I don’t know if this is the way you always operate or

if it’s commonplace across other newspapers as well,

but I couldn’t believe my eyes when they scanned the

“Police and Rescue” section of your July 27 paper. I

find your willingness to put snarky, satiric titles on

the stories in your “log” sections to be so far over

the edge of decency that it’s shameful.

I’m known as having a satiric slant to my disposition,

and I don’t hold much in absolute reverence, but can

you really give a paragraph about a young girl’s

receiving inappropriate e-mails from an adult man the

title “instant gratification,” or make light of a

robbery at Mr. Bagel by titling the explanation “cover

charge?” I just don’t get it. When do comedy and

criminology need to come together?

Perhaps this is just the sort of amateur trash I

should expect from a local paper. It’s not, though,

what I’d like to think I could expect from my

community. May we all hope that I never need to

report anything to our police department and my story

never finds its way onto the dehumanizing and

disgraceful pages of your paper. My sympathy goes out

to the hurt people whom you’ve chosen to mock.

David Hochheiser

Scarborough