Pondering Paper

Here’s a thought I’ve been mulling tonight. It now costs about $600 a year to subscribe to home delivery of The New York Times, at least if you live in Southern California.

Recently, the base line price of a laptop computer dropped below $600 (and most of them last a lot longer than a year).

This quirky juxtaposition was embedded in a luncheon talk given by the L.A. Times editorial pages editor, Mike Kinsley, at the USC Institute for the Humanities on Friday.

Kinsley’s talk was off the record, so I won’t go into much more detail. That factoid, nevertheless, keeps playing itself over and over in my head. It has to make you wonder about the future of newspapers, at least as we know them.

Certainly, the blogospheric notion that big metro dailies are somehow in the throes of extinction seems wildly overstated. The great, late Neil Postman argued that when new technologies are introduced into the culture, the old ones don’t disappear; they merely become “boutique” commodities. Example: when ball points supplanted fountain pens, the latter became increasingly exotic, exclusive and expensive. Sort of like a college education nowadays: you can still get a good one with a harrumphing absent-minded professor or two if you’re willing to pay 30 grand a year. Otherwise, it’s likely to be the local state college and its newfangled “distance learning” program.

When it comes to newspapers, their total migration to the web seems almost inevitable. Will there even be a hard copy a decade from now? And if so, how much will that cost? Once they become web-based products, from where will they produce the revenue necessary to support newsrooms of fifty, a hundred, three hundred reporters and editors? We know it won’t be from classified advertising, which is already transitioning out of the papers and onto the web. I suspect it won’t be from subscriptions. Banner-display advertising?

Or am I all wet? Will the plummeting circulation of dailies soon stabilize as the next generation of readers matures and decides it’s not quite ready to give up the smell of newsprint?

 

 

Comments

[Mark A. York]

Like Ben Bradley said; "you can't take the computer to the John." Or scan the headlines on a vending box on the street corner for nothing on the fly.

[Amy Hiatt]

Introducing the Crapper Lapper, the wireless laptop you can take into the john.

[jim hitchcock]

Problem is, you go to stand up, you find your legs have fallen asleep...

[Michael Turner]

Newspapers seem unlikely to become a 'boutique item' -- why, just today, I got asked again by my wife if I had some old newspapers for lining the kitty-litter box. I think that kinda puts a ceiling on what people will pay.

Neil Postman was wrong. Media do disappear. Telegraphy (in the Morse code sense) is gone. It's not even a ham radio operator license test requirement anymore. Punched cards are gone. New vinyl records went 'boutique' (and old ones went to collectors), and I think player piano rolls have a collector market, but wax cylinders are lo-o-ong gone. Here in Tokyo, a cable radio service called USEN used to be wildly popular -- they even had call-in song requests on a per-shop basis. But CD players pretty much killed that. (The same company now offers internet connections over the same wires.) There used to be this old place called Sutro's out on the cliffs on the coast of San Francisco, and when I was a kid, I liked it because it had these machines where you could watch short motion pictures by feeding them nickels, peering into them, and turning a crank. (Some of them were lightly pornographic, hence my interest.) Sutro's burned one fine day. I haven't seen one of those machines since.

Sometimes a medium goes boutique, but unless it has some irreplaceable nostalgia value or scope for new design, it just suffers oblivion.

What will happen to newspapers? Maybe the same thing that happens with anything currently in print: digital paper. Special pads with digital rights management built in, so that one book can be any book (but you still have to pay). Or any magazine. Or any newspaper. With over-the-airwaves billing for use.

Books will still have a collector/boutique market. Comic books and some magazines too. As they do now. But newspapers will probably go to digital paper, or just end up on the web if digital paper doesn't pan out. I'm sure they'll still be called "newspapers", to the confusion of children not yet born who may never see one. "Daddy, why do they call it a 'newspaper' when it's not made of paper?" "Because it used to be news on paper, honey." "OK, but why do we say 'noose-paper', and not 'nooz-paper'?" "Well, they used to have this saying, 'give 'em enough rope ...'"

