Not only do we have an official Stepford Weekly newspaper for our little conglomerate of suburbs (which comes every Thursday) but now there is a new rival paper (delivered Wednesday!) trying to stake a claim of its own. I'm amazed that there is any business at all for such a twee wad of real estate ads, local high school sports stories, restaurant reviews, and columns about the columnist's disgust that the newspaper office recently stocked the snack machine with Hooters brand chips.

Sometimes there are "news" stories that stretch out week after week with little discernible change (my favorite being the wooden gazebo ordered for our local library as an indoor reading area for kids, which unfortunately was treated with asbestos, splinters of which permeated the library carpet before the asbestos treatment was discovered--definitely the most exciting story). And sometimes they pick an "issue" and gather quotes from local residents about it. The best of those was the drinky/non-drinky debate. We didn't know this before moving here, but apparently all outdoors village-sanctioned events are dry dry dry. But now that the council has voted to allow local businesses to have liquor licenses, there are some movements afoot to let outdoor events be wet wet wet, or at least equipped with some sort of table serving glasses of wine.

Reactions ranged from "Of course people should be allowed to drink outside...but I don't live in this suburb," to "WE'LL FIND CHILDREN PASSED OUT IN MY FRONT GARDEN" to "Of course people shouldn't drink outside. This isn't Chicago or something."

At least as I carry these papers from the front sidewalk to our bag of paper recycling, I feel like I am doing my part for the environment.