Gary Moer writes to ask whether we can do a story wrapping up all the areas in the United States that are off-limits to oil drilling. “Just last Friday while I was in a Plano convenience store, I saw a lady begging for money to put gas in her car,” he says. “I was in a nice part of Plano. How much more of this are we going to see, because we won’t develop our own resources?”

Gary, this is a great question, and we’ll look into it. It is true, from what I can tell, that there are some areas where we’re ruling out drilling for environmental reasons while neighboring countries are not. You mentioned Canada’s drilling in Lake Michigan, and Cuba giving the Chinese permission to drill not so far from Florida. We’ll have a look. Meanwhile, we’re trying to be as helpful as we can locally. Our Web site offers pointers to the cheapest gas in the area, tips on driving more economically, and links to information on carpooling options. Check it out by typing “gas prices” in the search box at the top of our home page.

A reader with the e-mail handle “RDete” writes to ask about our coverage from Iraq. “I have noticed that many and maybe all of your bad news about Iraq not only appear on the front page but some or maybe much of it comes from the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Both of these newspapers are very prejudice about the war. … Wouldn’t it be a good idea to get new from other sources, also?? For comparison??”

We carry two sorts of news from Iraq and Afghanistan. Some we produce ourselves. That almost always concerns themes connected to Texas, such as Texas-based units in the field. Some we get from our wire services. Those include the two Timeses, plus The Washington Post, the Associated Press, and a large number of newspapers contributing to the McClatchy-Chicago Tribune wire syndicate. It’s true that we’ve had some bad news on our front page – that would be true of just about any newspaper in the world – but it’s also true that we’ve featured some good news on the cover, too. Our Sunday paper featured a story on how casualties in Iraq are the lowest they’ve been since 2004, and we’d earlier given Page One prominence to a story about the CIA director’s belief that al Qaeda was seriously wounded. I’d like to ask a favor of our readers in this regard: Our minds tend to play tricks on us. We tend to focus on the things that fit our preconceived notions of how the world works. About a third of the country still heartily supports the war in Iraq. Some of them tend to complain whenever we have negative stories about the war. About two-thirds of the country thinks the war was a mistake. From some of them we get “shame on you!” denunciations every time we print positive news. Here’s the favor I’d ask: Hold your fire. Judge the paper not by how we play any individual story, but on how we cover things over time.

John Aldridge of Richardson writes to say, “Everyone wants to be editor. Personally, if Paul Crume can’t write about it and Ray Adler can’t take a picture of it, I’ll settle for next best. Yes, I am an old man. No complaints. Keep up the good job.”

Mr. Aldridge, I can’t comment on your age, but I’m impressed by your wisdom.