What will we line our kitty litter boxes with when that day comes?

[reg]

The economics of running a serious news organization are obviously increasingly dodgy - which is why CNN places complete crap like Nancy Grace in prime spots to try to draw audience away from similiar shows on FOX featuring the drunk at the far end of the bar - but as far as the "end of paper" ??? I may be making a false comparison, but I've never seen a single person on BART reading one of those digital books that Microsoft hauled out to such fanfare a few years back. News is somewhat different, because it's in shorter bites, but I hate reading a New York Times story on screen and generally print them out if they're longer than a page. Maybe the future of newsprint is to not attempt to compete with what it can't do - provide up-to-date headline news - but amp the "news" coverage up with more in-depth feature reporting, opinion/analysis, etc. relying to a greater degree on the first-person POV.

Having put in a good word for the possibilities and persistence of print, I intend to pay the $60 a year for NYT's premium/archive service when they put it in place - partly because I rely on the Times and am willing to support their economic model (short of a full $600 a year sub) the same way I support NPR's. I could live without David Brooks and John Tierney quite nicely - ditto Dowd - and I could find Krugman on alternate sites for free almost certainly, but The Times is an essential resource in my view, so I'm willing to pay something for it. I'll also keep picking up newstand copies on impulse when it's convenient and I've got some time to kill.

Personally, I think that the bloggers like Kevin Drum who are crying about the Times policy and refuse to link to their soon-to-be-sold material are being silly. Lots of folks will have the ability to use those links, and any bloggers refusal to even mention Times op-ed material in the future is counterproductive. Alterman notes and links items in WSJ in his blog, even though it's a sub service. Frankly, the WSJ is a very attractive sub service, since the stuff you have to pay for is the stuff in the Journal that's worth reading and the stuff they pass out for free, via that moron Taranto's daily pissfest, is the editorial stuff that's more often than not worthless anyway.

The Times model might seem a bit strange, since they're still giving away the stuff that costs them the most to sustain, but given that the archive is included and that it's a format that gives Times loyalists like myself who recognize it as the greatest news organizaton in the U.S. a way to buy in without much pain, it may well make sense. (If I had a more routine schedule, I'd consider home subscribing to the print Times despite the expense, but I generally want it only when and where I want it.)

[cenizo in austin]

A must-read on the demise of paper is Nicholson Baker's 2001 classic, "Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper." See also: http://home.gwi.net/~dnb/former_newsrep.html

(And even if my lext laptop is cheaper, lighter and more powerful, I still won't be able to throw it on the floor, mark on it, stack it in piles (seemingly random but not so) all over the house and office, sell it at Half-Price Books or give it away to the public library, or burn it in the fireplace.)

[reg]

Regarding Kinsley's inferences on end-of-print vs. the dominance-of-screen news, Bill O'Reilly had this comment on just how clueless Kinsley, who's out there cutting down trees every day, still is on this issue:

"I mean, but this is what they're saying. It is just -- you just sit there, you go, 'They'll never get it until they grab Michael Kinsley out of his little house and they cut his head off.' And maybe when the blade sinks in, he'll go, 'Perhaps O'Reilly was right.'"

At least I think that's what Bill was referring to...

[Woody]

I prefer a newspaper to on-line media. I like to relax on the sofa with something to drink and scan the paper for articles of interest rather than scroll through links that have to load. It is much, much faster. Also, I can take the paper with me and read it as I sit in stalled rush hour traffic, while I talk on the cell phone and sip my drive-time coffee at the same time. It's very efficient.

However, if the NY Times wishes, they could sell me a laptop at half-price and have its site locked in as the home page with its ads for me to see. I could go for that.

