The Editor's Notepod, Mon., Nov. 2, 2009

Area: on the job stealing these days concerns the theft of ideas from co-workers, an obnoxious practice in the workplace.

Southington: practical and realistic approach to outbreak of H1N1 flu, which, according to the observers, is often fairly modest in terms of its effects on an individual child – a 2 on a scale of 5 – though of course there will be exceptions. Keep washing hands, stay home when you’re sick and treat it mildly still seem to be the best responses. If it had been called H1N1 to begin with, instead of by the piggy name (which has caused an estimated $900 million loss to pig farmers), one wonders how much people would be worrying.