The issue of whether or not the two high school marching bands should have participated in this year's Veterans Day Parade has attracted a lot of back-and-forth discussion on our web site. In reading the discussion, several things occurred to me...

I was just about to call security and report the strange character wandering into the newsroom this morning, when a strange sense of familiarity took over, as if I'd seen this fellow somewhere before.... Turns out he works here. In all seriousness, all of us in the building are thrilled to have Doug Dezotell back at his desk after several weeks out recovering from heart surgery. Welcome back, Doug! It wasn't the same here without you...

We received a notice from the Town of Bell Buckle too late to get it into today's newspaper: Attention Bell Buckle water customers from Higgins Road through Munsey Meadows! The water will be shut off from 8 AM for most of the day on Wednesday, October 21 to work on the water lines. Sorry for the inconvenience....

Both I and Brian Mosely have tried to address this in recent blog posts, but some people still appear not to understand it. Until and unless someone is charged with something, or someone is willing to go on the record for a news story, an accusation against someone is a rumor. We will not publish rumors, nor will we allow our commenters to do so. Flinging around undocumented allegations puts us -- and, I might add, our commenters -- at legal risk...

One of our web site commenters was less than pleased with the outcome of Tuesday's election: This whole thing stinks, I'm ashamed of the people of shelbyville and surrounding counties. My apologies go out to [candidate] for the evilness in the world, money talks and people walk. ...

I find myself having to repeat something I blogged a week ago today. The Times-Gazette web site comment feature isn't intended for making accusations against specific people. When and if criminal behavior becomes a part of the public record, and we report on it, you can certainly respond to those stories, within the limits set by our Terms of Service...

I've had to delete quite a few comments in the past few days. Some were for reasons of profanity -- please feel free to repost, without the offending word -- and others were for potentially-defamatory content. Our story and blog forums aren't the place to anonymously accuse specific persons of specific illegal behavior. ...

For those of you who write fiction -- or have ever wanted to try -- you have the next month to prepare for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, to participants). NaNoWriMo is a non-profit event that takes place each November. It's not a competition -- at least, not in the sense of having one winner. ...

As an interesting sidelight to our flu coverage today, I thought I'd pass along a blog post by religion writer Peter Smith of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Peter is a friend and former college classmate of mine...