[green dem]

I think we'll see more of the same. Newspapers will continue to migrate to the web, and the advertiser and subscription-based model will I think succeed. Also, the multimedia potential of news delivery has barely been exploited by anyone, including major news organizations. I should be able to go to the New York Times site for instance and watch extended interviews with the most compelling and important political, economic, and cultural figures of our time, even if I'm required to be a subscriber to the paper to see them.

PS Is the New York Times really 600 bucks a year nationally? The only time I was subscriber (outside of New York) was in San Francisco in the late 1990s, and I can't imagine I would've been willing to pay anywhere near that amount.

[Woody]

Speaking of the NY Times, they wrote an article in 1952 recognizing this day, which is Armed Forces Day--a day in which we recognize the men and women in all branches of of the military. This year's theme is "America Supports You." http://www.defenselink.mil/afd/index.html

Here's what the 1952 article had to say:
"This is the day on which we have the welcome opportunity to pay special tribute to the men and women of the Armed Forces ... to all the individuals who are in the service of their country all over the world. Armed Forces Day won't be a matter of parades and receptions for a good many of them. They will all be in line of duty and some of them may give their lives in that duty."

I hope the NY Times attitude on this is the same today as it was back then. Whether or not it is, others can take a moment to thank someone in the military and to let them know that America supports them.

[rosedog]

"Also, I can take the paper with me and read it as I sit in stalled rush hour traffic, while I talk on the cell phone and sip my drive-time coffee at the same time..."

...While simultaneously making a few notes in the steno notebook I've got placed on the shift console for just such a purpose.

But, remember, Woody, we're professionals. Surely no one else would dream of trying this. At least I certainly hope not!

[Jim Rockford]

My dissenting vote is that Newspapers will thrive, as long as they stay focused on local issues and coverage. We had all this talk that radio was going the way of the dinosaur, after TV, yet with most people's long commutes radio is more important than ever. I suspect a lot of folks are like me and constantly shift between KFWB and KNX 1070 in SoCal just to get the best traffic. Or weather. Or both. THAT's the power of locality.

Why would anyone subscribe to the NYT outside it's city? What's the value in it's coverage? Only if you think NYC is the center of the Universe (Kinsley, apparently does hence that stupid column New York New York in the LAT by Geraldine Baum) would there be value for you there. Otherwise your local paper will pick up the AP feed or whatever which is the same as the NYT reporting.

The totality of local coverage, including crime, sports, general news, weather, construction on freeways, traffic, etc provides IMHO real value for people in printed form that getting things off the web can't match.

What we will see I think is people moving "national" coverage to places where it functions best; news portals like cnn.com on the web, CNN/Fox/MSNBC or what have you with the death of the "national" newspaper just like radio serials moved to TV and the medium became focused on drive-time news/entertainment.

As for the obligatory Nancy Grace shots, I find it interesting that someone who's main sin is to side overtly with victims instead of criminals generates so much hate. She's no more airhead stupid than say CNN's Aaron Brown, or Gloria Vanderbilt's son Anderson Cooper, both of whom on-air seem as if they are one brain short of a brain-transplant.

This is the other factor pushing "national" media to the edge, the vast cultural hostility towards the values of most Americans which has nothing to do with politics but everything to do with class and interests. The Grace-bashing which has been seen on the pages of the LAT and elsewhere is telling. Most of the media overtly feels that wanting to punish criminals is wrong, that you just have to accept something like Samantha Runion and worry most about Avila's rights. I recall a similiar reaction to John Walsh's America's Most Wanted by the same people. You can't get people to watch and read if your hostility to their basic cultural values bleeds through every time.

[Josh Legere]

Blogers do not do investigative reporting! The minute people have to pay for a blog, they will find a new one. The phenomenon of blogs is fueled by the fact that they are free places where people with similar interests can... share interests.

I enjoy reading the paper version of the LA Times, LA Weekly, The Nation, etc... ALL of these publications are available to me electronically yet I STILL chose to read them. For one thing, I can get out of the house, go the park and read any of them. I can carry the Nation in my backpocket and sneak it into the shitter at work and take a 1/2 hr reading break.

