Well, You See, There Used to Be This Thing Called a Newspaper, and People Used to Get It Every Day

I went into the city tonight, bought the Times. I must admit this doesn't happen every day. And there on the front page were two photographs of K2 and a pretty good story about the deaths on the mountain, then front-page pieces about Obama's big donors and the decline of soul food in Harlem, and exposes of Iraq's government surplus from oil sales and of a do-gooder doctor who is accused of sex crimes. The lead on the do-gooder doctor went on way too long. But wow, what a newspaper. I know it's going the way of the typewriter and the buggy, and that journalism is becoming better– more diverse, more detailed, more voluminous, less elitist. But also as fragmented as the shards of light in the kabbalist's godhead. And I venture the Times in electronic form will still be Baedeker for the Establishment, but I know we're going to lose this sort of routine depth. Uh oh, I'm blathering. Better get to sleep now.