The Busy Complaints Department

· A reader wrote to say she wondered whether The Post had changed its ink recently, because she thought she had developed an allergy to the ink. Kevin Conner, printing quality assurance manager, checked with suppliers and said that he could find no change in the ink.

· Another reader complained that the paper wasn't being delivered, only to find that his wife had forgotten to pay the bill.

· William Friar of Burke reached into a Post vending box at the Virginia Railway Express station on Rolling Road. "I felt a sharp stab on my wrist. I bent down to look up at the ceiling of the box and was surprised to find myself staring at a small hornets' nest with some annoyed-looking residents. I had been stung . . . "

He called The Post, but found the nest still there the next day and wrote to me: "While the nest is small, and there are only a few hornets around it, if someone who has a high reaction to a hornet's sting is stung, it could be dangerous." The Post circulation team got on it, and Friar wrote the next day: "I am delighted to report that the hornets have been successfully evicted."

· Several readers complained that former vice president Al Gore's new book, " The Assault on Reason," was reviewed by someone who had stacked the deck against Gore. Reader Jim Madden wrote: "Maybe . . . you could address [the reason for] your 'books' section asking for a review of Al Gore's new book by a man who . . . announces his pre-existing hostility to Al Gore."

Reviewer Alan Ehrenhalt wrote that Gore "has a consistent ability to express fundamentally reasonable sentiments -- often important ones -- in ways that annoy the maximum possible number of people." His best line may have been that the book "is a serious work by an intelligent man with an incurable habit of calling more attention to himself than to the ideas he wishes to communicate."

I agreed with Book World Editor Marie Arana's assessment. "Alan Ehrenhalt is a respected and trusted name in political, and especially, government, commentary. He is the executive editor of the magazine Governing, a monthly publication that serves state and local government workers. He is also the author of a number of books, among them 'The United States of Ambition,' about how the U.S. Congress works, and doesn't."

"He was chosen to review Al Gore's book, "The Assault on Reason,' because we know Alan's work and we felt that, as a non-politically aligned intellectual, he could judge Gore's book on its own terms. Had he at any point avowed personal animus against Gore, we would not have assigned him the book. Once he had been given the assignment in good faith, however, our duty was to publish his judgments. Book World is a journal of opinion, after all."

Deborah Howell can be reached at 202-334-7582 or atombudsman@washpost.com.