The recent Los Angeles area firestorms have created their own media circus with lots of finger-pointing, partisan blaming, and attempts at obfuscation or deflection. Since I subscribe to and read the Washington Post (which sometimes has its articles reposted by the Anchorage Daily News to which I also subscribe) and the Wall Street Journal, I basically know what happened and why. Juneau libraries inform the public with availability of such quality print journalism often absent from on-line and visual media.<\/p>\n
The final and comprehensive analysis, of course, will wait until described in detail by predictable litigation. Not being a lawyer, it seems that the concept of sovereign immunity that insulates government and its officials from financial liability might be tested along with the legal definition of gross negligence at some point in the future. Corporate responsibilities will be revisited as well. Maybe elections will revisit priorities. But, I’m just guessing.<\/p>\n
What bothers me most is that government at all levels will get a bad reputation for its lack of attention to its most basic responsibilities to protect life and property. As a nonpartisan who has been personally targeted by both sides of the proverbial aisle for trying to get down to policy basics, I really hope I live long enough to see some serious, long-term improvements come out of this almost unimaginable series of tragedies.<\/p>\n
Mike Clemens<\/p>\n
Juneau<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The recent Los Angeles area firestorms have created their own media circus with lots of finger-pointing, partisan blaming, and attempts at obfuscation or deflection. Since I subscribe to and read the Washington Post (which sometimes has its articles reposted by the Anchorage Daily News to which I also subscribe) and the Wall Street Journal, I basically know what happened and why. Juneau libraries inform the public with availability of such quality print journalism often absent from on-line and visual media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":115172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,8],"tags":[97,106],"class_list":["post-115171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","category-opinion","tag-letters-to-the-editor","tag-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\n