This is almost too perfect

Imagine you are assigned to write a fake editorial in the voice of the Town Crier. And it has to reference the earthquake in China AND the cyclone in Burma. I bet it would look something like this.

POSITIVE CHANGE AHEAD FROM LOS ALTOS

Every once in a while, the paper caricatures itself so well that the only possible explanation is that someone at the printer slipped in a mock article for their own amusement or that the writers took it upon themselves to satirize the publisher's world view. They could have done a better job with the headline -- something along the lines of "Don't let poverty, death of others get you down" -- but perhaps they were just trying to be subtle.

Recent news beyond Los Altos has been less than sunny, let’s face it: The national economy remains shaky, gas is officially more than $4 a gallon, the death toll from last week’s cyclone disaster in Myanmar could exceed 100,000 and another disaster close behind it – the 7.8 earthquake that hit China on Monday, killing nearly 9,000 people.

I'll give you some time to guess why the paper is bringing up the earthquake in China. (And ignore the disastrous punctuation and the tragicomically low alleged death toll -- I'm posting this at least a week after the editorial went to press).

Did you guess yet? Here's a hint.

All the more reason to count our blessings on the local scene.

This is some great character-writing here by the forger -- bringing up terrible calamities simply so that we can dismiss their importance by discussing our money. Can you think of the last time even tens of thousands of Los Altans died in a cyclone? I can't. We're rich. Leave us alone, world.

Certainly, the high quality of life in Los Altos is well documented, but here’s another thing to consider: Numerous plans and projects under way bid to make this community even better.

In the interests of time, let's use a mathematical equation to express the relative importance the forger places on these numerous plans and projects:

(Burmese cyclone + Chinese earthquake + foreclosures + high gas prices) < (New flowers and plum trees on San Antonio Road + two new downtown buildings + plans to sell lot at State and Main + Safeway expansion + post office replacement + new Loyola Corners landscaping + possible civic center renovation)

I just saved you six paragraphs.

It’s also encouraging that Los Altos residents don’t act like they live in a bubble, but are compassionate and continue to help others. Witness, for instance, the bake sale in front of Starbucks in downtown Los Altos last weekend in support of the Myanmar survivors.

Los Altos residents don't act like they live in a bubble? Sure, the city incorporated mainly to keep out low-income residents, and it has pass laws banning Mexicans and Gypsies from the town, and its local paper repeatedly writes about how great it is that bad things happen other places but not here (even when they actually do happen here). But we had a bake sale.

I like "It's a Wonderful Life" as much as any Jew I know, but this is a little too much.

While the structural improvements are nice and we look forward to them, ultimately we’re proud of the quality of people that make Los Altos the great community it is.

This conclusion is another reason I think this editorial might be a fraud. I suspect the real Town Crier cares more about the structural improvements.

The Town Crier drops the other shoe

Coming back to Los Altos this weekend for my grandmother's 90th birthday celebration reminded me again of the many reasons I love home. While Los Altos High hosted the annual Relay for Life and Jamba Juice offered a two-for-one, I spent time with family and friends, watching high school water polo, swimming at Foothills, and playing basketball on Sunday afternoon at Terman. We even had a moonbounce.

You can imagine, then, why I was so disappointed to see the Town Crier go negative.

They warned us this would happen, two months ago, but who possibly could have been prepared for the vitriol of last week's editorial, describing the Civic Center as "badly used" and "as a whole unattractive and sadly out of date."

That kind of talk belongs in Mountain View maybe, not Los Altos.

Spreading the good news

The Russian government apparently got a hold of the Town Crier.

It seems like the best explanation for the new policy requiring the country's radio stations to make sure at least half of their news is of the Los Altos variety. Turns out everything is once again looking up in my hometown, where the paper compliments the city for repainting a few crosswalk stripes and goes out of its way to say that it has nothing to complain about.

Well we're safe for now. Thank goodness we're in a bowling alley.

Front-page news from my hometown of Pleasantville:
A rumored illness caused by pet food has affected unknown numbers of pets, but none in Los Altos.

Got that? Something may have happened somewhere else, but not in Los Altos. This could be the start of a great series: Things that are not happening in Los Altos. Send your ideas to editor@latc.com.

For true lack of perspective, see the San Jose Mercury's Web site, where the top story compares the Warriors making the playoffs as the last seed to victory over the Axis in World War II.

The Town Crier is keeping me down

Before I became a doctor of journalism, I had a hobby of writing at least one letter every week, to reporters, businesses or elected officials. One day, I thought, I'd compile them in a book called Jon Complains.

The Los Altos Town Crier ran about half of my newest installment, which criticizes the paper for rewriting local history in order to project its own image of my hometown. Ironically, the paper (perhaps for space) entirely cut out the portion of the letter where I accuse them of being silent on the story of Gregory Wagner. Here's the text of the original letter:

Dear Editor,

I enjoyed your year-in-review (Dec. 27) but was disappointed to see the paper's news judgment once again clouded by the publisher's politics. You wrote that the city council's rejection of a gay pride day proclamation drew fierce criticism "mostly from outside Los Altos." This is wishful thinking at best, and makes the Town Crier look like it's sticking its head in the sand. Students, business leaders, churchgoers and others from Los Altos all mobilized in opposition to the city council's action. The resulting parade was one of the largest political demonstrations in the history of the town. [The rest of the letter did not make it in]. The article should have read that the criticism came "mostly from outside the pages of this newspaper."

Additionally, it was a glaring omission to once again leave out any mention of Gregory Wagner, one of two Los Altos youth leaders sent to prison this year for child molestation. It appears that the Town Crier would prefer to ignore anything that might reflect poorly on its coverage area, a goal made easier by the departure of those reporters who fought to keep the story in the paper. But the Wagner story has another side that is important for the community to recognize. That side of the story is about the former scouts whose courage in facing and talking about their past helped bring Wagner to justice. By repeatedly downplaying the story, the Town Crier abandoned those who most deserved the community's support.

Sincerely,

Jon Wiener

Everything swell in Los Altos

I'm surprised this letter from a Los Altos resident satisfied with her town's pleasantness didn't make the front page of the Town Crier, which once again managed to limit any controversy to the sports section.

The paper spent three pages on an article written by and about a group of classic car collectors who hang out in the bookstore, up until recently owned by the publisher, downstairs from the paper. (This is roughly the equivalent of me writing a story about my own water polo team and submitting it myself. Actually, come to think of it, I've done that several times).

I have to say, as steaming mad as I was about that, the full-page children's coloring contest cheered me up. You gotta love the Town Crier. Child molesters are walking around free, the city is dumping sewage into the creek, coke and heroin use is spreading among high school students, and the news is a full-page coloring contest.

That is how a paper makes money.