Movin’ on up to the east side.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 2.7.

By the time you read this, Countryside Post will have moved across Highway 49 to Lake Center near Lake of the Pines, to the space tucked between Round Table Pizza and Hunan Restaurant. Hence the change of addresses in the newspaper.

Now as to why: Jill likes to describe it as a “total business decision.” That’s probably the most accurate way to put it. The rent is better, the foot-traffic promises to be better, and we expect that if the water pipes should ever explode, the landlord will accept liability.

Sick of the Y2K bug.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 2.6.

Back in 1986, in a moment of idle curiosity, I wanted to see how far in the future I could reset the clock on my high school’s new Macintosh Plus. I discovered a Y2K bug of a different sort—it went as far as 2014 before it dialed back to 1915. I also recall how the computer neither shut down, nor exploded, nor refused to run my programs. I never expected it to act up anyway. Still don’t.

I was reminded of this recently, what with all the silly rumors regarding the Y2K bug, most of them generated by people who don't know squat about computers other than they seem to go berserk in a lot of science fiction movies. This may be why they expect the bug to make every system go FOOM on Jan. 1, 2000—even though less than 2 percent of computer systems are year-sensitive. Date-sensitive, yes: most of your bills are generated by computers that take note of the new month and send bills accordingly. Year-sensitive, no; this is limited to Social Security and other agencies which keep track of people's ages. And Social Security announced they’re Y2K-ready. The worst-case scenario of the Y2K bug is that a few people may get some funny figures on their bills, and THAT’S ALL.

Aw, you’re no fun.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 2.5.

“Hello, you’ve reached Countryside Post. Jill isn’t here and Kent is tired of taking her messages, so if you’re calling for her, leave a message; if you’re calling for him, speak up; if you think this is unprofessional, aw, you’re no fun.” Beep.

That used to be on the Post’s answering machine. We had to take it off. We started getting hang-ups, likely from people who thought it was “unprofessional,” which is a code-word for “not dried up and humor-deprived like me; dangit, business is work!” The headline of this Letter is for them.

To me, a phone call is a request, not a demand, to talk. Don’t confuse the two. Many do, and thus become annoyed—especially when they discover that, at home, I don’t even answer the phone. I put a nutty message on the machine, which drives away all the people I don’t want to talk to. I answer, if I feel like talking, those who have the decency to leave a message.

Thumbs down on reviews.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 2.4.

I’ve had to put off some people who have offered to write reviews for the Post—movie reviews, book reviews; you name it, they want to write what they think of it, and I don’t want to print it.

I don’t care for reviews. I find most of them useless; the only way I can tell whether I’d like a book or movie is by watching it. Few have the same criteria for picking entertainment anyway. We’re all entertained by different things. The only use for reviewers I have is that they tell me what something’s about, and I can get that from the advertisements.

That aside, the reason the Post doesn’t do reviews is that the Post covers local stuff, and most reviews are not of local things. The Prince of Egypt, fr’instance, is a nationally-distributed movie and is therefore not local; besides, it’s been out a month, and if you haven’t seen it by now, you’re waiting for the video.

Deadlines and Monday moveable feasts.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 2.3.

Monday wasn’t really Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, but the government has taken a tip from the church calendar and turned every holiday that isn’t on a Monday into a “moveable feast” so they can get three-day weekends. Since the Post uses a government agency called the U.S. Postal Service to distribute papers, we can’t give them the papers on those Mondays for Tuesday’s distribution. Instead, we have to give them the papers Friday, which means we have to print them the previous Thursday, which means you are now reading old news.

Heck, you’re always reading old news. Every newspaper writes its stuff the day before. You want up-to-the-second stuff, try TV, radio, and the Internet.

‘Your paper’ means you write for it.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 2.2.

IF YOU WANT TO SEE SOMETHING WRITTEN UP IN COUNTRYSIDE POST, WRITE IT UP AND SEND IT IN.

I half wonder if I shouldn’t say this in every issue. It makes me tired when people complain that they attended an event and were disappointed when they didn’t see anything on it in their paper. Of course not—if you didn’t write anything about it, what makes you think anyone else did? Whatever happened to that saying, “If you want something done, you gotta do it yourself?”

How about that weather, eh?

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 2.1.

It’s an immediate indicator that the conversation well has run dry when someone starts talking about the weather. Therefore I won’t blame you if you skip reading this, ’cause it’s mostly about weather. Y’see, this is the first winter I’ve experienced in this area since moving here, and it’s been so cold that going to Lake Tahoe over Christmas was a relief. A relief to go someplace colder? Well, follow my logic: they’re prepared for it. The heater won’t run out of propane after one night, the pipes won’t freeze, and the hot water heater won’t burst and flood the office. Well, okay, it won’t burst there. It did burst here. So if you’re wondering why the Post’s website isn’t yet up to date, it’s because the computer got rained on. Expect the website to be updated soon; the computer’s dry now.

