Hubris
September 9, 2015 by
We Arizonans have one of the most remarkable legislatures in the country. In 2000, the voters of Arizona approved the creation of an independent commission to draw legislative district lines, thereby removing the power to do this from the Arizona Legislature. The Legislature has drawn these lines since statehood. Since it has become a Republican-dominated Legislature, these Republicans have drawn legislative districts in such as way as to make certain that its dominance and power are maintained.
These Republicans considered the will of the people in passing the independent redistricting referendum an unacceptable breach of its powers and rights. Thus Republican lawmakers voted to bring a lawsuit against the commission, in effect challenging the will of the people.
The Supreme Court decided this question about a month ago against the challenge wrought by the Republican Legislature, upholding the creation of the bipartisan commission.
It is gratifying that the court upheld the people’s will. But any joy in Mudville is tarnished by the fact that we taxpayers paid the legal costs of the Republican challenge. And we picked up the tab for the defense of the commission’s creation.
Now some may argue that the Legislature demonstrated great hubris in fighting the people and using the people’s money to do so. But upon further reflection, one must admit that the Legislature in principle also reflects the will of the people. So it was just one of those things, like “garbage in, garbage out,” and “people get the government they deserve.” Moreover, after the Legislature’s virtual destruction of public education, its neglect of the environment and its love and dedication of and to prisons, the voting taxpayers have no reason to expect any less arrogance from its Republican lawmakers.
On Route 66
September 8, 2015 by
The one thing I remember from “Route 66,” the TV series, was this moment when Tod turns the ignition key of the Corvette and it roars. I remember the sense of being engulfed by envy. I — along with a gazillion other 14-year-old adolescents — could not imagine anything could beat that for cool.
The thought came back with the news that Martin Milner, who played Tod, died Sunday at the age of 83. He and his sidekick Buzz — played, or rather overplayed, by George Maharis — were characters created by the legendary screenwriter Stirling Silliphant whose work still holds up after all these years. He died in 1993.
I remember one episode in particular where Tod and Buzz get jobs working on the construction of a dam. The entire episode was shot in Page and during the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam.
In its time, Route 66 was the best thing on television. It embodied all the best of the American road trip. The theme was written by Nelson Riddle, a great tune that worked perfectly as shown right here.
This and that
August 28, 2015 by
The New York Times obit on Merl Reagle pointed out that one of his better cross-word moments was this clue: Most unpopular cookbook. The answer: “To Grill a Mockingbird.”
___
It’s a thrill to see the Tucson city primary results. The incumbents shall return to the general. The mayor will be reelected.
And of course nothing will change, save for the potholes that will get wider and deeper and the future will yet hold more Being and Nothingness.
___
Can anyone imagine a more arrogant, contemptible and execrable group of lawmakers than the Republicans of the Arizona Legislature? Consider this: The people vote by way of referendum to establish a nonpartisan group to draw legislative district boundaries. The Republicans of the Legislature decide to challenge the will of the people and pursue the case until it reaches the highest court in the land. A majority of the Supreme Court tells the AZ Republicans to go spit. Meanwhile, taxpayers pay for the legal representation on both sides.
Then these same Republicans refuse to abide by the vote of the people in 2000 to state financing of education include additional money to allow for inflation. The Republicans did not comply and now that aid is $1.3 billion in arrears. The AZ Republicans ignored the mandate.
This is reprehensible, an unconscionable breech of public trust. Still the voters return the AZ Republicans to office.
___
DEPARTMENT OF PROSAIC ADUMBRATION & RIOTOUS EXPANSION
This is from a book review written by Rachel Cusk that appears in the August 30 issue of the NYT Book Review:
“Elena Ferrante has written her story twice: once in a group of intense, highly modeled short novels whose action unfolds over a brief time span; and again in the four sprawling, rambunctious, decades-spanning works that compose her Neapolitan saga. That these two modes of storytelling — the compact and the commodious; the modern and the historical; the distilling of life into metaphor and its picaresque, riotous expansion — are so obviously the obverse of each other constitutes yet another narrative, the story of how an individual (more specifically, a woman) arrives, after the vicissitudes of living, at a definition of self. “Do you want the long answer or the short?” is the customary divide between explanations versus outcomes in the retelling of events. Ferrante gives us both the long answer and the short, and in doing so adumbrates the mysterious beauty and brutality of personal experience.”
