Can I change group and permissions on the messages file?

I have been talking with bit twister and he showed me a real neat
xconsole command to view the system messages while in xwindows.

xconsole -fg lawngreen -bg black -geom 1000x50+7+00 -file
/var/log/messages &

(All one line.)

Anyway, I am not able to open the /var/log/messages file as a
non-privileged user so I changed the group on the file from root to
ohmster and then changed the default permissions from rw owner only to
rw owner, rw group. Now I can open and view the file while I am in
xwindows with the cool xconsole command.

I went from this:
-rw------- 1 root root 432K Sep 24 16:17 messages

To this:
-rw-rw---- 1 root ohmster 432K Sep 24 16:17 messages

My question is: Is it alright to change group and permission on the
messages file and will this change "stick" or will it be lost when the
log files rotate? What would you all suggest for me to do so that I can
view the messages file anytime, as a non-root user (Me only, not
everyone on the system.)?

--
~Ohmster
"Read Ohmster" in subject, bypass spam filter.
ohmster /a/t/ newsguy dot com
.

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