legal notices
reading emperor kendall wallace in this weekend's sun you'd think the mayor had just knocked over his grandson's ice cream cone. the proposal to publish legal notices in some other way besides the local dinosaur (which fewer than half the city now reads) has struck the dinosaur's apprentices as a direct assault on their livelihood, and i guess that's pretty much predictable.
my thoughts?
reading a week's worth of suns this past weekend (left over from my being away the week before) left me with a feeling not of having ice cream ruined, but of having my wallet stolen. (further insult to injury, i just burned well over $200 on my annual subscription renewal the week before, and it's a bitter taste of my own stupidity in my mouth under the heading of "fool me twice shame on me"). i won't bore you with the details, but the overriding impressions of being screwed begin with the profound almost-complete-absence of local news, continue through the bizarre "i hate 'em but i can't write about anything else" anti-everything-dem rantings of the loco-emotive, and are crowned by the realization that i'm the one, via my own subscription, who is guilty, guilty, guilty, and not anyone else.
but let's leave my own self-loathing alone for a second, shall we, and talk about legal notices.
not for nothing, but emperor wallace's rant (where are the mr mill city boys when you need them) contained not one shred of reasonable support for his beyond-vehemently held position. fewer than half the city reads the paper--in what universe does this constitute what dick howe so aptly questioned in his recent blog post due legal process of notification?--and the instant you get into "but they can read a free copy at the library anytime", you get into the obvious point that you can read free copies of stuff off the internet at the library anytime, too, with the added benefit that such distribution of information (the internet kind) is FREE to the city, not at a cost which (to my mind anyway) unfairly subsidizes one party to free and fair business competition (aka the sun) and none others (which would be any and all other media vehicles and outlets).
my feelings are complicated. to rebut any and all of the sun's purely selfish and self-serving arguments (where are their adamant insistences that ad revenue be fairly shared with other newspapers so the ostensible result is not racketeering and collusion?) i would start with their having failed to reach even a simple majority of the necessary constituency, and finish with a pointed "why do you feel that you and only you are entitled to dig your filthy hands into the public trough and take food out of the mouths of others in the same way you are screaming at the mayor for taking food out of yours?"
myself, i'm not satisfied that internet distribution of notices is exactly and completely fair, either. the object is to make access fair and easy, and clearly the net is superior to every other method in that regard, given the ubiquitous prevalence of smartphones, internet-connected home computers, and free internet access at the public library. however, clearly, a significant portion of the citizenry do not perhaps even know the first thing about how to connect themselves to the internet, and i'm willing to bet that the venn diagram depicting those people superimposed over the bubble of non-anachronists using the web pretty much looks like the proverbial binocular view that would encompass virtually the whole 100% of the city who would care. (you can't do anything about people who don't want to know what is happening in the world, so let's not worry about them).
so where is the fair and reasonable suggestion that BOTH communication channels be exploited?
not for nothing, but the remaining question then would be why one channel (the local fish wrapper) should cost the city so much money, and so unfairly benefit one for-profit business at the expense of both taxpayers and all other competitors, but perhaps kendall wallace will write about that subject NEXT saturday with as much vehemence, vim and vigor as he did his grandson's ice cream cone being knocked to the floor this saturday.
in any case, count me among those who feel it's good for hizzonah the mayor to have opened the discussion. public legal notices should not be costing the city so much money to post. (and, in case someone at the newspaper then would argue that it's not so much money, then i would ask why they might be so upset about it not being given to them).
my thoughts?
reading a week's worth of suns this past weekend (left over from my being away the week before) left me with a feeling not of having ice cream ruined, but of having my wallet stolen. (further insult to injury, i just burned well over $200 on my annual subscription renewal the week before, and it's a bitter taste of my own stupidity in my mouth under the heading of "fool me twice shame on me"). i won't bore you with the details, but the overriding impressions of being screwed begin with the profound almost-complete-absence of local news, continue through the bizarre "i hate 'em but i can't write about anything else" anti-everything-dem rantings of the loco-emotive, and are crowned by the realization that i'm the one, via my own subscription, who is guilty, guilty, guilty, and not anyone else.
but let's leave my own self-loathing alone for a second, shall we, and talk about legal notices.
not for nothing, but emperor wallace's rant (where are the mr mill city boys when you need them) contained not one shred of reasonable support for his beyond-vehemently held position. fewer than half the city reads the paper--in what universe does this constitute what dick howe so aptly questioned in his recent blog post due legal process of notification?--and the instant you get into "but they can read a free copy at the library anytime", you get into the obvious point that you can read free copies of stuff off the internet at the library anytime, too, with the added benefit that such distribution of information (the internet kind) is FREE to the city, not at a cost which (to my mind anyway) unfairly subsidizes one party to free and fair business competition (aka the sun) and none others (which would be any and all other media vehicles and outlets).
my feelings are complicated. to rebut any and all of the sun's purely selfish and self-serving arguments (where are their adamant insistences that ad revenue be fairly shared with other newspapers so the ostensible result is not racketeering and collusion?) i would start with their having failed to reach even a simple majority of the necessary constituency, and finish with a pointed "why do you feel that you and only you are entitled to dig your filthy hands into the public trough and take food out of the mouths of others in the same way you are screaming at the mayor for taking food out of yours?"
myself, i'm not satisfied that internet distribution of notices is exactly and completely fair, either. the object is to make access fair and easy, and clearly the net is superior to every other method in that regard, given the ubiquitous prevalence of smartphones, internet-connected home computers, and free internet access at the public library. however, clearly, a significant portion of the citizenry do not perhaps even know the first thing about how to connect themselves to the internet, and i'm willing to bet that the venn diagram depicting those people superimposed over the bubble of non-anachronists using the web pretty much looks like the proverbial binocular view that would encompass virtually the whole 100% of the city who would care. (you can't do anything about people who don't want to know what is happening in the world, so let's not worry about them).
so where is the fair and reasonable suggestion that BOTH communication channels be exploited?
not for nothing, but the remaining question then would be why one channel (the local fish wrapper) should cost the city so much money, and so unfairly benefit one for-profit business at the expense of both taxpayers and all other competitors, but perhaps kendall wallace will write about that subject NEXT saturday with as much vehemence, vim and vigor as he did his grandson's ice cream cone being knocked to the floor this saturday.
in any case, count me among those who feel it's good for hizzonah the mayor to have opened the discussion. public legal notices should not be costing the city so much money to post. (and, in case someone at the newspaper then would argue that it's not so much money, then i would ask why they might be so upset about it not being given to them).
posted by kad barma at 6:30 AM
2 Comments:
I guess the published legal notices are considered an entitlement.
If the paper were any good it wouldn't have to scrap for public funds, there would be enough readership and advertising to support it the old fashioned way.
Wait, legal notices ARE the old fashioned way.
Regards — Cliff
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