…to settle in for an all-day, most-of-the-night cable viewing marathon. The AP went and spoiled it all by calling it for Obama this morning. Now I don’t know what to do with my day. Perhaps I’ll go hang out at the library and re-read the old bound volumes of The Saturday Evening Post.

One of Frank Zappa’s kids will edit Disney comics.

There was once a time when the Seattle Times wouldn’t run ads such as the following, at least not in a quarter-page size in the middle of the A Section. (OK, sure, they ran those scary “bed wetting” therapy ads back in the day, and those all-text ads for “The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches.” But not this.)

…for print newspapers, the NYT crossword, is now free online.

Political blogger Eric Alterman’s New Yorker essay on the apparently inevitable death spiral of the newspaper biz is a worthy encapsulation of the industry’s current conventional wisdom—that circulation and ad revenues are down for good, that they’ll just keep going downward, that no amount of “rightsizing” or firing people will bring papers back to stable profits, that ad revenues from papers’ Web sites can’t make up for collapsing print revenues.

In short, this CW goes, daily papers are doomed.

And with them goes not just the romantic image of the ink-stained wretch and Citizen Kane but the very flow of information a democratic society needs.

If reiterating this CW were all Alterman did in his piece, I wouldn’t bother discussing it here. But he also discusses some of this premise’s limitations.

One of the biggest such limitations has to do with the idea that the urban/suburban daily, as we’ve known it in our lifetimes, is the one (1) and only business model that could ever support serious, professional reporting.

Alterman knows this is a crock. He’s simply too polite to say so in so few words.

A Times of London essay a few years ago noted they typical newspaper’s particular package of information, entertainment, and infotainment wasn’t some eternal set-in-stone formula, but grew over decades of industry practice. Why should there be only one paper in most towns? Why should everyone have to get a sports section? Why do those sports sections cover a few big spectator sports in minutae, but ignore most participant sports?

I happen to believe journalism isn’t dying. It’s evolving. Into what, I don’t know. I spent much of the previous year with a group trying to figure that out. Our little group didn’t come up with a fully formed answer.

But I’m convinced such an answer is out there.

As this election year unfolds, so will online journalism; from repurposed print articles and volunteer blogs toward sites that are written for online reading from the ground up.

The business model for these sites will lag about a year behind the development of the sites themselves. And it has to be this way; otherwise, the more idiotic financial speculators will pour in and ruin it all.

• A sad USA Today piece about a Denver-area subdivision increasingly abandoned to foreclosures.
• A black college professor’s fascinating tale of why he founded a university-funded “museum of racist memorabilia.”
• Sara Robinson’s similarly-themed essay in which she bemoans stereotyping and us-vs.-them dehumanization in America, then blames all of it on people who are different from her. No, she doesn’t get the irony.
• A much more optimistic Rolling Stone profile of Sen. Obama’s campaign organization, showing the practical value of including everybody into the “us” group.
• Naomi Klein’s weighty tome Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.Klein painstakingly traces the entirety of the global tragedy that is right-wing power-grabbing (coups, dictatorships, Iraq, even the response to Hurricane Katrina) back to Milton Friedman. You see, before Friedman ran the Federal Reserve Board (where he was credited/blamed for holding puppet strings on the entire U.S. economy), he ran the U. of Chicago’s school of economics, where “Chicago School” pundits and scholars produced long and ponderous statements offering complex reasoned arguments for letting big business do any damned thing it wanted to.

  Klein’s own reasoning is lucid, and her documentation is voluminous. But it’s incomplete.

  Economic theory is only one head of the Hydra-like monster that comprises power and privilege in this world. A more worthwhile look at the evils done in the name of America over the decades would look at the topic with more breadth, even if it meant less depth.

…claims you, the avid Internet consumer and blog reader, just might be a “virtual crackhead.”

I’m a little skeptical of these scares. Remember how horror comic books were supposed to turn cleancut suburban boys into juvenile delinquents? When the mere act of viewing an operating TV screen was supposed to turn everybody into brainless zombies? (Oh wait, that accusation’s still being made.)

