Otterblog

We’re bringing back some market reports in Tuesday’s paper. But they’re not from the NYSE or the AMEX. Instead, they’re crop reports for grain and livestock and the like.

We had gotten a lot of complaints about removing them, and they may have gotten lost in our renovations to the business pages during the past few months. So, they’re back. Agriculture isn’t as important to the local economy as it once was, but there are still a lot of people who make some or part of their living on the farm. Does the world end if we don’t publish the prices of hogs in Siler City? Nope. But it’s slightly diminished.

Just look what happened at the Surry County Fair. You remove the ag from your world at your own peril…

We’re continuing to look at ways to improve the amount of financial information we publish, and we hope to have some news in that area in the not-too-distant future.

NASCAR NATION: If you haven’t, you ought to read our series on NASCAR, which began Sunday. It doesn’t matter if you love the sport or think it’s a 500-mile joke, NASCAR is a force to be reckoned with, and it shapes the South and the US as a whole. The third installment runs tomorrow.