Here's your chance to weigh in on a change we're considering to our Web sites. We have had some -- not many, really -- complaints about the reader comments attached to the bottom of articles and columns at our sites. Some people think they are tasteless. Some people -- local leaders, especially -- don't like the anonymity, and the perceived cheap shots.

Personally, I think they are usually OK. If there is a universal target of our posters' ire, it's our newspapers or me -- and we can take it. (We take down obvious examples of hate speech or defamation.) Gov. John Baldacci is probably a close second in terms of wearing a bulls-eye and he hasn't complained yet.

Here's the change we are considering regarding reader comments:

Do you see how, at the end of a story, there is a line to click on if you want to make a comment? We are thinking about making you click a similar line if you want to read the reader comments. In other words, you won't just read an article to the end any more and see the reader comments right there. You'd have to make a decision, and click on something to "see reader comments." If you do -- well, that was your call. If the comments disturb you, don't click there any more.

Do you want us to make this change? I am going to leave this blog up all week to gather your feedback. Your comments will matter. You can post a reader comment on this blog or e-mail me directly at: econrad@centralmaine.com

(Readers: This is an announcement I made to the staff Thursday evening./Eric)

Folks: I'm very pleased to tell you we have a new executive sports editor — Scott Martin.

Scott has been a reporter here since 1999. He previously worked as a sports copy editor here, and as a sports clerk at the Portland Press Herald and Bangor Daily News. He is a 1996 graduate of the University of Maine. His knowledge of central Maine sports and sports issues is excellent.

As you know, the position became available a few weeks ago, when current sports editor Ben Sturtevant took a new, crucial position in the company as "Web manager," working with Advertising and News content and reporting to Publisher John Christie.

Scott did not just get handed this job. We did a national search and more than 40 candidates applied. That included current and former sports editors. It also included four "internal candidates."

We narrowed the list to six finalists, two who work for our newspapers and four who do not. They were asked to do in-depth critiques of our sports sections, and write a short mission statement about what great sports journalists are doing, and should be doing, in 2007 and beyond.

Scott emerged from this field as having a clear understanding of our role as urgent, community newspapers. He wants more enterprise reporting, more provocative column writing and more innovation on the Web from the sports staff.

It meant a lot to me that several newsroom employees — in Sports and not in Sports — approached me privately to say Scott would make an excellent choice. They described him as an upbeat leader, a dedicated employee and as that proverbial "team player" you always hear about.

Our goal is for our Sports sections to be ranked among the top 10 in the United States for newspapers our size. But the more important goal is to serve central Maine sports readers even better than we currently are. Scott is the right person for this job, on both counts.

Please join me in congratulating Scott.

(Note to readers of my blog: I typically do a critique like this once a week, and do shorter versions more often than that. I thought you'd appreciate a little insight into our newsrooms./Eric)

Sunday

Very nice looking and newsy A1 of the Morning Sentinel. Getting Sharon Wood involved in our A1 designs helps a lot, and Joel Elliott's story on rafting and Betty Adams' on Kents Hill/school notification were surprising stories, well-executed.

Two things about A1 design: For Sharon to do what she's done the last several Sundays on A1, we need to get visuals and information to her early -- say, Wednesday. That requires more planning and doing reporting (and photo sometimes) in a different order from what we may have done in the past. Second, with Stephanie Law's new work hours Wednesday-Friday, we should do more charts, nuggets, locators, graphics than we ever have. Again, Stephanie needs this stuff early -- in the morning, if it's for the daily paper. And on Wednesday or Thursday for a weekend (Saturday-Monday) paper.

I felt we made a good choice putting the Sen. Snowe-in-Iraq story from Portland on A1 of both papers Sunday. Interestingly, the Telegram ran it on B1; they really hustled getting that interview.

Good, innovative, visual approach to the Life & Leisure design on "Success in School." And Craig Crosby contributed a thoughtful piece. REALLY liked the breakout box that quoted kids in their own words talking about parental help. The headline on the package was lackluster and obvious, though: "Success in School: Parents play an important role."