The consolidation and commercialization of journalism is killing journalism. Some of us, hell most of us enjoy well written investigative journalism. The LA Times has done 2 great stories this past year (Wal Mart and King Drew) and Rosedog wrote a great series in the Weekly.

I also enjoy opinion pieces as well, and sure blogs CAN fill that void. I could see journals of opinion getting hurt. What blog could compete with the Atlantic Monthly?

I am not going to carry a labtop around just to read the NYRB. Computer screens and scrolling get tiresome. Print will never die!

[Galileo]

I'm 25 and a loyal reader of newspapers, the online editions, that is. There are too many papers out there for me to subscribe to all of them. Plus, home delivery of papers like The Guardian is not available here in Beverly Hills. Enjoy the free dailies while you can. Not that they'll be extinct any time soon. But the online editions won't be free forever. It's no deep mystery to me why the LA Times is losing subscribers, and it has nothing to do with the abysmal election eve hit piece on Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003. It has everything to do with being able to read tomorrow's top stories the night before the print edition lands in the flowerbed. An eample: the main investigative piece in the Sunday's Times has been available at www.latimes.com for hours now.

[Michael Turmon]

Slightly OT *free* article about the possible transformation of book publishing by technology, along the same lines of "radical flattening"-

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14318

Michael Turner -- the technological solution to the problem of disappearance of newsprint for kitty boxes is already here:

http://www.sony.net/Products/aibo/

I think higher-resolution displays and higher-bandwidth net connections will remove all the technical obstacles to digital newspapers within ten or 20 years. Woody and Celeste can cruise around at high speed with hi-res displays hooked up through high-bandwidth wireless. I'm looking forward to that. (Maybe by then, we will also have better automatic collision avoidance in cars.) Because of speed, free distribution, and ease with multimedia, online papers have *compelling* advantages over pulp. This kind of app is what the internet was designed for.

There is still the curation/professionalism issue, which is where print newspapers stand out. All you have to do is read one of the postings on local (LA) politics by rosedog and compare its depth to postings of amateurs (like me) to be reminded of the difference that expertise makes.

A digital paper could preserve those advantages, while still staying ahead of pulp newspapers, by virtualizing the newsroom (the printing presses were already auctioned off, but what about the office building itself, and those five layers of editors we hear about). The "paper" just provides vetting for articles and editorial direction. A lot of relatively superfluous middlemen could be dispensed with. The writers get paid based on popularity or whatever. This may sound roughly like Hell to many writers, but as Marc has pointed out -- some kind of change seems to be coming one way or the other. The blossoming of blogs tells us that there is a lot of untapped writing talent and subject-matter expertise out there.

[Michael Turmon]

Josh -- It's true that there is a lot more recycled opinion (and worse - eg the LGF comments section) than well-informed opinion out there on blogs. And even less, in-depth investigative pieces. (The blogosphere does "investigate" things though - lots of people google around when curious about what someone asserts.)

How much demand do you think there is for real investigation, as opposed to reinforcement of existing opinion? Do enough people really want to fix this problem? And I wonder if there is a way (using hyperlinks) to make the substantiation of opinion more routine than it is now? Of course, this is required in scientific papers - it's even becoming common to publish pointers to the primary datasets (and computer analysis if needed) at the back of papers. It cuts the bs factor.

[Michael Turner]

From Wired, way back in 1997, an article about digital ink researchers at MIT.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.05/ff_digitalink_pr.html

It'll probably happen. It could be another 20 years before paper dies, though. The physical design may have been prefigured in Arthur C. Clarke's 'newspad' in 2001.

The Wired article closes with speculation about newspapers as a market, but I think digital ink's most likely initial application is retail store price labels. The print area is small, the (initially) lower resolution wouldn't matter as much, and updating prices is currently a labor-intensive operation. Of course, a relatively high rate of inflation or deflation would help make this market .... not exactly a pleasant prospect.

