And as it was well known even at the time of the Constitutional Convention that various religions had opposing views on such matters,and also that some people hold no religious views at all, it was considered necessary that the State itself not take ANY religious matters under consideration for the purposes of any governance.

For example, in the modern era(...)
Hit the link for more: Establishment Clause and Faith-based Platforms and Policies

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Have to wonder, what would a person be willing to pay for such a service — people who go out and gather news and take photos and develop and maintain an infrastructure for others to be able to access? What would most people be willing to pay?

I responded:

One that has not been asked here before!

My own sense is that there are a couple of suppositions in that question that should be considered:

1) Do people in Porterville read local news at all? Clearly many don’t. That’s kind of a shame. I (and probably you) wish it was 100%. But it isn’t, and there are a lot of socio-econoimic reasons for that mostly beyond the control of the paper.

2) Whether people read local news or not, they increasingly get their news online, and the demographic of folks still wedded to the print edition are probably older and so it won’t last forever.

3) The idea that people have paid for “news” in the past is an open question in the industry, as you might know. Some posit that people paid for the ads, the gossip, the entertainment, the comics, the puzzles, and that the news was incidental. At least after say ~120 years ago when comics and modern advertising were invented.

4) So it may well be that adverting as a sustaining source of revenue may not ever support a news-only site. And as for those other categories of information online, it is already clear people won’t be looking ot newspaper sites for them in any appreciable amount.

5) The idea of paying a fixed subscription for online is not likely to work for small local sites. There is not enough material to justify what larger sites charge, and with a porous firewall, most people would figure out how to get it free anyway.

6) An online-only site not strictly tied to the rhythms of the sun might work, if the content was compelling enough to draw eyeballs and hence advertisers. Aside from the journalistic angle of it, this is what disappointed me the most about the Recorder’s decision to take down the “TCSO misbehaving” video: it was online only and drawing an audience that was engaged. By letting it go, there could have been some very interesting data collected about what types of stories people online would get excited about, and that could have guided both editorial and business decisions. It was just pure opportunity lost, eventually followed by an 800 word editorial attempting to justify the errors all around and only making it worse.

7) Because people do get their news and entertainment mix from a variety of sources online every day, we are seeing new classes of aggregators to handle the distribution. I referred to some of these earlier. My own sense is that I would not want to have to anticipate ll of my news sources in advance and pay for them individually whether I use them or not.

But I can imagine a future where I would pay for the aggregation services, either directly, or perhaps as part of my phone plan. Just like every film producer *could* put up their film online and charge for it to stream on an a la carte basis, but instead lets aggregators such as netflix and others handle the distribution and delivery, and take a snippet of the revenue when the material is viewed, I think news folks might look towards similar models.

8) In situations like that, the Recorder is wasting opportunities to explore what the real value of its material online is by not working to make it available under various schemes (whether they are the schemes I prefer or not), and instead making it difficult to access. The data that can be collected is lost forever every single day.

9) The new owners are almost certainly going to want to go in the direction of the future while capitalizing on the brand names of the past once they get settled. Maybe in the bigger scheme of things, post-sale, it is better to jut hang out because they will bring some business models and tech with them when they are ready.

But I am not clear why that precludes the making of material online promptly and broadly, because the data will be valuable in establishing a negotiating position later when cost to reader or aggregator questions are asked for real.

Claudia – guessing this is pretty similar in Tehachapi?

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Post tags: Claudia Elliott, facebook, news distribution, news360, newspapers, online news, Porterville Recorder, pulse, taptu

“It’s bad enough they tried to steal our outlet mall 10 years ago. If they had succeeded we wouldn’t have that sales-tax money, or a movie theater. We’d be a city with a Target, a Walmart, dollar stores and screaming sirens, and that would be sad. I want us to be more than that,” he added.

In other words, it would be Porterville.

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Post tags: chooseporterville.com, dollar stores, movie theater, Target, tulare, Visalia, Walmart

One likely doesn’t need permits if one simply shows up and starts playing music -e.g. busking.

Let some of the many fine musicians in Porterville practice and gather inspiration under the music mural and statue of Buck Shaffer on the Clock.

When word gets out that there are musicians there, people will come to listen.

When there are enough musicians around the park, people will stroll and wander.

And when the musicians get the attention, they will stay late.

All of this under the First Amendment.

Let it happen every night, with more fun on weekends, Fri, Sat for example.

Let Porterville get a reputation as a place where creative musicians play and meet each other.

Other artists will come, locally, and from far away, and they will have things to share, and maybe services to sell for tips like the musicians.

Soon, people will want to make a night of it, and that means eating dinner or getting snacks to bring to the park. A restaurant or two will start to think about staying open to accommodate that, and maybe some pushcarts or food trucks will show up.

Maybe even the food trucks will start to offer the creative truck cuisine that other cities have leading nightlife efforts there…or other creative food places such as Crave Bakery on Main Street will step up!

