It's official: the dwindling Indianapolis Star no longer keeps pace with the urinary output of my smallest cat...This is God's Honest Truth.
When I refer to the Indy Red Star as "Our Local Cat Box Liner", I am speaking literally. Other than Bobbi sometimes reading the comics and me occasionally using a Dan Carpenter column to pressure-test my cerebral arteries for weak spots, the paper is not used for anything at Roseholme Cottage other than lining Slinky's litter box. Some months back, it was severely downsized in page count. Now rather than accumulating an excess of newsprint in the house that must be recycled every now and again, the paper doesn't have enough pages to stay ahead of the kidneys of a 3-lb geriatric house cat.
Are you listening Gannett? The only reason we are still subscribing to your local rag is to give the cat a place to pee, and you can't even do that job right. You don't deserve a bailout; you deserve to freeze in the dark.
14 comments:
Kinda like how Hearst pulled the plug on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer some months back. Couldn't get a buyer for some reason.
Now - it's online only, and who knows for how long. I only go there to get a couple of my favorite comics.
I'd comment, but, uh ... yeah.
Let's just say I'll give a hearty "hip-hip-pththbthb" when it finally goes tits up.
Aside from kitty litter liners newspapers also make handy sheets for testing shotgun patterns.
*insert NBC chimes and a start shooting across the screen as the words "The more you know" appear behind it*
I can remember when it WAS a real newspaper with sports writers like Bob Collins and editorial opinion writers that reflected the make-up of our state.
Of course, all that was BEFORE it was sold to Gannett. They eviserated a great paper. It now deserves its slow death.
All The Best,
Frank W. James
This area is afflicted with two Gannett plus one McClatchy rag. A week's total news content from the trio would just about light charcoal in the green egg, once.
But at least the Indy Star and the other victims of corporate mismanagement have an excuse.
Gannett is a French spelling for the big bird that makes guano. Otherwise known as "booby birds."
A more apt appellative was never chosen.
Stranger
Pffft, the Indianapolis Times, now that was a newspaper. :-)
The buggy whip industry will not be missed.
Shootin' Buddy
You kids will have to start supplementing with Nuvo. Surely there are plenty of places to pick it up down there in Broad Ripple.
The only reason we are still subscribing to your local rag is to give the cat a place to pee, and you can't even do that job right.
HA!
I think they first downsized when they eliminated the "news that hurts Democrats" section ...
"You kids will have to start supplementing with Nuvo."
It'd be a lot of fun to watch the cat urinate on the output of Steve Hammer, who looks and writes like the love child of Michael Moore and Mark Morford.
You don't deserve a bailout; you deserve to freeze in the dark.
I think you meant, "You don't deserve a bailout; you deserve to freeze in the dark lying in your own urine."
I was going to make Roberta's line about "keeping pace" my QOTD but I was struggling with how to make such a complex sentence "work" as a pithy quote. Then you did such a great job using her post as a base that it's pointless for me to try.
Heavy sigh. I'll just have to keep looking for something else.
My technique to get excess paper products has been to not reply to any subscription request or telemarketing call. That makes them try harder. On average, I receive one unrequested free newspaper every couple of weeks, and circulars on Thursdays and Fridays.
All are high grade newsprint with no smudgy color ink. I don't have a cat, but the paper does soak up gun cleaning and photo chemicals quite nicely.
Dear newspaper folks: my attention is a scare resource--if you want me to subscribe, send me your old linotype letters. I need the lead and you need the money. And don't lie, I know you have buckets of them lying around, because environmental regulations make it prohibitively expensive to dispose of them in the proper, safe manner.
I haven't subscribed to a newspaper in such a long time they have even given up on giving me the "one week free" offers. I gave up on them when I was reading in the Sports section that the reason the local basketball team had lost its last few games was, in fact, the fault of a vast right-wing conspiracy of racists that kept them from succeeding. And, then in the comics section, they had to censor Garfield because he was mean to the intellectually challenged Odie.
Nat
I am SO stealing that Hammer quote.
I work for a sister Gannett paper...and ours are downsized as well, both size of sheet and number of pages. People complain, but then they say they don't subscribe. It's a Catch-22. I'm trying to stay on top of Web trends - using Twitter, being a writer who also edits video - all in the hopes that someday, when papers do really die, I can still live on in the intarwebs. Pray for me.
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