Dedication to principle | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    We have a "daily morning paper" that is delivered (sometimes as early as 9 a.m.) every day except Monday. I rather doubt that the late delivery can be blamed on the carrier. Surely all the "independent contractors" who deliver our papers show up at their designated pickup point early enough to pick up their papers so they can get their business taken care of by about 6 or 7 a.m. Presumably on a day like last Sunday (5/5) the paper was not delivered to the pickup point until a couple of hours late - because that's how late the delivery was. In the meantime, these "independent contractors" must cool their heels waiting for their non-employer to provide the papers for them to deliver - and then take the heat for being late with their delivery.

    As an aside, does anyone among us know the difference between an "employee" and an "independent contractor" There are a lot of differences, but perhaps the biggest motivation for an "employer" to treat the folks who do work for them as "independent contractors" is so they won't have to pay the employer's half of the social security and medicare taxes (which amounts to 7.65% of the earnings). Employees pay the other half for a total of 15.3%. On the other hand the independent contractor gets to pay the entire 15.3%. The (nominal) non-employer pays zero. Additionally, if the carriers were employees the employer would be faced with workman's comp, unemployment insurance premiums and more.

    But I digress...

    Just about everybody in the country seems to be suffering from the financial slowdown including governmental entities at all levels. But now, the cities, towns, and counties who have traditionally published legal notices and the like in local so-called "Newspapers of Record" are looking at publishing that information on their own web sites, which seems like a rather sensible cost saving measure. But, guess what. The proposal is greeted locally with great anguish. How could we deprive our local Newspaper of Record the income derived from publishing the Legal Notices?? One conclusion that can be drawn from such a position is that the Newspaper of Record doesn't really care about the taxpaying public. Why else would they be taking a position of wanting to waste taxpayer money on something that benefits virtually no one else in the community?? And what do you suppose ever became of all the Committee of 100 full page ads that used to regularly appear in the WDN. You remember, the ones that told us of all the marvelous things the Committee was doing. Surely those weren't sold below cost?? I know, sell below cost but make it up on volume... Sounds good, but I've never seen it work..

    And, of course our County Commissioners aren't much better.. (Surprise !!) Does it really matter (as long as it isn't China or India) where the call that dispatches state troopers to an accident (or whatever) originates?? Short answer; NO! So why vote against saving some of the taxpayer's money by consolidating dispatch offices??

    Of course in the case of the Newspaper of Record, that is what one might expect from a self proclaimed "Yellow Dog Democrat" publication?? Share the wealth - as long as it is other people's wealth and it is being shared with the right (correct??) folks.

    For anyone who may not be familiar with the term, the following is quoted from Wikipedia;

    "Yellow Dog Democrats was a political term applied to voters in the Southern United States who voted solely for Democratic candidates, with the term commencing in the late 19th century. Due to Republican President Abraham Lincoln leading the Union against the Confederacy, these voters would allegedly "vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for any Republican"

    The WDN not only admits being a Yellow Dog publication, they revel in it. I suppose the WDN could perhaps be commended for making their philosophical position so clear. The real question that comes to mind is. "How deep does that philosophical commitment go??"

    Think about this.

    The WDN would seem to be in financial trouble. They first stop publishing on Monday. Clearly a cost saver. Additional cost saving actions implemented included getting rid of the "comics"; dropping the Horoscope; dropping Dear Abby; dropping the cryptogram puzzle; making the crossword and Sudoku puzzles so small it's almost impossible to fill in the blanks; dropping the Walter Williams Sunday column, dropping almost all national news to name a few of the cost cutting measures recently implemented. And all of this without ever bothering to ask the consumers how they felt about all these cuts versus a small increase in the price of the paper.. Unfortunately, it seems rather likely that the cost reductions are too little and they may have come too late.

    Please don't accuse me of complaining about the loss of my favorites (especially the "comics"). My observation is focused on the fact that when this self proclaimed Yellow Dog publication finds itself in financial trouble it rather quickly reverts to a Conservative strategy to "fix" their problem. So, what do they do?? They start out by cutting costs. These being the same folks who don't want the governmental units to do that with their public notices. It sounds a lot like "Do as I say - not as I do."

    And now, in a further effort to save themselves, they are asking us to give up some private and personal information to Google in order to be allowed: "free" access to their on line presentation according to an article appearing on the editorial page of the 5/8 print version. As though Google has not already mined and sold quite enough (actually more than enough) private information about folks who use their site (which doesn't include me for that very reason). We are told that the management doesn't want to charge for access to the WDN web site. It is not difficult to believe that there are very few folks who would be willing to pay to go there. Throwing a party (so to speak) and not having anyone show up could be a real embarrassment.

    And yet, how can anyone explain away the abandonment of their self proclaimed liberal beliefs and the liberal's usual approach to problem solving (i.e. solve the problem by pouring more money on it) ??. A real liberal solution would be to get the Town (and County - or perhaps better yet, the Committee of 100) to hand over taxpayer or grant money to sustain them. But no. They opt for a conservative solution (i.e. reduce expenditures). Why do you suppose anyone would believe that would work at a local level but not at a national level?? Hmmm...

   D'ya think??