Tucson Sammy

While many of us in the West, perhaps I should say “here in the U.S.A.”, imagine the Iranian citizenry on the verge of toppling the Iranian theocracy, we may be engaging in a little wishful thinking.

The following is an interesting take on the Iranian election from private intelligence firm Stratfor (www.stratfor.com)

Western Misconceptions Meet Iranian Reality
June 15, 2009

Graphic for Geopolitical Intelligence Report

By George Friedman
Related Link

* The Geopolitics of Iran: Holding the Center of a Mountain Fortress

Related Special Topic Page

* The Iranian Presidential Elections

In 1979, when we were still young and starry-eyed, a revolution took place in Iran. When I asked experts what would happen, they divided into two camps.

The first group of Iran experts argued that the Shah of Iran would certainly survive, that the unrest was simply a cyclical event readily manageable by his security, and that the Iranian people were united behind the Iranian monarch’s modernization program. These experts developed this view by talking to the same Iranian officials and businessmen they had been talking to for years — Iranians who had grown wealthy and powerful under the shah and who spoke English, since Iran experts frequently didn’t speak Farsi all that well.

The second group of Iran experts regarded the shah as a repressive brute, and saw the revolution as aimed at liberalizing the country. Their sources were the professionals and academics who supported the uprising — Iranians who knew what former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini believed, but didn’t think he had much popular support. They thought the revolution would result in an increase in human rights and liberty. The experts in this group spoke even less Farsi than the those in the first group.
Misreading Sentiment in Iran

Limited to information on Iran from English-speaking opponents of the regime, both groups of Iran experts got a very misleading vision of where the revolution was heading — because the Iranian revolution was not brought about by the people who spoke English. It was made by merchants in city bazaars, by rural peasants, by the clergy — people Americans didn’t speak to because they couldn’t. This demographic was unsure of the virtues of modernization and not at all clear on the virtues of liberalism. From the time they were born, its members knew the virtue of Islam, and that the Iranian state must be an Islamic state.

Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth has survived that a mass movement of people exists demanding liberalization — a movement that if encouraged by the West eventually would form a majority and rule the country. We call this outlook “iPod liberalism,” the idea that anyone who listens to rock ‘n’ roll on an iPod, writes blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism. Even more significantly, this outlook fails to recognize that iPod owners represent a small minority in Iran — a country that is poor, pious and content on the whole with the revolution forged 30 years ago.

There are undoubtedly people who want to liberalize the Iranian regime. They are to be found among the professional classes in Tehran, as well as among students. Many speak English, making them accessible to the touring journalists, diplomats and intelligence people who pass through. They are the ones who can speak to Westerners, and they are the ones willing to speak to Westerners. And these people give Westerners a wildly distorted view of Iran. They can create the impression that a fantastic liberalization is at hand — but not when you realize that iPod-owning Anglophones are not exactly the majority in Iran.

Last Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with about two-thirds of the vote. Supporters of his opponent, both inside and outside Iran, were stunned. A poll revealed that former Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was beating Ahmadinejad. It is, of course, interesting to meditate on how you could conduct a poll in a country where phones are not universal, and making a call once you have found a phone can be a trial. A poll therefore would probably reach people who had phones and lived in Tehran and other urban areas. Among those, Mousavi probably did win. But outside Tehran, and beyond persons easy to poll, the numbers turned out quite different.

Some still charge that Ahmadinejad cheated. That is certainly a possibility, but it is difficult to see how he could have stolen the election by such a large margin. Doing so would have required the involvement of an incredible number of people, and would have risked creating numbers that quite plainly did not jibe with sentiment in each precinct. Widespread fraud would mean that Ahmadinejad manufactured numbers in Tehran without any regard for the vote. But he has many powerful enemies who would quickly have spotted this and would have called him on it. Mousavi still insists he was robbed, and we must remain open to the possibility that he was, although it is hard to see the mechanics of this.
Ahmadinejad’s Popularity

It also misses a crucial point: Ahmadinejad enjoys widespread popularity. He doesn’t speak to the issues that matter to the urban professionals, namely, the economy and liberalization. But Ahmadinejad speaks to three fundamental issues that accord with the rest of the country.

First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial. Though it may be difficult for Americans and Europeans to believe, there are people in the world to whom economic progress is not of the essence; people who want to maintain their communities as they are and live the way their grandparents lived. These are people who see modernization — whether from the shah or Mousavi — as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his economic failures.

Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs — who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often have lifestyles that reflect this — have corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is disliked by many of the religious elite precisely because he has systematically raised the corruption issue, which resonates in the countryside.

Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian national security, a tremendously popular stance. It must always be remembered that Iran fought a war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight years, cost untold lives and suffering, and effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians, particularly the poor, experienced this war on an intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost husbands and sons in it. As in other countries, memories of a lost war don’t necessarily delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus validating the sacrifices made in that war — something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that Iran should not back down but become a major power, he speaks to the veterans and their families, who want something positive to emerge from all their sacrifices in the war.

Perhaps the greatest factor in Ahmadinejad’s favor is that Mousavi spoke for the better districts of Tehran — something akin to running a U.S. presidential election as a spokesman for Georgetown and the Lower East Side. Such a base will get you hammered, and Mousavi got hammered. Fraud or not, Ahmadinejad won and he won significantly. That he won is not the mystery; the mystery is why others thought he wouldn’t win.

For a time on Friday, it seemed that Mousavi might be able to call for an uprising in Tehran. But the moment passed when Ahmadinejad’s security forces on motorcycles intervened. And that leaves the West with its worst-case scenario: a democratically elected anti-liberal.

Western democracies assume that publics will elect liberals who will protect their rights. In reality, it’s a more complicated world. Hitler is the classic example of someone who came to power constitutionally, and then preceded to gut the constitution. Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s victory is a triumph of both democracy and repression.
The Road Ahead: More of the Same

The question now is what will happen next. Internally, we can expect Ahmadinejad to consolidate his position under the cover of anti-corruption. He wants to clean up the ayatollahs, many of whom are his enemies. He will need the support of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This election has made Ahmadinejad a powerful president, perhaps the most powerful in Iran since the revolution. Ahmadinejad does not want to challenge Khamenei, and we suspect that Khamenei will not want to challenge Ahmadinejad. A forced marriage is emerging, one which may place many other religious leaders in a difficult position.

Certainly, hopes that a new political leadership would cut back on Iran’s nuclear program have been dashed. The champion of that program has won, in part because he championed the program. We still see Iran as far from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon, but certainly the Obama administration’s hopes that Ahmadinejad would either be replaced — or at least weakened and forced to be more conciliatory — have been crushed. Interestingly, Ahmadinejad sent congratulations to U.S. President Barack Obama on his inauguration. We would expect Obama to reciprocate under his opening policy, which U.S. Vice President Joe Biden appears to have affirmed, assuming he was speaking for Obama. Once the vote fraud issue settles, we will have a better idea of whether Obama’s policies will continue. (We expect they will.)

What we have now are two presidents in a politically secure position, something that normally forms a basis for negotiations. The problem is that it is not clear what the Iranians are prepared to negotiate on, nor is it clear what the Americans are prepared to give the Iranians to induce them to negotiate. Iran wants greater influence in Iraq and its role as a regional leader acknowledged, something the United States doesn’t want to give them. The United States wants an end to the Iranian nuclear program, which Iran doesn’t want to give.

On the surface, this would seem to open the door for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Former U.S. President George W. Bush did not — and Obama does not — have any appetite for such an attack. Both presidents blocked the Israelis from attacking, assuming the Israelis ever actually wanted to attack.

For the moment, the election appears to have frozen the status quo in place. Neither the United States nor Iran seem prepared to move significantly, and there are no third parties that want to get involved in the issue beyond the occasional European diplomatic mission or Russian threat to sell something to Iran. In the end, this shows what we have long known: This game is locked in place, and goes on.

The Federal Government is behaving like children in an elementary school class who are learning about the legislative process by putting together a make-believe budget. Unfortunately, the is no adult to interrupt them and explain that in the real world adults can’t spend twice as much as they take in, and that quadrupling the debt over the next ten years is very bad.

At least Tucson’s politicians made the effort and balanced the budget. They did it with spending cuts, and a collection of new taxes, and tax increases, that were disparate enough not to raise anyone’s ire. They ranged from a new tax on hotel room stays, to an increase in the city environmental (trash) fee – a fee that both Nina Trasoff and Karin Uhlich condemned when they ran for the offices they now hold. Both Trasoff and Uhlich are up for re-election this fall. I doubt that they have anti-trash fee planks in their current platforms.

It is disappointing that they did not adjust spending down to match the revenues without increasing the tax burden. I would like to see both spending and taxation reduced. In fact, I have an idea.

