Looking for another op-ed columnist

One reason I don't like holidays -- don't get me started, please -- or other such things is that they foul up many of the production schedules of daily newspapers. It's no different in the editorial department of The Star.

For months now, I've been unable to run columns by Nicolas Kristof, the columnist of The New York Times that we normally feature on Sundays. He's on book leave. (Wish I could get that gig.)

Now, one of my favorite syndicated types -- Thomas Friedman, also of The Times -- is on book leave, too. Until this week, he'd been the anchor of our Thursday "international day" op-ed page. He won't return to The Star's pages until April.

So, I'm looking for someone to fill in during Friedman's absence. I'd prefer having one columnist instead of finding someone different each week. Problem is, it's still a holiday week, and many columnists aren't returning to their normal writing schedules until next week. So I don't know what we'll do.

This week, I'm gonna run Maureen Dowd of The Times in Friedman's spot. We'll see how that goes -- for this week, at least.