Headline size too small on the MDI-Waterville game, Sports cover of the Sentinel. Repeat note to copy editors in Sports and News: We don't shrink point sizes to make long words fit in single-column holes. We write a new headline if the first attempt doesn't fit.

Weak packaging on Sports front in KJ: Travis L. and wire commentary both on Patriots cheating, but placed far apart on page. For starters, I'm not sure we needed two commentary pieces on the same topic on the cover. But if we're going to do that, package them. Packaging throughout our newspapers is an area where we need to improve. Remember, like content (Patriots, whatever) should be packaged together (as in adjacent), whenever possible, which it usually is.

Very amusing B1 column by JP Devine on men's rest rooms.

I am a David Broder fan because he is not a political ideologue and his columns often reveal. His piece on our edit page today (on Sen. Lindsey Graham) was another example of both.

Some nice writing touches on our News stories Sunday:
"Green beans. Pasta. Jello. One by one, the food items left the basement of the Hallowell fire station in boxes..." -- Elizabeth Comeau. (It 's Jell-O though.)
"Outdoor guides say the Internet killed whitewater rafting in Maine. Or maybe it's the increasing length of the school year, or the allure of video games and other more sedentary pursuits." -- Joel Elliott.
"Elizabeth Pohl finds herself straddling a divide in the sometimes emotional debate over her library." -- Gary Remal.

ALL THREE of these leads are conversational, easy to read and invite you to keep going.

Monday

A too-light story mix in both newspapers was aided greatly by Scott Martin's and Travis Lazarczyk's story about how local fans were reacting to the Patriots' video-cheating issue. This was an idea from Bob Mentzinger, and I am pleased that Scott and Travis L. pulled it off on short notice.

Three comments: Scott used the "is not alone" transition to get from the top of his story to the body: "Stilphen (his lead person) is not alone in his belief that..." You'd be surprised how many newspaper stories do this. "He/she/they/it is-are not alone." It often makes top 10 lists of newspaper cliches; our well-done series on prison problems recently used it too.

Also, we should use care having a reporter (Travis L. in this case) write objectively about an issue two days after he made his take on the Patriots' fine and "scandal" quite clear in an opinion column. We are a small newspaper so at times it's unavoidable but we should think about it nonetheless.

Finally, we should save at least one local, hard-news piece for A1 Monday in both papers.

I asked the desk to consider the Winthrop armed robbery story/short for A1, so this one is kind of "on me." But, we should not use our story-promo design and fonts on robbery/breaking news briefs on A1.

Andy Molloy's A1 photo of Wayne fire official Andy Knight is an example of thinking creatively to make a mediocre photo op pretty nice: Andy M. asked them to turn out the lights at the station, put on the flashing lights and some lights in the vehicle's cab -- and it just looked neat. Nicely done. With stories, photos, headlines -- sometimes that little extra thought leads to something special.

Most importantly: We did some good work on deadline Sunday night, crossing several departments. Sandra Pooler of Sports approached me and asked what she should do for the Sentinel Monday, seeing that the Patriots had a game starting at 8:20 p.m. and the Sox started at 8:05 p.m. That was good initiative from Sandra. I consulted with Tim Crilley of Circulation and Dick Boyer of Production Sunday, and we agree to limited the Sentinel to 1 edition that night, but start 30 minutes later than normal.

Result: Both games made the Sentinel and were featured (Bruce Mastron) in the overline on A1. That's good hustle, and single-copy readers today could see at the top of A1 that we had the stories. Well done. It's great to work at a newspaper with cross-departmental cooperation like this. Production had a good run on the presses Sunday night too, keeping things on time for our readers.

Readers: I'm offering a short blog referring you to my Monday newspaper column. We received some criticism, in reader posts, e-mails and letters, about why we included certain details when we covered the recent arraignment of John A. Okie.

I hope this column explains it. The link is here:
Slaying details disclosed after careful reflection

I had a college professor who said the difference between journalists and public relations people (we were in the same part of the college -- communications) is that journalists uncover the truth and public relations people conceal it.

