Saturday Thumbs
Saturday, December 27, 2008 12:14 AM PST
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E-mail this articleDec. 27 Daily News editorial
Taking one for her team
Thumbs up to Castle Rock’s clerk/treasurer, Ryana Covington, for sharing the pain of a tight budget by declining a 3 percent cost-of-living pay increase.
Like most other cities, large and small, Castle Rock is going through a rough stretch. The city is having to tighten its belt and borrow $249,000 from its other funds to balance its $1.5 million 2009 general fund budget. The money borrowed must be paid back with interest in three years, meaning the city could be struggling with its budget for some time.
Covington’s contribution — forgoing perhaps a couple of thousand dollars more in pay next year — may be mostly symbolic. But the symbolism is important. Taking one for the team surely helps department morale during a difficult time.
Fans behaving badly
Thumbs down: We read that the NFL has fined New York Jets defensive end Shaun Ellis $10,000 for tossing a snowball into the stands at Qwest Field after his team’s 13-3 loss to the Seahawks last weekend. The league would have done better to fine the poor winners in the stands who first let loose a barrage of snowballs on Ellis and his teammates as they were leaving the field.
It was shameful behavior on the part of Seahawks fans. Those fans, not Ellis, are deserving of this thumbs down. When a gang of rowdies rains down insults and snowballs on you, you’re allowed one snowball in response.
Seizing a teachable moment
Thumbs up: Kudos to Nickelodeon TV, the children’s network. It’s preparing a few savvy young reporters to cover the Jan. 20 inauguration of Barack Obama. Will kids tune in? The network thinks so. Its young viewers demonstrated a high level of interest in presidential politics during the campaign. More than 2 million children voted in an online election organized by the network. (Obama squeaked in that election, getting 51 percent of the vote to John McCain’s 49 percent.)
That election and coverage of the upcoming inauguration strikes us as a worthwhile civics lesson for Nick’s young audience. And the network plans to strengthen that lesson with a retrospective of past presidents taking the oath of office.
Up to their old tricks
Thumbs down: Big Tobacco — a frequent target of opportunity in this column — has laid itself open to yet another thumbs down with its aggressive marketing tactics in the developing world. We understand why U.S. tobacco companies would look to the Third World for new smokers. Lawsuits, anti-smoking laws and sin taxes have cut deeply into their profits here and in European markets. Honest advertising is one thing, but deception is quite another.
According to Associated Press environmental writer Michael Casey, two of the world’s largest tobacco companies are working hard to deceive government policy makers in East Asia about the dangers of smoking. Philip Morris reportedly planted a scientist in a Bangkok research institute to shift researchers' attention from secondhand smoking to other forms of air pollution. British American Tobacco provided funding for the Beijing Liver Foundation in an effort to shift focus away from links between smoking and liver disease.
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