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The Week Ahead
The nation's political focus will be on Washington, D. C., this week as the big Senate filibuster fight ratchets up. There are major ramifications in this battle for the 2006 elections and both parties have a great deal at stake. Both sides are planning events and a gigantic public relations battle is unfolding. Sen. Orrin Hatch published an op-ed piece in the Tribune on Sunday defending himself and the Republican perspective on judicial filibusters. The New York Times on Sunday published an excellent overview of the issue.
Parties Ready to Rumble
Utah's Democrats seem enthusiastic and confident as they begin a new era with a new state chair handpicked by Congressman Jim Matheson . Can Wayne Holland lead the party to more electoral victories? The Democrats made a little progress in 2004, thanks mostly to a Republican mess in Salt Lake County.
But the county GOP is getting its act together. New county Republican chair James Evans will be able to focus his attention on grassroots organizing and winning elections instead of being sidetracked by party dissidents and scandals in county government.
Will Defiance Cost Utah?
Time magazine published a four-page spread on No Child Left Behind in its May 9 issue, with most of the focus on Utah's rebellion. While it's kinda fun to be getting all the national attention, the publicity framing Utah as in defiance of federal guidelines may make it more difficult for Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to go easy on the state.
The Time piece compares Utah's NCLB position to the Utah War of 1857-58 when Mormon guerillas “spooked federal livestock and burned the federal wagons. They incinerated 368,000 lbs. of military provisions.” The magazine includes an inflammatory quote by Rep. Steven Mascaro encouraging the feds to keep their “stinking money,” and the article also says Utah does a poor job educating minority students.
The states, led by Utah, “are daring Spellings to make the next move,” says the article. So will Utah lose $76 million in federal education money? The more this is framed as a high noon showdown at the OK Corral, the more it seems to me that Spellings will take a hard line.
Blog Watch
Two interesting pieces on blogging in the New York Times on Sunday. The first is a look at Gawker, which publishes several blogs, and the second is an excellent column by Adam Cohen on the need for bloggers to establish ethical guidelines.
Media Watch
I love newspapers. I love printed newspapers that I can peruse page by page, glancing at the ads and looking for stories that interest me. But much hand wringing is occurring in the newspaper world as circulation continues to decline. The Wall Street Journal reported that over the six-month period ended March 31, daily U.S. newspaper circulation dropped 1.9%, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation. That is a big drop. For Sunday papers, the decline was even bigger, 2.5%. The Los Angeles Times took an enormous hit, down 6.55% in just the six-month period. Daily newspaper circulation today is about the same as it was in 1954.
There is lot of speculation about the future of newspapers and the news media in general. Don Porter, editorial page editor at the Standard Examiner, sent along this interesting link to a scary presentation on the future of the news media. It is all speculation, of course, but it will be a sad day if we eliminate the human touch in gathering and editing the news and rely on computers to do all the work. |
Utah
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