We begin this morning with some inside baseball.

Barring unexpected obstacles, and perhaps delayed due to a brief hiatus on the part of the fellow in charge (see note at end), something new is likely to appear on these pages within a week or so: Advertising.

Present plans are for the ads to appear underneath the “Log in” selections but above “Archives” in the column over there on the right.

These ads will be text. Just words, no logos, picture or other graphics, at least not for now.

The purpose of these ads, like the purpose of all advertisements in all news operations, is to provide said operation with revenue.

In this case, the revenue to be provided is likely to end up somewhere between paltry and minimal. Indeed, the mere appearance of the ad provides not a penny. The pennies (and we are talking pennies) start to flow only if a reader clicks on an ad.

(No, don’t click just to create revenue for the News Guy. That’s not cricket. Click only if you are interested in the good or service being advertised).

For the foreseeable future, then, the financing of this web site will continue to depend largely on: (1) the personal resources of its proprietor-publsisher-writer-editor-researcher-floorsweeper; (2) donations from readers.

Of late, the News Guy has been gratified by the noticeable increase in the number of people who have registered so they can get ‘Twitter’ updates about the posts and so they can comment should they wish.

Alas, this increase has not been matched by a concomitant increase in the number of donors. All who have not donated, are hereby invited to do so. Just hit “Donate” (under “Pages,” top right) and follow directions.

The News Guy accurately quoted the fellow who said the $112,000 that would be saved by hiring union workers for the new Lake Champlain bridge amounted to less than one percent of the roughly $1.7 million that could be saved by instituting a Project Labor Agreement (See “Non-Union Blues,” April 28)

But as a couple of readers pointed out, $112,000 is more like 6.25 percent of $1.7 million.

That’s still a small percentage of the total projected savings, but the News Guy should have thought to check the numbers. (And did, briefly. That post was written the evening of the big snow, in constant fear of losing Internet connection if not electricity, so it was written and published hastily. But that’s not really much of an excuse).

In another recent post (Political Health, April 24) the News Guy promised to explain soon why a single-payer health care system, whatever it advantages as a nationwide system, might be disastrous if adopted in one state. Herewith, the explanation.

In a single-payer system, health care is paid for with tax money. That’s actual tax money, from the taxes we call taxes, not the ‘taxes’ we call health insurance premiums.

Here’s an undeniable fact about taxes: it’s hard to raise them. People don’t like tax increases. Neither do politicians, who try to find some alternative. Any alternative.

There is no reason to think that health care costs will not continue to rise. Single-payer advocates argue that universal service itself will restrain costs. They’re probably right. But no one has presented persuadable evidence that simply covering everyone in and of itself will be enough to keep health care from getting more expensive.

So every once in a while, the Legislature and the governor will have to raise taxes to pay for the higher cost of health care. Or try to find an alternative.

One alternative is all but sure to be reducing pay to providers. That’s jargon for paying the doctors less. We know that this is likely because it is  what Congress has done for years; as health care costs rise, Congress regularly reduces provider pay for Medicare and Medicaid services.

Doctors don’t like it, but what can they do? They can’t go anywhere. Where would they go? To Canada? But Canada has a single-payer system. To Mexico? Not likely. In fact, almost nowhere in the world do doctors earn nearly as much as they do in the United States. It’s one reason U.S. health care costs so much more per person than it does in the rest of the world.

A few doctors refuse to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. But not many. That’s an awful lot of patients to give up.

But if Vermont starts cutting physician fees, it’s no trick for physicians to go elsewhere. Many of them wouldn’t even have to move, residentially speaking. They could stay right in their present house and just move their practice to New Hampshire, New York, or Massachusetts.

In other words, if Vermont all by itself adopts a single-payer system, Vermont all by itself could find itself short of doctors in a few years.

Because it is the big guy on the block, the Burlington Free Press has often been the butt of criticism at this web site. So it’s only fair to point out that the paper has committed some first class journalism in recent weeks. Much of it has been the work of Candace Page, who seems to have returned from her recent leave of absence with renewed energy.

But she’s not the only one.  The duo covering the Legislature, Nancy Remsen and Terri Hallenbeck, are doing a good job. Time constraints (two reporters are really not enough for legislative coverage, especially as the session nears its end) prevent them from probing as deeply beneath the surface as some (probably including the two of them) might like. But they get the important stories and they get them right.

