Much at 25

Those were the days, back when JD was JD and not a newscaster named John.

Some are still out there. Others have gone on to different things or bigger things.

MuchMusic turns 25 today.

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Freedom from Information: Whose briefing book is it anyway?

Health minister Paul Oram claimed he didn’t have any briefing notes when he took over the department.

Aural is moral, as the saying went.

Some local media outlets, like the Telegram, went looking for briefing notes and were told by officials they didn’t exist. 

Now, of course it’s not unusual for government officials to be less than truthful in answering media requests for documents.  Back then, the officials said one thing (no documents) but the politician involved – namely no less a personage than the Premier Hisself – said something different (sure we got ‘em).

But in this case, it is way freakin’ spooky that Oram told the Gander Beacon he had a couple of feet of files -  including briefing notes -  to go through  after the officials and Oram had said there was nada in the space marked briefing notes. 

The story now gets off into a whole new realm of bizarre:   Oram is now claiming there were briefing notes but that they weren’t prepared or him. 

And in Oram’s whack-o world, he has time to read through two feet of material prepared “for someone else” but if he had briefing notes with his name on him, he’d never have time to do anything but read briefing notes.

Huh?

Exactly the reaction one would expect for such an obvious bullshit claim:

There are a bunch of files, and there are a bunch of different issues that sit on my desk every single day. They may not be in the form of a briefing note, but everything is filed and documented - there' a paper trail for everything."

Briefing notes are sent through his department on a constant basis, but Minister Oram said they are not prepared for him.

"I didn't ask for somebody to give me a load of briefing notes so I would start going through them," he said. "If I had to do that, that's all I'd do - read. I just don't have the time to go read every single formal briefing note that there is. But I do have the time to sit and have someone explain to me what we have on right now, and then I go through the files we have there."

All of this is in aid of defending efforts by the Oral Majority – i.e. the cabinet – that appear to be designed to circumvent laws in the province aimed at making government information available to the public.  Oram’s been at this a while:  recall that he earlier denied that not putting things in writing was not a way of not putting things in writing.

And again, your heads are clearly twisting trying to make sense of the ministerial confusion over such a simple thing as whether or not there are briefing notes Oram is reading in order to get up to speed on his new responsibilities.

It’s not like we asked him to recount recent history or anything.

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Carry over

One of the great budgetary practices of the current administration is something called carry over.

Projects are budgeted and announced in one year and then they don’t get started, let alone finished.

Government gets multiple good news hits out the practice. 

First, they get the warm fuzzy media coverage from announcing the spending in the first place.  Sometimes they keep announcing the spending even though it hasn’t happened.  Second, if by some chance work does start, they can announce that and keep it up until the thing is finished.  it’s not unusual to see things started four years continue to appear  in releases as if it was part of current spending.

Like say a hospital in Corner Brook that was tossed into the “stimulus” counter-measure even though it was begun and should have been finished long before anyone even thought of a recession.

Now when the project doesn’t happen, there is never an announcement of the bad news.  Not likely.  The money budgeted but not spent becomes “surplus” and is part of the announcement of the record “surplus” in the spring.

Then the project is carried over into the new budget and re-announced.

If the delay has caused increased costs, this is not something to be chagrined about.  Not on your life.  Any politician worth his or her salt will trumpet the fact the same project will now cost even more because of the delay.  If any one of us mere mortals missed the chance for a good deal and had to pay 30% more for the same thing, we’d be kicking ourselves for being so stunned.  When politicians drop the ball; and it costs you 30% more for the same thing, that is a great investment in the local community.

And if it jumps 71%, as in the St. Alban’s aquaculture centre?  Well, that is just “stimulus”.

Carry over is very big in the current provincial government administration.  They carry over lots of things. 

Like in Labrador West, where a new hospital was promised just in time for a by-election in late 2006/early 2007 and the thing is still in the planning stages the better part of three years later.

Or a new campus for the College of the North Atlantic.  Tender went out on May 4 with a closing date of June 17.  (Well, the initial news release in early May said the thing was going to tender.  A “stimulus” announcement in June said the thing would be tendered in June.)

