Bloomin’ Bloomsday

Steve Smith seemed rather relieved that this year’s Bloomsday results section had fewer ads than last year, and didn’t seem to be flying off the racks around town. Relieved, because we no longer publish the section - the Inlander does. “My sense is that we probably got out of that business at the right time,” he said.

Managing editor Gary Graham, who ran his first Bloomsday this year, highlighted the point by sharing the information he was able to get online . Graham’s time of 1:22:57 was 10,059th overall, but an impressive 17th among people with the last name of Graham. Some things, the Web just does better.

The West Side refinery

Editors generally felt that today’s story about a biodiesel refinery planned for the coast was overplayed in the A1 lead position. Reporter Jim Camden suggested that the boat moorage story was more of a local issue and could have led all editions.

Everyday people

The lion’s share of this morning’s meeting was discussion of a reader question that Smith will be addressing in Ask the Editors . The reader questioned why we identified rape suspect Arlin Jordin as a Vietnam veteran:

Jordin, a 58-year-old Vietnam veteran who has been in the real estate and insurance business since 1970, testified about meeting the woman named in the charges after she responded to an ad for an apartment.

There was a lot of speculation, which I won’t go into in depth because reporter Bill Morlin wasn’t present - presumably, Smith will talk to Morlin before answering the question in the blog. But the general consensus was that while we do look for interesting details about people to identify their place in the community, there was no obvious explanation as to why this particular detail was used.

Assistant city editor David Wasson said military service is the type of thing that comes up commonly during opening statements in court. “I would bet a cup of coffee that the fact that he was a U-High grad never came up in the courtroom,” he said. “These are descriptions that people give of themselves.”

Your RPS fix

A little pearl of information for the conspiracy theorists: Evidently, River Park Square managment is requiring S-R reporters to get a press pass before walking through the parking garage. Smith’s instructions to reporters and editors: Don’t bother. Let them kick us out, he said, and we’ll write about it. The plot thickens…