Due to space constraints, only two pictures accompanied the article about the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s new helicopters. Here are the rest:
Sultana High School from the air.
The Interstate 15/Main Street overpass picture in color (note the In-N-Out at the top). City officials are saying it’ll be fully open at long last on November 15.
Hesperia High School from the air.
The High Desert Primary Care shopping center, including the Hesperia Star, from the air.
Last year, when our apartment (well, duplex, but they insist on calling it an apartment) was new, we had no bug problems. Zippo. This year, the exterior defenses, whatever they might be, have been penetrated. Ants first showed up in my bathroom. I was surprised, but I figured the ants would realize they’d made an awful mistake and leave in despair.
A few days later, they came out through an electrical outlet in the kitchen. So much for them leaving in despair. As you might imagine, finding the kitchen is essentially jackpot for the ants, and we’ve been waging a losing battle against them. We didn’t want to spray the kitchen down with Raid, because of the elderly cat. I went and got some ant bait traps (also by Raid) from Rite Aid, but the ants seem only vaguely interested and certainly still quite alive.
Well, Joe the Orkin Man, who just left the paper after a monthly visit, may have the answer: Windex. Apparently, spritzing with Windex will kill the ants dead due to the ammonia, and also disrupt their scent trails, meaning we won’t have little lines of them all over. He also schooled me on bait traps: Apparently, there are sugar-based traps and protein-based traps, and depending on what time of year it is, the ants will have different needs, and the wrong sort of trap (i.e. the kind I have) will do zippo. There are “dual bait” traps, though, that have both types and he recommended a brand (Grant).
Today, we declare our independence (from ants).
Ray Pryke, the publisher of the Hesperia Resorter and other Valleywide Newspapers, has been ordered to pay $3 million dollars to the wife of San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod:
Citing “malicious and salacious” journalism, a Superior Court judge awarded more than $3 million in damages Friday in a libel lawsuit against newspaper publisher Raymond Pryke, owner of the Hesperia Resorter and Valleywide Newspapers.
Superior Court Judge Christopher J. Warner awarded psychologist Nancy K. Bohl $750,000 in actual damages and $750,000 in emotional damages for libelous articles. The judge awarded Bohl’s company, The Counseling Team, $500,000 in damages for past and future lost earnings. He also awarded Bohl $1 million in punitive damages plus $10,839.60 in costs, according to the judge’s written decision.
Bohl and The Counseling Team sued the Hesperia Resorter and Pryke for libel in connection with newspaper articles written by reporter Mark Gutglueck. The judge ruled that Gutglueck’s articles “demonstrate ‘malice’ and are capable of causing ‘severe emotional distress.’ ”
The newspaper articles accused Bohl, who is the wife of San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod, and her company of violating confidentiality in psycho-therapeutic relationships for the purpose of personal and financial gain.
“The accusations were bold print front page headlines,” wrote Warner in his decision. “Particularly malicious and salacious was ‘Sleeping with Penrod Pays Off.’ Mr. Pryke personally selected this headline, according to his deposition testimony.”
The lawsuit against Gutglueck was dismissed early in the case.
CJR Daily yesterday took aim at Freedom Communications, the company that owns both The Hesperia Star and The Daily Press.
Over the last couple days, at least seven of Freedom’s newspapers have run an identical unsigned editorial calling on Congress to uphold the president’s temporary repeal of the Bacon-Davis Act in the Gulf Coast.
Bacon-Davis, by way of some quick background, requires that contractors working on federally funded construction projects pay workers the prevailing wage in the area in which the projects are taking place. Under the president’s plan, contractors in the Gulf region will be able to pay workers less — far less, if the market bears.
We were alerted to the identical op-eds by an item on the Facing South blog, and in looking into it ourselves, dug up a few more examples of the chain running the same editorial in its papers.
The piece so far has run in the Appeal-Democrat of Marysville-Yuba City, California; the Daily News of Jacksonville, North Carolina; the Free Press of Kinston, North Carolina and at least four other papers, according to a quick — and admittedly incomplete — scan of the pieces Freedom’s papers made available online.
It’s noteworthy that all of the editorials are unsigned, and there is nothing in them to suggest that they came from corporate HQ (or wherever they originated), which, logically, would lead readers to believe that they were written by the local editorial staff. Obviously, they weren’t.
Now, this isn’t a capital crime, but when homogenized product is being pumped to so many communities scattered across the nation, it does speak to the larger issue of media consolidation. In this case, what appears to be the company line is being toed by newspapers from California to North Carolina, with readers none the wiser.
It does not appear that it has run in either the Star or the Daily Press.
Liz Phair will sing “God Bless America” during the 7th inning stretch tomorrow during game one of the World Series.
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