The tender was awarded three weeks ago – i.e. about a month or more after the tender closed – and as we slide easily into Labour Day, Jim Baker, the local MHA has no idea when the thing will get started. But Baker can assure residents of the area that the project costs have climbed from $18 million to $22 million and that no steel framework will be done this year.

None.

But they might get the site prepared and concrete poured.

Maybe.

So the campus project will be carried over until next year.

Just like the hospital.

or the aquaculture centre.

When was they supposed to be finished again?

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Unaccelerated

Remember that news release claiming that work on the Trans-Labrador Highway was being “accelerated” when it actually wasn’t.

Well, it wasn’t and now there is the excuse to go with it, courtesy of Jim Baker the Tory MHA for Labrador West:

"Given the time it got started, the preparation work that needed to be done and the time it took to get mobilized, I'm pleasantly surprised by how much has been done," he stated. "Next year obviously, when they get started, everything will be ready to move. All the crushing will be done, so all they'll have to do is lay out the blacktop."

And that blacktop will be laid next year as originally planned back in June when they let the first tender go.  Had they waited on the second tender until next year, the work would have been done…

wait for it…

next year.

As planned.

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All things to all people, NDP version

You gotta love the New Democrats. 

They want to get elected soooo badly that they are willing to saying anything to anyone if it means a chance of a vote.

The Sternest Daughter of the Voice of God, the quintessentially Canadian pile of self-righteousness is now the Whore of the North.

And right there at the top of a panel on a little brochure in your mailbox is the Dipper’s slogan for all this: 

New Democrats: Your only partner in Ottawa

Only partner, that is, unless you happen to be an Anglophone in Quebec or a Francophone anywhere else in Canada.

Then, you are on your own.

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Freedom from information: Talk about low-balling

Oil production in the first four months of fiscal 2009 is down about 23.5%  - on average - compared to the same period in 2008.

But Hibernia payout and current oil prices mean that the offshore oil patch is on track to deliver about the same revenue to the provincial coffers in 2009 as it did last year.

That’s $2.5 billion for those who are keeping score.

Compare that to the $1.2 billion in oil revenues forecast in Budget 2009.

That also means the provincial budget will be on balance overall.

Of course,  that also means the provincial government still has a couple of billion sitting in the bank doing nothing but collecting modest interest.

So why exactly is the provincial government still opposed to a setting up a sovereign wealth fund  - like Norway or Alberta - to ensure the people of the province get the maximum benefit from their resources?

When you think about it, that makes it hysterically funny  to see the federal Dippers trying to buy votes in the province by talking about “fairer” Equalization.  Are they promising Alberta Equalization hand-outs too?

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Must be in the water or something

Not one, but two messages from different people suggesting your humble e-scribbler become Facebook fans of candidates in the next federal election.

One was the incumbent. 

Another the challenger.

Must be an election coming or something.

Like all those Dipper free mailers that show up every week.  The last one promised Newfoundland and Labrador something called “fairer” Equalization along with a raft of other things.

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It’s not just a tall tale

The Great Sheaves Cove Chainsaw Massacre is all too real.

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Jabberwocky

Get a load of this little bit of ministerial bafflegab. It’s Ross Wiseman, lately the business minister talking about the issue of air service to the southeast coast of Labrador:

We were working on this overall strategy piece. Work has been pretty well advanced. What we do in Labrador is a response to the unique circumstance in Labrador, yes, but at the same time we do it in the context of a provincial strategy. It’s difficult sometimes to go into one region of our province and develop a policy framework, or develop a strategy, or provide a response, without giving some consideration to what impact that might have on an entire province, and how that might fit into a broader strategy, so we’re cognizant of what we’re trying to do in the bigger piece.

There’s something even stranger about this.

Wiseman is not the minister responsible for transportation, in whose lap this issue falls.

That would be Trevor Taylor.

Nor is he the minister of Labrador affairs.

That would be John “The Shoveller” Hickey.

Nor is Wiseman likely the alternative minister for any of those portfolios. Not only has Ross had no experience with them, there is no connection - logical or otherwise – among them.

