I Don’t Know if You Ever Read Reader’s Comments but

Aesop last week commented on my review of the Sun-Times by reproducing one of his fables which was supposed to pertain to me. The one about the sour grapes. My response: if to suggest a Pulitzer for the entire newspaper, praise its news staff, particularly Fran Spielman, laud its ace cartoonist Jack Higgins,Washington Bureau chief Lynn Sweet, the column QT, the business coverage by Dan Miller, the entire sports pages and even a column by Debra Pickett is sour grapes, the paper should hope for similar harvests. I have criticized certain columnists: Marin, Falsani, Roeper but praised others, notably Sneed—and here’s another: Mark Brown whose offerings are uniformly excellent. But critiques of the paper should prompt Aesop to recall another of his fables—the one about the farmer who told his sons he had buried gold on his estate which would make them rich. In a frenzy, they dug up the entire yard but found none; yet the digging stirred the earth so that the roots of the fruit trees were invigorated which brought forth a bountiful harvest that produced wealth. Moral: don’t be disturbed when someone takes a dig at you, if it spurs the requisite energy to improve. But thanks anyhow, Aesop, and keep on reading this blog.