Unexplained phenomena
August 14, 2015 by
Harper’s September issue is very much wanting.
The lead piece is by some bloke who taught at an “elite” university. He argues that that Higher Ed has sold out to money interests. He pays no attention to state universities. The life is being choked out of them by state legislatures run by extremely small-minded people that belong to a particular political party. Thus, state universities now hire “development officers,” unknown 30 or 40 years ago. “Development” in this context means beating about the bushes for loose moolah. The state universities haven’t sold their souls. They’ve been turned out on the street to beg money from corporate bigwigs and generous (meaning rich) people and foundations.
Harper’s also has a piece on how dangerous Karachi is. I certainly will cancel my reservation and stay away. There’s also a piece on the “war” against invasive species, truly a subject of lesser moment.
But then there’s the Index. This is not even at the topof the list: The Index says that the number of confirmed living Americans who are 112 years of age is 10. Then it provides the number of living people of that same age “on the Social Security rolls: 4,700,000.”
Let us now toast long life and amazing (Harper’s) facts that are never explained.
Anyone else a little curious about the unconfirmed 4,699,990 Americans who are allegedly 112 years old? Wonder how much money they are collecting.
What a country.
Trump emerges
August 10, 2015 by
Gays used to come out of the closet.
Trump, however, has come out of the boys locker room, and is still snapping his towel at selected targets. Cover yourself!
Seems to be a lot of hand wringing among the other Republicans presidential candidates on how to handle The Donald. They all should quit unless they can deal with him on his terms: twist his nipples, grab his ass, give him noogies and pants him.
This is now the essence of the Republican Party.
Let the mud wrestling begin.
Trump tramps the chumps
August 7, 2015 by
You have to admit love him or hate him, Trump made Thursday night’s debate lively.
Like when Jeb! the lesser said he never called Trump a buffoon, I was deeply disappointed. If Bush didn’t say it, he should have. And if he did, he should not have lied. Trump may be a buffoon, but No doubt about it, Trump’s foes are chumps.
Trump strangely reminds one of Teddy Roosevelt. But instead of, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” Trump’s motto runs more toward, “Shout loud and screw your creditors.”
President Donald Trump, just think, big hair and reality TV come to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump’s best bet for VP is obvious: Judge Judy.
Star struck
August 4, 2015 by
Copyright 2015
The Arizona Daily Star has become the thinnest of newspaper gruel.
It seems readers have noticed. In 2006, the Star’s weekday circulation was 103,708. It’s Sunday circulation was 161,975. In 2014, the Star’s daily circulation was 77,528, 25 percent drop. It’s Sunday distribution decreased to 124,007, 23.4 percent less. These numbers are from documents filed by Lee Enterprises with the Securities Exchange Commission. Lee owns the Star and many other newspaper properties.
The circulation decreases are happening as the area grows. Pima County’s population in 2006 was 981,110. In 2014 it was estimated at a shade over a million. The message is pretty much the same all over the country: As the population increases, newspaper circulation falls. In Tucson, the trend is a bit more pronounced.
Since 2005, when Lee purchased Pulitzer Newspapers, Lee has struggled to manage its enormous debt. The company purchased Pulitzer at the zenith of the market, just before it suffered losses from Internet inroads and a severe economic downturn. The decline started in 2006. Lee and all other newspapers have not fully recovered. The days of cheerful 33-percent profit margins seem long gone.
Here’s what the company said in last year’s 10K SEC filing: “At September 28, 2014, the principal amount of our outstanding debt totals $804,750,000. At September 28, 2014, our debt, net of cash, is 4.7 times our 2014 adjusted EBITDA, compared to a ratio of 4.8 at September 29, 2013.” (EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation . It is a measure of operating income. It does not include debt service, of which Lee has in abundance. Last year’s 10K said the company spent more than $30 million to service its debt.
