OUR BLOGGERS ARE SAYING …
Life's early lessons
Columnist John L. Smith writes about Robert Laxalt, author of 17 books and among Nevada's best known writers:
In the true spirit of the craft, he got his start early by making observations at his family's small Carson City boarding hotel. It also helped that he assisted his father with a little bootlegging.
That's right, the celebrated Laxalt family sold a little whiskey during Prohibition. In "Travels with My Royal: A Memoir of the Writing Life," Laxalt recalls a childhood turning point when he discovered his mom and dad made a little extra dough under the table with bootleg whiskey.
"I suppose that made us bootleggers, but hardly in the league of Al Capone and Joe Kennedy, who operated in grand style with fleets of trucks loaded with Scotch whiskey instead of poor man's bourbon.
"They had hundreds of cases of whiskey. We had one case of twelve bottles at a time for the boarders in our four-bedroom hotel and the customers who came for dinner.
"Being bootleggers put us in a lower social standing, though I never could make the distinction between our serving whiskey and those who bought it -- including the occupants of the Governor's Mansion and the opulent homes of Supreme Court justices."
Thus, at an early age Laxalt learned a lesson in the hypocrisy of vice. It was a lesson that served him well all his days as a writer. Times have changed, but the lesson is as valuable as ever.
For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/smith/
What is real worst case scenario?
Business reporter Benjamin Spillman writes that the investor who forecast the downfall of General Growth Properties says he sees an even bigger debacle on the horizon, and that it has Las Vegas implications:
Reggie Middleton has analyzed the numbers behind the federal government's so-called "stress test" of the nation's 19 biggest banks, and the results aren't pretty.
In short, Middleton says the government is badly misleading the public.
"The Fed says X through the stress test assumptions ... yet if you simply surf over to the other side of the government's own Web sites, they offer actual default and foreclosure rates (among other data), that are considerably more dire than they asked you (the taxpayer and investor) to believe is credible and 'not that bad,' " Middleton writes on his BoomBustBlog.
People who are interested in the numbers should head here: http://boombustblog.com/Reggie-Middleton/962-America-You-have-been-outright-lied-too-Bamboozled-Swindled-Hoodwinked-The-Worst-Case-Scenario.html
The Reader's Digest version is this: The federal government has assured Americans the banks can survive even in a "worst case scenario" for the economy.
But according to economic indicators provided by the government itself, the alleged "worst case scenario" has already been surpassed in some instances. ...
Middleton is forecasting another boom in foreclosures in May. That's because the foreclosure moratorium has ended, which means banks could well have a backlog. ... That might not bode well for the local economy.
For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/business/
Who do you trust?
Editor Thomas Mitchell says the press gets the worst press, and that a study out of the University of Pennsylvania proves his point:
The study reports, "Looking at print, broadcast and cable news stories over a nine-year span, researchers at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania found there were 900 stories on declining readership that appeared in newspapers, but only 22 stories on declining news viewing that appeared on television."
The press is more than willing air its problems but the same cannot be said for broadcasters who have seen decline far in excess of what the print media have experienced. It is a significant topic for both.
As the researchers noted the economic concerns but then pointed out the more significant problem, "Add to this the centrality of a free, independent and diverse press to the very logic of democracy, and the story becomes even more compelling."
From 2000 to 2009 there were 2,060 print news articles, news analyses and columns devoted to the topic of the decline in newspaper readership and/or its consequences. There were 95 reports on declining TV news viewing.
Over the same period, on the seven national networks the researchers found only 22 reports on declining news audiences in general and only six reports specifically about decline in network news viewing. There were 38 national news broadcasts reporting on newspaper readership decline. Only six national newscasts mentioned declines in network news viewing.
For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell/