I was poking around in the Tucson City budgets of the past few years, looking for inappropriate spending. What, you may ask, does “inappropriate” mean? Well, I suppose that there are those who cannot conceive of inappropriate government spending, but the rest of us would probably have some definite ideas concerning it. For example, who would support the City of Tucson opening a local chain of restaurants, or the United States of America buying up most of the domestic automobile industry? These are extreme cases, but they make good examples.

I think that most would agree that city/county government should supply police and fire protection, some basic infrastructure (roads and sewers), and conflict resolution (courts). Then it should just get out of the way.

So I saw this category in the budget called “Outside Agencies”. These are organizations that are not part of the City government; they administer themselves, yet they are funded in part by the City of Tucson. These are mostly charities that provide services under the city’s “Human Services Plan.” They seem to me to be, for the most part, good agencies, with good people, who perform good works. The City of Tucson should stop funding them. The weaning should begin immediately.

I can hear it already, “Whoa! Dude! You said they do good work! Why shut them down?” Actually, I have no desire to shut down any service organization. I do, however, think it inappropriate for the city government to get in the way of the citizens charitable giving. To whom one wants to offer charity should be an individual’s personal choice, and no one should be forced to support a charity not of his choosing. These organizations will do just fine with direct voluntary funding.

It is easy to fall into the delusion that doors will close, windows will be shuttered, and society will collapse if government does not fully fund everything. When I heard that the City canceled the Fourth of July fireworks display to save fifty grand, I assumed that it was over. Silly me! Within a day of the announcement, individuals and local businesses threw so much money at the City for the Fourth of July celebration that they not only had enough to proceed, but it started a fund for next year! If individuals and businesses in our community will fall all over themselves to save a fireworks display, do you really think that they would drop the ball when it came to youth programs, domestic violence prevention, or programs for the elderly?

Look at it this way; if there is an interest among the people to support the work of an organization, they will support it directly. If there is little support among the people, and the government represents the people, how can the government justify funding that organization? Gotcha!

The bottom line difference between free choice support and government tax money support is force. Charity freely given benefits both the donor and the recipient. Money taken involuntarily, ultimately by force, and given to an outside agency, changes the relationship between government and the citizenry. It also inhibits character development by relieving people of adult responsibilities.

It is un-American for a government to point a gun at a citizen and tell him which charities he likes.

Recently, I was chatting about local politics with a friend and he said that a couple of members of the Tucson City Council were to speak at the upcoming May Day rally. For those of you who do not know, May Day (the first day in May), also known as International Workers Day, is the big commie holiday of the year. I thought, “A commie rally, right here in River City!” and marked my calendar, determined to attend.

At the last minute, I invited an amateur photographer friend named Eric to come along. I thought that my being accompanied by a guy with a big fancy camera would make me look like some kind of journalist, and he would get a chance to shoot people – photographically speaking. I picked him up on the morning of May the first, and after breakfast, went to the Southgate Shopping Plaza where the commies were gathering for the parade.

The gathering was actually just south of Southgate. There was a small crowd milling about before a podium from which impassioned speeches, maybe rants (it was hard to tell, most of it was in Spanish) were being delivered.

I suppose I’m showing my age when I say that I was a little surprised to see no hammers and sickles, red stars, or pictures of Marx and Lenin.

In their place, were a few Obama tee shirts, and a large banner proclaiming “Obama We Trust in You, Si Se Puede!” The phrase “Si Se Puede!” (Yes We Can!) was originally a slogan of the United Farm Workers, a labor union formed by Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta. The Obama campaign adopted the slogan as its own for the purpose, we can assume, of showing solidarity with a “community organizer” of an earlier generation, and securing the lefty Latino vote.

I saw a few college-aged kids in SEIU tee shirts. The SEIU (Service Employees International Union) was formed, as I recall, because the AFL-CIO was not doing enough to advocate leftist politics. They focus, as the name suggests, on representing service industry workers – a labor sector generally ignored by older, more mainstream unions.

There were a few guys dressed up in spectacular Aztec costumes. They wore huge plumed headdresses, and seashells around their ankles. They were quite striking and handsome.

Of course, there was a banner comparing Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Nazis.

They formed a parade line, and moved north on Sixth Avenue, the right lane of which was cordoned off for the marchers. Groups within the parade were chanting different slogans.

The parade’s destination was Armory Park. Eric and I drove to the spot before the parade arrived. The entire park was surrounded with that plastic net barrier material with entrances at the corners.

