This kid ain't one of those prima donna, two-story-a-year, long-lunch types. He cranks. From Enron to citrus canker to mortgage fraud, he reports the hell out of events and writes 'em like a champ. In just the past couple of years, he's told us that Florida has more lightning per square mile than any other state, that employees of the Miami Seaquarium chowed on a rare leatherback turtle, and that Coral Springs is a particularly easy place to get busted if you don't pay attention to water restrictions. While his prose is nothing flashy, everything's there. Perhaps our favorite recent story of Fleshler's alerted us to the fact that developers were able to win themselves a very good deal on Florida's West Coast by flushing a rare creature called the Big Cypress fox squirrel, Sciurus niger avicennia, down the River of Grass. The point of view was subtle in this piece, but it convinced us that he's on the side of the little guy.

This kid ain't one of those prima donna, two-story-a-year, long-lunch types. He cranks. From Enron to citrus canker to mortgage fraud, he reports the hell out of events and writes 'em like a champ. In just the past couple of years, he's told us that Florida has more lightning per square mile than any other state, that employees of the Miami Seaquarium chowed on a rare leatherback turtle, and that Coral Springs is a particularly easy place to get busted if you don't pay attention to water restrictions. While his prose is nothing flashy, everything's there. Perhaps our favorite recent story of Fleshler's alerted us to the fact that developers were able to win themselves a very good deal on Florida's West Coast by flushing a rare creature called the Big Cypress fox squirrel, Sciurus niger avicennia, down the River of Grass. The point of view was subtle in this piece, but it convinced us that he's on the side of the little guy.

He's a veteran columnist who knows his way around politics, scams, and condo developments. He seems as comfortable writing in his deft and creative way about the rich and famous as he does about the hoi polloi. But he's not just a reporter; he's a newspaper Renaissance man. In addition to his column, he has published installments of his never-ending, lightweight novel Shady Palms in the paper. And, as if fiction weren't enough, Cerabino occasionally writes his column in poetic verse, as he did during the Bush-Gore election fiasco. If every big local daily around here had a columnist like Cerabino, our breakfast reading might no longer threaten to put us back to sleep.

He's a veteran columnist who knows his way around politics, scams, and condo developments. He seems as comfortable writing in his deft and creative way about the rich and famous as he does about the hoi polloi. But he's not just a reporter; he's a newspaper Renaissance man. In addition to his column, he has published installments of his never-ending, lightweight novel Shady Palms in the paper. And, as if fiction weren't enough, Cerabino occasionally writes his column in poetic verse, as he did during the Bush-Gore election fiasco. If every big local daily around here had a columnist like Cerabino, our breakfast reading might no longer threaten to put us back to sleep.

The copyeditor is like a baseball umpire: No one notices unless there's a screwup. And hey, in the newspaper business, everybody makes mistakes. That's why we run corrections (really, really small, somewhere we hope no one will see them). And sometimes, it's more likely the writer's fault. Like in the Sentinel's Sports section, when Dave Joseph wrote a commentary on Ricky Williams. Really, any writer who would begin a sentence, "In the words of Meat Loaf..." without even a hint of irony can't be the sort of fellow who makes for a fun night in the ol' copyediting slot. But shouldn't he know that, when reaching for a hackneyed cliché to describe Williams's propensity for driving fast, the phrase to use would be "put the pedal to the metal," not "put the peddle to the metal"? We are left to conclude that this guy's copy was so riddled with other errors that this one just slipped by the Sentinel's grammar police. In the case of the headline for Vanessa Bauzá's Cuba Notebook column in the International section of the same issue, though, we're afraid we must blame the beleaguered copy desk. At daily papers, copyeditors almost always write the headlines -- and if they don't, they're still responsible for checking the things and are supposed to be trebly vigilant for gaffes that will appear in 30-point, small-caps type. The headline in question: "In Fox flap, Castro flaunts convention." OK, all you grammarians out there, figure it out. The column describes Fidel Castro's revealing tapes of a conversation with Mexican President Vicente Fox, which is a diplomatic no-no, which flies in the face of tradition, which means that Castro... flouts convention. The horror, the horror.

