Are you out and about, greedily snapping up those post-Christmas deals? Me neither. And we have plenty of company, according to The New York Times. The dismal post-holiday buying follows a hideous pre-Christmas shopping season, as reported byThe Wall Street Journal and passed along by Steve Benen at Political Animal, who is predicting widespread bankruptcies among retailers in the new year. Oh, goody.
I just took a drive through Bibleburg’s downtown after retrieving the Subie from Heuberger, and the sting in my wallet pocket failed to distract me from noting that Tejon Street wasn’t exactly rocking with shoppers. The malls may be doing a little better, but I’ll be damned if I’ll visit one to check it out. I hate those places. And anyway, I’m stony broke.
The decline and fall of American newspapering has been much in the public eye of late, what with the Motown rags going digital, The New York Times tapping its building for a quarter-mil’ in operating cash, and the Rocky Mountain News and other cage-liners either going on the auction block, shedding staff or both.
Now, James Surowiecki has written in The New Yorker something I have been saying all along, that newspapers’ problems extend beyond inept management and the rise of the Internet — the readership bears plenty of blame, too:
The real problem for newspapers, in other words, isn’t the Internet; it’s us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That’s a consumer’s dream, but eventually it’s going to collide with reality: if newspapers’ profits vanish, so will their product.
Quite right. “Absolutely Free” was a Zappa song, not a business model. Ass, gas or grass, baby — nobody rides for free. Newspapers and magazines have been slow to realize where we and our money were going, but now that they’ve figured it out, we should expect to start seeing virtual paper boxes popping up in our digital neighborhoods.
So keep a few coins handy. You want to hear the Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny delivering its wisdom, you got to give up the em oh en eee why. The alternative is not a good one. Concludes Surowiecki:
For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime — intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on — and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can’t last. Soon enough, we’re going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.
Late update: Here’s a case in point for you. Despite two wars raging, a new president stepping into the Oval Office and a crumbling economy, newspapers are closing or downsizing their Washington bureaus because they can no longer afford them.
Once again Zombie Mad Dog Media (Hosted WordPress Edition) walks the earth in search of fresh brains.
The shamans of Waxedstringandacanistan resurrected the evil dead sometime on Thanksgiving Day, while Herself and I were in Fort Collins eating a defunct bird and related items with my sister, her husband and his brother. I should probably sacrifice a laptop to the XHTML gods to show my gratitude.
The drive home was the real party, as the first actual wintry weather we’ve seen so far swept in and glazed Interstate 25 like a cop’s doughnut. We were in second gear for most of the way from Larkspur to Bibleburg, but oddly enough saw only one leadfoot knucklehead backasswards in the ditch, at the south entrance to the Air Force Academy. Last year, in dry conditions, we saw a half-dozen or so.
The local nitwits are making up for lost time today, though, bashing into one another with a will as they race from mall to mall hunting Black Friday bargains. And in New York, one poor bastard, a Wal-Mart temp, got stomped to death by an unruly mob of cheapskates who broke down the doors and piled into the store, devil take the hindmost. Reports The New York Times:
People did not stop to help the employee as he lay on the ground, and they pushed against other Wal-Mart workers who were trying to aid Mr. Damour. The crowd kept running into the store even after the police arrived, jostling and pushing officers who were trying to perform CPR, the police said.
“They were like a stampede,” said Nassau Det. Lt. Michael Fleming. “Hundreds of people walked past him, over him or around him.”
Now that’s what I call a “door-buster.” The coppers should confiscate every single one of these yahoos’ credit cards, take the maximum cash advance from each, and hand the whole pile over to this poor sod’s survivors. I wouldn’t walk into a big-box store today if they were giving away eternal life with the Victoria’s Secret angels in a giant snow globe full of cocaine.
Late update: OK, I confess, I surrendered to the siren song of consumerism, went out and bought … $125 worth of various groceries that over the next week will be magically transformed into chicken stew Provençal, chicken quesadillas, breaded pork chops with brown rice and braised kale, spaghetti alla puttanesca with Brussels sprouts, and black bean vegetable soup, along with various salads, breakfasts and lunches, the latter to be composed mostly of leftover dinners. Also a couple moderately priced bottles of Frog tonsil polish. And I didn’t have to trample anyone to get ’em, either.
I was off on a little web-surfin’ safari this morning and ran across a story in The Los Angeles Times that says Angelenos are abandoning mass transit and crankin’ up their little deuce coupes again, now that gasoline prices have plummeted to $2.30 per gallon. Good news, Detroit: You won’t be needing that bailout after all. SUVs for everyone! She’s real fine, my 409 . . . .
In other auto news, failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney — whose dad ran American Motors in the good ol’ Rambler days and then became governor of Michigan — took a giant dump on Motor City in The New York Times the other day, and The Detroit Free Presscalled him on it. It’s a pretty interesting read for those of us who haven’t paid much attention to the U.S. auto industry of late. Meanwhile, here’s some number-crunching from The Detroit News regarding the industry’s employment effects beyond Motown.
And in DeeCee, House Donks have voted to replace auto-industry pal John Dingell of Michigan as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee with Henry Waxman of California. Steve Benen calls this “a very encouraging development” that will make a meaningful energy bill more likely.
There's still some water on the Academy; the Blue Zoomies probably stole it from the Army while those guys were out of town, getting used to desert life.
As in record temperature, I suspect. It was 75 when I wrapped up my lunchtime ride into the Air Force Academy and back, accompanied by a couple hundred of my closest friends. Seemed like everyone with a bike and a good excuse for riding same was doing so. Damn, it was nice. But dry, dry, dry, as in drier than a popcorn fart.
The creek is mostly not there anymore, and the trail is powdery, which makes traction iffy if you’re running a bald set of Michelin Jets on the old ‘cross bike and trying to slalom around ragged formations of tuned-out iPlodders taking their half of the trail out of the middle.
Back home, I laid a quick eye on the VN.com website to see if anything needed doing (it didn’t) and set about watering the lawn. Watering the lawn.InNovember. That’s just wrong.
Meanwhile, from the We’re All Hopelessly Fucked Department, we’re facing an economic collapse sometime this century, perhaps as soon as 2020, and we’re too stupid to watch movies. There’s some news you can use. A tip of the Mad Dog Kevlar helmet to Steve F. and Khal S. for the tips.
Late update: Meanwhile, as long as we’re on the subject of movies and stupidity, indulge your inner geek with the new “Star Trek” trailer.
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