Soccer Dad

Columnist heal thy own profession

When I saw this headline:
Back at Junk Value, Recyclables Are Piling Up

I thought it was referring to newspapers - which are recyclable and whose stocks are increasingly graded as junk. But actually, it's about how the demand for recyclable material is down, making it inefficient and expensive to recycle.

However there is more news on the newspaper front and not just that the Tribune Company has filed for bankruptcy protection. The New York Times is now borrowing against its shiny new building. While Kathryn Jean Lopez sees some karmic payback, I found a comment in Thomas Friedman's Sunday column interesting:

What I've been thinking about actually is this: What book will our kids write about us? "The Greediest Generation?" "The Complacent Generation?" Or maybe: "The Subprime Generation: How My Parents Bailed Themselves Out for Their Excesses by Charging It All on My Visa Card."

I love how Friedman castigates the financial industry and the auto industry for reckless financial dealings. How about his own industry? And of course, he's part of the problem. As more and more people realize that newspapers are partisan and can't be trusted for unbiased news, they turn to newspapers less and less. While Friedman is an opinion columnist, he shows no interest in analyzing the world but in using his prime editorial real estate to promote the Democratic agenda.

Maybe he should hold up a mirror before writing his next column.