A recent company news release said Lee had paid off a portion of debt from the Pulitzer purchase two years early. The balance of the payment was made to BH Finance LLC, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which is controlled in large part by Warren Buffett, the investment genius and of late a fan of Lee Enterprises. There was a balance of $9 million left on the loan. Mary Junck, chairman and chief executive officer, according to the release, said the reason for the early pay-off was “the company’s strong performance and substantial cash flows.”
The value of Berkshire Hathaway’s 88,863 shares of Lee stock is about $270,000, a modest investment for a company whose shares sell for more than $214,000 each. Thus Berkshire Hathaway’s investment in Lee is equal to fewer than two of its own shares.
Lee’s 10k makes no other mention of debt held by Buffett & Co. It reported that three banks hold the paper: Deutsche Bank ($400 million), JP Morgan ($250 million) and Wilmington Trust ($150 million).
On Februrary 1, 2005, The Associated Press reported this badly written story:
“Lee Enterprises Inc. is buying Pulitzer Inc. — publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch founded by famed newspaperman Joseph Pulitzer — in a $1.46-billion deal that Lee says would give it the nation’s fourth-biggest roster of daily newspapers.
“Davenport, Iowa-based Lee said the acquisition would make the company fourth in numbers of U.S. daily newspapers with 58 dailies in 23 states. Lee has 44 daily newspapers in 19 states.
“Lee will pay $64 a share in cash for Pulitzer, which owns more than 100 weekly newspapers, shoppers and niche publications.
“Pulitzer shares rose 56 cents to $63.46 on the NYSE. Lee shares rose 64 cents to $44.55 on the NYSE.”
Today, Lee’s share price is a bit over $3.
In 10 years, Lee has managed to retire around $600 million in debt. I can only guess how much it has cost to service and renegotiate the debt. It appears in bits and pieces amid the rubble of its 10K filings.
Obviously, the company is struggling. It’s market cap is but $186 million. This means that the company owes about four times more money than it’s worth. According to Yahoo Finance the stock’s short ratio is about 9 percent. This means about 9 percent of its shareholders are betting the stock will drop.
After years — make that decades — of speculation, Gannett — Lee’s partner in Tucson — shuttered the Tucson Citizen in May 2009. The two companies benefitted by eliminating Citizen newsroom and newsprint expenses.
Speculation on the Star’s fate today is sparse if not absent. So allow me to fill the void. There is an economic argument for Gannett to buy out its Tucson partner. Gannett’s Phoenix operation includes the huge Arizona Republic and a TV station. If it were to acquire the Star, it could reduce Tucson production costs by printing the Star in Phoenix. It could consolidate newsroom and advertising expenses.
The Republic’s other — and perhaps more appealing — choice would be to buy the Star and kill it. That would permit it to publish a Tucson edition of the Arizona Republic. Its statewide dominance would be nearly complete.
If that seems a bit cynical, consider what Hearst did when it owned the San Antonio Light and bought the San Antonio News-Express. Hearst killed the Light. No sense publishing two papers when one will make more money.
While we’re on the topic, there once was a time when idealism had a role in newspapers. There was much to be said about the nobility of the free press, the First Amendment and (quoting Joseph Pulitzer) “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” But the good intentions and idealism have gone the way of the buggy whip, yielding without much of a peep to the ways of the balance sheet and the vagaries of profit and loss.
Nowhere is this picture more vivid that in Lee’s depressing predicament. It is the squeeze mode, coaxing every penny from the expense column. It has put the historic Post-Dispatch property in downtown St. Louis up for sale. Lee announced a round of cutbacks in St. Louis as well. Seems the new squeeze is on in anticipation of huge debt payments due in 2017.
It may come to pass that the company can pay its debt only by selling some newspapers — even at bargain prices. The Star might be one of the more valuable properties, and go a long way toward retiring its great debt. It would be preferable. The Star has been squeezed so much that it is barely alive.
Heads we like
July 30, 2015 by
A headline from the mourning (cq) paper:
“Reclusive Taliban leader dead
since ’13, Afghan agency says”
Can’t get more reclusive than that.
The state of American Journalism
July 27, 2015 by
Recent Comments