I said "ouch" when I read Jim Austin's piece ["A contagion on our land," The Commons, January]. His mention of Sarah Palin thinking Africa was a country and not a continent was discredited, and it is widely known that she actually didn't say that.
That should not have been allowed to print.
...You write: "Although The Commons maintains a policy of publishing commentary under a contributor's real name, we make an exception here to give readers a glimpse of this difficult job and the variety of people who undertake it." "On the night shift" [The Commons, Jan. 2009] is not commentary;