A1: "Williamson Valley Road design almost complete"

Paula Rhoden turns in a good, well balanced story on the runaway development project that Williamson Valley Road has become despite tremendous effort by local residents to get it under control. It may be that most locals favor the five-lane idea, as the Queen Bee claims, but I see nothing but her word on that. Maybe Paula can follow up with some investigation of this critical factor.

Editorial: "Nifong deserves whatever he gets"

Today's top-left rant is matched with a cartoon on the same subject, bringing a sort of Martha Stewart coordination to the editorial page. I seem to recall that I got a memo from Tim a while ago claiming "LOCAL, LOCAL, LOCAL" as his all-capped "mantra." Apparently he failed to distribute it in his own office. As with the recent editorial-page fascination with Paris Hilton, our editors are simply writing out the acid reflux of what they consumed from TV the night before. My advice would be to slug some Maalox and start paying attention to what's happening right here in everybody's hometown.

Goodman: "Politics: the red and blue of stem cells"

Considering the treatment Goodman was regularly getting up to some weeks ago, I suppose I really shouldn't complain that her columns have lately been coming through full-length and not much distorted by editorial depredation. Today's (originally titled "Tinting Science," June 14) is well in that trend. We have only to endure the editor's unaccountable fear of the passive voice.

Here's Ellen's lead sentence:
"By now you may be forgiven for suspecting that science is tinted -- if not entirely tainted -- by politics. "

And the Courier version:
"By now most will forgive you for suspecting that politics taint science."

Somebody please explain to me how this improves the column. To my eye it's hack work of the lowest order.