Wiseman used to be the health minister. Now he is the minister responsible for figuring out how much money he should take from the most indebted taxpayers in Canada in order to give it to give some rich foreigner in order to get them to come here and make work.

So on the whole, Wiseman’s face on this story of a domestic company – Air Labrador – is peculiar.

It’s not even odd that the airline in question has let slip this little story long before they actually intend to cut the service.

And it’s not the least bit peculiar that the local member of the provincial legislature - Liberal leader Yvonne Jones - wants government to think about funnelling cash into this local private sector company. That’s what local MHAs do in Newfoundland and Labrador, regardless of any political affiliations involved.

Nor is it odd that Jones has no problem with pouring public cash into a local airline but doesn’t like pouring public cash into the oil and gas exploration business.

And it’s not odd that Jones wants to make sure there is good air medical service in the large Labrador, one of the services the airline provides. In fact, Air Labrador made $3.4 million in 2007-2008 flying medical patients around the nearby health region along the north shore of the St. Lawrence.

That would be the health region in Quebec, for those whose Labrador geography is a bit dodgy.

But that cash came for providing an essential service, not just for having planes flying into and out of a community carrying passengers or – as the company decision suggests not carrying passengers - just for the sake of saying there is a plane coming into the local airport.

That idea is as wacky as the utterings by the jabberwock about the whole issue in the first place.

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Rumpole and Justice Delayed

 

There is no question that our system provides a great method for adjudicating questions of fact and law, but given the expenditure of public funds we are obliged to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to provide the best possible system in terms of the efficiency of the process.

Report on of the Task Force on Criminal Justice Efficiencies, February 2008

Administrative changes recommended by a committee of lawyers and judges to improve the province’s justice system still haven’t been implemented over 18 months after they were made public.

In December 2007, newbie justice minister Jerome Kennedy appointed a task force that included deputy minister Chris Curran, then Chief Provincial Court Judge Reg Reid and Mark Pike, the current associate chief judge, among others.  They issued their report in February 2008 because they were specifically directed “to make recommendations and to meet any necessary budgetary deadlines for the ensuing fiscal year.”

The committee agreed that “with appropriate leadership, goodwill and resources, its recommendations could be fully implemented by the fall of 2008.”

Some 18 months and two budgets later there is still no sign of some of the major changes, including a new system for assigning court time.  Kennedy was replaced as justice minister in late 2008 in a sudden cabinet shuffle.

In its report, the panel noted that:

Court sitting times in St. John’s have been declining for the last two years. It is a fact that in 2007, on average, in St. John’s, only 31% of the available courtroom time was utilized. For 2006 and 2007, on average in St. John’s, some 40% of the judge’s available sitting time was lost primarily due to collapsed cases.

The panel recommended use of a  Case Assignment and Retrieval System (CAARS), appointment of part-time (per diem judges) and appointment of a trial co-ordinator to oversee the efficient scheduling of cases.

In May 2008, Kennedy described the system for the House of Assembly:

So this system would be called the Case Assignment and Retrieval System, or the CAAR system, and would allow for flexibility. Essentially, what happens in Provincial Court today, if a trial is commenced, if that trial does not finish in the two days allotted then it goes to the six or eight months in the roster down the road when it next comes up to court.

Consistent with the committee recommendation, Kennedy told the legislature the target date for implementing CAARS was the fall of 2008. 

However, as cases like the Walsh trial indicate, the system is apparently still not in place. A trial co-ordinator position, also recommended by the panel to manage court schedules apparently hasn’t been hired.

One thing recommended by the panel has been implemented and that is the creation of per diem judges.  Essentially these are part time judges who are available on call and only used as needed. 

But with four vacant seats on the Provincial Court bench  - three of which are in St. John’s – the per diem judges likely wouldn’t make much of a difference to solving the problems noted in 2006 and 2007.

While Kennedy indicated in the House that the section of the act creating part-time judges wouldn’t be proclaimed until CAARS is ready, the judge positions already exist without the new scheduling system.

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Keeping the Old Team Together

Deputy mayoral candidate Keith Coombs decided to build his campaign team around a trusted core.

