Herron: "Einstein's concept of God seems best"

Egad, Al, you must really enjoy poking that nest of hornets. Didn't you learn your lesson last time?

Seriously, it occurred to me that we'll never see a piece like this on the Religion page, where it really belongs. Pity.

Editorial: "City's hard work pays off with rating"

In which the editor repackages yesterday's story, adds one sentence to the head and one to the tail, and calls it an editorial. Whew, I hope he was able to get some rest afterward.

I'll bet it went over real well among the good 'ol boys down at the Lone Spur.

Letters: Gang sign in the Courier! (gasp!)

Today's lead letter from Beverly Jolliffe expresses shock, fear and anger that the Courier would provide a platform for the vicious, scary horribleness of a bunch of hick gangsta wannabees doing Presbyterian rap. I'm not sure which is funnier.

The second, from Michelle Harrington of the Center for Biological Diversity, attempts to spank the City Council for not stepping up to the adult table on Verde watershed issues. Hate to tell you, Michelle, but Council doesn't care. Her missive does add some accidental context to Cindy Barks' Monday rundown of the Council agenda though. Anybody else notice how much alike the names of the water groups are? Makes it sorta confusing for the casual reader. Coincidence?

Finally we have another standard out-of-town brown-peril rant, made slightly more amusing by Tom Steele's comment, in which he attempts to spell a common three-syllable word.

A1: "Granite Creek cleanup is an Earth Day success"

Doug Cook gives us a tour of the volunteer effort to clean up the creek and the park, but I've got an unanswered question: Why does it take a massive effort by students and nonprofits to get this done? Is it the City's policy to let the creeks go until some civic-minded volunteers show up? From the looks of things there was a huge amount of trash in just this small area -- granted, a flood basin that catches a lot of floating crap when the rains swell the creek, but right next to what should be our premiere recreation park and along the trail that's supposed to be a primary crosstown walking and biking route. Does the City make any effort at all?

A1: "Collapsing colonies"

Joanne Twaddell visited with the folks at The Honeyman and talked about bees, squishing a national agricultural crisis down into a nice human-interest story. It's a pity it didn't include some expert references on just how widespread, severe and sudden this crisis has been to put it in context and make the reader smarter about the big picture here.