Let’s not, however, be too kind to the Freep. One thing its editors should seriously consider is doing away with those “My Turn” columns that regularly run on or across from the editorial page. Sure, it’s a cheap way to fill space (the writers are not paid), but the columns are full of misinformation.

Why wouldn’t they be? There is no requirement that the writers know what they’re talking about. Most are identified only by their town of residence: “Joe Schmoe lives in Colchester.” Living in Colchester is not a credential.

Sunday’s paper provided a perfect example. There one C. Joseph Soper (whose “credential” is that he lives in Burlington) pronounces himself “bemused” over opposition to the possible arrival of the new (and apparently quite noisy) F-35 fighter planes for use by the Air National Guard.

Only  Soper knows what bemuses him, and he may be right that the pluses of welcoming the new plane to South Burlington outweigh the minuses. But when he proclaims that “jobs disappear almost daily” in Vermont, he appears not to know that during this Recession they have disappeared more slowly here than in most states. All he had to do was check the unemployment statistics.

Pointing out that other sites are being considered for the F-35, Soper said, “ I strongly suspect the other installations involved have not adopted anywhere near the response we seem to be reflecting. In fact, theirs is most probably one of great excitement over the prospect of being chosen.”

Well, he may strongly suspect it, but he’s wrong. Some ten minutes of surfing the Internet could have told him that comparable opposition to the F-35 has sprung up in, among other places, Tucson, Key West, and Mountain Home, Utah.

This is not Soper’s fault, at least not primarily. He’s not in the news business, so he doesn’t know that a writer’s strong suspicion is insufficient. The rule is: Check it out. If your mother says she loves you, check that out, too.

But the editors of the Free Press are in the news business. They ought to edit those columns for accuracy or get rid of them. They may be good public relations. They are bad journalism.

NOTE: There will be no News Guy posting Wednesday, and perhaps not on Friday either, due to a death in the “family.” That’s in quotes because the person who died was not a relative, but a dear friend of many years.

Like a person, a web site must take a day every now and then to establish its procedures, clarify some confusions, and take note of new information which might confirm (or refute) earlier statements.

This is one of those days.

Last week the News Guy gratefully received a generous donation from an out-of-state political advocacy organization.

And reluctantly returned it.

The alternative was to keep it, but then, when dealing with the subject of this particular group’s interest, insert a parenthetical, “full disclosure” statement.

Nah! That’s no good, and not only because it’s awkward. You either take the money or you don’t.

The News Guy does not. At least not from: elected officials; senior appointed officials (as in, direct appointees of the governor); anyone running for office now (donations from former candidates gladly accepted, even those pondering another run sometimes in the future); political parties; interest groups.

As for individuals who work for political parties and interest groups, let’s use common sense. On the one hand, the News Guy is not about to research every contributor to see where he or she is employed. But then, he doesn’t have to do that with the chairs of Vermont’s three political parties. They should not donate.

If you do not fall into one of those categories, however, and have not sent a donation, you are encouraged to do so. Simply look under “Pages” (in the top right quarter of the page), click “donate,” and contribute as little (or, better yet, as much) as you wish. More revenue does not enrich the News Guy as much as it makes it possible to cover more stories, better.

If and when the site seeks advertisements, ads from any legal entity will be accepted: candidates, causes, defense contractors, tobacco companies, subversive organizations, escaped convicts. Whatever.

Two big differences between donations and advertisements. First, the ads are out there in plain site for all the world to see. Second, the revenue from each one is infinitesimal. In fact, the revenue is zero unless someone clicks on the ad. In that case the revenue is pennies. The News Guy can be bought, because anyone can be bought. But not for pennies.

Similarly, though it doesn’t really do any harm, all Facebook “Friends” (the quotation marks are needed because most of these “friends” remain complete strangers) might save their energies by not inviting the News Guy to be a “fan” or otherwise support (or attend the event of) a political cause, or for that matter a commercial enterprise.

Reporters are not fans, at least not of anything but sports teams, musicians, and actors. Yes, technically, the Facebook page under discussion here is personal, but it is effectively the News Guy web site’s page. As such, there is no point in urging him to become a friend of any business, or a fan of “Let’s Close Vermont Yankee,” VPIRG, the Champlain Housing Trust, “Fight Animal Cruelty.” Or Radio Free Vermont.