[Michael Turner]

As further evidence that MSM is going to hell in a handbasket, I have in my hand an op-ed from the Dallas Morning News, May 19, reprinted in The Daily Yomiuri. Entitled "Where's the Muslim outrage over other atrocities?", it refers to an incident at Guantanamo involving interrogators who "had flushed a Korean down the toilet."

Those muslims -- they don't give a rat's ass for Koreans. Just other muslims. What's wrong with them, anyway?

Fox News also glancingly refers to the Gitmo Korean-flushing incident here

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157177,00.html

In an apparent correction, Reuters attempts to cover up this important story by deflecting attention to some less significant event involving the Koran.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16479546.htm

Confusingly, however, DefenseLink reports that some muslim protestors *were* upset about this Korean-flushing incident, but in this case, that it was about a "copy of the Korean". So maybe they were really only protesting human cloning at Gitmo.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2005/20050512_1052.html

However, TownHall.com has something about "ripping pages out of the Korean", which is particularly grisly when you think about it: perhaps the Korean had been forced to eat one of the most revolting things known to man, namely a daily newspaper from the U.S.? And the Gitmo prisoners had eviscerated him and started stuffing the pages down the toilet?

http://www.townhall.com/news/politics/200505/FOR20050513a.shtml

This is all very disturbing, but I think maybe it's better just to hush it up. I mean, what if this got out in North Korea? It might spark something we'd all regret.

By the way, that Dallas Morning News op-ed also referred to people dancing in the streets in Palestine on the news of 9/11. I thought that had long been debunked? Oh, you just can't trust any news sources these days. Especially the web versions of stories, which clearly aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

[too many steves]

I can't remember who posted it (and am too lazy right now to go look) but I agree that some confuse the medium with the content. I don't see the content being any less sought after or published but do expect the delivery medium to continue to change and evolve in the same way that music has gone from live performance to record albums to tapes to cd to mp3. I've probably missed a stop or two along that evolution, but I think you know what I mean.

I don't see the newspaper going away, just being supplemented by other media distribution techniques. I rarely read the paper version of any newspaper except when I'm killing time in a Starbuck's - but I read at least six major papers each day (Boston Globe, NYTimes, Washington Post, Washington Times, Boston Herald, and WSJ - the last of which I pay for).

At the risk of repeating myself, I would tell you that I don't go inside banks or libraries any more and, yet, I conduct business with banks and read plenty of books and magazines. I know people who do continue to visit these places, but most of my contemporaries do not. Does anyone anywhere under the age of 65 have a passbook savings account?

Ok, that's enough musing for a Sunday afternoon (the fifth rainy weekend in a row in the Northeast) except for a brief comment about MT's most recent post. Reading his comment I am reminded of that famous news editorialist, Rosanne Rosanna-Danna who said, "Never Mind.".

[reg]

"Why would anyone subscribe to the NYT outside it's city? What's the value in it's coverage? Only if you think NYC is the center of the Universe (Kinsley, apparently does hence that stupid column New York New York in the LAT by Geraldine Baum) would there be value for you there. Otherwise your local paper will pick up the AP feed or whatever which is the same as the NYT reporting."

This is one of the dumbest statements I've ever read in my life. It's author knows exactly NOTHING about local newspapers in America and the paucity of their national and international coverage.

The question I have to start asking myself, isn't how anybody got to be so out of it, but why do I even bother to respond to such nonsensical, clueless bullshit ?

[reg]

I want to add, regarding Rockford's being in awe of the sage commentary on legal issues of Nancy Grace - just what is it going to take for Rockford to recognize just how beneath-mediocre this cable "news" shit really is ? Perhaps it is going to take reasoned discourse disappearing from our country altogether and ideological barbarism holding sway to the point that some mob of Grace-O'Reilly viewers grab Rockford out of his little house and cut his head off. Otherwise he'll never get it. Maybe when the blade sinks in, he'll say to himself, "Perhaps Reg was right!"