As we entered, I was approached by a smiling woman with a clipboard who, with a happy lilting voice, invited me to sign a petition. I was really focused on observation that day, and did not want to deal with the relative merits of this or that petition. I told her that I was not registered to vote (I lied). She said, “Oh that’s O.K., you don’t have to be.” I asked about what the petition was. She replied, “We just want to spank Joe Arpaio.” I said, “I really would prefer not to, but thank you.” Suddenly, her face went stern. She glared at me as if to disrupt my cell structure with the energy emanating from her expression. I quickly began to walk away, figuring that for every three feet of distance I put between us would reduce by half the force of her glare weapon.

We walked to the corner at which the parade was to arrive. It was here that I suffered two embarrassments.

First, I looked at a large memorial to the soldiers of the Spanish-American War. It featured a life-size statue of a soldier from the period, and listed the different theaters of battle in the war, one of which was Puerto Rico. It was spelled “Porto Rico”. We were not alone in noticing the gaffe.

Next, were the protesters. Now, I always roll my eyes when someone describes those who have reservations about open borders as “toothless white guys in camouflage clothing.” Well, there were a few protesters, and as you might have guessed by now, there was a guy with the megaphone who was a toothless white guy dressed in military clothing complete with booney hat – O.K., I don’t know if he was actually toothless, in fact he probably wasn’t because his diction was excellent, but why present yourself that way?

Frankly, I find it really counter productive for fewer than half a dozen angry people to harass a bunch of commies celebrating their holiday. It just reinforces the stereotype with the young people there who no doubt were not impressed by the sign saying, “Go Home and Un-F*** Mexico.”

That sign was particularly aggravating because there is an underlying point that was obscured by its quite vulgar and offensive nature. If all the ambitious, hardworking risk takers abandon Mexico to find work abroad, how will the country be maintained? As Thomas P.M. Barnett said, “The rich want protection from the poor, the poor want protection from their condition, but the middle class wants protection from the future.” It is this concern for the future that gives a society stability and continuity from generation to generation. Mexico will become a failed state if the people who could be building her middle class abandon her instead.

Anyway, after the parade arrived, everyone filled the park. There was a stage set up with a band. A speaker went the microphone and, after doing the usual greetings to the attendees, announced that there would be no speakers, just a fun party. She did make a point of thanking councilmen Regina Romero and Nina Trasoff for all their help in supporting the event.

We wandered around looking at the tables and booths. Many groups were represented including Comite de Derechos Humanos, Democrat Party recruiting, ACORN, and CPUSA (Communist Party USA). The live music was great, and many of the young people were dancing.

The most telling image was of the CPUSA table, compared to the ACORN booth next to it. The CPUSA table consisted of a folding table with a few pamphlets, a hand made sign, and an old geezer in a ball cap to answer questions. The ACORN booth had big banners saying “Health Care Can’t Wait”, and “Foreclosure Free Zone”. There were three people man the large sized booth answering questions and selling tee shirts.

CPUSA has pretty much disappeared as a political force in America. It’s a throwback to the days when the left thought it could argue it’s case honestly, above board, and win. That does not work, and the geezer obviously did not get the memo.

The modern approach is to infect and commandeer disaffected groups whose generally noble causes they transform into anti-American weapons. In that way, they can push the agenda while maintaining an innocent front. This is the future of the movement. If you want examples of groups who are in the sway of the far left, you need look no farther than the groups who came to celebrate this May Day.

What can we do about this threat? First, we must be quick to draw attention to deception and dishonesty (remember, they lose when they are honest), then we must stop tax money from going to support their political activities – this is a mater of principle and applies to all, not just the commies. Finally, we vote out of office any elected official who supports them.

As luck would have it, both Regina Romero and Nina Trasoff are up for re-election this fall, so the last part is easy.

The cover of the April 8, 1966 issue of Time magazine posed the question, “Is God Dead?” More recently, The April 13, 2009 issue of Newsweek magazine boasted a cover story entitled, “The End of Christian America.” Time magazine was wrong in 1966, and Newsweek magazine is wrong in 2009.

Well, Time was certainly wrong in 1966, but what of today? Are we not in a post-modern, progressive, enlightened era? After all, books promoting atheism seem to be all the rage. Last year alone saw the publishing of a plethora of books arguing the atheists’ case. Heavy weights Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), and Christopher Hitchens (God is not Great) led the way.

I thought it would be interesting to check out the local Christian scene. After all, if God is dead anywhere in Arizona, would that place not be progressive and enlightened Tucson?

