Monday, October 15, 2007

A Priest, A Rabbi and A Dead Cyclist Walk Into A Newsroom...

We've definitely hit a blogging lull now that the City Election is over, Domenici announced his retirement, 70-eleven politicians finished announcing new offices they were seeking and the mendaciously entitled "Balloon Fiesta" has finally ended. This lull makes stories like today's Journal article, "Halloween Costumes Spark Protest", an important reminder that important things are still importantly happening in our vitally important community. Important things like the selling of pregnant nun costumes. Or as a Ms. Valerie Lubitz explains:
Lubitz said she didn't like the way the "Catholic identity" was being portrayed.

"Why isn't there a rabbi, or a Muslim or a Protestant minister portrayed like that?" she said. "Nobody has any faith anymore.

"But if I had been busy doing the things I should've been doing the past several years— praying more and being a good witness— it wouldn't have come to this. There wouldn't be costumes like that."

Lubitz planned to go back to the Montgomery store over the weekend to demand again that the costumes be removed. And she intended to picket at the intersection of San Mateo and Montgomery.

For his part, Scott said he would happily sell a rabbi costume with an inflatable crotch if one were available.

The Scott in question is not me, but another offensive person named Scott whose store is being picketed by Ms. Lubitz until he starts selling inflatable crotch rabbi costumes, or something like that.

Yes, there was other news over the weekend, and some of it made the Albuquerque Journal, but I'm looking for a report about the James Quinn memorial ride this past Saturday and seeing, uh, nothing. As I mentioned last Friday, our seemingly soon-to-be-one newspaper town newspaper did a promo for the event, but I only saw one reporter at the ceremony this past Saturday among the 200 plus cyclists who rode up the canyon to the crash site. And I guess that reporter wasn't from the Journal.

No TV crews. Just a bunch of bicycle riders and a sizable Bernco Sheriff contingent escorting us up and down. Guess all the TV folks were at the mendaciously entitled Balloon Fiesta. I'm not one to usually complain about the lack of press coverage, but the ride kinda seemed like a big deal. I guess if the Tribune doesn't post anything about it this afternoon I'll feel compelled to offer up a few ill-chosen words about it tonight.

In happier news, I'd like to close by adding to the 70-eleven politicians by announcing I am beating Geraldine Amato to the punch, and running for Bernalillo County Sheriff, especially if I get to drive those totally souped up Sheriff Office cars that were escorting us up and down the canyon Saturday. Those babies were going 10-75m.p.h. in about two seconds, and basically sounded like they had jet airplane engines in them. Gotta be fun to drive like that, but it wasn't quite as much fun to be the cyclists inhaling the exhaust of those super-revved engines.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did anyone from the people putting the ride on call the news media and tell them this was going? Just curious.

Cheers, Mi3ke

jscotkey said...

Mi3ke: Yeah, it's apparent BikeABQ had made media contacts as their press release is all over the Journal story that appeared the day before the ride. I've had a chance to look around a bit more, and I still haven't seen anything reporting from the ride itself. Hmmm....

Anonymous said...

I found this one ...

http://media.www.dailylobo.com/media/storage/paper344/news/2007/10/15/News/200-Honor.Law.Student.Killed.In.Bicycle.Accident-3032401.shtml

John Fleck said...

Scot -

FYI, we had a nice little photo package on the day after the ride. One can always argue that we should have done more, but the fact is that the Journal covered it when no one else, save the Lobo, did, which frankly makes your "soon-to-be-one newspaper town newspaper" criticism seem a little unfair. I have been frankly proud, as the newsroom's resident cycling advocate, of the way the Journal has been all over this story from the beginning. In this case, it is that one newspaper that has been giving this story the coverage it deserves.

jscotkey said...

John:

A friend passed on the Journal coverage a few days after my post, and the days flew by and I didn't get around to mentioning it here. I apologize.

As someone who only reads the online version of the paper, I did spend significant time looking Sunday for some coverage. I couldn't find any...hence the posting. I wish the Journal site was a bit easier to navigate through, not to mention the search problem the site has always had.

Again, I apologize for not correcting here (to be honest I kinda figured nobody would be reading it anyway, given the lateness), and will point it out in the next post I write.