Saturday, January 14, 2012

Saturday Morning Ogden City News Roundup

Everything our Gentle Readers ever needed to know about "Crime Blimps," "Back Door Godfrey Deals" and "Unruly Concert Audiences"

Several non Ogden Shooting Story items for our readers' attention, as we meander back to our main blog mission this morning, i.e., discussing "regular," nonviolent Ogden City news:

1) With reference to a couple of earlier Standard-Examiner-published pieces, i.e., "OUR VIEW: Deflated blimp," and "Crime center, blimp will provide safer community"; and acting on the tip from yet another sharp-eyed and alert Weber County Forum reader, we'll shine the WCF spotlight on yet another letter to the editor which just popped up on the Standard's online site, wherein Ogden resident David Willis puts on the full court press for the restoration of the now abandoned "'Quiet Earp' Blimp Project", and hammers the Standard-Examiner (and Ogden City Hall) rather unmercifully. Here are a few short snippets, for your reading pleasure:

What I find "curious" is that the cabal that makes up the editorial board and Caldwell are not well read enough to understand what is happening in this area of police work, they seem to have no knowledge on these matters yet comment and make policy, making Ogden less safe. The secret editorial board writes position pieces having zero research, zero knowledge of the repercussions, zero accountability and zero intellectual curiosity.

I refer you to my letter published Aug. 7, 2011, "Crime center, blimp will provide safer community." As I wrote then and as I write now, the newspaper is destructive and dangerous to the future of Ogden. Furthermore, the paper is a disgrace for again advocating and trying to justify reducing the tools available to the police, especially in light of recent events.

The Standard-Examiner has been and perhaps city hall will become, a place where logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.

Check out the full David Willis rant:
We don't know what to make of all this. So what about it WCF readers? Are folks like Mr. Willis unappreciated visionaries, or merely leftover Boss Godfrey era crackpots?

2) In the wake of our 1/2/12 WCF article, and Dan Schroeder's most excellent 1/3/12 S-E guest op-ed piece, we'll direct our readers' attention to this wisdom-laden Jim Bishop Letter to the Editor, which which makes a couple of strong recommendations to our new mayor, Mike Caldwell:
I recommend that the new mayor do two things: Return the $3,000 from Mr. Lesham and keep the back door to his office closed to the former mayor. Make him come in the front door like any other citizen.
Read Mr. Bishop's full letter here, which is a pretty good read in our view:
Jim Bishop's a man who knows what he's talkin' about, don'tcha think?

3) Last but not least, here's another set of interesting WCF reader-submitted links, received via email a couple of days ago, prefaced by this brief introductory text:
I thought you should be aware of this story, because of the recent discussion at WCF about the disturbance at WSU's performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Alan Gilbert of the New York Philharmonic halted a performance last night after a cell phone went off. I think Dr. Palumbo is in good company.
Here are the links, for which we thank our un-named reader benefactor:
We'll also add that we fully concur with our unnamed gentle reader/tipster. The unfairly maligned Dr. Palumbo is indeed in the very best of company; and for the record, we'll go further and opine that the considerable heat that this no-nonsense "volunteer" conductor, Dr. Palumbo, took over this unfortunate incident were both mean-spirited and entirely undeserved.

Those are our takes... and we're stickin' with 'em.

We'd be curious to know, however, what our ever-savvy WCF readers think about all this.

6 comments:

Danny said...

I'd rather not have a blimp looking down on me 24 hours a day.  If the
idea is to give some kids at WSU something so study for their classes,
then it would be fine.  It the idea is to give the cops and city
government a way to peer down on their subjects all the time, then NO
WAY.

As far as the orchestra director telling people in the audience what to do, let's remember that during the performance it's HIS ROOM.  He can tell people to be quiet or anything else he wants to do.  All in all, it will make for a  better experience for everyone.  And remember, while we are forced to associate with the government, nobody is forced to go to a concert.

Danny said...

In the article from googlegirl, it says,

....the mayor of Ogden, Utah was working to get an unmanned blimp that would “fly over the city and serve as a deterrent to crime.”

He's gone.  He's really go.  So good.   Soooooo goooooood.

Dan S. said...

I'm skeptical. It's exactly the sort of rumor that would be widely repeated even if it had no basis in fact.

Ray said...

THE CHURCH OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES-OR NOT
You may recall that the downtown cinema pub Brewvies was fined by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control after it showed a film with nudity while serving its patrons alcohol- a violation of a specific Utah liquor law.
As a result those of us who enjoy a beer or glass of wine at the Peery Egyptian during Sundance will have to settle for a non-alcoholic beverage this year.  If fact, all the Sundance movie venues will be dry this year because of this on-going legal wrangling. So once again Utah will be shown to the wider world as the nanny state it often is.

D_Dalton said...

Thanks for the link on warrants. That was an interesting read and a pretty well-argued piece. I might be off in my thinking, but I cannot conceive of too many reasons to seal a search warrant that would serve justice. I can think of a lot of reasons to seal them in order to protect collective hind ends.

blackrulon said...

How old were the bullet proof vests? The kevlar insert  panels lose effictiveness after 5 years?

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