[jim hitchcock]

One might even argue that watching Nancy Grace makes one a victim...

[rosedog]

Just wanted to say thanks to Josh for his kind remark earlier in this thread---especially considering my...uh....snark attack a few threads ago.

[Jim Rockford]

Actually Reg, I think you made my point for me. Since all the coverage will be (and usually is) the same in the papers, why should you subscribe to the NYT if you live outside the region?

What possible value are you going to derive from coverage of arcane NYC politics that don't affect your life? Arts and Theater coverage of a city very far away from you that has no impact or interest in your life?

In fact you could argue that local papers that do not "rewrite" ala the LAT the Wire Feeds give you a more accurate picture of events nationally and internationally. That particular process just injects more bias and ignorance into a story which already has a major portion added in. The OC Register does not rewrite stories; the one about the musical "prodigy" autistic man dumped in Britain was revealing. The LAT had rewritten a wire feed to have the guy be a "prodigy" capable of playing anything, the OC Register feed had him as a talented amateur with a very limited repetoire (some Beatles tunes, a classical piece). The OC Register by not rewriting gave you a truer picture of who the man was, the LAT tried to romanticize things for sensationalism.

Add to this the general WILLFUL IGNORANCE of the subject matter outside sports by reporters. For example, reporters in the LAT covering the VPC release condemning Smith and Wesson for offering the Smith and Wesson 500 revolver, a very large caliber and powerful production handgun (though not the most powerful which is the Thompson Contender single shot in 45-70 a massive rifle round). The VPC press release had condemned Smith and Wesson for "arming America's street gangs" and "upping the nation's body count in street violence" which was ludicrous in the extreme. A simple google search of a few minutes would have shown that the gun was: a. a special order item only that took months to deliver to dealers; b. retailed at over $1100 not including fees and licenses and taxes; c. was a very limited production gun; c. weighs over 72.5 ounces or 4.5 lbs; d. has an eight inch barrel or overall length of 14 inches; e. has ammo costing around $5 a round and is very limited in supply and availability; f. is aimed at handgun hunters, collectors, and metallic target competitive shooters in other words a very small high end market. A simple call to the LAPD could have revealed that the street gang gun of choice was the Makarov because they are cheap (~$200 or so), easily obtainable, and easily concealed (small and light). The Makarov weighs 1.7 pounds and is only 6.34 inches long. It's ammo is available everywhere and very cheap (pennies per round). [It took me about 5 minutes to find these facts on google]

These facts would have been nice to know by the readers, but the LAT reporters were too ignorant and ideological (the VPC is always right because they are nice anti-gun crusaders, Smith and Wesson are evil gun makers and always wrong). It's like having an auto columnist who knows nothing about cars (and say, ignores *cough* Dan Neil Highway One*cough* the long term maintenance costs of hybrid cars that are likely to be substantially greater than other cars by orders of magnitude for ideological reasons: hybrid and Toyota good; Detroit and conventional engines bad) or a Media Critic who's chief qualifications is writing a FOOD COLUMN (looking at you David Shaw). This fits with a WSJ reporter asking if the Marines fought in WWII, or the NYT reporter being impressed that the Rangers are organized in Rifle companies.

Outside politics and sports and entertainment, MOST reporters are willfully ignorant and don't want to know anything outside journalism (anti-intellectual), keeping their ignorance about the subject matter tight by ideology and a refusal to do even the most basic research that might challenge their assumptions. It's worse at the LAT and NYT because they are more captive than most to these attitudes. It's telling that MOST deceptions and making stuff up (Blair, Glass, Albom, Barnicle etc) have taken place at "National" newspapers with aspirations of being the "paper of record" instead of getting the facts right.

