Here at Fishbowl we're entirely of the opinion that Serious News, as perpetrated by The Gray Lady, should be conterweighed by something less tweedy and more meat-and-potatoes, just so you won't think us unpatriotic, or anything. That's why we went below the Mason-Dixon line, where a Times-owned local paper's front page made us very happy.

The Gadsden (Alabama) Times knows how to stay local while Rome-on-the-Potomac is about to become a John Carpenter movie. Its lede splashes the news that the local "softball park gearing up for tournaments," on which calm green "names like Get-R-Done and Clash on Coosa will be filling the Gadsden Softball Complex every week until late October." The second lede is how "Collinsville raises its sales tax by 1 percent," followed by nothing that would suggest, um, a war anywhere, or anything.

Conversely, The New York Times led with a from-the-back photo of Condi Rice, whose contretemps with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is already old news, followed by a story so local it might have run in Gadsden - provided it had a few more souls to service: A story on how we'll all pay more to ride the subway but will see no end in sight for it.

So don't nobody call New York City or its Times elitist. They know a good local angle when they see one. Even if they have to farm it out to the locals.