As a kid, I never minded that it was hotter than a firecracker on the Fourth of July.

Independence Day was the best holiday, hands down. My favorite cousins came over, and we played 2-on-2 tackle football until we were all dripping with sweat. We stopped only for watermelon as the Kansas sun blazed on our backs.

In the early evening we watched "The Wizard of Oz" one more time. In the days before VCRs, do you remember when you waited all year to watch that favorite movie reappear on network TV? Kids today don't have that same sense of anticipation. With so many choices, my kids think of "Oz" as just another movie, not a once-a-year summer treat.

By the evening, my cousins, my brother and I were well into blowing up stuff. What could be better than that? One year my mother even broke out the garden hose to douse the commercial fireworks my father bought for that extra big bang. Hey, so what if the fuse was too short, we complained to mom.

I haven't quite recaptured the Fourths of my youth, but I know we'll have a good time this year spending it with the kids' grandparents in Colorado. We also have a swing over to Nebraska planned to visit their aunt, uncle and cousins there. I hope my kids make their own special summer memories this Fourth.

I wish all of your a happy and safe Fourth, too.

If anything comes up while I'm gone, please check with Managing Editor Thomas Martinez. The newsroom will be in his capable hands.

Ordinary people sometimes do extraordinary things when faced with circumstances that push them to their limits. Or perhaps they're already extraordinary people who just  didn't get the recognition they deserved before.

In Sunday's second chapter of "The Fatal Funnel," you'll meet one such woman, a Victoria fire captain, who was the second responder inside the trailer where 19 immigrants suffocated to death May 14, 2003. She shrugs and says she was just doing her job. Yet, when you read her story, you'll realize how extraordinary she is.

I hope readers will set aside the debate about illegal immigration for long enough to appreciate one of Victoria's quiet heroes. Please take some time to explore the special Web site created by talented multimedia intern Chelsey Delaney, a University of Texas student. The accompanying video produced by Bill Clough also powerfully captures the work of first responders; the closing scene is one that will stick with you.

Some may blanch at the image of inside the trailer. We discussed at length how to handle this. Ultimately, we decided we need to give readers a small sense of what first responders faced in order to fully convey the magnitude of the story. Even after reviewing all of the pictures we had from that day, I still can't imagine what the victims and the first responders endured.

As tough as our photo on E1 is to look at, consider what those on the scene saw and felt.

The Advocate's ethics board had a special meeting after being alerted by a state investigator that we would receive a subpoena for the computer records of someone who posted what could be considered a threat against Victoria District Attorney Stephen Tyler.

As Friday's story notes, we agreed to release this specific record. Our concern rests mainly in protecting the privacy of all of our law-abiding online users. We don't want to release records based on fishing expeditions, but we didn't consider that to be happening here.

As I previously posted, our ethics board decided in November that we probably would release the computer record -- an IP address, as we outline in a graphic with Friday's story -- in a criminal investigation or a libel suit. The discussion arose then because someone kept posting the name of the accuser in the Michael Ratcliff investigation.

The digital world creates an entirely new set of challenges for newspapers. I outlined some of these issues in a summary of the online ethics training the newsroom received in March.

You also may want to review the guidelines we try to follow when moderating online comments. They're covered in an October post soon after we redesigned our site and formed our ethics board.

What are your thoughts on how to handle these issues? How do such investigations affect your use of any Web site?

Our "Law and Disorder" coverage appears far from over, but we received some positive reinforcement regarding our 2007 coverage during this weekend's Texas Press Association annual convention.

I'm pleased to announce the Advocate won eight awards during the convention and made a strong showing in the overall sweepstakes competition.

Congratulations to all of our winners:

Community service, first place -

1. Victoria Advocate — “Law enforcement and DA’s office” Strong and sustained context. Great use of public records laws. Effective third-party sourcing for outside, objective perspective. Solid sourcing overall that was fair to all sides. Forceful and reasoned editorials and editor’s commentary. Very fine work.

