My Home Towns

My original home town gets a visit from The New Republic, and they can learn a lesson from my home town now. I fear Jason Zengerle gets Johnstown's economic future right. The community's leadership sees a diversified economy, moving away from dependence on government contracting in the same way that Phoenix's leadership saw our economy diversifying from dependence on real estate. (Look at all the finance, law, accounting, and title insurance firms! Tourism! Retail! Call centers!)

The temptation to credit success to your own virtue is fairly impossible to resist. Once luck runs out, however, the result isn't pretty.

He "Overcame Great Privilege to Build a Life of Real Accomplishment."

My Ted Kennedy appreciation in this week's Jewish News of Greater Phoenix. (Conclusion of rest of article: Yes, he was good for the Jews.)

This Cartoon Was Much Funnier In The Original German

Which must be why the Arizona Republic editorial page chose to print it this past Saturday.

Special audience participation contest: See if you can count the number of unproved assumptions in one little cartoon. ("Because Dick Cheney said so" is not proof.) First prize is a week in Gitmo. Second prize--need you ask?

They Drop the House Liberal, and Nine Months Later They're Bankrupt

Freedom Communications to file for bankruptcy this coming week, according to the New York Times. It's cause for glee in some circles, however unseemly. So now the creditors can do to the owners what the owners did to the reporters. And what will happen to the Hoiles family's fourth generation--the ones that now (gasp!) have to get jobs?

There are two lessons to be learned here: (1) Drop my column, lose your newspaper. Post hoc, ergo prompter hoc. (2) Subscribe to the Arizona Guardian. It's outlasted the Tribune!