Winners

As Iowans can attest, there's more than one way to, er, skin a hog. But for the residents of Butler County, at least 7,200 piggies will be spared (along with the county's water, air and soil quality). Thanks to diligent work by community members and family farmers in the northeast Iowa county, a developer planning to erect a 7,200-head hog factory has withdrawn his application. Although the DNR had already approved the mega-farm, concerned residents lobbied Butler County Supervisors, who voted unanimously against the proposal on the grounds that it could harm the groundwater and soil. We don't hear many such victories in a state that tends to rubber-stamp corporate ag projects; this outcome lends hope to grassroots, community engagement and action.

Losers

There are no winners in the Steve Louder case. He's the State Capitol tour guide who was charged with inappropriate conduct after he took a 4-year-old girl on a 20-minute detour and allegedly touched her backside to prevent her from falling down, then allowed her to sit on his shoulders. Capitol police and state legislators pounced on Louder and cried sex abuse, then waited 11 days to arrest him. Now their bravado appears to be shrinking. State prosecutors this week lowered the charges against Louder, and he was sentenced to two years of probation, rather than the 12 years in prison he could have been slapped with if convicted. The foreshadowing thoughts of our columnist Kent Carlson rang true ("Steve Louder: guilty, or a victim of the times?," July 6): In an era of hypersensitivity about sex offenders, individuals who may be innocent can be unfairly swept up in the net. This sad and unjust case makes losers out of just about everyone involved: the state cops, for a bungled investigation and arrest; state politicians who used the incident to display their tough-on-crime stances, but who failed to legitimately investigate the matter; Capitol personnel, who were reportedly warned not to discuss the case; the little girl, who will read headlines about this ordeal when she's older; and especially, Louder, who, regardless of guilt or innocence, will have this matter hanging over his head for life.

Remember when MTV actually played music videos? Or when the writers of a bygone era at Rolling Stone penned stories about music, and not about which beautiful people are screwing one another? Or when you could actually hear songs on FM radio in the morning? (OK, that last one has never really happened.) Apparently, a certain Virginia-headquartered McNews chain has forgotten that going to hear live music is about just that: hearing - and fully experiencing - live music. And we think that would be pretty tough to do when you're glued to your Gannett-issued laptop or running around trying to find a wireless connection. The Register has started sending its reporters out to blog live from concerts... with positively banal results. Register music critic Kyle Munson blogged from the recent Bruce Springsteen show, and Reid Forgrave, who is usually relegated to the Register's bar/club beat, blogged from the Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee. Is this supposed to make us feel like we're alongside the intrepid Register reporter at the show? To that we say: Screw you. That's like the friend who phones you in the middle of the concert you missed because you had to work, just to tell you how, like, awesome this set is, brah. Apparently plenty of readers feel the same way we do: Forgrave's three-part namedrop/snoozefest about his experience at Bonnaroo fetched a whopping one reader reply. Among Forgrave's first shining insights from Bonnaroo was: "Computer time is nearly impossible to score." No shit, dude. You're at a freaking concert. CV

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