By Wesley Pruden"Once upon a time the city desk at the morning newspaper was the place to call to settle bets. A city desk could expect a flurry of calls just before the bars closed. Who was Ruth Roman's first husband? Who won the 1937 Rose Bowl? What was the real name of the last Curley of the Three Stooges?
Nobody much calls city desks any longer — desk men, like everyone else, hide behind voice mail — and now it's Google that usually tells the curious minds who want to know that Miss Roman's first husband was Mortimer Hall, that Pittsburgh defeated Washington 21 to 0 in the 1937 Rose Bowl and the last of three actors who played Curley was Joe Besser.
But Google is important for other things, too, as China learned when the popular search engine told Beijing that it would no longer participate as a censor and would if need be leave the Middle Kingdom altogether. No more lies by omission."
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