Happy Birthday, Idaho.
Statehood was granted on this day in 1890.
I'm a lifelong citizen of this state, and, overall, I'd say life has been good as an Idahoan.
I don't agree with much that's going on politically here, 'cept definitely the work of Reclaim Idaho, but there are more pieces to the Idaho pie than just politics.
Plus, I really like potatoes.
Every time I drive almost anywhere in this state, I'm blown away with the sheer beauty and the diversity of its landscape.
Its lifestyle and its beauty have kept me here, so I'm happy to extend Happy Birthday greetings.
Speaking of the state and its politics, I read the following story in today's Daily Bee. I liked the overall attitude of this man who's running for governor as an Independent.
It's always impressive to read about someone who believes in the power of listening.
I also paid close attention because John Stegner, who's from Grangeville, is a high school classmate of my dear friend Pam Eimers.
So, check out the links and do some more research on his ideas and background. He looks like someone who definitely deserves consideration.
We put a solar-powered light in front of the flower sculpture created by Doug and Cari Stockdale, and we love it even more.
At night the shapes within the bouquet of horse shoes, hearts, a cross and a star are lit up, and it's a beautiful scene across the yard from the deck.
This heifer was pretty skeptical of me as I walked by her pasture yesterday.
So, I took her picture, which may have caused her to be more skeptical.
I was mowing the lawn yesterday, striving for absolute perfection.
Twas the final ten or so rounds around the north lawn when I noticed that the lawnmower suddenly did not have the same goal as I did.
Without notifying me, the mower started scraping away at the lawn.
As I said to Tony in a frantic call, it looks like I took a carving knife to the lawn. Tony was nice enough to come out and discovered that pin, which helps holding the deck in place had broken.
It was an easy fix, and I managed to do a little repair on the unplanned desecration to the north lawn. Hopefully, those coming for the Fourth of July doings won't look that direction.
Thanks so much to Tony for helping out.
By the way, Tony's organization system in his work van is epic to all his clients.
Believe it or not, he can usually find a one-of a-kind bolt or a nut or a belt amidst his assortment of mower-maintenance necessities.
Before our road was paved, it took me a few years to discover these perennial flowers in the bed next to the road.
When I finally did, they were always coated with dust.
The road is paved and the flowers are a gorgeous purple. I don't know their name, so if someone wants to tell me, I'd appreciate it.
For now, the nameless purple posies are mighty pretty without their dust.
As we celebrate 250 years of existence as a nation, this reminder from the New York Times publisher about "the press" is definitely worth sharing as well as timely.
On a personal note, one of the general guidelines I learned in my early journalistic training is that the foremost job of a journalist is to methodically sift out the truth from the assumptions and assertions so that the public could get an accurate account.
I believe this is more important than ever in these times when our eyes and minds are more susceptible than ever to so many questionable variations of information on the same topic.
As we move forward, let's make an extra effort to support good, fair and carefully researched journalism.
Happy Friday.
Our country’s founders had their complaints about what George Washington dubbed the “infamous scribblers” in the press. But they recognized that robust and energetic journalism was critical to the future of the democracy they had fought to establish.
Washington regarded
newspapers as “vehicles of knowledge more happily calculated than any
other to preserve the liberty, stimulate the industry, and meliorate the
morals of an enlightened and free people.”
James Madison believed that
the press, by keeping people informed about their government,
represented “one of the great bulwarks of liberty.” Thomas Jefferson
famously declared he would prefer to have “newspapers without a
government” than “government without newspapers.”
To put those
sentiments in more modern terms: A healthy democracy depends on an
informed public, which, in turn, depends on the flow of information and
accountability provided by independent reporters.
This is true not just
at the national level, but in each of the communities — each town, each
city, each county, each capital — that comprise these United States.
Free people need a free press.
As we celebrate the 250th
anniversary of our founding, America’s leaders — including a sitting
president who has more aggressively targeted the press than any of his
modern predecessors — would do well to remember these animating
convictions of our forefathers.
And they would better position the
nation’s continued strength and prosperity by supporting the free press,
however uncomfortable its questions and unwanted its disclosures.
At
the heart of the press’ role is original reporting, the work of
unearthing and distributing new facts and information. This work is very
often how you find out what’s happening in your community, your nation
and the broader world.
