Answers to questions about car tips, politics and Cedar Rapids City Hall

This version of my Sunday, June 20, Gazette column has links to articles:

Today is mail day. You send us comments and I periodically like to use this space to respond.

I have enclosed a Motor Trend test on stopping autos. The brakes on modern cars easily outpower the engine and stop the car! Please publish for all Gazette readers. (Copy of article attached)

From time to time readers send copies of articles they see in other publications with requests that we print the article. We don't, with a few exceptions, for various reasons that include: the story is too long, it may be interesting to that individual reader but not others, we already have covered the material with sources we use or, most important, the article is written specifically for the other publication and is not available to us.

I mentioned exceptions. We've run in the past stories the Wall Street Journal published about Cedar Rapids, with permission from the Journal. We could seek permission to run articles like the Motor Trend one but we already have other items in the paper about autos. You'll see stories in The Gazette that credit other newspapers but they are from syndicated news services, like the Associated Press and Tribune Media Services, to which we subscribe on a long-term basis.

By the way, Motor Trend tested several cars' breaking distances from 60 mph and found brakes capable of stopping the cars even with a wide-open throttle. Here's a link to the article.

Ease up on Leonard Pitts and bring in some conservative columnists – Cal Thomas and David Limbaugh…

A common complaint, apparently because Thomas and Limbaugh do not run on our Opinion pages as frequently as their fans like. They still are in the paper, though, and letter writers respond to them. For another viewpoint, see next reader's reference to conservative Charles Krauthammer, whose column appears on our Sunday Opinion cover with Pitts' column.

Kindly balance your Krauthammer editorials with editorials, for example, by E.J. Dionne, Robinson, et al. Also, a little less on Hawkeye football!

I assume the reference is to the Washington Posts' Eugene Robinson. So many national commentators are out there and we have only so much space, which we prefer to devote to local issues. On the national side, however, Garrison Keillor riles conservatives in our Saturday paper.

Less Hawkeye football? Yikes.

No story ideas, but suggest you find different cruciverbalist (one who writes or makes up crossword puzzles) for the Sunday Gazette. It is just so “out there” at present…

We have no plans to change the Sunday puzzle but periodically review how it's working. I've written about the mixed reaction to the puzzle recently, and we have been conducting some market research on how people feel about all of our puzzles. However, anyone who can use the word cruciverbalist so gracefully deserves to be heard.

Lyle, You'll get no quarrel from me on Rick's fantastic coverage of city politics (his blog is essential in my preparation), but … our Dan Egger is at all the same council meetings. Best regards, Bob Bruce.

This is a response to my column last week, from WMT's drive time announcer Bob Bruce. He's referring a comment I made in the column about our City Hall reporter, Rick Smith, being the only reporter at all the Cedar Rapids City Council meetings. WMT reporter Dan Egger may not get to every minor meeting Rick attends but he is there for all the big ones that produce news. So Dan gets his kudos and Bob scores a plug for “The Bob Bruce Radio Experience”, 4 to 7 p.m. weekdays.