Advertising, first place -

1. Victoria Advocate — “Giant lizard” Great idea. I loved it. Perfect!! Nice job. “Exciting” Nice job! But I have seen this before in other papers in the USA. “Spiderman” I think this is the weakest one of the three. It would have been nice to have maybe a spider web background.

Sports photo, T.C. Baker, second place -

2. Victoria Advocate — by T.C. Baker. “Turkey gobbler” A good moment but photo quality or reproduction wasn’t strong enough. Nice job on composition. “Heat warning” I love this photo. It’s so well done it takes me right to the moment. Top notch.

General excellence, third place -

3. Victoria Advocate — We liked the front page icons and design of the “bad arrest” centerpiece. We did think the special report on the nuclear plant was too busy and lacked any clear direction. Too many fonts.

Page design, third place -

3. Victoria Advocate — Great job illustrating a tough but important issue on 1A. Lots of easy-to-soak-up information.

Feature story, Tara Bozick and Sonny Long, honorable mention -

4. Victoria Advocate — “Bad arrest? Victoria case raises questions about justice system” by Tara Bozick. Nice use of timeline, documents, poll for presentation. Interesting read. “Why did she die?” by Sonny Long. Lots of information. Very complete job on reporting. Gave readers their money’s worth on this subject.

Editorial writing, honorable mention

4. Victoria Advocate — “Tyler should appoint a special prosecutor” Some redundancies with earlier editorial but keeps a continued focus on an important community story. “Public trust is at stake in Ratliff case” Raises important concerns about conflict of interest and miscarriage of justice.

Blue Moon special sections, honorable mention

4. Victoria Advocate — “Victoria going nuclear?” The headline pulls the reader in wanting to know the answer. The information is presented in a clear, concise way. Wonderful use of graphics and photos to balance layout.

Sweepstakes, honorable mention -
 (We weren't too far off the pace for first. Odessa took first.)

Awards are nice, but the real prize is our readers' respect. We know we have to earn that every day.

As the beautiful music thundered over me Friday night, I wished all of Victoria could have shared in the moment.

I'm not much of a classical music lover, but the power of Verdi's "Requiem" floored me. The choir and the musicians covered every square inch of Our Saviour's Lutheran Church's stage and caressed and cajoled everyone in the sanctuary with their sound. How could I be hearing this in little ol' Victoria, I thought.

Aprill Brandon wrote a story daily about the Victoria Bach Festival, but the event didn't attract much online comment. Even at the sold-out concert Friday night, just about everyone I talked to before and after had something to say about the scandal involving the district attorney and the indicted city officials. Many said it all was embarrassing for Victoria.

I understand that sentiment, but I hope everyone remembers there's a lot more to the Crossroads region than scandal. I heartily salute everyone involved in the Victoria Bach Festival. (Disclaimer: My wife is a board member, but she'll be the first to tell you others before her did all of the heavy-lifting to make the annual event happen.) How in the world did we end up with Kallen Esperian, winner of the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, singing in Victoria?

Two or three weeks ago, Scott Hanson hung up on me after I became exasperated by his criticism that the Advocate wasn't digging hard enough into Victoria District Attorney Stephen Tyler. We're doing all we can, I told Hanson, also known as Sailor on our discussion forums.

Then Thursday night, Public Service Editor Gabe Semenza called me right before the start of the Bach Festival performance to tell me Tyler had accused the Advocate of helping to write the recall petition. As I said in today's story, that's outrageously false. I left a message with the district attorney this morning to ask why he would make such a ridiculous accusation without a shred of evidence.

You might say the newspaper is under attack from both sides. I see this as evidence that we're being fair. We will continue to do so.

It's up to the public and a judge to decide whether there's merit to the group's recall petition. We haven't posted the petition yet because Hanson did not provide it to us Thursday. We're still working to get it this morning from the courthouse.