The man who helped bring taxpayers the Wells-Coombs Memorial Money Pit -  a.k.a Mile One -  is using Lisa Neville as the media liaison for his election campaign.

Neville was unceremoniously turfed from her job as council and the Money Pit board tried to staunch the seemingly never-ending flow of red ink at St. John’s Sport and Entertainment. It remains mired in debt despite Neville’s commitment in 2006 to see the centre “debt free and subsidy free by 2010.”

In 2008, the Mile One crew claimed to have a surplus of $110,000.  However, when the increased taxpayer subsidy was taken into account, the red ink still totalled almost $2.0 million.

Since 2005, the city has increased its subsidy to the centre which has – nonetheless – continued to lose money each year. Way back then – when just by the purest of pure coincidences the stadium was a hot election issue -  there was even a claim the thing might make money in 2005. 

Of course, in the spirit of being responsible with taxpayers’ money,  at least one candidate has been known to endorse the red ink.  In December 2007, Ron Ellsworth apparently felt that bleeding taxpayers is okay since the centre pumps money into the pockets of local businesses:

"As a businessperson I certainly wouldn't take it on and run it as a business, because it wouldn't put money into my pocket as the owner," said Ellsworth, who represents the city on the board of St. John's Sports and Entertainment, which governs Mile One.

"Why the City of St. John's can do it, and why we are doing it, is that it's an economic development engine that's been created."

Talk about keeping the old team together.

Imagine Ron as mayor with Keith as his Number Two. 

Now that would be a dream team for someone.

But that someone wouldn’t be the average debt-burdened taxpayer.

 

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Cosby picks up Philips story

Bill Cosby is interested in turning the story of Lanier Philips into a film.

Philips was a black seaman on one of two US Navy ships wrecked in 1942 on the way to the naval base at Argentia Newfoundland. Philips has told the story of being rescued, expecting to be met with racism. Instead he was met with humanity and kindness that profoundly changed his life.

Philips tells part of the latest twist in the story in a CBC radio podcast with David Cochrane. An interview with Bill Cosby will turn up later today.

Cosby was a hospital corpsman at Argentia in the 1950s.

Update: The CBC online story.

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The sincerest form of flattery…

2005

Simon Lono municipal campaign slogan:  Back to basics.

2008

Ron Ellsworth deputy mayoral campaign slogan:  Back to basics.

2008

Doc O’Keefe mayoral campaign slogan:  Leading a Great City.

2009

Ron Ellsworth mayoral campaign slogan:  Standing up for a Great City.

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Oh-cripes-it’s-worse-than-it-first-looked-update:  The news release announcing Ellsworth’s candidacy (thus far the only “news” on his website) is titled “Ready to Lead a Great City”.

Great Gambols with Public Money: Sprung Cukes 4

Cuke caper: Greenhouse fiasco rocks Newfoundland

The Ottawa Citizen, Sunday January 15, 1989

by: Michael Harris

Brian Peckford is Canada's first lame-cuke premier.

Peckford's Newfoundland government invested more than $18 million of  public  money into a futuristic cucumber operation. Three weeks ago, he announced that the province's adventure in high-tech farming had been laid low. The entire crop in its gigantic hydroponic greenhouse complex had mysteriously died.

Hydroponics is a process that grows plants without soil. The eight-acre complex into which Peckford poured Newfoundlanders' money was supposed to give them cheap, fresh vegetables year-round and create jobs and a profitable export market. So far, the province has got much bigger bills than it counted on, thousands of malnourished and deformed cucumbers, the prospect of an agricultural white elephant and loads of embarrassment.

The premier hinted darkly at foul play when he announced the crop failure. Hours later, the province's partner in the venture, Calgary businessman Philip Sprung, called in the RCMP. Claiming his project had been sabotaged, Sprung released a wild west-style Wanted Poster. He offered a $10,000 reward for the ''capture'' of a shadowy figure who was quickly dubbed ''The Cucumber Killer.''

