still president? What happened to $110 million in debt? Why is the Arizona Board of Regents so inert, so incompetent? No matter. The era of Robbie Robbins and Ann Weaver Hart will forever be etched in UA history as its Dark Ages.

That clown (Robbins)should be run out of town.

And what is it about the UA finances? Suddenly $110 million in debt is cleared?

The more this story is reported, the more murky it gets.

The only clear conclusion from this entire mess is that $87 million will buy you a fairly decent football season.

In memoriam: June Caldwell Martin, 1922-2020

This is second in a series of occasional opinion articles, aka “editorials,” about the journalistic wreckage known as the Arizona Daily Star.

A friend of long standing, J.C. Martin, died last week, having spent 98 short years on the planet. She spent nearly three decades working as a writer for the Star. There was a time that the Star would have paused to honor one of its own, one who merited a news obituary. 

In the last decades of her service to the Arizona Daily Star, J.C. Martin’s byline stood atop column after column of reporting about Southern Arizona authors. She wrote with intelligence and generosity about their lives and their books. She knew about writers. She was married to Erskine Caldwell, the author of “God’s Little Acre” and “Tobacco Road.”

The editors at the Star did not see fit to write a news obituary. Her family paid for a death notice, as required by the accountants who rule the Star and Lee Enterprises. The obituary ran last Sunday devoid of any insight into her wit and intelligence. In a city that is home to many accomplished writers, June was well-respected, which only amplified the disrespect of her long-time employer.  To some, this will be seen as a relatively small matter in the middle of an often-horrifying pandemic, but a small moment that illustrates all that has perverted American newspapering. 

Clearly, one depressing image of our time is that of the Great American Newspaper on a treadmill to oblivion. And if that decline required evidence, it would be the tariff demanded to publish the obituary of someone so prominent and newsworthy as June Martin. One of us.

But the paltry act of asking for alms to report the news, with no effort to write a story worthy of what she meant to this community or shining a light on the good she did, is an uncaring ignorance that will surely resound in silent streets one day, the death notice of the Arizona Daily Star.

That Minneapolis killer-cop…

…was doing something weird with his left hand while he was murdering George Floyd. Take a look at the video:

https://abc13.com/minneapolis-police-video-killing-man-killed-by/6212794/

The cop’s left hand is jammed way, way, way into his pant pocket, like what’s he up to? One of the bystanders notes, “You’re enjoying this!”

Perversions aside, this cop should be charged with capital murder. It’s clear he intended to kill. The three other cops should be charged as well. They casually strolled about while a fellow human being was being murdered before their eyes.

Wonder how long it will take Trump to pardon them.

About the Star (part one): The decline of newspaper flower power

We took a drive Tuesday to Mount Lemmon. It was a beautiful day. The saguaro blossoms were extraordinary.

 The Arizona Daily Star earlier this year or late last year sadly put a halt to its wild flower coverage. In times like these with wildflowers powered by rains — perhaps as never before — the desert is lush, awash with brilliant golden palo verde blossoms everywhere.

   This unique phenomena would have been lavishly celebrated in words and pictures by Doug Kreutz, for many years the Star’s outdoor writer and foremost proponent of flower power. But Doug retired. Much too early as it turns out. This, alas, was not a year for Doug to miss. This year was propelled to lush foliage by fall and winter rains that fed every willing seed in this vast Sonoran desert.

The saguaro blossoms are uniquely lush this year. The best way to enjoy them is to drive up and down Mount Lemmon. The saguaros are legion at the bottom and towards the middle of the trip. The white blossoms with gold hearts are closer to the road. 

  I apologize for not having more to say about these lovely crowned giants. Doug has forgotten more about saguaros than I will ever know. But I don’t think he would appreciate them any more than I. He would agree the onslaught of those flowers is really big news.

Thomas B. Modly, Scheisskoph

Modly fired the captain of the aircraft carrier Teddy Roosevelt for trying to protect his men. Modly said the captain did not follow the chain of command. He should stick that chain where the sun don’t shine. Modly is the reincarnation of General Scheisskoph (see “Catch-22”).

The captain’s dismissal constitutes overwhelming evidence that this country is run by idiots and scheisskophs. And to think, the Roosevelts both served as secys of the Navy. The country has summoned leadership from the dregs of humanity since then so that now the chief qualification for running the greatest Navy in the world is to have the soul of a massive turd.

U.S. Drug Prices

Went to Nogales Monday. Bought drugs. The fluconasol for Zoe’s Valley Fever problem cost about $80 for about a five-month supply. At Walgreens, it would have cost more than $2.000. Last year, I bought drops for my ear that my drug insurance wouldn’t cover, ten ounces for $175. At Plaza Farmacia on Monday, it cost less than $8. Wouldst I pray, all those part of American Big Pharma burn in Hell.

About Ann Weaver Hart

Some letter writers to the Arizona Daily Star a while back groused about the fact the Arizona Board of Regents paid former UA President Ann Weaver Hart $800,000 to go away. Fact is, it was money well spent. It would have been worth it at twice the price.

Socialized Medicine

When it comes — and it will come — just a matter of when a majority of people in this country discover the will to defeat greed — socialized medicine must be accompanied by the nationalization of the utterly corrupt pharmaceutical industry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/opinion/nurses-medicare-for-all-health-insurance.html

Majority rule?

Anyone who says the United States of America is governed by majority rule is either drunk or an idiot. Why isn’t the elimination of the Electoral College an issue?