I’m surprised we are able to comment on your blog yet…seems if the Gazzette was going to pick and choose what it’s readers can post on…they would either be all in…or none at all…this is the only paper that demands your real name…or polices the way people conduct their posting…like yesterday…two people were called on hogging the comment section of an article….there was no cussing just a heated debate…it wasn’t even heated really….looks like control freaks…out of control…I will continue to read your blog…and the obits….enjoy your weekend Tom….

Mr. Dorman, I wrote a poem of my own, I hope you don’t mind, it’s about the new rules and that’s being kind.

The Gazette can omit what they feel is unfit
This reader finds it boring and leaves often snoring
Moderators, censors and the powers that be, have taken
away some amusement for me
Election year politics are usually fun but not on these
pages, they simply won’t run
You comment too often
Your tone isn’t right
the moderator deems, you’re picking a fight
Censorship is one thing, free speech is another, so close
to an election, we now have
“Big Brother”

I applaud the change. If the Bloom article in The Atlantic online mag didn’t persuade outlanders that Iowans are a bunch of pious, witless, and elderly meth-heads, a quick glance at a typical “comment” string would convince any out-of-stater that Eastern Iowa is populated exclusively by “rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperadoes, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, half-wits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, sh*t kickers – and Methodists.”… to quote the incomparable Hedley Lamarr.

Ok, Todd, tell us, please, why you get to interact with us faceless people out there in cyberland and nobody else does.
As far as your poem goes, it’s Post Modern, specifically Beat. It’s the “cut-up” method used by Willliam Burroughs to write his best known novels, “Naked Lunch” “Nova Express” et al. Excerpts from “Nova Express” were set to music by the Fugs (Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg, Ken Weaver)—-”Break through in grey room. Towers open fire”

Late to the discussion. The Editor post about limiting comments has been shut to comments. Its less than 4 days but too late for comments on comments. I guess most dont like the tightly controlled very limited comment format, so the best thing is just shut people up. The thing is media exists to shape opinion, not report facts. So having the partisan skew exposed serves the owners no purpose. Thus the very controlled, thought shaping policy. The old media has lost their sway, and it is painful.