Illinois Valley News Blog

‘Tis the season.

From the fallen heroes memorial to the new round of fires there is no question that we are in the ‘heat’ of fire season. A good time to review your fire safety plan, whether that means trimming the brush around your house or what you and your family would do in cause of a fire.

That’s all I got…

First, my apologies about the missing pages earlier this week. Somebody in the office mentioned blackberry margaritas and my mind went blank. Oddly, enough the rest of the evening is a bit blurry as well. But enough about me…

Our super hero friend at Oregon Newspapers worked up some code to list the current comments on our index page. Now if you have a comment on a story and you wonder if anyone is complimenting you on your brilliant prose, you can quickly see if there are more comments right on the front page.

Just another helpful tool to make your online viewing more pleasurable.

Speaking of decadent digital delights, don’t miss this week’s two-count ‘em TWO-image galleries. This weekend was event filled with Art Walk kicking off the 27th annual Blackberry festival. Cruising the photos, you get a sense of the art and culture that we offer in this little burg. If we’re not careful, this might turn into a place people will want to live.

As always, we want to hear from you! Keep those comments and letters coming.

A hot week indeed.

Several fires in the valley interrupted power and called out all the fire crews. (You’ll have to scrounge up 50 cents for a real paper to get all the stories.) The scariest was in Kerby where several agencies responded to knock down a fire started by “scrappers” burning insulation from wire. Maybe the folks who stole all the Cave’s wire?

Did someone mention dumb tweakers? Deputies nab crank and cash…note to tweakers, when transporting large amounts of drugs and cash, follow all traffic rules! I guess if they were smart they wouldn’t be dealing drugs for a living.

In the print edition (a.k.a dead tree edition) we have a story about how the governor opposes drilling off the coast. That seems like a no-brainer for most. It was George H.W. Bush (for the record he was not a “radical environmentalist”) who put the law into effect. Our nation is addicted to oil. If an addict wants to quit, does more of the drug make it better? May we should ask Batty.
On a lighter note: we have tons of photos from Bluegrass festival up in our gallery.

On our wingnut awards, my boss is worried about details…do we nominate someone? is there voting? will we need the UN to monitor the voting?

I have the first nominee. Why is it that anonymity brings out the stupid in people. (It does make it easy to insult them though.) The idiot that I am referring to wrote a comment on the letters last week. It seems we have some radical tree-huggers out there and this one thinks that attacks on “extreme environmentalists” deserve a hate-filled and rude response.

Whether or not they deserve rudeness, I propose that the approach of using violent concepts to point out the fact that someone is not sensitive is not effective on multiple fronts. First, the person writing the original statement is rather unlikely to respond with, “Oh, my ideas were misplaced, you are right. I should kill myself.”

Second, folks who consider themselves moderate just think you are a wacko. Finally, even folks who might agree with you cringe at the crudeness of your attack. It’s a lose, lose, lose proposition.

Next time let’s see if we can play nice…OK?

As promised, we are adding new, fun features to the web-site. This week we have added a photo gallery feature that allows to show as many photos as we want and you don’t have to scroll down the page. Check it out at the Art Walk page. Let us know what you think.

Many thanks to Lee Eschen at Ashgrove Visual Arts for the coding needed to make that happen.

We are looking for give a new award here on the blog. It is the wingnut award, we are taking nominations

What does wingnut mean to you and who deserves the title? Let us know at wingnut@illinois-valley-news.com.

Mayor is on the ball letting the alcohol vendors know that we don’t appreciate the drunks around town. Even having a chat with a few of the drunks themselves. Go Tony!

The boss is back so things are back to normal in the production room. Some of the items that that temp guy missed (like the weather) are now back in the paper. D’oh…my bad.

As always let us know what you think.

Peace…

Josiah

Well after a few months away, I have returned to the I.V. News and can’t resist putting in my 2-cents, as it were.

My challenge is to maintain and the website, easy enough…just some clip and paste work from the newspaper. The greater challenge provided to me is making the website profitable. I’m sure you’ve seen (and have enjoyed the useful links in) our Google ads. While we do get a few bucks from that, it don’t quite pay the bills.

Get ready to see some changes to the way we present the web-site as well as new advertising opportunities. This blog is a great way to let us know what you think as well as to suggest ideas with which to bring cash-flow from the web.

Of course, I am anticipating a huge rush of page-views as the world clamors to read my pithy comments in this space. We shall see.

Well another week…more news. This week was rather hectic with the holiday, then we put out our first installment of “It’s in the Valley” and we’ve also launched our Holiday Photo contest.

As always, there is a tremendous effort put forward by the community to make sure everyone has a good meal on this day. Great volunteers, yet another reason to be tankful.

Our first issue of “It’s in the Valley” was a rather modest feat. Our hope is to provide a useful piece that highlights all the great local businesses. As it is, it is a great phone list of “most” (we tried to get everybody-but I am sure we missed someone) of the Valley’s businesses. With business support we will be able to expand it next year to include stories about the area and why you don’t need to go anywhere else.

Our Holiday photo contest is your chance to get your favorite pictures published and maybe win some fun prizes.

Keep those letters coming…you’re making me think over here!

Josiah