This grab bag of topics goes out to those who like their internet reading quick and brief:

1. Today, The Times-Picayune celebrates 175 years in business. Good for them, but they should’ve encouraged their entire staff to wear money pins. After all, times are tough in the newspaper biz. (Perhaps they could even update the New Orleans tradition of pinning cash to clothing by decorating their staff’s online avatars with a link to Paypal — why hasn’t that caught on, anyway?) I was also disappointed that the T-P didn’t mark their anniversary by changing the name of the paper to The Times-Saints-Item, or something. Their piece on the Saints new defensive coordinator ran longer than the two articles covering President Obama’s State of the Union speech, combined. No printed transcript of the speech, either. (I can only hope that 173 years from now The Lens will be honored by a pundit who combines earnest birthday praise with pot-shot critiques.)

2. Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has lymphoma, but still plans to play on the  European leg of the band’s reunion tour. I hope Iommi is healthy enough to play in the U.S. later this year and rock the Voodoo Experience festival come Halloween time.

3. Scientist Len Bahr gives a strong thumbs up to Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast. He is thrilled that the plan makes sediment diversions such a priority. T-P outdoors writer Bob Marshall is elated by the plan as well, and says it offers “hope.” If it makes Marshall more hopeful about the coast, that’s a very good sign. More details about specific restoration projects are needed, naturally, but that’s to be expected from a draft plan. Gov. Bobby Jindal has made education reform his top legislative focus this year, but if this coastal plan serves as the backbone for restoration initiatives in decades to come, history might view it as the Jindal administration’s most important achievement.