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What a week! First, Dumbledore is determined to be gay. Then, Jim Neal, a Senatorial candidate, confirms he is gay. Now, today, we publish a story about Bob Page, a recipient of this year's NCCJ Brotherhood Citation award, on the front page. Page is gay and has been out of the closet for years.

I guess sometimes it gets to be too much. One caller, who identified himself as Carl, let us know that he would no longer read the paper. He said, in so many words, that we shouldn't promote the homosexual lifestyle by writing about it without the appropriate condemnation.

When we wrote about Bob Page and his partner adopting a child in 2000 we were showered with cancellations. Not so much with today's story. Maybe times are changing. Then again, maybe we've already lost the readers who might complain along those lines. (We also got some positive comments in 2000.)

Anyway, I suspect that publishing stories like this is a reason some people consider us "liberal." If so, I plead guilty.

My daughter the younger just asked me if Stephen Colbert's presidential run is serious. This is a child who has been online since she was 10, who reads newspapers only when she's bored, watches TV news less often than that and who seems to know everything about whatever she's interested in, and is now a freshman at UNC.

Of course she knows who Colbert is. She's a bit unsure about who Romney and Thompson are, though. This is also a child of civically engaged parents she saw read the paper every morning and talk politics often.

The Pew Survey described this group early this year: They are somewhat more interested in keeping up with politics and national affairs than were young people a generation ago. Still, only a third say they follow what's going on in government and public affairs "most of the time."

My answer? "Yeah. Absolutely. But I think Jon Stewart is a better candidate."

Monday update: Here's why she asked.

Some bloggers noted this morning that they received an e-mail from us telling them why their newspapers were late. If you want to receive such information from us, not only about some of our problems, but also about our upcoming stories and events, please leave word in the comments or shoot me an e-mail.

We won't spam you or try to sell you anything. It's just a service, particularly aimed at active bloggers. If you want us to cease at anytime just let me know.

What does it mean when you're the last commenter on a thread?

* Does it mean you quieted the crowd with such powerful wisdom that they are speechless before your inner-Einstein? That once you've spoken nothing else need be said?

* Does it mean that you've killed the conversation? That your comment was so off-point or so mean that everyone stares at you speechlessly as if you've accused the Pope of committing one of the seven deadly sins?

* Does it mean that everyone else has weighed in with everything there is to say that is remotely meaningful and you're late to the party? That you haven't bothered to read the other comments before yours to see what has already been said?

* Does it mean that you don't know when that an argument has reached its point of diminishing returns and you keep repeating the same thing? That the time has come to agree to disagree and move on?

With Terry Grier outta here, I remember a joke he told before a speech at a Rotary meeting: "What's the difference between a dead possum on the road and a dead school superintendent on the road?" he asked, and paused. "There are skid marks in front of the possum."

It got a lot of laughs. I went up to him after the meeting and thanked him for being in Guilford County. I said that as long as he was here, I wouldn't be the most hated man in town. He laughed. (I'm pretty sure it was no contest.)

The San Diego school board frustrated us on this end. The board met, deliberated and adjourned several times over the past few weeks without taking any action. We had no sources among board members, for obvious reasons, and apparently neither did the San Diego paper. (Its Web site has nothing about the new superintendent yet.)

Reporter Amanda Lehmert, new to the paper and filling in for our schools reporter Morgan Josey Glover while she is on maternity leave, dogged that board night after night. running down countless leads and rumors. "No, nothing yet," she told editors about 1,000 times. Sometimes more colorfully. I know she's happy he's going. It's nothing personal; she can move onto a new story that will be happening here, not 2,473 miles away.

As long as I've been here, superintendents have left with a sizable -- though I'd bet still a minority -- population of people happy to see them go. I'm not one of them. The man made news.

Sunday update: The Chalkboard is looking to help in the search for a replacement.

What kind of leader do you want at the helm of the Guilford County school system? Do we hire from within, or recruit someone new? What should the new superintendent's top priorities be?

Leave comments there.

Some 70 percent of editors surveyed said requiring commenters to disclose their identities would support good journalism, while only 45 percent of the public did. Similarly, 58 percent of editors said letting journalists join online conversations and give personal views would harm journalism, but only 36 percent of the public agreed.

The comes from the AP story about the latest survey comparing journalists' and readers' views of the Web. Almost predictably, the coverage of it makes journalists look silly. (Insert my known skepticism about the value of polls and surveys here.)

Aside from the fact that we are silly, there is some interesting stuff in it if you actually read the survey or, as I did, the executive summary. Journalists and Web readers are in step on many, many issues.

Cutting to the chase on this one. My feelings on anonymous comments are out there: Don't like 'em; will take 'em.

The second piece of the above survey result about journalists "joining the conversation online and giving personal views" is trickier because it is two questions in one: join the conversation and give personal views. And that queers the interpretation of the response.

Question 1: Journalists must join in the conversation with readers. It's no longer an option; it's part of the job. Readers are the people journalists are trying to serve. And we don't want staff members to engage with them? Of course, we do. It's about transparency, clarity and having civilized discussion about ideas. It's what people do. It's what journalists do. Conversation improves credibility, in real life and online.

Question 2: Journalists can comfortably give their personal views about topics on which they are knowledgeable. That said, I do have qualms about reporters giving an opinion on an issue they are writing about. Say City Council is deliberating over whether to reopen White Street Landfill. Should the City Hall reporter weigh in with her opinion? I'd say no. I think she can provide additional information and insight in her comments. She can "set the record straight" for other commenters if someone posts an inaccuracy. She can answer questions. But, honestly, who cares what she thinks about reopening the landfill?

The talking heads on television, I think, skew the public's perception of journalists. The fact is, in most cases, reporters I know rarely have opinions about what they write, either because they can see all the gray or they don't feel strongly one way or the other.

My favorite comment from the story about the survey:

The study was designed to help gauge the priorities and practices newspapers should be establishing as they increasingly blend their print and Web operations. It produced few answers on how editors can meet reader expectations online without compromising credibility.

If I read the last sentence correctly, it says that editors must compromise credibility to meet reader expectations. That's not the way I read the results of the survey, and it's not my perception on how journalists serve the public.

Update: In the comments, Michelle McClellan says what I wish I had said: As long as journalists think they have to sacrifice credibility to meet reader expectations, they will not embrace abundant opportunities to do both.

When the various markets tumble as they've been doing lately, we often get calls from real estate agents concerned about housing market, politicians concerned about joblessness and members of the public concerned about the overall business climate. Their issue is that stories about the depressed economy are a self-fulfilling prophecy, scaring consumers who then won't spend.

Chris Roush at UNC and Talking Biz News points to some valuable information from Andrew Leckey, director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University.

"Even though more depressing words have been written in the blogosphere, on other online sites and in print than were written in the Depression, it isn't changing the course of economic events.

“"Journalists don't make recessions," Leckey said.

Our friends at Greensboro Sports didn't like the beer company ad on our high school sports site. I wrote that sentence in the past tense because we removed the ad from the site.

The post -- "N&R selling beer to high schoolers?" -- says that we shouldn't market beer to high school students. Fair enough. The ad rotated through a number of our pages, and it was easy enough to rejigger to skip the high school page.

I wonder, though, about the responsibility any Web site has to police its advertising based on morality and expected page viewership. I don't know what would happen to televised sports -- watched, I presume, by a lot of people under 21 -- if they could not advertise beer. Personally, I find it hard to believe that a beer company ad on a Web page would be a contributor to underage drinking, given the saturation marketing beer companies do elsewhere.

But I do understand the point. In the paper, we try to not run strip gentlemen club ads on the high school page. I guess beer company ads, like those Joe Camel one's, fall into the same category.

I'm probably more ambivalent about it than I should be, but it all feels a little politically correct to me.