I think that's a little harsh but some of the details in the Okie case were too crucial to gloss over.

I would be proud if either of my daughters decided to be a pharmacist after she leaves high school. Our neighbors have a son who's enrolled in pharmacy school, and they're proud too.

So it seems like good news to me that the University of New England and Husson College have won state approval to open pharmacy schools. There is a growing demand for pharmacists nationally -- and with our aging population, one presumes that will escalate. Two Maine colleges are addressing this with new programs. Once these students start graduating, well-educated professionals will emerge and, hopefully, many of them will stay in our state to practice their trade.

You can read the Portland Press Herald story about UNE's approval here: UNE's pharmacy program approved

You can link to UNE and Husson College here: University of New England, Husson

I had another thought. So many central Maine hospitals struggle to recruit doctors. Beyond UNE's venerable DO teaching school, the nearest medical schools so far as I know are at Dartmouth, Boston and in Burlington, Vt. Is this something Maine should consider? Or how about a dental program?

Again, with an aging population -- and Maine's already one of the "grayest" states in the U.S. -- doctors and dentists also presumably will stay in demand. Our hospitals have affiliated with these "from away" medical schools, that's true. But this was my thought upon reading about UNE's new pharmacy program.

One of the biggest stories in today's newspaper "broke" yesterday in the Boston Herald. It said Loudon, N.H., NASCAR track owner Bob Bahre has discussed selling the track to Red Sox owner John Henry. No negotiations, they both said. Trust us. Just casual talk.

But is there more there? Henry has more than a passing interesting in NASCAR. He is part owner of the powerful Roush racing team and auto racing would fit nicely into his NESN sports-cable programming. Bahre is 81, and openly admits he's talking to people about selling, in part due to his age.

Plus, imagine all the fun "synergies" John Henry could come up with. "Synergy" in sports-business terms means using parts of your organization together to create more profitable results than using them separately.

It's why the Red Sox have such deep pockets: NESN is part of the package when you buy the Sox. For most baseball teams, the sports-cable franchise is owned by someone else, and the TV profits don't accrue so directly to the baseball team. Not in Boston -- it's all Henry's, and it's very profitable synergy. As a result, the Sox' payroll typically is second-highest in the Majors. (Thanks to NESN, Henry can dig a little deeper.)

Back to the fun part. How about Jeff Gordon -- Jennifer Lizotte's (our NASCAR blogger) favorite driver -- throwing out the opening pitch in April 2008 at Fenway?

Or, how about NESN's Tina Cervasio waving the green flag at Loudon next July?

Heck, the Sox' JD Drew has to be better at driving a pace car than he is at driving in runs...

In case you missed it, reporter Colin Hickey did a good job explaining the reasons behind the escalating costs of a college education in Sunday's newspapers.

You can read his stories here:
Some parents find coping with college costs daunting

Intimidating costs can be managed

But I have a different question: Do you feel a private or public college education is best? There are several ways to look at this.

If you examine raw tuition and reimbursement, U-Maine and its nonflagship campuses cost roughly a third of what Maine's "elite" private schools do.

Then again, the private colleges will tell you they have nice financial-aid packages and hefty endowments. So really, they argue, they are just several thousand dollars a year more for most Mainers than a Maine public university would be, all things considered.

A note of full disclosure: I went to Shippensburg University of Pa., a Division II state college in my home state, and graduated in 1983. I remember it cost about $4,000 a year then, for tuition and room and board. My parents were poor but my grandfather was not, and he left us enough so I only graduated with about $1,500 in debt (I had part-time jobs all through college, and won one scholarship) after four years.

If or when you have the choice, will you send your child to -- or will you go to -- a private school over a public one, if you can?

I see two arguments here:

1. A public university is more like the typical workplace demographically. Unless you are trying to end up in a top law firm, accounting firm, or become a physician, to me, I think vying in college "against" those whom you will vie with/against in the real world is a plus for public education. I actually believe a kid who goes to a private high school, an elite college and then enters a "typical" work force is at a DIS-advantage.

