Why trees cry, Vol. 3: For the Bune's Amany Ali, "Paranoia - Big Destroia"

It helps to remember that it isn't the incessantly yapping dog's fault; it's the dog's owner, who isn't exercising proper control over the animal.

Similarly, it isn't the misbehaving child's fault; it's the parent, who isn't providing structure for proper developmental progress.

And it isn't the dilapidated house's fault; it's the slumlord wannabe who won't make the necessary repairs.

Amany Ali's weekly column in today's Tribune is entitled, "Some people just need to get a life." For the second time in less than five months (roughly 20 Sunday columns in all), Ali surveys the wider world around her, considers the many pressing topics that might yield fruitful discussion, ponders the many manifestations of life that bear implications for all of us ... and, instead of choosing any of those avenues of rumination, writes that gossip is bad and that anyone spreading rumors about Amany Ali (apparently, there are so many New Albanians doing so that one column a year on the topic isn't enough) can expect to be confronted and disabused of their errant notions.

Insipid, irrelevant, jejune ... and at some juncture, with banality not just running rampant, but being repeated over and over again like Yogi's Berra's apocryphal deja vu, we must ask whether there is any such thing as editorial supervision at the Tribune.

Does the concept even exist at 303 Scribner Drive?

Most of us understand that an editor is one who edits, with the act of editing suggesting duties that include correction, modification, consultation and adaptation.

It is inexcusable that the Tribune's weekly Sunday guest columnist, Terry Cummins, writes (and thinks) rings around the newspaper's city editor - not because Terry shouldn't be allowed the forum for expression, but because there should be some discernable semblance of commitment on the part of Ali to improve her performance (it must be hard to concentrate when all those people keep spreading lies about you), and to do so with the active participation of her "managing" editor, Chris Morris.

Many of you are saying, "that's just the way it is at the Tribune."

Others routinely offer the same alibi for the city of New Albany.

I do not accept this excuse in either case. We must demand excellence and not persist in tolerating mediocrity from local institutions and the time servers who inhabit them, whether they be the newspaper or the mayor's office, that are accustomed to measuring a year's progress with the yardstick of a week's real work.