Friday hotdish

A potpourri of stuff I've been meaning to blog:

You'll soon see our weather page co-branded with KTTC, with nuggets of weather wisdom from Randy Brock...

We're going to re-start a reader feedback team in '09 -- with readers giving us consistent feedback through the year, meeting every quarter to talk about specific issues -- if you're interested in being part of this, let me know.

I reviewed the Chicago Lyric Opera's productions of "Lulu" and "Porgy and Bess" a few weeks ago...praised the former, panned the latter. I rarely hear from directors, actors, whoever after a review, but the director of "Porgy," Francesca Zambello, sent this note, with a quote from the review in which I said, "My wife would have you know that a lot of people abandoned ship at the second intermission. Too bad; they missed the boat."
    So Francesca wrote, "Too bad she did not suggest you report on the audience response for 'Porgy' who do not share your thoughts. I have noticed a rather vociferous response at every show and standing ovations. Rare for any opera."

I'll write a column next week on some changes in our staffing and beats, but I'll note here that Heather Carlson now covers state government for us, and Matt Stolle is our Weekend edition reporter.

Call it schadenfreude, but I always enjoy reading the corrections -- in newspapers other than ours. The Wall Street Journal has a couple of doozies today:
        The courtesy title for Canada's Governor General Michaelle Jean was incorrectly given as Mr. instead of the proper Ms. in a World Watch article in some editions Thursday.
        A photograph of the Sony Reader was incorrectly identified as an Amazon Kindle in some editions of Thursday's Personal Journal section.
        America's Best Cleaners certifies dry cleaners for quality standards. A Personal Journal article Thursday incorrectly gave the name as America's Best Cleaning.