Substantial Disruption

Let’s All Party Like It’s 1864

The Arizona Supreme Court just upheld a Draconian ban on abortions by simply reading the calendar. The Court cited numerous cases and salted its opinion with logical, historical, and legal analysis, but it all comes down to the calendar.

Sometimes, timing is everything.

The fundamental issue in the case was simple: whether two laws passed in Arizona to regulate abortion could exist simultaneously. The Draconian ban first passed in 1864 was the only law left standing. A newer law, which allowed abortions up to 15 weeks of gestation, was struck down.

The Joy of a Plutonic Relationship

It wasn’t my worst on-the-air gaffe, but might be the funniest. I worked in radio full time from late 1973 through 1977, and part-time occasionally after that. Not everything went as planned. It’s hard to spend hundreds of hours doing live radio without occasionally slipping on a rhetorical banana peel.

When I was Public Affairs Director for KTUC-AM radio, my duties included traveling to the newsroom of the late Tucson Citizen for early morning newscasts. I would read the Citizen’s news copy on the air before the stories hit print. Each newscast began when the studio announcer said something like, “What are today’s headlines?” or “What’s in today’s Tucson Citizen?” I would then lead with a story that would run in print later.

One day, this happened:

Bill (back at the studio): “What’s the latest from the Citizen, Mike?”

Me: “Big news in science, Bill. Astronomers have discovered rings around Uranus.”