Saturday’s open line includes two items of note:
* FBI INTERVIEW: Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spent 3.5 hours today being interviewed by the FBI in the e-mail investigation. She issued a brief statement saying the appearance was voluntary, she was happy to cooperate and she wouldn’t say more because of the ongoing investigation.
* FAREWELL TO A FRIEND: Many of the newspaper employees, alumni and devotees who visit here will be sad to learn if they haven’t already of the death last night at UAMS of Ed Gray, who was 69. We worked together for years at the Arkansas Gazette, where he was a copy editor in the days when copy editors were a large and valued part of news operations. He was a good one. These days, many newspaper chains have pared copy editing considerably and even consolidated operations for multiple papers in editing “centers” far removed from newspapers they serve (far removed, too, from the regional quirks and customs and spellings important for editors to know). He later was editor of the Sunday Perspective section in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and a dedicated book lover. I remember Ed for his humor, his days as a runner, his intellect, his love of the work of Charles Portis and the time he brought a 5-gallon tub of Haagen-Dazs rum raisin ice cream to a Gazette Christmas pot luck. Of the sad news, he probably would have said, quoting as he often did an oath favored by the Portis character Norwood: “Dog my cats.”