Breaking News from The Strib: Conservatives Don't Like Taxes

Several observations from the City Pages newsroom on Katherine Kersten's first Star Tribune metro section column, in which the former Center for the American Experiment policy hawk explains to Archbishop Harry Flynn that the poor are his problem, and not society's:

* Kersten has apparently managed to solve the prose problem of moving from right-wing op-ed commentator to metro columnist by remaining a right-wing op-ed commentator. So much for Strib political editor D.J. Tice's "boot camp."

* Longtime Strib staffers with vibrant, context-rich, culturally relevant stories to tell rarely get 1,000 words (one reason that even when the place attracts real talent, we hardly ever see vibrant, context-rich, culturally relevant stories).

* Memo to Anders Gyllenhaal and the high-concept team: If you are redesigning the modern newspaper to seem less like the musings of liberal pointy-heads and more like the currency of regular ol' folks, it's probably best to avoid the master's thesis approach.

* Poor Katherine, her author photo looks like Margaret Hamilton ("I'll get you, my pretty!") after a visit to Cheri Pierson Yecke's hairdresser.