So go ahead and keep browsin’. Learn a few things. Have some laughs. Just make sure to fulfill those pesky work and home duties.

Ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s sudden downfall has engendered infinite rants, jokes, comedy sketches, editorial cartoons, and, oh yeah, blog posts.

A few of the commentators actually talked about the Spitzer case. Some of them, particularly the Wall St. Journal editorial page, postively gloated in the comeuppance of a former prosecutor, who’d risen to fame by aggressively targeting sleazy tactics among stock traders.

Some wingnut bloggers smirked that a Democrat had been “got” in a sting after several Republican sex scandals. (Historically, male politicians of all parties, races, and nationalities have loved them hookers, through pretty much all of recorded history.)

Some progressive bloggers questioned why Spitzer, a fighting Democrat on the rise, was targeted by the highly politicized Bush “Justice” Department.

Some of the Spitzer commentators veer far from the original, simple scandal, digressing into what the writers/artists/comedians would really rather talk about. Among these digressions: wives who stand by their men too much; men with reputations on the line who do compulsive, dumb things.

I also want to digress to a side issue.

With every famous sex-work client who gets caught and pleas for public understanding, an opportunity is lost.

I want one of these guys to stand up forthrightly and announce:

“I’ve been a John. I AM a John. I admit it. No, I proclaim it.I liked it. I may do it again, maybe soon, maybe even today.

These women are fabulous. They deserve our utmost respect and admiration.

If my own darling daughter or beloved son chose this as a temporary or even a permanent career, I’d offer my sincerest support. And so would my dear wife. And so would my dear wife’s gardener/lover, and her driver/lover.

And so should all of you.

That’s why, as one of this state’s top public figures, I introduce a bill today to legalize, tax, and regulate this vital sector of our economy.

Furthermore, this bill will provide full health benefits for these workers, plus a great retirement plan.

And finally, I’m authorizing the state tourism board to launch a new campaign aimed at the clean, upscale sex tourist—especially if he’s paying in stable Euros. ‘Come for the brothels; stay for the restaurants.'”

I’m not in a position to create such legislation, only to advocate it.

And I might never get the opportunity to create such legislation.

Because I may never get elected to public office.

Because I’m admitting to have been a customer of escort services.

I’ve also had close friends who worked for escort services; some as service providers, some as office administrators.

I’d like them to have some more respect from our governments and our society, for the fine work they do and for the fine people they are.

And I’d like the profession’s private customers to become its public supporters.

…another 7 daze since I last posted. Excuses: Got none. (Except that a startup entrepreneurial venture I’d been involved with this past year seems to have gone “on hold.”)

In the nooze recently:

• That novelty Hillary Clinton nutcracker I told you about late last year? Somebody used one as the focus of a bomb scare at the Olympia state capitol. Unfunny.
• As you may have heard, the Clinton campaign’s “3 a.m.” TV commercial was assembled from purchased stock footage. The little girl in the footage is now grown up, she lives here in WashState, and, yep, she’s an Obama supporter.
• That most recent, well-funded save-the-Sonics drive heads toward a not-really-that-drastic deadline. While the plan for minimal KeyArena improvements (mostly a food court and new concourses; not that many new seats) would rely on private funding for half its cost, the would-be new owners want the state to chip in $75 million. It’d take some pushing n’ cajoling to get that request thru the Legislature’s current regular session, scheduled to wrap up darn soon. Some Legislative leaders, such as House Speaker Frank Chopp, have built their public images around the idea that they don’t cave in to such big-money demands, at least not right away. But Gov. Gregoire can still call a one-day special session to pass the funding (in my opinion, a reasonable investment for a reasonable reward). The hard part’s still persuading Clay Bennett to sell and persuading league boss David Stern to stop being Bennett’s toady.
• It’s a big night for all lovers of classic Tacoma power pop, as the Ventures get into the R n’ R Hall o’ Fame.
• The Sunday Times/P-I cut its total opinion pages (which, by contract, are alloted 50/50 to each paper) from six pages to four. When the joint Sunday edition launched, 24 and a half years ago, each paper got six pages to express its “editorial voice.”
• Boeing boosters blame McCain for that big Air Force tanker contract going to Airbus. So much for a GOP revival in this state this year.

