CSotD: Oh, we’re ALL in this pool!
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The Lockhorns are CSOTD today in part because I love stupid and in part because of timing.
"Stupid" not in the sense that the gag is stupid — the gag is brilliant — but because Leroy is stupid today on a level I would expect more from Willie in Willie and Ethel. The kind of stupid that comes with a minor beat between the punchline and the laugh. That "well, wait a minute …"
And not "timing" as in setup-punchline timing — which I also value — but in terms of delivering a genuinely silly joke at exactly the right moment. This was that moment.
When I switch on the computer between four and 4:45 in the morning, the first thing I do is run through my email to make sure nothing's on fire, and then check Facebook, in part for the same reason and in part because there are cartoonists I follow there, so it becomes my first comic check of the morning.
But I do read other things, and South African cartoonist Brandan Reynolds had posted this genuinely depressing NYTimes article, updating and summarizing the incredibly short-sighted, suicidal decision-making within the newspaper industry and how quickly the house of cards is collapsing.
The foolish moves are things I've talked about for 20 years, but I've always described them in terms of the Emperor's New Clothes. Now it appears that the little boy is beginning to speak up, and people are listening to him.
F'rinstance, when the New Orleans Times-Picayune announced that it was moving to 3-day-a-week publishing and laying off most of its staff, it offered the best and brightest a chance to re-apply for their jobs. Well, according to this article, being among the best and brightest includes having the ability to spot a losing proposition.
"The plan is built on accounting, not strategy, which is why some of the newspaper’s heavy hitters have declined offers from the newly reconfigured enterprise."
Let's pause for a metaphor check: Cartoonists often depict "rats leaving a sinking ship" as if the rats were leaving as the ship was halfway down in the water, meaning that they are people with no loyalty failing to pitch in during a crisis.
That's not the derivation: The term "rats leave a sinking ship" comes from a sailors' superstition that rats have the ability to sense a doomed vessel, so that, while it is still in port taking on cargo and sailors for its last, fatal voyage, the rats — quite sensibly, given their precognition — will get off and avoid the trip entirely.
Once you're out in mid-ocean taking on water, it's too late. Rats can swim, but not far, and there would be no point in leaving that ship at that point.
It would be like — oh, I don't know — joining a pool to win money by guessing when the currency will collapse.
So here's something else about timing:
"Two highly placed newspaper executives told me last week that while the industry had already experienced a number of strategic bankruptcies, more will most likely take place to deal with pension obligations."
Plus:
"… with underfunded pension plans, unserviceable debt and legacy manufacturing processes and union agreements, the newspaper industry looks a lot like, well, steel, autos and textiles."
Another thing I've been going on about since the '90s is the comparison between the idiot decisions in the newspaper industry and the rampant, destructive financial shenanigans that doomed the steel industry, which my family was in for three generations.
As for the auto industry, All Things Considered just aired a story about how South Bend is rebuilding its economy, half a century after Studebaker shut down.
I entered Notre Dame about four years after the shutdown, and what I saw was not the impact of the job losses, but the impact of the pension collapse. Women older than my grandparents were working in the campus snack bar, and some of them were vibrant and fun despite being 60 or 70 years old, and others could barely shuffle from the Coke dispenser to the grill pick-up to the cash register, but there wasn't one of them working because she just couldn't get enough of serving burgers to college boys.
The wiping out of Studebaker pensions was a major factor in spurring the feds to find a way to guarantee pensions, so that, if the newspaper companies all go belly-up tomorrow, I'll still get my $348 a month starting in 2015, whether it actually comes from Dow Jones or from some government pension fund, and I won't care if the Tea Party is pissed about how I'm buying yachts and eating lobster on their dime.
I'll be luxuriating in the winnings from the bet I made when I went into this business.
Hey, maybe Leroy and I can go party together.
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