A couple of interesting local things this week. First, for no particular reason other than a prompt from the people involved, the Grass Valley Union ran another story last week about how NCTV, which used to be FCAT, is trying to get money which it thinks it’s entitled to receive from a cable TV company called Comcast. What I find interesting about this story is that I don’t really understand it. Even though I’ve talked to the people who are supposed to be the key players, I can’t really figure out what’s going on with NCTV.

First, the local school superintendent performs some kind of a coup, and takes over the public access cable channel, moves it to a new location and appoints new people to run it. Now these people are saying they can’t survive unless Comcast gives them more money. As usual, all I know is what I read in the papers, and I know only two pertinent things about this story from reading The Union. First is the rather vague piece of information that big cable TV companies like Comcast are required by federal law to give money to local public access channels, and second is that NCTV wants $200,000 a year from Comcast while the cable company currently is coughing up only $30,000. School superintendent Terry McAteer, who appears to be in charge of all this stuff, says he’s planning a junket to Comcast headquarters in Philadelphia to make the case for the $200,000 demand.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m very much in favor of local access TV, but back when FCAT was having it’s internal squabbles and arguing with the city of Grass Valley about money, I had a feeling that although things weren’t going all that well, at least I could discern what was going on. I don’t have that feeling about NCTV. This is supposed to be a public access medium, but my instinct is that neither the people who are running it nor The Union are being straight with us about it. I’m very interested in media issues, and I want to see more public access to radio and TV. So if you know anything I don’t know about NCTV, I’d like to hear from you.

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The other local story is kind of a first in local political lore. Second District County Supervisor Sue Horne blasted her constituents and maybe some other people with an automated, recorded phone message, and it wasn’t even about an issue that’s in front of the Board of Supervisors. She said, of course, that she wasn’t acting as an elected official, only as a concerned citizen. Her message was about an item that appeared on the agenda of the Nevada Union High School District about student absences for confidential medical services.

Once again, all I know is what I read in The Union. Horne says she was approached to make this recorded intrusion by a group called the Capitol Resource Institute to promote a change in district policy to require parental approval for students to leave school for medical treatment. Capitol Resource Institute is an anti-abortion organization based in Sacramento. Why, you might ask, would they take an interest in what goes on in the high schools in Nevada County? I might ask that too, but I’d also ask why a county supervisor would be involved. The agenda, obviously, is to prevent teenagers from receiving birth control services, and possibly abortions, without parental knowledge and consent. While I don’t want to argue the merits of that issue, I do want to say that it’s not appropriate for an elected official to throw the weight of her office behind this kind of political campaign while denying that it’s political. Sue Horne doesn’t have any children enrolled in one of the district’s schools. She’s obviously using her position to promote a social and political agenda. That’s okay, I guess; just don’t deny that you’re doing it. We’ll decide in the next election if we approve or not.

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The guy who claims to be President continues to give the finger to the entire world, not only by sending troops across the globe to kill people for profit, but by appointing people to responsible positions in government who are against the policies they are sworn to carry out. Without even discussing Condy Rice and some of the judicial appointments, we’ve got a guy who opposes the United Nations nominated to be the UN ambassador, and now we’ve got Paul Wolfowitz designated to head the World Bank. The fox in the henhouse would be a preferable alternative.

Bush’s actions don’t really surprise me. Everything in his background tells you that he would do exactly what he’s done. It’s a little surprising, however, that there is no opposition. Who and where are these Democrats who claim to be the opposition party? Despite what all those suits in Washington tell you, we’re living in a one-party political system. The asses and elephants already have merged. We need a few other parties to keep those guys honest.

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Okay. Here I am on the business page again, and what a surprise, the subject is Wal-Mart. The retail giant agreed to a settlement of $11 million to settle a case about employing illegal immigrants. I haven’t done the arithmetic, but I can tell you that Wal-Mart did $258 billion in gross sales in 2003, and a radio commentator told me that the fine in the illegal immigrant case amounted to about 10 minutes of Wal-Mart’s income.

Wal-Mart has become a symbol and a target for criticism of the big-box stores and even for lawsuits, maybe justifiably. I don’t know. The tendency of big retail to squash small retail seems inevitable. But a letter I read in The Union a while back adjusted my perspective a little. It was directed at Wal-Mart, specifically, but it could be applied to any big corporate retailer. It pointed out that, although we like the low prices of the merchandise, we pay the price in other ways. Local governments give the big retailers tax breaks and pay for the infrastructure they need. The stores pay low wages to employees who then are eligible for various welfare benefits, but I’m not sure that small local businesses aren’t vulnerable to the same accusation. Anyway, it’s worth considering that the low price off the shelf isn’t necessarily all you have to pay.