Saying goodbye to an old friend.

Ah...Saturday. Who doesn't love a relaxed Saturday morning?

Okay, maybe people with new children or puppies, the two entities oblivious to the sanctity of an official sleep-in day. Saturday or Tuesday—doesn't matter when your kid has just awoken to a soaking diaper and hankering for a little human lactose smoothie.

Okay, maybe also those who must work weekends, those who aren't fortunate enough to stick to the same schedule that they had growing up and going to school; non-cubicle jobs like waitress, fire fighter, weed dealer or newspaper carrier.

Speaking of newspaper carrier, the circle has now closed on my initial point. I know I've spoken about this before, but it's time to mention this topic again, because an era is ending. The familiar act of cracking the front door and bowing my stiff lumbar to scoop up the paper, engulfed by the aroma of the crisp morning air, is ceasing.

I've cancelled my newspaper subscription.

Subscribing to Seattle's last printed paper, The Seattle Times, runs approximately two hundred dollars for a year's worth of weekend service. It's really not much until you consider that the Saturday edition is now about the size of The Chinook Wind, my elementary school newsletter. Those two Benjamins could be better spent buying four hundred dollars worth of Groupons for pole dancing class.

I'm not particularly happy about contributing to the demise of an institution, just as I'm sure no one felt good about spending an entire day at the mall searching for digital camera film. But, as the Reverend Harold Camping proclaimed on May 22, "Apparently, life goes on."

Let's face the facts. Most of us only scan the headlines because most of us have grown acclimated to perusing our monitors and drawing conclusions from tiny bytes of information. Even the older among us, and I include myself within that group, have become quite adept at gleaning an article's essence from just a few words.

To illustrate my point, the following headlines appeared today on cnn.com, and I'll demonstrate my carefully honed aptitude for deciphering the gist of a story:

"Weiner to take a 'leave of absence,' seek treatment."
For a minute, I thought they were referring to most guys over forty, whose weiners left for vacation with no forwarding address, but then I realized this headline is expounding on the tribulations of a congressman who refreshingly opposed any type of cover up.

"New Yorkers weigh in on Weiner."
Ouch! Get off! You've flattened it, you bastards!
Okay, no more Weiner jokes.

"Palin emails show work, feuds."
I don't even care about this headline. I'd rather take giblet gravy beer bongs than read Sarah Palin's emails.

"Buffet lunch auctioned for $2,626,411."
That would only have been $1,313,205.50 if that person had used a Groupon.

"Chewable Viagra popular in Mexico."
Aha! Finally we have a forwarding address for all those vacationing weiners.
Oh, sorry, I did say no more weiner jokes.

"Morgan apologizes for anti-gay rant."
Good idea.

"Marines honored for heroism."
That's like saying "Urologists honored for prostate exams." Marines are all heroes.

"Gingrich vows 'whatever it takes'."
I'm not sure if Newt wants to be making such a statement, unless he's willing to change political party, intelligence, attitude and race, and heretofore refer to himself as Barack Obama.

Kidding aside, I feel bad for the employees of America's slowly dying newspapers, especially those who rise, rain or shine, at ridiculous o'clock to assure that the paper is waiting on our doorsteps. Thank you for a job well done.


I heard Newt is hiring.

Hurry up and read this.

In today's fast-paced world, sometimes we don't have time to delve into the story beyond the headline. We're constantly rushing off for that weekly mani/pedi appointment, that meeting with our attorney regarding the men's restroom misunderstanding, or to make sure the two-for-one special with lard-stuffed crust is still available.

We still thirst for the latest news, yet we can only digest the most concise synopses. And this is why I'm so thankful for publications like cnn.com and seattlep-i.com, two websites which are clued in to my rigid time constraints. Judging by yesterday's posts, all we need is a headline:

Sexually dangerous inmates can be held indefinitely, high court says.
Okay, I'm definitely not sharp enough to be a Supreme Court justice, but I think I could've made this call with a black robe and one brain cell.

Low-performing Bellevue school likely to be closed.
This makes no sense to me. Just think if we eliminated the worst baseball team, person and Halloween candy, respectively. We'd be saying goodbye to the Seattle Mariners, Rush Limbaugh and Twizzlers.

Car thief says stealing cars a better high then meth.
I suppose that's true if they have to choose between the two, but it seems like most of these guys like to have their car and snort it, too.

Army recalls 44,000 combat helmets.
Wouldn't this be enough of a reason for the war judge to declare a mis-war and send everyone home?

New Miss USA may lose her crown for stripper pole pictures.
We definitely wouldn't want to tarnish the pristine image of the Miss USA pageant, where the only difference between the swimsuit competition and pole dancing is the pole.

MIT's proposed jet could cut fuel use by seventy percent.
This sounds great, as long as that massive rubber band doesn't break.

Artificial insemination: Is it for you?
Definitely not. And I would call it more accidental than artificial.

See what I mean? All we need is a headline.

The demise of the American newspaper

Apparently, I'm a dinosaur.

Not this kind.

Not this kind (except maybe last week at work).

And definitely not this kind, since some adults like me.







I'm also not the type of dinosaur which many people believe Adam and Eve rode three thousand years ago.

Nope. I'm a Sunday-morning-newspaper-reading dinosaur. One of the greatest pleasures of the week, from my 47-year-old perspective, is pulling back the handle on the front door, gingerly bending over and lifting that dewy, cellophane-wrapped weekly rag into my waiting embrace.

The headline can always be read through the plastic and above the fold, so the perusal begins even before I pull up a chair at the dining room table and set a steaming cup of life-sustaining brown magic in front of me, thereby establishing a small reading and drinking command center.

First I read the front page, but usually just for the headlines and summaries; I don't normally delve past page A1, because the sports sections beckons far too strongly. After spending about fifteen minutes and the first cup of joe on the sports, it's time to move on to local news. By now, the caffeine has provided enough of a bump to sufficiently gird my loins for the the fires, murders, robberies and other unfortunate events which have happened overnight in my own backyard. Occasionally, someone famous has gotten a DUI, so that's always worth investigating.

And all of this before checking the Facebooks.

Last week I conducted an informal survey of my coworkers, regarding which of them indulges him- or herself in the Sunday paper. I was surprised, yet not surprised. Since the closest person to my age is nine years my junior, they are technically of a different generation, one which doesn't read newspapers.

It's no coincidence why local papers are folding (pun intended) at such a rapid rate. Newspapers are expensive to print and distribute, and by the time they reach the reader, the news is often obsolete. The kids simply aren't reading them because they're joined at the hip by a personal data device 24/7.

Although the demise of the American newspaper is a natural consequence of technological advances, to this old guy, it's a sad harbinger. I'm a newspaper pack rat; I've saved front pages from many historical events, such as the moon landing, Nixon's resignation, the Seattle Supersonics 1979 NBA title, Barrack Obama's election.

It's hard to imagine seeing a historical headline on seattletimes.com, printing it out on 8.5" x 11" copier paper and filing it away in the basement with the other yellowing newsprint. There's something about a 96-point, Helevetica Bold headline that puts anything else to shame.