Occasionally I trade notes with Ellis E. Conklin, a former P-I staff writer who’s now the managing editor at my St. Louis alma mater, the Riverfront Times. Today, I asked him what he thought of his former colleagues being let on the roof for a final gander at the paper’s iconic revolving globe. “Sounds bloody idiotic to me,” says Conklin. “I know of no one in the newsroom who ever thought about getting up close and personal with the Globe. We all thought the view from the street was more than sufficient. But now that Hearst has turned the place into something out of a M*A*S*H episode, no one has their wits about them, and they probably think going up on the roof makes perfect sense.”