InkBlots

A second newspaper in Philadelphia? So it was reported in the Neshoba Democrat last week.

If you haven’t heard about Rep. Ted Mayhall’s bill that would prevent restaurants from serving obese patrons, you can read about it in the national press here and here (scores of more outlets, as well as Leno, Letterman and Stewart will likely dutifully follow suit).

We’re not sure what Rep. Mayhall expects in terms of support for this bill, but we’re pretty dern sure the Mississippi Hotel and Restaurant Association won’t be enthusiastic.

Sid Salter, Perspective Editor for The Clarion-Ledger and a longtime state political columnist, reminisces about a laughable attempt a dozen years ago by former state Rep. Tommy Horne of Meridian to force newspaper editorial writers to sign their name to their work. Your dutiful editor at the time was working in a small weekly newsroom and was, in fact, signing his editorials, as some opinion writers did when it was an individual newspaper’s custom.

We found it deliciously ironic, nevertheless, that Horne would call for such at a time when he also supported secret deliberations for conference committees. His term and squirrely ideas on editorials faded away, but Salter now astutely points out that many opinions exchanged between newspaper readers on their Websites are pointed and, more often than not, quite anonymous.