I'll have to say Reg you're revealing your ideology. ALL Commentariat coverage by the privileged and anti-intellectual elite is supposed to be "good for you" in an eat your vegetables sort of way, instead of coverage of actual local events that have significant impacts on peoples lives. Local schools, redevelopment, housing starts, etc. have more meaning than the inevitable formulaic pack journalism reflecting ideology not facts from the NYT, Post, etc.

Quick -- what groundbreaking story that covered issues in depth appeared in the NYT and nowhere else that had the ability to change people's lives by fostering a greater understanding of the world around them? Sad to say Reg, the reality is that the NYT is the equivalent to the Clear Channel programming on radio ... a thousand stations across the country with the same playlist and DJs pushing out the same tired pop pap. "Truth to power" is merely pack journalism pre-packaged as a lifestyle status symbol, not actual value.

[Ironically, the growth of local radio playlists and unique identity such as 103.1 KNDY which features Sex Pistol Steve Jones as DJ, locality, and uniqueness is a growing reaction to the corporate sameness of Clear Channel pre-packaged pop pap. Newspapers would be well advised to follow that]

I'll agree that Grace is another "news bubble head," but I'd say your vehement reaction ALSO makes my point; she's no different from on-air bubble heads Aaron Brown, Anderson Cooper, Dan Rather, etc. EXCEPT for her obvious and continual advocacy of victims and the prosecution. People generally like that advocacy, instead of the very obvious sympathy for the defendants that the Press brings in all aspects. See: 48 Hours and their hagiography of what Frank Mickadeit of the Orange County Register calls Greg Haidl ("the little punk"). Those who's ideology calls for identifying with criminals over victims would of course HATE her. I find it telling that yourself and the LAT seem to find Grace far more objectionable than the other bubble heads who's ideology of criminal-identification match their own. It's no accident as the Marxists say that Prosecutors and victim advocates for years have complained of a defendant bias in Times reporting, most recently in the Spector case (where they repeated base libels of the Defense against the victim). Or the Robert Blake case (where the same thing occurred, and Blake was portrayed as the "real victim," ugh). You see this too in "Dead Man Walking" where Penn and Sarandon want us to identify with the brutal murderer of two teen boys who after he executed them, calmly ate their hamburgers they had in their car. [It's the same thing with Euroweenies who get a frisson of fear/delight in meeting guys like Arafat or Hamas/IRA/ETA/Chechen hard boys.]

This is likely the biggest mark against Grace (who: stipulated is a TV bubble head); she does talk about the Media bias for defense smears against dead murder victims and other victims, see OJ, Kobe Bryant, Robert Blake, Spector, Haidl, etc. and points out the hypocrasy of those who's ideology has them rigidly following the rights of the defendant over the interests of the victim. THIS is why she's popular. People hate murdering criminals.

I guess your calling for my beheading speaks volumes about yourself and the threat you see to your own identity and ideology as well as a moral bankruptcy on all levels by the Left and much/most of the Democratic Party. I am however not surprised by it. It is typical of the tinfoil hat conspiracies of Democratic Underground and "Screw Em" Daily Kos who cheer every soldier's death while thinking they live under the Fourth Reich (and openly hating America).

The real threat to my life excepting fatty foods and road accidents will be either brutal criminals like Monster Williams that Leftists idolize; or some brutal jihadi like Mohammed Atta who cut the throats of helpless flight attendants to murder the pilots and thus, murder thousands more. For these people the Left has nothing to say as Keith Thompson points out except cheerleading in the slaughter (because it's all our fault and we deserve it).

Come back Bill Clinton your Party and nation needs you. God I miss him.

[jim hitchcock]

Monster Williams. Mohammed Atta. OJ. Robert Blake.

Uh huh.

Jim Rockford, where oh where do you come up with this nonsense. Hate to say it, man, but if truly believe your bullshit, you are brainwashed beyond redemption.