Meet the New Nick. Same as the Old Nick

As the billboards remind us, Nick Coleman has made the jump back to the Strib, the latest in a herd of reporters and columnists so big it may have been used as a justification for the Minneapolis-St. Paul light rail line.

I'd tackle it - but the Saint from Fraters already did.

Precious memory:

I’m afraid he’ll write something as embarrassingly melodramatic and exploitative as this on my behalf:

One regular was a wounded Vietnam War veteran named Robin, an alcoholic who camped in the brush and woods around the edge of downtown St. Paul.

Last spring, police found Robin near the Cathedral of St. Paul, on the steps that overlook a panorama of downtown, dead from an apparent stroke. It would've been a perfect spot from which to see an ice castle.

Do you think Coleman’s new editors at the Star Tribune still wince when they read his stuff, or has their tolerance already ramped up?

The Fraters have been getting so much exposure on Hewitt.com lately (a link on Hewitt gets you almost as much traffic as an Instalanche these days), maybe they can buy the first round next time...