2. But then there's quality. You walk on the campus at Colby or Bowdoin or Bates, you go to the events and lectures and -- if you're little ol' Shippensburg me -- you think, "Wow, this is really well done." As a father of two daughters, it's tempting to try to send them to the best I can (period), and see what happens.

Personally, and I've thought about this a lot for some reason, I'd go to Shippensburg again and not change a thing.

But what do you think?

We carried an intriguing article from the Associated Press last Monday saying the number of hunters was declining nationally. Fishermen too. The numbers are almost staggering. The number of U.S. hunters dropped from 14 million to 12.5 million from 1996 to 2006. The number of anglers dropped from 35.2 million to 30 million.

Although animal-rights people are applauding, and cite a growing number of wildlife watchers and photographers, the decline in hunting especially has ramifications for hunters and non-hunters alike. For starters, too many deer or moose are a safety hazard for motorists.

The reasons behind the declines are equally significant. Experts say Americans live more "suburban" lifestyles nowadays, not so much "rural" lifestyles. One said that teenagers don't just get up one day and take up hunting. It's more a way of life, something that (typically, though not always) a father teaches to his sons and daughters. And hunters usually go with other hunters, in groups of two or more. So, children born into this lifestyle see it as part of their routine, part of growing up. They learn about guns and are comfortable around them. They are OK with killing animals, and often eating venison, grouse, pheasant, rabbits. But, fewer Americans are living this way.

I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and hunted, trapped and fished extensively with my father. Now I am a father of two daughters, and we fish occasionally. I haven't hunted in at least 10 years; haven't trapped since my teens. So I am accidentally part of this trend. And the odds are very low that my daughters will ever hunt, without encouragement and teaching from me.

I have a few rhetorical questions: Do you think hunting and fishing are pastimes that fall into the category (like golf) of "taking a lot of time do to?" Is that part of the problem here, as Americans feel squeezed for time are they dropping the leisure pursuits that take up a handful of hours each time you do them? (Ironically, it's something people often say when they stop buying a newspaper: "I like it, I should read it, but I don't have enough time.")

Also, could it be that the hunting just isn't as good as it used to be? My father insists "small game" in Pennsylvania are nowhere near as abundant as when he was a young man. On the other hand, deer and moose in Maine seem to be plentiful enough.

What ARE we doing with our time? Working harder, watching more TV, surfing the 'Net or going to more soccer games? I'm not really sure.

Finally, why is Maine bucking this national trend? The number of fishing licenses sold in Maine in 2006 actually was higher than in 1996. The number of hunters dropped by less than 1 percent.

We had a story last week about three Lawrence High students — Meghan Baker, Matt Huck and Josh Lund — who played for the Nashua, N.H. drum and bugle corps which recently won the Division II DCI championship. You can still read it here: Lawrence students compete with drum and bugle corps

Do you remember the fairly old magazine ad with a guy wearing sunglasses sitting in an easy chair, looking at a stereo and the "sound" (wind) blowing his hair back, his scarf back, his clothes back at like 75 mph? The point was, this stereo is really good.

My point is: That is what it's like to be in the home stands when a DCI corp plays. The brass and drums literally blow you away. The sound, the power, is electric.

I never played in a DCI corps but my high school band in Pennsylvania won two state championships in my four years there (I played drums), and we did corps-style shows (as I suspect Lawrence does). We played exhibitions at some DCI and DCA (adults) shows and got standing Os. We were good.

But many of us really, deep-down, aspired to do what Meghan, Matt and Josh did this year. We aspired to be a Madison Scout, a Casper Trooper, a member of the Phantom Regiment, Garfield Cadets, Bayonne Bridgemen or Santa Clara Vanguard. Some of us were good enough; some were not. But most of us weren't dedicated enough to find out.

So, read our story. And then go to ESPN2 at 10 p.m. tonight (Wednesday), turn up the volume and think about the combination of musical and athletic ability you are witnessing.