…is peripherally involved in the latest fabricated memoir scandal.

The locally based, globally minded music mag No Depression is calling it quits, effective with the May-June issue.

Cause of death: A dying music industry, whose endemic issues are finally reaching indie labels, who can’t afford to buy as many magazine ads as they used to.

For 13 years, ND has been the greatest chronicler of “alternative country,” “Americana,” and assorted other essential US/Canadian homegrown musics.

The big irony here: An institution dedicated to honoring longstanding or lost art forms, and to celebrating contemporary artists who keep those forms alive, is itself becoming history.

…couple-O-daze for yr. o’b’d’n’t web-scribe. I did a marathon temp gig in exotic Renton. (It’s now ended.) I was there, methodically shoving pieces of paper through a machine, when my Evening Magazine segment aired. (They’d promised they’d tell me when it would run; damn.) You may be able to see it at this link.

Other things have happened as well.

• Wednesday started locally with P-I political writer Joel Connelly grousing that John McCain’s been getting a free ride from the mainstream media. The day ended with the NY Times regurgitating rumors that McCain allegedly had an affair, eight years ago, with a woman far younger than he, who worked as a lobbyist for telecom firms and broadcasters—including for Bud Paxson, of the “family friendly” Pax (now Ion) network. (Pax, you may recall, in 2004 was the chief TV conduit for the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” the guys who were paid big bucks to tell lies about John Kerry’s Vietnam service.)Personally, I don’t care about his past affairs, just as I didn’t care about those of Bill Clinton (whose impeachment McCain supported). But I do care about the other half of the NYT allegations, that he’d bestowed legislative favors upon Paxson and other friends-of-friends whilst promoting himself as Mr. Let’s-Clean-Up-Government.
• In good, potentially great news, the Seattle Landmark Preservation Board decided to pursue saving Ballard’s beloved Manning’s/Denny’s building! And somebody’s already proposed a scheme to save the building, as a restaurant, while building complementary-looking housing on its parking lot.
• Discover U, the longstanding for-profit offerer of reasonably priced self-help classes and group events, has suddenly shut its doors. Now, where will Seattleites learn how to cleanse their colons, find love at any age, or start an eBay business?
• HD DVD, RIP.

…to mass culture? You know, those shows everybody saw, those records everybody heard, those books everybody claimed to have read? Gone the way of boutique-size bookstores, three-channel TV, and single-screen cinemas.

One Shai Sachs has written several pieces on MyDD.com pondering what a progressive cable-TV channel might look like, and how it might be funded.

It’s an intriguing idea, pregnant with possibilities.

Let’s imagine one now.

Not just a little volunteer show on an access channel, but a whole 24/7 venture with a professional staff and everything.

There’s no shortage of potential material to fill such a channel. There are plenty of writers, pundits, and documentary filmmakers available to be tapped. There are plenty of national and international stories that could provide compelling viewing/listening, but are mostly or wholly ignored in today’s mainstream media.

ProgTV could also have arts/culture/entertainment segments, emphasizing “our” priorities in those realms (indie films, non-double-platinum musicians, live theater, literature, etc.)

There could be oral-history interviews, viewer-submitted video shorts (a la Current TV), unedited speeches (a la C-SPAN), funny fake news (a la Jon Stewart), funny real news (a la Keith Olbermann), historical docs, educational shows for all age groups, etc. etc. etc.

Ms. Sachs warns, rightly in my opinion, that any ProgTV shouldn’t try to replicate PBS, or adhere to outmoded institutional “objective journalism.” That, she says, is what got the “liberal” media so suckered into becoming BushCo’s mouthpieces in 2002-03.

I may have more ideas about this later on.

The only real liberal on local commercial talk radio, David Goldstein, has been axed from his weekend-night shift on KIRO-AM. The station, which recently came under new/old management, has decided to fill more of its lower-rated hours with repeats and syndicated fare.