Maybe some of the crowd will wander to the Brickhouse or Mecca, and vice versa, and those few blocks will start to show some human activity after 5PM.

Eventually, maybe the musicians and artists will want to start being here around each other because they are benefiting from the collaborations. Instead of moving to SLO or wherever, some stay here or come back after college.

An arts community of young people starts to form. They need studios and apartments, and some vacant places on and around Main Street start to look good as places to live and work.

By then, the Courthouse is done, and there are new folks in town who have a few bucks to spend on themselves and entertainment, they work downtown, and some of them are not ready to go home and roll up the carpet at 5PM, so they add to the crowds – more crowds for the musicians and strolling artists, more customers for the food carts, the restaurants, and suddenly some kind of shops on main street start to look feasible where they haven’t until this point….

Porterville gets a reputation regionally, and sometimes further, as a place to see great music, see great art, or to make it, and to enjoy a meal, maybe to stay a day or two in a hotel.

Sonny starts to see more people at his shows, and so do other venues.

Tax revenue starts to increase, and it comes at least in part from out of town, meaning it is “free money” for City Hall, and represents a facet of a thriving economy, possibly for the first time ever in Porterville.

How did this happen?

Because the musicians and artists here in town show up in numbers to exercise their First Amendment rights in a park the City has already built and dedicated to them, and which is mostly unused today, and definitely underused.

Total investment by the City to make this happen?

Zero.

Think it can’t happen?

See the square on University Avenue in Palo Alto next to Pizza My Heart (I forget the cross street right now). See the many creative buskers on Castro Street in Mountain View where there used to be none, and where 25 years ago the street looked pretty much the way our Main Street does now.

I am sure there are lots of other examples.

Porterville has the raw material in celebrated and presently anonymous musicians, let’s see you come out to busk, it is the best thing that can happen to the City at this point in its history!

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Post tags: Buck Shaffer, busking, nightlife in Porterville

Porterville Recorder describes swearing in ceremony for new Council

Congratulations to new Mayor Gurrola and Vice Mayor McCracken.

Let’s let the rejection of the most divisive members of Council, who once may have been seen as “next in line” for these two positions, serve as a signal that the time for divisive policies of Council is past.

Let the new Council proclaim a New Day by rejecting the damaging and divisive 2008 Prop 8 Resolution, perhaps doping so indirectly by re-affirming the 2003 Patriot Act Resolution affirming the existing rights and the willingness to protect them against the intrusion all government bodies.

Porterville will be a thousand times better off for doing so as quickly as possible.

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Post tags: brian ward, Cameron Hamilton, Greg Shelton, Pete McCracken, Ron Irish, Virginia Gurrola

It would appear I hit the nail on the head when it came to Measure H funds being spent inappropriately. I’m not the brightest guy in the world, but if the city had to pay back $60,000 on the consultant group….where does that money come from? The consultant group should pay the money back….not our city!

I responded, provocatively I suppose, as below…to me, the issue is that we are treating the kids as an afterthought with the hope they won’t make us spend additional money later in police services when they hit puberty and beyond. Talk about hope and a prayer!

Instead, it would be better to insist our volunteered tax dollars, a rarity anywhere, let alone here in Bible Belt/Tea Party California-land, be spend on teaching the kids to value learning and education for its own sake, more so than the teachers and the parents and the elders of the town.

That ain’t gonna happen, and neither will any measurement towards the stated goal of the taxation Measure H. Sadly some of these kids are going to die at the pointy end of a Porterville Police Department bullet if history is any guide.

See my facebook response after the jump….

(...)
Hit the link for more: David Gong agitates Measure H, I respond

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Post tags: Bible Belt, David Gong, facebook, Measure H, Tea Party

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling said Friday that the collapse of his 38 Studios video game company has probably cost him his entire baseball fortune, and he placed part of the blame on Rhode Island officials, including Gov. Lincoln Chafee.
http://news.yahoo.com/schilling-company-crash-cost-baseball-fortune-121042535–finance.html

It is also a great example as to why the management team is so important. There is never any mention of any management besides Schilling, who

Curt Schilling, 100% Management

made his money as a baseball player. Generally, a team is in place long before there is as much money invested as in this case.

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling said Friday that the collapse of his 38 Studios video game company has probably cost him his entire baseball fortune, and he placed part of the blame on Rhode Island officials, including Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

Which probably points out some inexperience with those who issued loans, be they banks, individuals, or Rhode Island itself…why didn’t they insist that a management team be put in place to maximize the chance of success?

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Post tags: curt schilling, digimediafinance, venture finance

Dorothea Lange, Porterville, near the scene of Patrotic Cake, 2012

In which we attend City Council so you don’t have to – but we wish you did!

Curious that both Brian Ward and Greg Shelton were not at the public session of City Council’s meeting last night.