See you next year.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.16.

I know, I just know, that no matter how many warnings I put into this issue, some people are gonna call the Post's office next Tuesday and say, “I didn't get my copy this week.” And the funny part is that some of them will have read all of those warnings and will have just forgot it was coming. That's okay; I do that too. You tend to forget a few things after a week. It's just a sign that we're all slowly slipping into a nice, comfortable senility. (That may sound bad, but I actually welcome senility: that way, I won't be expected to remember everything as much as I am now.)

You may not be used to newspapers taking a week off for Christmas. Like I keep saying, the Post does everything a little bit different. Part of it is because Jill and I want to spend time with our families; part of it is because our advertisers blew all their money on Xmas ads and can't afford to advertise until New Year's—and they subsidize the Post, you know. Actually, I suspect they really can afford to advertise; they probably just want a vacation after the Xmas rush. Well, I don't blame them. I want one too. So I'm outa here.

About BASC.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.15.

There’s a meeting this Thursday at high noon in the Post’s Living Room: the first meeting of the Business Association of South County. It’s somewhat appropriate that the meeting is being held at the Post; and not just because Jill is one of BASC’s promoters.

Y’know, it’s often said that a town isn’t a real town unless it has a newspaper; and though south Nevada County is not a proper town, it is a proper community, and as such should organize community-promoting things. We have concerned citizens groups, and now a newspaper. As this area grows—and, like it or hate it, growth is inevitable unless people stop producing children—it makes sense to create a local business association.

Respecting opinions.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.14.

People are still talking about the hate mail we got in issue 1.10—to me, it’s old news, but some people have yet to put in their two cents about it, and when they meet me, they do. Some of them, unfortunately, end the conversation with, “Well, you gotta respect a person’s right to have an opinion.”

I hate that saying, because it’s not true. Few really respect any opinions other than their own. Any other opinions are worthless unless they agree with it. And if you’re under 30 or “inexperienced,” you don’t know any better, so shut up and let your elders talk. (Being under 30, I deal with this attitude constantly.)

Wait a week…

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.13.

Last week was a bit too soon for me to announce “The Countryside”—which was where we were gonna stick a bunch of neat stuff, such as ancedotes and photos from people in our countryside. The first one will be in the next issue.

The delay is my fault. Regular features need development time, and Thanksgiving kinda got in the way. Besides which, I’m sure all of you were too busy with Thanksgiving preparations to even think of sending stuff to the paper.

Being thankful.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.12.

The front-page quote is from Franklin Roosevelt’s Thanksgiving proclamation, in the year he moved it. Originally Abraham Lincoln, who proclaimed the first Thanksgiving Day in 1863, set it on the last Thursday in November. Roosevelt moved it to the fourth Thursday—a subtle change, but three years out of seven it means an extra week of Christmas shopping. Be glad it’s where it is, or the Xmas season would start after Halloween.

So what are you thankful for? Me, I’m thankful for a good past three months at Countryside Post. I’m thankful that many of you like it so far, and that you’re contributing—contributions have been downplayed in the news biz over the last 11 decades, and though it’s not a new idea, it’s not put into practice much. I’m also thankful that many of you are overcoming your shyness in order to send things in. Some people are way too critical of their writing ability. Don’t worry; it’s my job to make you sound good.

Dealing with mail.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.11.

Jill has been speculating all bloody week about who Yvonne Wright might be. Since Ms. Wright stuffed her letter in the Post’s mailbox and left, without the courtesy of including a number nor address, and since no one we know knows her, I’ve been referring to her as “Ms. Wright—if that is her real name.” It probably is.

Jill just wants to know how on earth we managed to tick her off so much. I don’t speculate on things like that. It’s a waste of time. I expect hate mail in the course of this job—there is always going to be someone you rub the wrong way, no matter how much you try to do everything right. If she had a legitimate concern, and presented it as constructive criticism, I would address the problem and see if I could solve it. But she had neither, so that’s that.

Big dead animals.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.10.

In this space I often mention the complaints Countryside Post gets, and I apologize for them. This week, I'm offering no apologies for something we ran. Young David Martin shot his first deer recently and proudly submitted a picture of it to the Post, and we ran it on page 5 last week.

Since then we've received five phone calls from people who, for various reasons, do not wish to see dead animals in their paper. I can understand where they're coming from; deer are cute and friendly and it's not nice to see one of God's creatures butchered like that. On the other hand, we've been running pictures of dismembered animals in our supermarket ads… but then again, deer have better publicity. Disney never made a cartoon about a baby cow.

News sometimes isn't pretty. Sometimes it's horrible. Take that horse some psychos set on fire the day before Halloween. We almost ran a photo of it. Why? Because it was news. Insane behavior, when it affects other people, is news. I prefer good news, but sometimes the public has to know bad stuff whether they like it or not.

Slow growth issues.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.9.

