HUTCHINSON -- So I get this short reply to one of my “Special from The Effort” announcements alerting readers to something I just posted on this attractive but stumbling website. The reply said, simply,  “The Effort needs a Twitter account.”

And the writer included the headline for the story I had sent, presumably as an example of something I should send on tweeter. And in that context, it made sense. Sort of like the “Breaking News” I’m signed up for on CNN and arrives in my email whenever someone old and sick and one-time famous dies or a Supreme Court nominee is confirmed to the surprise of absolutely no one.

But I’ve been thinking about the email since. Keep in mind, I don’t do Facebook or SpacePage or MySpace or Pedophiles-A-Plenty or any of that other social-networking stuff. I am comfortably, technologically speaking (OK … well, overall speaking) behind the times.

The Sponsorship/Special Events Director of the Kansas State Fair forwarded an email from government owned computers this (Tuesday) morning warning people on the her mailing list of the perceived problems with a universal healthcare bill  proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Connie Schmidt, who’s been with the State Fair about two years, forwarded the email after receiving it from Kevin Meyer, who lives in Kansas City and who Schmidt identified as a “friend.” The email was identified as “Gov’t Control in Health Care” in its subject line.

Schmidt said she was opposed to the health care bill, and forwarded it to others “just as information.”

Asked if she knew whether it was against state policy for employees to use their work computers for personal political purposes, Schmidt replied, “Probably. I don’t know. I’ll have to see.”

 Fair Manager Denny Stoecklein said he was unaware of the email until Schmidt  showed it to him Tuesday afternoon after being contacted by The Effort.

HUTCHINSON -- I guess the city council wants more information on pit bulls before deciding whether to allow them to continue to bite and maul old women who have the audacity to venture into their neighborhood.

The assignment has gone out to city staff … and I think it can be said now what city staff is going to find: Pit bull owners will say the breed is sweet, friendly but misunderstood. And they’ll point to their own misunderstood dog, anchored by a logging chain to the largest tree in the backyard … why do you suppose that is?.

Opponents will argue pit bulls are dangerous, vicious and deserve to be banned from the city. They will offer statistics Googled from the World Wide Web: Of the 33 deaths of humans from dog attacks in 2007, Pit Bulls were responsible for 67 percent of them. No other breed was even close -- Rottweilers were next at 12 percent.