I know that Shelton was present at City Hall, as I was hanging around outside near where his distinctive truck was parked.

I don’t know for sure that Ward was there or not.

City Attorney Lew reported that action was taken on one item, I think she mentioned it was 3-0, but she seemed unsure as to how to report it.

It was announced that Ward and Shelton would not be present for the remainder as they were both “sick”.

This was interesting because this meeting was the one meeting of the year where it was critical to pass the budget, and you would think both men would want their votes attached to the results, as this is one of the most important votes of the whole year.

During public comments, it was requested that the vote be postponed until the men are present, but it went on anyway as there was a quorum, and McCracken asked for clarification from City Attorney Lew that the budget had to be passed by June 30th by the City Charter.

She affirmed that, and Hamilton indicated “we know how they feel anyway” and the vote was held.

Certainly other meetings have had items continued or otherwise procedurally postponed until a specially scheduled meeting only a week later.

Such a delayed meeting would have still brought the vote in before June 30th, and left all of the Councilman as being on the record as to their votes on the all-important Budget.

And there is already hardball being played with next years budget, as one of the other items last night involved broken negotiations with the lowest paid bargaining unit at City Hall. A 3 percent cut in their salary was imposed, saving no more than what appears to be approximately 100,000 dollars and perhaps as few as 30,000. All that out of a ~20 million dollar budget. The workers spoke after the meeting of needing to make choices about which family members will have to do without insurance, or of not being able to afford diapers for an infant, of generally living very close to the edge of where paycheck to paycheck doesn’t even cut it anymore.

This reminded me especially of the Flag Day ceremonies last week, with Irish and McCracken also present (but surprisingly none of the other Councilman). At the conclusion of the ceremonies, attendees ate a giant sheet cake in the form of a flag in front of SaveMart, and then streamed to their cars.

Some of them passed by a homeless man by the empty building that used to be Long’s Drugs, sitting there with his dog, his rucksack, and his bicycle that had a flat tire and a sign that said “I need a job”. Even the Church Scouts passed him by (I don’t know the official name of this group in their khaki shirts, yellow neckerchiefs, and black socks, but I think I learned they are associated with a church in town during last fall’s Veteran’s Day Parade).

None of the local patriots who had just spent the previous 2 hours patting themselves on the back for being veterans or related to veterans who fought in wars for all Americans and the American Way even rose past the figurative level of Marie Antoinette’s notorious cry of “Let them eat cake” and offered this hungry man an opportunity to eat Patriotic Cake.

This took place only blocks from where a very famous series of Dorothea Lange photos documented the depth of the Depression and made the John Steinbeck novel “Grapes of Wrath” about real people for America.

Only blocks away, this latter-day saint of an American refugee sat through the ceremony celebrating his America too and he was not offered any Patriotic Cake. Some things never change.

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Post tags: brian ward, Cameron Hamilton, Dorothea Lange, Flag Day, Greg Shelton, Pete McCracken, Ronald Irish

Do you know  any similar examples? Let me know via the comments….

Original words: regarding  War on drugs:
“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping drug dealers buy more drugs?”

Japanese-American internment during WWII:

“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping Japanese spy against the US?”

Chinese Exclusion Act:

“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are allowed to marry are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping Chinese have inscrutable babies until they can vote us out of our own government?”

Same-sex marriage:

“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping to teach children to be gay or to undermine ‘traditional’ marriage?

Slavery:

yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping animals think they are human and deserving of the sma rights as others?

Woman’s Suffrage:

“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping women learn that they can participate fully in society?”

Birth Control:

“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping sluts who can’t keep their legs together have abortions ?”

Temperance Movement/Prohibition:

“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping alcoholics buy more drinks?”

Immigration:

“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping people who don’t look like me take care of their families?”

Anti-semitism:

“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping people who don’t think Jesus is Lord?”

McCarthyism:

“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping people who don’t love their country the way I do?”

Jim Crow laws:

“yes, Barry, I do have a problem when those that are receiving help are abusing it. Are you going to tell me that you have no problem working if your money is helping people who want to drink from the same water fountain as me or go to the same schools as my kids?”

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Let them eat cake indeed!

In fact, the only economically interesting part here is that Wawa does not have to pay the drive-through or counter cashier that other chains do. Instead, they convince the customer to do the labor that would have otherwise cost it 15 dollars or so an hour for all costs.

How much does that customer save on their sandwhich?

How is this creating new entry level jobs for the people who would be order takers or sandwich makers?

Does he advocate chains such as McDonalds or Subway increase profits to the likes of him by cutting even more entry level jobs by letting the customer touch the screens themselves instead of having paid employees do it?

Where are these entry level jobs hat are created while they are destroyed at Wawas? Point them out to me  please. You can comment on this post, I await your response.

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Post tags: amazing, creative destruction, entry level jobs, fast food, job losses, mitt romney, sheetz, wawa