Tuesday, March 17, 2009



Today is March 17, St. Patrick's Day. It has been 33 years since Malvina Reynolds died. And today the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its last newspaper.
The P-I is supposed to live on, on the Internet, but no longer will it be printed and delivered. The print edition was going too far into the hole financially, and had done so for a long time. Suddenly there are hundreds of employees out of work, and Seattle is a one-newspaper town. The Seattle Times carries on, but word is in the wind that it may cease publication also. Then Seattle would be a no-newspaper town. Oh, there are the tabloids, the Seattle Weekly and the Stranger, but they are more about politics and culture in the city.
Newspapers are dying. It is amazing to live to see the day. People are getting their news on the Internet, and on TV, I hear, but the fact is that ubiquitous as computers, cell phones, PDAs, netbooks, and whatever other online devices exist, a large proportion of the population is not computer-literate or planning to become so. I think the death of newspapers is premature.
In a sense it's one more reminder that the older you are, the less you count. To that I say: harrumph.

Oh, and the black eye is progressing. Seven days and continuing to move down, but not on, yet.

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