Easter was fast approaching, and it seemed to me a good occasion to observe a Christian service. As luck would have it, Calvary Chapel Tucson was having a free “Resurrection Celebration” downtown at the Civic Center Arena on Easter Sunday. I decided to attend.

I have only vague recollections of my last rock concert, but this was definitely bigger. The traffic on Broadway Blvd. heading downtown was backed up almost to the Snake Bridge. Once I was on Congress, I thought I would be clever and work my way around to Stone Avenue, then to Cushing Street where I would park on the street by the Civic Center – I often did this when attending gun shows there. Alas, all the street parking was taken, and it appeared that the neighborhood streets were filled as well. I got in line for the main parking lot, which turned out to be full. There was a dirt lot across the street in back where I managed to find a spot.

While walking along with the crowd, I realized that I still held many of my childhood ideas of what church was like. In New England, where I spent my childhood, that meant a room filled with old, gray haired men in suits and old women in navy or maroon suits and white gloves.

The crowd with which I moved along was diverse in both ethnicity and age. Even the dress ran the gamut. Many women wore their Easter outfits – pastel sun dresses with white shoes. Others, mostly young and middle-aged mothers, were more plainly dressed; though they put pretty dresses on their girls. Some, mostly the young, were inappropriately dressed for the occasion; I confess to being old school in that regard.

Inside the arena was like, well, an arena. The seats were packed with people, there were two huge video screens, and on stage was a warm-up band playing inspirational music.

Pastor Furrow gave a great sermon. A pastor for 28 years, he was excellent at connecting with the audience. He came off as a regular guy speaking to peers. He actually told the following joke: A man was touring the Holy Land with his family, including his mother-in-law, with whom he had strained relations. While they were in Jerusalem, the mother-in-law died. The man went to see the funeral director, who said, “The bad news is that it will cost $5,000.00 to send her home for burial. The good news is that it will cost $150.00 to bury right here, in the Holy Land.” The man thought for a while and said, “Send her home.” The shocked funeral director said, “Why would you send her home for $5,000.00, when you can bury her here, In the Holy Land, for $150.00?” The man said, “Look, two thousand years ago a guy died and was buried here, then he came back to life. I don’t want to take any chances.”

I’m really bad at judging the size of crowds, but I suspect the people numbered in four figures.

Meanwhile, in California, Rick Warren draws about 20,000,000 people a week to his Saddleback Community Church (205 people attended the first service at Saddleback in 1980). You may have heard of him, he gave the invocation at President Obama’s inauguration. He also authored the book, A Purpose Driven Life.

While declines in the Catholic Church, and others, are often cited in the likes of Newsweek and Time, little attention has been paid to the dramatic growth in non-denominational, evangelical churches like Calvary and Saddleback. Are Christian churches changing? Sure. Is secularism overwhelming Christianity? I think not.

At the national level, the Republicans are wandering around shell-shocked in the wilderness, while the Democrats are lookin’ fly and rollin’ phat.

Many Republicans, who dare to look at the future, see a glimmer of hope in 2010. They know that, historically speaking, the mid-term elections usually result in electoral advances for the party that is out of power – if ever a party was out of power, it is certainly today’s Republican Party. Between 1946 and 1996, the president’s party suffered an average loss of about 24 seats in midterm elections, according to the book The American Congress, by Steven S. Smith, Jason M. Roberts, and Ryan J. Vander Wielen. The authors went on to state that the only time this does not happen is when the president’s approval rating is very high.

President Obama’s approval rating is still high, but so are the people’s expectations for his presidency. If, in two years, the economy has not recovered dramatically, unemployment is high, or the voters generally feel that their desires have not been fulfilled; they maybe inclined to make it a good year for Republicans. Two years is a long time in politics.

What the Republicans need are a few good candidates, and campaign organizations. Perhaps there will be some past successes from which they could glean ideas.

Let us now go back in time from 2010 to 2009 (that would be now), and narrow our focus from the nation to Tucson (that would be here). We may have here today a microcosm of the national scene in 2010.

While the big change on the national scene was the last election in which Democrat Barack Obama won the presidency, and Democrats strengthened their hold on Congress. The big change here occurred in 2005, when Democrats Nina Trasoff and Karin Uhlich succeeded Republicans Fred Ronstadt and Kathleen Dunbar. This put Tucson firmly under Democrat control. The newly elected Democrats were to transform Tucson into a happy, crime-free, traffic-jam free, neighborly city with a vibrant downtown in which one could not swing a cat without hitting some kind of artist. The big plank in the platform was the elimination of the trash fee, originally instituted by those nasty Republicans.