It’s how you know what your elected
representatives are doing inside city hall or the state capitol, and
what’s happening inside your children’s schools and the businesses that
anchor your local economy. Original reporting keeps citizens informed;
it keeps their leaders honest.
Today, the press that the
founders regarded as crucial to American democracy is at its weakest
point in the nation’s history. Steadily declining revenues have shrunk
newsrooms to a fraction of their historic size, leaving swaths of the
country without any reporters at all.
Technological disruption,
including the brazen theft of intellectual property by A.I. companies,
has made it harder for news organizations to form enduring relationships
with the public they serve. Intensifying political attacks have
undermined the rights and legitimacy of the press.
The cumulative effect
is a public square overrun by punditry, propaganda, conspiracy theories
and computer-generated slop — all fed by algorithms that foster fear,
outrage and division.
These trends have steadily undermined the supply
of independent reporting that has the power to inform, challenge and
bring people together around a shared reality.
The decline has
been especially severe at the local level. Over the last two decades,
more than 80% of local journalism jobs have vanished. Nearly 3,500
newspapers have shuttered, with another closing every three days.
Digital news organizations have filled only a tiny part of that void.
There
are certainly still many local news outlets — established newspapers
and digital upstarts alike — persevering through these pressures to
provide their communities with a reliable source of trustworthy original
reporting.
The Dallas Morning News has done important work
covering failures that led to the drowning deaths of 25 girls at Camp
Mystic one year ago today, even as reporters spent time with grieving
families to tell their stories.
Minnesota’s Star Tribune
produced invaluable coverage on the surge of immigration agents in
Minneapolis. Mississippi Today revealed a corruption scandal involving
the misuse of tens of millions of welfare dollars.
And when communities
have been devastated by flood, fire and wind, news organizations like The Tampa Bay Times, Blue Ridge Public Radio and Honolulu Civil Beat have jumped in to serve neighbors whose lives have been upended.
But
fewer Americans have those kinds of news outlets covering their
communities, and that decline has real costs.
The loss of local
reporting, studies suggest, undermines civic health in all sorts of
ways: Social cohesion and public trust are replaced by polarization,
cynicism, alienation and disengagement with civic life.
Voter turnout
drops and public corruption increases. And with fewer people interacting
with a journalist covering their community, it’s easier for those with
their own agenda to demonize reporters as peddlers of “fake news” or
“enemies of the people.”
President Trump, who has popularized
such anti-press rhetoric, is now using the courts, leak investigations
and other levers of government power to attack press freedoms directly.
It is true that his predecessors from John Adams to Woodrow Wilson to
Richard Nixon also used their offices to harass and target the rights of
journalists whose coverage they disliked. But leaders of both parties —
especially over the last century — have largely understood, even if
sometimes grudgingly, that the press is necessary to a well functioning
democracy.
Necessary, to be clear, doesn’t mean perfect.
Inevitably, the press gets things wrong. It also doesn’t mean popular.
Trust in the press has tumbled over the last decade. But the founders
knew that what’s in a nation’s best interest isn’t always perfect or
popular — or, for that matter, personally comfortable.
They fought
bitterly with the newspapers of their era. Yet they understood the press
to be as vital to the success of the American experiment as the three
branches of government — a fourth estate.
That is why the press
was made the only profession explicitly protected in the Constitution,
through the First Amendment. That bet paid off brilliantly — the free
press has played a key supporting role in making this country the envy
of the world.
To ensure our nation’s next quarter-millennium is as
successful, America needs to do more to shore up the press, particularly
the local press, in its moment of vulnerability.
That starts with
leaders of all stripes pushing back more forcefully on escalating
attacks on the press in the United States and around the world. It also
means protecting original journalism by ensuring the currently robust
protections for intellectual property are reinforced — not weakened —
for the A.I. era.
And you can help by supporting the news organizations
committed to the difficult and costly work of original reporting through
subscriptions or donations, especially in your own community.
What
the founder Benjamin Rush observed soon after our nation was born
remains true today: “The virtue and liberties of America, and the
liberty of the press must stand or fall together.”
A.G. Sulzberger is chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of The New York Times.
