My buddy George over at I'm Not One to Blog But . . . wrote about
going out to his driveway Tuesday morning to pick up his L.A. Times and finding Wendy McCaw's News-Press along side it.
Talk about your horror stories.
The speed with which he describes dispatching the unrequested News-Press to the recycling bin makes me suspect that at some time in the past George read the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant procedures manual for dealing with spills.
Before he could dispose of the offending edition he did notice the green flyer that was slipped inside the plastic bag that contained the paper. The flyer was promoting the fact that "The Santa Barbara News-Press is excited to be sending one of our very own to Beijing China. We are the only local news source who will be providing a local view on this exciting world event."
As George noted, conspicuously absent from the flyer is the name of the reporter they are "sending" to Beijing.
Never fear, I can pick up the story from here. I have it on good authority that the reporter who is going to China to cover the Olympics for the News-Press is sports writer Blake Dorfman.
But to say that the News-Press is "sending" him, is a bit misleading.
Dorfman is paying his own way to China.
I hope they didn't make Dorfman pick up the costs of the flyers as well.
The last couple of days Rick Caruso, who hopes to develop the Miramar, has been running large ads in the News-Press. Wonder if they'll be enough to make the anti-Miramar editorials and columns disappear from the paper's opinion pages, much the same way the editorials condemning the Fiesta Rodeo came to a halt this year following the running of ads in the paper promoting it?
That was a pretty clever post over at The Average Man about Travis Armstrong leaving the News-Press.
Hey! It's based on just as much authority as Armstrong's columns reporting that Mayor Marty Blum was contemplating resigning.
Next Tuesday, my friends at Edhat will be presenting a request to the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors to improve the dissemination of information during emergencies, such as the recent Gap Fire.
There's an on-line petition to join in supporting their request. I've signed it and hope that you will consider signing it as well.
Here's my Fiesta leftover. Reader Erica Fleishman wrote in to ask, "what happens to all of the egg innards from those cascarones" and "how much water does it take to power-wash the confetti out of the streets?"
Darned if I know. Can anyone out there help?