Since the December 28 post, “Population Balm” two pieces of information have generally confirmed the point of that post that Vermont’s stable population is a result of who Vermonters are rather than what they, or their state government, does.

One was a new Census Bureau report showing that Vermont was one of several states in which there were fewer young people (under 18) last year than in 2000.

Then there was a report by the Southern Education Fund revealing that a majority of students in public schools in the Southern states were both low-income and minority.

Not, the report said, because of the “white flight” of earlier decades, or because so many whites go to private schools; the South has the smallest percentage of private school students in the country. Instead, black, Hispanic, American Indian and others now comprise more than 50 percent of the Southern public school students partly because of increased Hispanic immigration. But also, according to the report, “Higher rates of birth among the South’s Hispanic and African American populations in recent years explain a significant part of the increase in school enrollment.”

The report does not quite say that whites, and especially affluent, educated, whites, are simply not having as many children as other groups, or as many as they used to. But it suggests that conclusion, which is also found worldwide in other population statistics.

It is one reason Vermont’s under-18 population has declined by 14 percent, faster than any other state’s, though the decline in Maine, Michigan, and North Dakota was also ten percent or higher.

Michigan, which is losing total population, is a special case these days because of the decline of the auto industry. Maine is almost as white as Vermont, but North Dakota is not, and neither is as affluent nor as well-educated.

Whether the drop in the under-18 population is a problem or an opportunity, it is undoubtedly a factor. It’s happening, and therefore should be discussed in connection with whether state policy can, or should, try to: (a) reverse: or (b) encourage and exploit the trend.

And finally today, reluctant though the News Guy is to pick on the poor, pitiful, Burlington Free Press yet again, a blunder in Saturday’s paper can not go unremarked. In a straightforward story with no byline, the Freeps informed us all that the speaker at Burlington’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. remembrance next Sunday would be law Professor Anita Hill, who “earned notoriety during the 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.”

Not exactly wrong. At the time, Hill earned notoriety – that is: infamy, dishonor, ill repute – because at the time most people didn’t believe her allegations of misconduct against Thomas. Later, thanks to new information that backed up her contentions, public opinion turned more in her favor.

But the point here is not to relive the squabbles of 1991. The problem is that like many people these days, the writers and editors at the Free Press seem to think that “notoriety” means “fame.”

Minimally defensible. “Known widely” is the start of the Dictionary definition of “notorious,” but the words immediately following are “and usually unfavorably.”

A great language, English, because it allows nuance and precision. One of the great examples is the distinction among “fame,” “celebrity,” and “notoriety.” Newspapers oughtn’t muck them up.

It’s a little early to pronounce State Auditor Tom Salmon politically cooked and ready to have the loser’s fork stuck into his carcass.

But just a little.

Salmon, of course, is the elected Democrat who took the political risk earlier this year of becoming a Republican in a state where that is generally not considered a shrewd career move.

Last week he made the personal and political mistake of driving his car after he’d had too much to drink.

Monday he went on the radio to talk about it and botched things up totally.

Asked the obvious question by Jane Lindholm on Vermont Public Radio’s Vermont Edition, Salmon refused to say how much he’d had to drink before a Montpelier cop pulled him over Friday evening. The question, he said, was not “germane.”

This dictionary (American Heritage Second College Edition) defines “germane” as “having a significant bearing upon a point at hand; pertinent.”

Under that definition, what could possibly be more germane than asking an elected official who has had too much to drink just what he had been drinking, and how much?

Especially considering that he had earlier said he’d been drinking red wine.

Asserting that his goal was maximum “candor,” Salmon practiced maximum evasiveness. He wouldn’t say forthrightly that he planned to plead guilty when his case comes to court next month, leaving the impression that he was hoping for some other outcome.

To top it all off, before the brief (maybe five minute) interview ended, Salmon got potty-mouthed. If he thought the vulgarity would mark him as a regular guy, he was wrong. It marked him as vulgar. It also raised the question of…well, to come right to the point…of whether he’s something of a dope.

Maybe he’s the brightest guy around. But the context here is politics, in which appearance often outstrips reality. A candidate who comes across as kind of dense risks getting the reputation as a candidate who’s kind of dense. Once acquired, this reputation is hard to shake.

