Raise the Hammer

Thanks Mrjanitor, but it's Ms., not sir. (my nik. 'Cityjoe' is the name of a really inept City Slicker that I used to know many years ago.)

I do think that RTH web site could do with some promo or more exposure, even if the busy people here didn't want to do in print media. (It took me a long time to find RTH & other more independent media. People could use some help finding RTH.)

Even if we wish that Letters to the Ed. be factual, how about the actual content of the paper/media themselves? Shouldn't that be factual too?

Here's two examples of sketchy & far fetched 'facts' from the Spec. These are things that I chose @ random, & from just one issue of the Spec.(Wed. Dec. 1, 2010)
*********************

1)"Water main break floods Ancaster homes"

"ANCASTER A water main break flooded basements in the Meadowlands area and cut water pressure across the community Tuesday.

The pipe burst in the Shrewsbury Street area just after 4 p.m."
******************


Funny that! If the pipe burst @ 4 p.m., why was there no water @ 2 p.m.?
*****************
*****************

Here's another Pinocchio Special from Dec 1st. the Spec. under the Headline:
**********************************

2) "City considers cat adoptions."

"One female cat and her offspring can generate 1,000 cats a year, and over seven years, can produce 422,000 cats, he said."
***********************
I think he has cats confused with termites. Under optimum conditions a feral cat will probably live less that 2 years, & probably only 1/2 of a litter of 4 kittens will live to produce kittens, if that, & about 1/4 of the survivors will be male.

I can't dispute his figure with figures of my own, but common sense can't get me to agree with what he states either. Most people who do not spay or neuter abandon the animals as soon as they run out of friends & relatives to take kittens. The cats then become feral or semi feral.

(& shooting of feral cats & deer have become hot potato issues with the City & Hamilton Field Naturalists, & people who oppose one or both 'final solutions'. How clever of the author to quote a jaw dropping figure to scare the Hell out of us all! So expedient of him to further the cause of City Hall & HFN.
*********************
If our media often deal in sketchy details, & elastic truthyness, how can we expect them to weed out errors in Letters to the Ed.? (esp. if the authors know which side of the bread their butter is on, & how to tow the official line at all costs?)