The copyeditor is like a baseball umpire: No one notices unless there's a screwup. And hey, in the newspaper business, everybody makes mistakes. That's why we run corrections (really, really small, somewhere we hope no one will see them). And sometimes, it's more likely the writer's fault. Like in the Sentinel's Sports section, when Dave Joseph wrote a commentary on Ricky Williams. Really, any writer who would begin a sentence, "In the words of Meat Loaf..." without even a hint of irony can't be the sort of fellow who makes for a fun night in the ol' copyediting slot. But shouldn't he know that, when reaching for a hackneyed cliché to describe Williams's propensity for driving fast, the phrase to use would be "put the pedal to the metal," not "put the peddle to the metal"? We are left to conclude that this guy's copy was so riddled with other errors that this one just slipped by the Sentinel's grammar police. In the case of the headline for Vanessa Bauzá's Cuba Notebook column in the International section of the same issue, though, we're afraid we must blame the beleaguered copy desk. At daily papers, copyeditors almost always write the headlines -- and if they don't, they're still responsible for checking the things and are supposed to be trebly vigilant for gaffes that will appear in 30-point, small-caps type. The headline in question: "In Fox flap, Castro flaunts convention." OK, all you grammarians out there, figure it out. The column describes Fidel Castro's revealing tapes of a conversation with Mexican President Vicente Fox, which is a diplomatic no-no, which flies in the face of tradition, which means that Castro... flouts convention. The horror, the horror.

"Because of knucklehead errors, a photograph caption in The Palm Beach Post Monday incorrectly identified one of the Three Stooges, as well as Abbott and Costello. The caption misidentified Curly Howard, at left, one of the Three Stooges, as Curly Joe Howard. Curly Howard, whose real name was Jerome Lester Horwitz, was the brother of Moe and Shemp Howard. Curly Joe DeRita was the sixth and last member to join the Stooges. The caption also incorrectly referred to Bud Abbott and Lou Costello when in fact the photo showed Costello and Abbott, at right. The errors appeared on Page 4E of the Accent section; the photos illustrated a story on the front page of Accent about movie shorts. We're pleased to note that we correctly identified Laurel and Hardy."

"Because of knucklehead errors, a photograph caption in The Palm Beach Post Monday incorrectly identified one of the Three Stooges, as well as Abbott and Costello. The caption misidentified Curly Howard, at left, one of the Three Stooges, as Curly Joe Howard. Curly Howard, whose real name was Jerome Lester Horwitz, was the brother of Moe and Shemp Howard. Curly Joe DeRita was the sixth and last member to join the Stooges. The caption also incorrectly referred to Bud Abbott and Lou Costello when in fact the photo showed Costello and Abbott, at right. The errors appeared on Page 4E of the Accent section; the photos illustrated a story on the front page of Accent about movie shorts. We're pleased to note that we correctly identified Laurel and Hardy."

Bob Stevens had worked for supermarket tabloids for 30 years, pasting alien heads on celebrities and making us believe that indeed Elvis is alive. His career was cut short last October after he died from inhalation anthrax upon opening a letter laced with the fatal white powder at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton. More than 500 people attended the 63-year-old photo editor's funeral at the Unity of Delray Beach Church. The parking lot outside the church was filled with journalists waiting to catch a shot of the procession. A few shouted questions at those in mourning. Reporters were, not surprisingly, asked to exercise a little restraint or leave.

Bob Stevens had worked for supermarket tabloids for 30 years, pasting alien heads on celebrities and making us believe that indeed Elvis is alive. His career was cut short last October after he died from inhalation anthrax upon opening a letter laced with the fatal white powder at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton. More than 500 people attended the 63-year-old photo editor's funeral at the Unity of Delray Beach Church. The parking lot outside the church was filled with journalists waiting to catch a shot of the procession. A few shouted questions at those in mourning. Reporters were, not surprisingly, asked to exercise a little restraint or leave.