To be fair to Salmon, he does not appear to have been falling-down drunk. His breathalyzer test measured a blood alcohol content of .086, not far above the .08 legal limit.

Still, above the limit is above the limit. It doesn’t look good.

For two reasons, Salmon could still get re-elected next year. First, it’s early. Assuming there is no repeat performance, voters could forgive even if they don’t forget. A candidate who gets the vote of everyone who has ever driven after a drink too many would probably win in a landslide.

Second, one can never underestimate the facility of Vermont Democrats to nominate a turkey to run against Salmon. The Democratic leadership is no doubt trying to recruit a good candidate. But that leadership has limited power to control events. Anybody can enter the primary, meaning anybody can win it, including a turkey.

Right now, though, the Auditor’s re-election prospects seem bleak.

Oh, the other guy who wasn’t exactly impressive in handling this kerfuffle was Lt. Gov. and Republican gubernatorial candidate-designate Brian Dubie, who had nothing but praise for Salmon at Saturday’s Republican convention. Not a hint that he disapproved of what Salmon had done.

The appropriate response in the family, the fraternity house, maybe the Elks Club. Not in politics.

Enough of that. Now let’s turn to that other kerfuffle, the one about that letter to the editor of the Burlington Free Press, the existence of which the Freep is trying to deny.

The letter, by Ethan A. Sims (apparently the highly respected, much-honored professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Vermont, though the News Guy was unable to reach him for confirmation) which appeared to suggest that, while hunters were out trying to shoot a moose, anti-hunters might want to shoot the moose-hunters.

At least that’s how a great many hunters understood it. Preferring to be predators rather than prey, these hunters and their organizations not unreasonably became upset, deluging the newspaper with so many angry letters to the editor that the editors surrendered.

Abjectly. Not because they apologized, which was defensible if perhaps not necessary. But because they removed the letter from the newspaper’s web site archives.

It became, then, an un-letter, rather the way some one-time associates of Stalin who fell out of favor (and soon thereafter of sight) had their names and photographs purged from the history books, becoming un-persons.

Because no one here was killed, tortured, or exiled, the editors hardly sink to Stalinism, or other aspects of Bolshevism except in their obvious toadiness. Theirs is the spirit not of the independent journalist but of the ever-obsequious courtier.

Besides, this not being Soviet Russia, suppression doesn’t work. Anyone with a desire to see the letter and an Internet connection can find it. Here it is:

On this beautiful day we learn that about 1,251 hunters are taking to the woods with legal permits to “pursue prized quarry.” Certainly the members of various humane organizations do not approve. I suggest that before the next annual killing season, other residents be awarded legal permits to kill hunters who will be out to kill these beautiful, non-destructive animals. Or the government could just rule out all this primitive killing.
ETHAN A.H. SIMS
Shelburne

As another letter-writer noted last Sunday (a letter the Free Press editors, to their credit, printed), Sims obviously didn’t really want anyone to shoot a moose hunter. His letter was Swiftian satire, modeled on Jonathan Swift’s famous Modest Proposal (1729) suggesting Ireland’s poor ease their penury by selling their children to be eaten.

Not that hunters should be blamed for insufficient attention to Dr. Sims’ literary playfulness, which would have alerted them to his motivation. Hunters feel put upon these days because everybody does. It’s the American way to think everybody’s out to get us, whoever “us” may be. In fact, a very small percentage of the American people actively oppose hunting, and they have not been taken seriously by most of the rest of us (the News Guy is a very pro-hunting non-hunter) at least since the anti-hunting group PETA called for New Yorkers to change the name of the Fishkill River, apparently unaware that “kill” is Dutch for “river,” and so the name is not evidence of anti-piscatorialism (though perhaps of redundancy).

The editors could have explained that Sims was not in fact urging the murder of anyone, simply expressing his own anti-hunting views in a sardonic manner and with some literary flourish. Such a rational response, however, does not come easily to courtiers. Instead, the paper apologized for running a letter “advocating for violence against hunters,” which the letter does not do.

(OK, since this site is beating up on the Free Press again, this is a good place to note that Sunday’s package on the Lake Champlain Bridge, with stories by Terri Hallenbeck and Matt Sutkoski, was first class journalism.)