I certainly understand why people might be confused by the entire mess. You have to be following closely the twists and turns of this saga. Even then, we still don't know all of the facts surrounding the investigation into Michael Ratcliff, the DA's former chief of staff and a former sheriff. We're working to post all of our coverage under special reports to help you digest it. We're not finished re-posting and organizing the dozens of articles we've published on the subject in the past year, but librarian Robbi Patterson is working hard on this.

If you'd like to know anything else about the Advocate's coverage, please let us know. My direct number is 361-574-1271.

A newspaper contains much more than news stories or photographs. Perhaps just as important is the central role it plays in bringing together its community.

I thought about this today because of a letter to the editor criticizing the Advocate for not covering a car show last weekend. Even though we can always do better with our coverage, I was pleased we had publicized the show in advance. Readers regularly tells us they want to be informed about what they can go and do.

A key way we support these community events is through our  newspaper sponsorships. It seems as if the Advocate is a sponsor of every event I attend. The Advocate's family owners are more involved in and committed to the community than any newspaper I've ever seen.

I don't think longtime residents here realize this isn't the case at many newspapers. Across the country, many papers are owned by publicly traded corporations that don't care about the local Bach Festival or the zoo or the drill team's fund-raisers. They care only about the bottom line.

Sure, the Advocate is a business, too, but I can assure you the McHaney and Roberts families go above and beyond to make this the best possible place to live that they can.

I asked Emily Weissmiller, our community services manager, for a list of the community events the newspaper sponsored this year. If you're organizing an event, she's the person to talk with about a sponsorship. As a sponsor, the newspaper spends many thousands of dollars every year advertising these events.

We have to work within a budget and can't sponsor everything (even though it seems that way to me). Here's the list Emily provided:

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- Presenting sponsor of such events and organizations as the Victoria Bach Festival, Keep Victoria Beautiful, Hospice of South Texas Living in the Light Run, The Victoria Builder’s Association Parade of Homes and Home Products Show, The Victoria Ballet Theatre, The Victoria Fine Arts Committee Jazz Festival and the Victoria Regional Museum Association (Polo at McFaddin event).

 

- Lead, gold or grand sponsors for Theatre Victoria, The Children’s Discovery Museum, The Texas Zoo, Adult Literacy Council, and Museum of the Coastal Bend.

 

- Major event sponsor, aiding events like Warrior’s Weekend, the Victoria Symphony’s Downtown Rhythms, Victoria Chamber of Commerce events, Texas Kicking Bull, Red Cross Bash event, Habitat for Humanity House Party, African American Chamber Gala, Family Outdoor Expo, Rotary Clay Shoot, Charity Concert Series, YMCA Corporate Cup, Knowledge Bowl, Perpetual Help Home Celebrity Waiter event, and Hispanic Heritage Month celebration events (part of the UHV Spanish Speaking Initiative.)

 

We also sponsor many non-profit organizations to help their message reach the general public. We have supported non-profits including, but not limited to, the Victoria County United Way, Bluebonnet Youth Ranch, Golden Crescent CASA, Hope of South Texas and Sure B.E.T. (Business and Education Together).

 

In February, the Advocate partnered with Victoria College to bring Stellar Brass Air Force Academy Band to Victoria and also sponsored the Break of Reality concert.  We are also set to sponsor the Victoria 4^th of July Blastoff City Fireworks Show and Concert.

 

Emily sums it up this way: "Our heart is truly in our community."

Quite a few readers reacted strongly to Monday's B1 feature on two new fathers. The story idea was to find a dad whose child was born this Father's Day.

As it turns out, both of the fathers at DeTar Hospital were not married to their child's mother. We didn't comment on that fact in the story, but several callers and many online readers did.

To be clear, our intent was not to glorify or to criticize unwed parents. We set out only to find a new father for Father's Day.