The reality, of course, turned out much differently. People are not moving around town on greenways and bicycles; rather, the City Council has approved plans by the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) to make roads bigger and better for *gasp* automobiles. The Rio Nuevo project, that was to “revitalize” downtown Tucson, has been so poorly managed that there is little to show for the ten years, and 60 to 100 million or so dollars, apparently spent on design concepts and artist’s renditions. I just checked my water bill and, and yep, the trash fee is still there. Then there is the goofy stuff like facilitating classes that teach kids how to spray graffiti. I could go on, but you get the idea.

So, Tucson really is the laboratory in which the Republicans can test ways to win against floundering Democrats. The old loser approaches should be abandoned. A focus on technology, particularly social networking, would help. More resources directed at grassroots efforts, with more autonomy at that level, would bring the campaigns into the 21st century. There is certainly enough disenchantment throughout the community that money should not be a problem.

The only major stumbling block is the party itself – they are, as of this writing, three months behind already! I asked Bob Westerman, chairman of the Pima County Republicans, if they were on it. He said that they were actively recruiting. I hope so. This is an opportunity that ought not be missed.

If you have been griping about how you find the current council embarrassing, if you are aggravated by what you see as an anti-business climate in this town, now is your chance to step up to the plate. Imagine, being on the cutting edge, beating the majority party, being the example to which the big boys look for ideas and guidance, making history….any takers?

The demise of the Tucson Citizen has caused much consternation and hanky wringing among many in the community. They believe that it is a great loss to Tucson, and that plagues of frogs and locusts are sure to follow. They are wrong.

A newspaper is just the packaging of the real product. As Greg Patterson (espressopundit.com) has said, it is all about “content, content, content!” Let’s face it, if your 1975 Château Lafite Rothschild has turned to vinegar, it matters not how old the tradition, or prestigious the label, few will drink it.

Probably the most prestigious of the dailies, America’s “newspaper of record,” the “Grey Lady”, the New York Times may be following our Tucson Citizen.

In the January/February 2009 issue of Atlantic, Michael Hirschorn wrote, in an article entitled “End Times”, “Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400million in debt. With more than $1billion in debt already on the books, only $46million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company’s debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper’s future doesn’t look good.” Not quite vinegar, but definitely souring.

The New York Times is not alone. Real Clear Politics (realclearpolitics.com) recently reported, “Over the last decade, no paper has lost readership at a faster pace than the L.A. Times… Three weeks ago, the Times announced that it’s trimming yet another 300 jobs and eliminating the local “California” section altogether. With the newsroom about half of its size from 2001 and the continuing cutback on staff and coverage, it may be a matter of time before the woebegone Tribune Co. must dump the paper to an interested buyer or even close it down.” Chianti anyone?

Not all of the nations papers are in financial trouble; some are actually doing quite well. The Wall Street Journal is making money with both its print, and online subscription versions. The relatively new online only The Politico, which focuses on Washington D.C. politics, is doing fine too.

Note that not all the papers in Tucson are in trouble either. The Explorer is doing well by most accounts, as is the paper you are now holding in your hands, or is glowing at you from some screen.

So, what differentiates good content from bad? There is no single answer to that rather complex question, but it always comes down to serving the customer. Content that is interesting, factual, and well written, it seems to me, will be in demand. The medium may vary from print, to online, or to something in between, but the content is the key.

Speaking of media, amazon.com’s new electronic reader, the Kindle, now in it’s second iteration, splits the difference between newsprint and glowing screens. If you like to just pick up and read the paper, this device will give you that experience. These new devices will hasten the conversion to a totally digitized product.

This approach may save some papers. Imagine the cost savings involved in going to a totally digital product. Think of the expenses involved in the purchase of paper, ink, and printing presses, to say nothing of the costs of operating and maintaining those presses. With a variety of different digital presentations from which to choose, including the Kindle, even the Luddites will be satisfied. The point is that advancing technology is not a threat. It is a boon. It is also inevitable.

The closing down of the Tucson Citizen does not bother me. The fact that it has been shrinking for years means the end happened a long time ago. Something will replace it, if the market so desires. The consumers of news in Tucson will decide if they want a daily counter point to the Arizona Daily Star. If we do, then it will happen. I do not know what the medium will be, nor do I care. It will be people with passion and a mission who will make it happen.

The future belongs to the quality journalists of today, and those to come, who will be producing great content in the land beyond the dead tree world.