Life in cubicle nation

A while ago, the local Post-Star dropped Molly Ivins as a columnist. Managing Editor Ken Tingley swore up and down that that they didn't drop her because she was a harsh Bush critic. Which might be plausible since they have two local columnists who regularly criticize the president. Rather, he claimed, it was because she was a one-trick pony. Bashing Bush is all she does.

This was rich coming from Tingley, who has probably written more patronizing opinion columns in the last year on teen drinking/binge drinking/drunk driving (which he disingenuously passes off as three of the same thing) than on every other topic combined. He's the last person to call anyone a one-trick pony.

Personally, I was never a huge fan of Ivins because I always found her a bit shrill. Sort of like Michael Moore but with better hair. The substance of her comments is often detracted from by her sarcasm; it's just not a style that appeals to me.

But the paper kept far right columnist Cal Thomas, who is just as predictable and tiresome as Ivins.

What was even more appalling about this decision was that the paper replaced Ivins with some guy named Jim Shea.

Ivins' most recent column (not in The Post-Star obviously) was about the decline of newspapers. And the 'one-trick pony' didn't mention Bush at all. Her previous one was about electoral reform. Shea's last column was about life in a cubicle.

Fluff has its place in newspapers. I read the sports sections. I read the comics. I love the Jumble. But that's where fluff belongs, not in the front section. Fluff should compliment serious issues, not replace them altogether. The paper runs enough fluff on the front page, such as dogs jumping off a bridge in Scotland or some (non-local) college student winning some poker tournament. To scrap a columnist who writes on political corruption and the Iraq aggression and replace her with someone who writes about cubicle nation is sad. And it's emblematic of The Post-Star's dumbing down in the last several years. If the paper was dead set against Ivins, couldn't they have found a worthy successor?

Maybe this exemplifies the decline of newspaper Ivins was talking about.