I read in this morning’s Arizona Daily Star that everyone’s favorite political reporter, D. Scarpinato, has been cited for DUI. (link) A comment on this story led to an interesting backgrounder on Scarpinato from the Arizona Daily Wildcat. (link)
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On a political note…this is the season when schools across the state urge us to make tax-free donations to our kids’ schools. Your good deed will be rewarded with a handsome tax right-off. For couples filing jointly this means you could knock as much as four hundred bucks off your state income tax bill, hence doing well by doing good.
Instead of giving tax money to the state general fund you may give it to your kids’ school so that Sis and Junior and their classmates can take advantage of increased extra-curricular goodies. Well, hell, you were going to have to part with that money anyway, why not use it for you and yours rather than put it into the general fund where it might be spent to enhance education all over the state?
What a deal, right? Well, yeah, if you live in the rich part of town…say Tucson’s Catalina Foothills. For folks up there a little discretionary cash is not a problem. But what if you live in a community that is not so blessed, one where life is often lived paycheck to paycheck? Even a little may be hard to come by.
Well, let the kids get back to basics. Who needs more than that?
My suggestion is that if you want to take advantage of this program you might want to find out what school districts in the state have the poorest families and make your donation to those schools.
(To read the details of this tax deal for the well-to-do, visit the Arizona
Department of Revenue. (link)
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For some months now The Data Port has been running a parallel blog, DataPortMotorcycles. The point of the exercise was not to clog the Lefty Blog feed with non-political posting during the hot and heavy campaign season.
I’ve deleted DataPortMotorcycles, so once in a while you may expect to read some motorcycle news, purely personal reflections, and commentaries on the little disturbances of man, right here.
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As a final 'housekeeping ' note I'll be cutting back on the blogging in the interest of taking time to celebrate the holidays both religious and secular.
4 comments:
Happy Holidays Art and Best Wishes!
Regarding your motorcycle material, I understand the logic of a separate blog, but as far as I'm concerned TDP is your turf and you have every right to post whatever you want, motorcycles, margaritas, and anything else, and go right ahead!
The Scarpinato thing I must say provides a certain tickle, but what I found rather remarkable was (at the time I looked), EIGHTY FOUR comments of the most inane dribble posted after the story. Gads.
I pray that whoever those people are, they NEVER discover this blog, mine, or any of those that have become part of my regular surf routine.
Regards to you and yours,
x4mr
Scarpinato is not my favorite political reporter. Throughout the CD8 primary election, he did his best to focus on the most non-essential information about the candidates. I think this gave name recognition to certain candidates who didn't need it while reducing others to "also rans." When he did report the candidates positions on issues, it was very high level and very sketchy. He should be working for Fox News.
Liza
My main complaint about Scarpinato is not so much about him as about Star management.The Star had plenty of people who have been working in Tucson journalism for 10 or 15 years. Those folks go back a long way as observers of Tucson politics. Someone like Tom Beal should have been assigned to "mentor" him, and help him to understand the political history of our community.
A decent job of reporting requires someone with as detailed a memory of where the political bodies are buried
as Ted Prezelski.
It also requires a passion for politics. Imagine a sports reporter who really didn't like or follow sports?
Drawing on that memory and passion Ted
is one of this town's best political reporters.
Happy Holidays, Liza.
(I'm pretty much a Festus guy myself, although my Festus pole looks a good deal like a tree.)
Art,
Happy Holidays to you too.
I bought a cookbook by Emeril Lagasse a couple of days ago and there is a recipe called "Emeril's Fresh and Fierce Margaritas." Guess who I thought of.
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