If this issue seems to have a lot of ads, it’s ’cause it does. As you know, the reason you get Countryside Post free is because advertising pays for everything.

That’s the way newspapers work. Even the ones who take subscriptions work that way—in their case, subscriptions just pay for the cost of circulation. In the Post’s case, we eat that cost. That’s partly because I believe that news is free and should remain so—if you’re gonna call news-reporting "a public service," it’s not public if you charge for it—and because if you circulate to everyone, you’re not so dependent on circulation figures that you have to resort to harebrained schemes to increase circulation. Nor do you have to appeal to "the nobility of journalism" or being "the voice of the community" in order to get customers. That’s a load of bull dooky anyway, and we all know it. Advertisers want numbers, and if we circulate to everyone, we got ’em.

The 𝘗𝘰𝘴𝘵 endorses…

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.8.

…nobody. Countryside Post will not exaggerate the solitary opinion of the editor or publisher by labeling it the opinion of the paper. That’s as it should be.

It isn’t easy bottling your opinions. Especially for me. Seven years of writing editorials makes it second-nature to generate opinions at the drop of a hat. I won awards for them, believe it or don’t. But most people already have their mind made up, so what good are my two cents? The only way I could add to a discussion would be to tell them something they didn’t know. In other words, write news.

So we did, or tried to. This election the Post sent out questionnaires. To date, only Lorraine Jewett-Burdick and Todd Juvenal ever got back to us in time. In the interest of fairness I decided not to publish their responses since there was no equal comment from their opponents. I apologize for wasting their time.

Who am I? Why am I here?

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.7.

I used that quote from Admiral James Stockdale (you might remember the 1992 vice-presidential debate) to describe this column. I never really explained what it is. I assumed the title “Letter from the Editor” would tell you that it was a letter from the editor—not an editorial, nor an opinion piece. Basically, it’s meant to tell you some of Countryside Post’s behind-the-scenes stuff; stuff that doesn’t ordinarily work its way into articles but are kinda informative anyway.

I know, it’s something you’ve not seen in other newspapers before. That’s how we do things around here. Since the only thing editors seem to write anymore are editorials, some of you assumed this was an editorial. It’s an honest mistake. For someone who’s supposed to be responsible for some good balanced reporting, editors are awfully opinionated fellas, aren’t they? Wouldn’t newspapers improve dramatically if the person on top was the least opinionated?

Some cheese with your whine?

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.6.

Last week I was on the verge of gushing as I wrote about the people who just love their little paper. This week, the other side of the story. Some have complained that the Post covers too much school stuff and they want to see some articles about south county property development. Some have complained that the Post is, by publicizing Lake of the Pines events, encouraging undesirables to enter their gated community. (Tell the people who send us press releases, okay?) Some have complained that all the news is too “soft,” or “fluffy,” or “happy,” and that they want crime news, or government corruption news, or investigative pieces.

Those are the problems. Here's the solution. Unlike other newspapers, the Post publishes contributions from its public. If you contribute articles about the things you're interested in, you'll see them in the Post. Complaining won't get you anywhere; action will. But in my experience, most complainers are just whiners, and whiners are all talk. God forbid you should actually do something—there'd be nothing to whine about!

Anyway, keep sending those articles to the Post. We still publish everything you'd like to contribute—even whining.

Your little paper.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.5.

Lots of people have said they love “your little paper,” and I haven’t been quick enough to remind them it’s their little paper, so I apologize. Response has been very positive. One wasn’t; some fellow wasn’t getting his Foothill Trader and called the Post, of all things, to complain. He said he liked the Trader better, which I’m sure the Trader would be just thrilled about if only he had called them. Guess the Post doesn’t have enough ads. We’re working on it.

Some discussions have dealt with my editorial philosophy; seems people have noticed the Post isn’t like other papers, and not just ’cause it’s small, comes in the mail and doesn’t carry canned news. A lot of that has to do with my religious convictions about what’s right to print and what isn’t. I didn’t get a B.A. in theology for the heck of it, you see. (Okay, I did. But if you seriously believe something, it ought to change the way you do things. Otherwise you’re a hypocrite.) Some of it has to do with what I did before I went back to college; when I worked for other papers and said to myself, “If I ran a paper, I’d do it this way.” Well, now I do.

My philosophy is complex, but I’ll tell you this much: there are a lot of people who confuse freedom of the press with freedom from responsibility for what they say and who it affects. I don’t. I hope you readers keep me accountable to that. Heavy part over.

Speed bump.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.4.

Every once in a while you hit a “slow news week,” where there’s nothing to report on but Presidential scandals, and the Post won’t write about that, which makes the week slower. Isn’t this an election year? Isn’t the public supposed to be busily sending their local paper letters about how wonderful this or that candidate is? The Post may not endorse anyone, but you certainly can. There are, after all, only four weeks until the election for you to say something. So say something! Mail, e-mail or fax it to the Post.