Weather threats, trial outcome anger

We're back in the game, as we say, after a 11 day hiatus conducting numerous domestic activities like lawn mowing and gardening - using the term loosely of course.

At the Moondogs game Sunday I returned to work early by checking in with newsroom on storm coverage and tornado sitings. And got a call Saturday night as editor on call for the death of the man who fell into a fire a Kiesler's campground in Waseca.

Those are the kind of stories where we need feet on the ground, before we know the "newsiness" of the situation. Waseca tragedy of course, sounded more like a medical incident, and nothing involving foul play, though it certainly was an unusual call the way it sounded on the police scanner.

Something like, "man in fire, DOA."

Tornadoes are always dicey to chase down. They usually come form the southwest, and if we want to get a "safe" view, you have to get behind it. That means going into it from Mankato if it's south or west of here, or taking a straight south route and circle in behind it. Or better yet, duck until it passes, and then follow.

We can rely on a fairly solid reporting system of trained spotters the national weather service has organized. It's available on the Web and it is pretty real time. It's the information they use to transmit storm warnings over their weather radio system.

So there are tools at our disposal.

On the phone call front, I'm asked by a reader why her comment on a recent trial involving infant death did not get posted on our story comment board.

Even though Congress passed a law that pretty much protects us from Web "commenters'" libelous statements we try to moderate them to keep to relative standards of taste and fair play. So accusing an innocent person of child abuse is one of those things we'll probably flag.

That's not the case on KatoChat or whatever the other local chats have evolved. It's unfortunate, but in the case of other chats, almost anything goes.

We're still here to clean up the debate, even though that makes us sound more like custodians in a school lunchroom than journalists.