Sprung brought in Richard Bonanno, an American horticultural academic who concluded in less than a day that sabotage was the likely cause of the crop failure. According to Bonanno, an associate professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in weeds, a triazine commonly known as Velpar was the culprit that triggered the total shutdown of the giant greenhouse complex.

''Dick Banana'' quickly became the darling of talk show callers as the Sprung controversy boiled over. Bonanno's speedy assessment was at first challenged and then dismissed by other experts. Scientists from Memorial University in St. John's said Velpar didn't have the ability to bring about the massive zinc shortages they found in leaf samples taken from cucumber plants in the Sprung greenhouse.

Last week, National Research Council scientists in Halifax flatly eliminated triazines such as Velpar as the cause of the massive crop failure. In ruling out Velpar, Roger Foxall, director of the NRC's Atlantic Laboratory, said that scientists may never know what caused the cucumbers to die on the vine.

Less than a week after the massive crop failure, Peckford gave the floundering project another $1,335,000 to tide Sprung over until a new crop could be planted. The money was immediately spent to cover Sprung's operating costs, leaving the province with the unpleasant prospect of forking over at least $2 million more to the greenhouse before the end of January. Faces around the premier's cabinet were turning as red as Sprung's bottom line.

Informed sources told the press that provincial finance minister Neil Windsor and others had argued in cabinet to close the project. Last Monday minister of agriculture Charlie Power, the man who for the last year has been line minister responsible for the high-tech greenhouse, resigned after 10 years in cabinet.

Power said he lacked ministerial authority to deal with the ''financial fiasco'' of the project. He said he had been treated like ''a Soviet spy'' by Philip Sprung whenever he tried to get information from the government's partner about what was going on at the greenhouse. Power said that the last straw for him was that even though nothing was growing at the greenhouse, the lights had been left on to melt snow off the roof.

''The average daily light bill for December was over $7,000,'' Power said. ''That is a rather expensive way to melt snow.''

When asked if he thought Sprung's sabotage theory was a red herring, the ex-minister offered a barnyard metaphor: ''There is a better description for it. It comes out of a certain end of an agricultural animal.''

Power's criticisms also touched the premier.

''For me to make statements to the press and then realize that the premier's office is fully aware of an entirely different set of circumstances has been both embarrassing and frustrating.''

He added: ''When I look back over the process, I really wonder how a government which recognized our history of Newfoundland getting taken by people from the outside... how we could have got ourselves into it.''

Power complained that he never once presented a cabinet paper on Sprung, that he was misinformed about the financial requirements of the project by the premier's office and that Finance Minister Windsor signed all the loan guarantees on behalf of the province.

''To be briefed after the fact is not, at least in my estimation, the way that the cabinet process or a minister's responsibilities should be done,'' he told reporters after his resignation.

Peckford called Power's resignation ''discourteous and painful.'' He accused his long-time cabinet minister of angling for the leadership of the PC party  - Peckford's job, but hotly rumored to soon be up for grabs. But Peckford has vowed that he intends to lead the party into the next election, so his accusation against Power was puzzling. [Peckford resigned in early 1989, shortly after this article appeared. ]

Power's resignation and the shut-down of the cucumber facility are the most dramatic setbacks in a continuing saga of woe. The Sprung project has been controversial since it was unveiled in May 1987.

Peckford announced that the province was going to be equal partners with Sprung in an $18.4-million hydroponic complex to be built on 25 acres owned by the province. Anxious to make Newfoundland the cucumber capital of North America, Peckford put the public's money where his mouth was and purchased Sprung's used hydroponic structure.

The province threw in a $1-million piece of land, a $7-million loan guarantee, $900,000 in sales tax exemptions and $2.5 million in cash up front. And if the project failed, the government would pick up the tab, while Sprung could walk away for $1.

Peckford said Sprung's revolutionary system would be a money-maker within a year. It was to catapult Newfoundland to the forefront of hydroponics. It was also supposed to provide year-round fresh vegetables at low prices to Newfoundlanders, long used to a limited selection of high-priced imports most of the year.

When the project ran into a seemingly endless string of troubles, the government coughed up $6 million more. Sprung continued to contribute his expertise rather than his money. So far, not a penny of the government's investment in Sprung has been spent with the approval of the legislature. (Total costs for the greenhouse have since ballooned to $25 million, $18 million of which has been picked up by the government.)

