Posted 4:03 PM by Gene

And how much news did our self-flattery preempt?

This is not a hypothetical question. Today I learned from scanning page 3 of our Daily Nooz that thanks to our incompetent EDDIE our city won't pay its vendors. Not a concern to most people but it does rub up to my job. I'm wondering how many states and cities are doing the same thing. That would seem more important than page 3, wouldn't it? But our StinkyInky's obit was largely written by an ad-blurbist (or as this says, "a former television" [SIC]) who died six years ago. The answer? Not really.*

There's a grating irony here -- several grating ironies. Please recall 43 years ago ST. FERDINAND OF WACHENHEIMER (more popularly known as ST. FRED of FRIENDLY) was beatified when he resigned from CBS News rather than see Congressional hearings on an EVIL, UNJUST WAR get preempted by I Love Lucy reruns. Today news hacks are preempting news for reruns of their own. Remember also St. Ferdinand's son Andy was the revered founding producer of that profound and serious news broadcast ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT -- from the successor of the firm that made I Love Lucy. You may understand why, coming as this does on the heels of THE PROFIT CENTER and THE SALON, I may be in a slightly disrespectful mood to UNCLE HHHHHWWWWWALT.

Or as The Paper of Re-CORD all but admitted, the reason we're flattering ourselves with full-throttle cliches is because "he even bore a resemblance to another trusted American fixture, another Walter — Walt Disney." NUF SAID.

*Strangely the Nooz did not run a front-page obit, perhaps the first instance of common sense in that rag in months.

(Updated 7/20/2009 at 5:52 p. m.; "former television" link fixed 4/16/2010 at 8:06 p. m.; SUMNER link fixed 7/18/2010 at 11:27 a. m.)