I would like to underscore the comments of Chriscar. Marisa Katz lets the facts get in the way of an entertaining read. Is The Post providing a service as well as attempting to jack up its ratings with infotaining columns? If the technical expertise of Mr. Richter needs editing, that's fine. He perhaps has more experience writing scholarly papers for scientific journals than compressing one or two ideas into your 750 word straightjacket. But he deserves a voice. The scientific community deserves a voice. There are enough light-weight writers spinning out 750 word columns of doggerel that we don't need another.

Here is a posthumous vote for Burton Richter.

I am sorry that I didn't really get the same value out of Huffman's column that others seem to have. While I can certainly appreciate the style and arguments Huffman attempted to make about Halloween - and I share his view! - I felt the topic, while timely, was humorous, but not enlightening in any way. Huffman makes an interesting observation about children's costumes, but frankly, I'm not sure the lack of serial killer costumes is the biggest tragedy of the way Halloween has changed (can you say "Trunk or Treat")? As a reader, in the absence of a more insightful perspective, I thought Huffman's column missed the mark.

Burt Richter's column was indeed more technical and covered a much more serious set of issues. Personally, I found this an important topic which is frequently ignored by the mainstream press. Science reporting has been scaled back - if not cut out entirely - by major news reporting agencies. In the absence of objective reporting about science and the consequences of not investing sufficiently in our nation's future, we allow internet rumors and uninformed popular opinions to carry the weight of arguments on a very complicated, admittedly difficult-to-understand set of issues. (Should I vaccinate my children against H1N1? Maybe I'll just Google-search the right solution.) As a nation, we shouldn't allow this to happen, and the Washington Post Pundit Blog Contest is one way for Post readers to inject informed insight into the public discourse on science.

Having read the first batch, there is a lack of 'brightness', of light in these. There is variety of style, view, and subject, but no 'fire' in these. Did you select these writers on resume?

I hope this is just first-found nerves. I get more exciting letters from my grandmother. And she is on heavy medication.

Having read the first batch, there is a lack of 'brightness', of light in these. There is variety of style, view, and subject, but no 'fire' in these. Did you select these writers on resume?

I hope this is just first-found nerves. I get more exciting letter from my grandmother. And she is on heavy medication.

This feature has had me jumping out of bed and racing to the computer each morning to check out the newest entries.

I see that 5 contestants will get to continue
competing, but even so readers probably just get one vote. Mine will go to Ms.Gyamfi, even though I think Kevin Huffman has the best-written column, overall. I don't think Huffman needs any additional boost from this contest. Now that he's out there, he'll have plenty of opportunity to be heard.
Ms.Gyamfi might still be in development, but I think she could be a great writer.
She has the breadth of personal experience and emotional maturity I'm looking for in a columnist. Ivy league degrees and Washington insiders are a dime a dozen in this field. They don't rate with this outsider. If these editors and some of the writers could only see themselves as I do, they might understand that "elite media" label a little better. They can't.

Do you have "what it takes to be heard?"
Like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck?
In an industry that feeds on itself, I wonder, would anyone there know?