Philip Sprung had claimed from the start that he could grow seven million pounds of produce a year at the greenhouse while creating 150 full-time jobs. Other growers scoffed at his claims. Critics called the project ''Grow By Chance,'' a not-so-comic reference to Newfoundland's biggest bankruptcy - the Come By Chance oil refinery.  [Actually Canada’s biggest – ed.]

Oblivious to his critics, Sprung just kept on making claims for his hydroponic system.

''There really isn't anything we can't grow, from marijuana and hashish,'' he once joked to reporters. ''Actually we've never tried, but I'm sure we could do it.''

Sprung was less anxious to talk about the $18-million loss he ran up with the same hydroponic facility in Calgary, where he never produced the quantity of vegetables he claimed he could. When his plants began to die after nearly a year of operation in Calgary, Sprung cited gas emissions from the site of a defunct oil refinery as the cause and sued Imperial Oil and the city for $50 million.

Not long after Peckford's bubbly announcement, the troubles that dogged Sprung in Alberta began to show up in Newfoundland. Five days after the deal with the province was signed, Sprung had a dispute with the project's chief technical director of hydroponics, British Girocrop Ltd.

Girocrop's managing director, Michael Anselm, was replaced by Phil Sprung's daughter, Dawn.

Anselm said one reason he left was that Phil Sprung was more interested in selling hydroponic greenhouses than in the commercial production of vegetables. Dawn Sprung responded that Girocrop's technology had become ''antiquated.'' The irony was withering.

On the day the project was announced, Peckford described the same technology as being on ''the leading edge of a new and highly innovative technology.''

Vexed by questions about the failure of the project in Calgary, Peckford blew up at reporters during a 1987 press conference. He urged them to check out the facts about hydroponics before they criticized the greenhouse. He directed the media to a variety of sources he said would confirm his contention that Sprung's technology was proven and viable and that his deal was a good one.

But a canvass of the premier's sources cast further doubt on the controversial project. John Wiebe of the Alberta Department of Agriculture's Plant Industries Division, told the St. John's Sunday Express that he simply didn't believe Sprung's yield-claims were achievable and that they had never been independently verified.

''It's possible that Mr. Sprung is trying to sell units, not grow crops. There's a lot of hype attached to that operation... I ask people who are potential investors to personally and directly audit the yields. Don't take his word.''

Wiebe's reservations were echoed by Mirza Mohyduddin, a specialist in greenhouse crops with the Alberta government's Tree Nursery and Horticultural Centre.

''Genes are involved. Plants have a genetic limit and you cannot push a plant beyond its genetic limit,'' he said, pointing out that Sprung's yield claims in sunlight-starved Newfoundland were two times greater than growing results in Saudia Arabia, where there is 12 hours of sunlight year-round.

When questioned about the reservations of nearly two dozen scientists, government representatives, growers and marketing people, Peckford insisted that the province had documented proof that Sprung's yield claims were achievable and that markets were in place to make the project economically viable. The premier promised to make the studies public once the legal agreement between the government of Newfoundland and Sprung was executed. He later changed his mind, telling reporters that the information would give other cucumber producers a competitive advantage.

In fact, the only government study of the Sprung operation was carried out by a team of Newfoundland public servants, which visited the Calgary operation in January 1987.

The officials reported to government that Sprung could achieve a top yield of 2.7 million pounds of produce a year, less than half of what he was claiming. They expressed doubt that the marketplace would be willing to pay the $1.08 a pound that Sprung expected to get. The Sunday Express's [sic] freedom of information request for the report was denied, but the paper later published a leaked copy.

Faced with mounting criticism, Peckford put a news blackout on the greenhouse project in May 1988.

''We decided that we will make no further comment on day-to-day operational and marketing decisions of the greenhouse.''

But the bad news kept coming. Although Newfoundlanders had been promised cheaper vegetables from Sprung, it was revealed in June 1988 that local wholesalers were paying 75 cents for the same pound of  produce that was being sold in Boston for just 25 cents.

