Homers -- What's going right

RESPONSIBLE SPEECH: Kudos to Patty Sourivong of Iowa City for exercising her freedom of speech to challenge what we agree is a serious abuse of that constitutional right: the ugly, invasive protests by Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas members at military funerals, and also near the services for her son, Spc. Kampha Sourivong, killed in 2006 by enemy fire while serving in Iraq. Patty is collecting signatures from people who also object to the recent U.S. Supreme Court's ruling upholding the Kansas group's right to picket the funerals. Iowa lawmakers did OK a law in 2006 that requires protesters to stay at least 500 feet back from funeral services and burials. Thankfully, it's stood the constitutional test as a minimal compromise.

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FEWER DEATHS: The average annual number of colorectal cancer deaths in Iowa declined from 875 per year in the 1980s to 685 in the 2000s. State officials credit more colonoscopy screenings for much of the decrease.

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RARE FIND: Cedar Rapids Paramount Theatre restoration folks recently located and purchased a rare pipe organ console that will be rehabilitated and include some components from the Mighty Wurlitzer organ that was destroyed in the 2008 flood.