With Travis Armstrong gone from the position of head meanie at the opinion section of the Santa Barbara News-Press I've been wondering, who might take his place?
Under Armstrong's watch, the opinion section of the paper was an angry, scolding and humorless place, inhospitable to differing opinions or a diversity of viewpoints.
Will it change when owner Wendy McCaw eventually gets around to hiring a replacement for Armstrong?
Since Armstrong departed, the paper has not run any editorials on its opinion pages. But it has published "guest opinions" in the space where editorials usually appeared.
There have been four of them so far. One was authored by Lanny Ebenstein. The rest were written by Terry Tyler.
Tyler is a retired CPA and was an unsuccessful candidate for Santa Barbara City Council having run in 2005, finishing sixth in a field of eight behind Dianne Channing.
So far, his writing has been pretty bland. If he wants the News-Press opinion job on a permanent basis, he's going to have to get more pissed off.
He's certainly capable of more provocative writing.
Earlier this year he wrote an article handicapping the mayor's race that appeared on Steve Cushman's website. The article described council member Helene Schneider as, "an avowed progressive who is backed by the usual assortment of big spending lobby groups including the now tainted Service Employee International Union."
Actually, there's a name for people like that around here. They're called, "Madame Mayor."
You'd think a guy who has been around as long as Tyler would know.
KEYT is doing a "special assignment report" on people who take second jobs to make ends meet. Maybe they should do a story on people who don't get paid for all the hours they work on their first job?
I say if the DA's office is serious about bringing Randy Quaid back here from Texas to face charges, they ought to hire Jack Nicholson to bring him in.
© 2009 by Craig Smith and www.craigsmithsblog.com