Public anger deepened when the greenhouse began giving truckloads of deformed and unmarketable cucumbers to local farmers as feed. The government arranged to have Prince Edward visit the greenhouse last June, hoping for some good publicity. Sprung billed the government $10,000 for the cost of white nylon jumpsuits and sneakers for the prince and his entourage.

Then came the accusation from other growers that Sprung was the greenhouse that stole Christmas: the perpetually-lit facility was ruining their poinsettias. The traditional Christmas flowers need a certain amount of darkness to develop their distinctive red coloring.

The Sprung complex's bright lights not only affected plant growth in neighboring areas, residents complained they could play cards or read in their yards at midnight.

Faced with a call from the political opposition for a judicial inquiry into the Sprung fiasco and demands for even more funding from the troubled facility on the short term, Peckford's 10-year-hold on Newfoundland politics has come down to a single decision: should he pour more public money into Sprung or close it and take the heat for a mega-blunder.

It's a problem that won't go away.

This is a white elephant that glows.

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Top qualities in a new PR practitioner

The always insightful Dave Fleet posted on 14 essential attributes for new public relations practitioners and – as one might expect – the thing has attracted huge amounts of attention and comment from people in the business.

It’s all good stuff.

Around these parts, your humble e-scribbler would point to the writing skills point.  This is gigantic.  Too many people have trouble with this in too many walks of life but in the public relations business not being able to write a clear, coherent sentence is deadly.

For newbies – to whom Fleet’s list is directed – this is a big one.

There are far too many who wind up in the PR business or who claim to be communications professionals who have basic problems with basic skills.

Your humble e-scribe would also had a characteristic or cluster of characteristics which is strangely absent from the list:  inquisitiveness and its cousin, scepticism.

One of things PR people do is explain stuff to others.  In order to do that effectively you have to understand the “stuff” first.  You gain understanding by being inquisitive, by being nosy.  Ask questions.  Learn how to find out stuff.

Related to that, be automatically sceptical of anything and everything.  Ask lots of questions. Allow nothing to go unchallenged.  Better to get to the bottom of something and expose all its facets before you wind up in public.

Inquisitiveness and scepticism will ensure there are no surprises once a bad news story goes public.  On the positive side, they may turn up an angle that no one thought of before.

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Craig, the new janesguide?

From the infamous towniebastard, this little bit at the end of a post about being recognised by blog readers:

However, the oddest thing by a mile is that another municipal candidate emailed me and asked for my endorsement. Seriously. And no, I'm not going to say who it is.

Look, I know how many people come and visit this blog. I'm mostly happy with the numbers but I'm under no illusions that I have a massive amount of influence with this forum. So I don't think my endorsement is really the kind of thing you can stick on a flier and convince a lot of people to vote for you. For example, I seriously doubt Simon is going to do up a pamphlet that says "Endorsed by Townie Bastard".

Any day now people will see little logos on the bottom of websites. Sorta like towniebastard meets everyone’s favourite porn rating site, complete with the little animated writer at about the halfway point of bashing himself to pieces holding up a sign that reads:

“Craig says I’m a bastard, too!”

Charge for the rating. 

Charge for the widget.

Laugh all the way to the bank.

Meanwhile others will try and figure out who the wanker is that’s running for city council who would solicit an endorsement.

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Water Street Fire Photos

A section of the downturn that burned recently was destroyed by fire last night.

The Telegram has some action photos of the fire and the response that are worth checking out. 

This is spot news.

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The Leading Edge Olds

The success of Twitter isn’t being driven by teenagers or even twentysomethings.

It’s being driven by adults.

The public nature of Twitter is particularly sensitive for the under-18 set, whether because they want to hide what they are doing from their parents or, more often, because their parents restrict their interaction with strangers on the Web.

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Edward Kennedy, 1932-2009

The New York Times obit piece.

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Musical Interlude: Frente

1.   From early 1990s Australia, “Accidentally Kelly Street” by Frente.

2.  Then Frente’s acoustic cover of New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”:

3.  And to finish off, New Order with a recent live version: