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Robert Niles has some good advice, and it makes me cringe.

If you call your readers stupid for reading the content in your newspaper, don't be surprised when they quit reading your paper altogether.

He's referring to an L.A. Times article about readers of the comic strip, "For Better or For Worse." I don't know that the writer is actually calling them stupid as affectionately poking fun at them. Or maybe with them.

Sad, isn't it, when you can't really tell what the writer's point is in an article.

Still, Niles is right. It's one thing for a newspaper reader to make fun of the stuff in the paper; heck, it's his right. It's another thing when it comes from the newspaper itself. If I were a "For Better or For Worse" reader, I'd be chagrined.

I say all this because, apparently unlike the Times, we are canceling the strip beginning Monday because it is going into repurposed reruns. Our practice is not to publish reruns. So, despite the strip's popularity, we're going to let it go. I expect some pushback, too. Happens.

Columnist Glenn Chavis has written his 200th "weekly" column for us. (More about him here.)

In recognition, his first editor, Ed Williams, and his current editor, Cindy Loman, created a mock front page for Glenn that, in keeping with newspaper tradition, makes fun of as many people as possible. So I won't reprint it. It does include some Glennisms, though.

We can't depend on others to write about our heritage.

Just because it wasn't around when you were growing up, doesn't mean it never existed.

I never will understand why people need and refer to certain celebrities who they have never met as role models

I use the terms colored, Negro, and black in every story that I write. It makes no sense to use African American when talking about something that happened in the 1870s.

We are looking forward to 200 more.

Over the past few days we have tried to direct our newspaper coverage of the Democratic National Convention forward, focusing as much as what is expected tonight as the speech that was on television last night. For instance, this is the story that we have on the front page today. It's less about the Bill and Joe show and more about the historical significance of the Obama nomination.

The DNC has also not been the lead story on the front page, unlike most of the larger newspapers in North Carolina. Today's front page:

Our aim is to treat the Republican National Convention in similar fashion.

What we believe is that presidential politics in August is a bit like NHL hockey here. A small number of people care intensely, and a large number don't care at all, knowing the big event is two months away.

But we are apparently swimming against the media tide, if reports are true that 15,000 journalists are covering the two conventions. I wonder how many of those 15,000 are from media outlets that laid off people in the past year. I'm thinking a lot. (Here's a report on what they're all doing there.)

Anyway, do you want more/different coverage?