According to the most recent national statistic I've found, single mothers accounted for 36 percent of all births nationwide. We're checking for more recent information and for statistics specific to the Crossroads region. My hunch is that the percentage is even higher in our area.

Given that, the odds are good that we'll encounter unwed parents whenever we set out to do such a feature on Father's Day or on New Year's. We understand why some readers might find this societal trend alarming. We also recognize some single parents and their children, such as Aprill Brandon in her blog today, may have a different perspective.

A newspaper tries to portray reality. It's up to all of us -- and a higher authority -- to change society.

It sounds like a simple question. But moderating an online forum is anything but simple. During a heated local election, the challenge is even more difficult.

If an anonymous poster debates the point made by a previous anonymous poster and then adds an insult at the end of the remark, is that a personal attack? And how slighted should an anonymous poster feel about being insulted? What if an anonymous poster contends the personal attack he or she is posting is true?

Generally, we're able to sort through these questions when moderating our online forums. In a previous post, I outlined our ethics board's philosophy of encouraging the online community to police itself. In the digital age, a newspaper editor is no longer the gatekeeper of information.

Even still, we think we have a role in promoting a responsible conversation. Each time people post, they are reminded of the basic rules of the road, which include no personal attacks. By requiring registration, we weed out most of the bad actors and generally see a constructive community conversation occur on our Web site. Regularly, we get involved by posting our own comments or occasionally warning a repeat offender. We have even banned at least one chronic violator of our policies.

The violations increased significantly during the school board race between incumbent Tami Keeling and Dr. Charlie Jaynes. That's a pity because they both are fine people running to volunteer their service for the community. I'll never understand how ugly such local races can become.

Only a few so-called supporters of both candidates have been guilty of the attacks. Generally speaking, people running for public office should be fair game for legitimate criticism. Unfortunately, some have gone well beyond what reasonable people would consider legitimate.

A couple of reasonable readers asked our ethics board to reconsider our policy of allowing comments to be posted live to our site. During our monthly meeting this week, ethics board members discussed the proposal, but couldn't see any way pre-publication moderation would work. Posts might not appear for hours if they had to be approved by someone screening them first.

We'll keep evaluating how best to moderate our site -- actually, I like to think of it as your site -- and encourage your participation. Perhaps we'll be able to develop other safeguards. Many sites continue to wrestle with these questions, as you can see from this Online Journalism Review post. I see journalists as the right people to engage the audience in a positive way, as this Online Journalism article outlines.

What are your suggestions for preventing personal attacks on candidates, their families or others? Rumors, innuendo and hateful gossip existed long before the Internet, of course. Are we fighting a losing battle to keep it off our site?

I hope not. The community conversation is too valuable.

While on vacation last week with my sister and my family, we enjoyed a boat ride down the River Walk. The colorful captain told us a story about how San Antonio missed out on Disney World back in the 1960s.

I don't know how true that story is, but it made me think about last month's Victoria Chamber of Commerce luncheon when Randy Vivian and Jeff Lyon joked about Disney coming to Victoria. They wore Mickey ears and teased Dale Fowler of the Victoria Economic Development Partnership that this was the news he should announce.

As a relative newcomer, I hadn't heard of all the rumors over the years about Disney expanding in Texas. Here's one Web site that debunks this urban legend -- so far.

I guess the Disney lover in me can't help dreaming a little. The Crossroads region would be the perfect spot for a third theme park. We're two hours from three of the 16 largest cities in the country. We offer a climate that rivals Orlando. And what was Orlando before Disney came but a bunch of swampland?

Forget San Antonio or anywhere else, Disney. Victoria is the place for you. Our land is affordable and plentiful. You can't find friendlier people anywhere.

It's a small, small world, but with gas prices skyrocketing, the middle section of America could use closer access to a Disney theme park. Who's on board for a Disney Crossroads? OK, maybe there's a catchier name out there. After Disney Land and Disney World, what's next? Disney Galaxy?