Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post

May 5, 2009

Eugene Robinson
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street
Washington, D.C. 20071

RE: De morituis nil nisi…malum? – A different take on your Thanatoptic view of the shrouding of the Boston Globe.

Mr. Robinson,

#1 – Arthur Sulzberger, hereinafter referred to as “Little Dickhead” or as President for Life of the Lucky Sperm Club, is the best argument for an estate tax starting at 105%. The Kennedys are the best example of why it should be retroactive.

#2 – The purchase of the Boston Globe for one billion one hundred million dollars [that’s $1,100,000,000] by the New York Times was an act of lunacy. Until solipsism becomes a capital offense the twerp walks. Some real estate, aging printing presses, and some mailing lists for $1,100,000,000? Somewhere the ghosts of Graham and Dodd are laughing their 10Ks off. [As an aside, and in keeping with President Bambi’s call for shared sacrifice, don’t you think the sellers should “volunteer” to give back their ill gotten gains?]

#3 – You say “it’s almost impossible to think of Boston without the Globe”. Actually it isn’t. The town survived when the Boston Strangler got pinched. It managed to turn a rout – Bunker Hill – into a win. To make it even better they sat out the rest of the Revolutionary War. They have gotten away with that for more than 2 centuries. Boston thinks that it is a tuxedo and the rest of the world is made up of brown shoes.

You say it thinks of itself “as a modern day Athens”. May I suggest you add the codicil “at the end of the Peloponnesian War” to it to make it correct? Incidentally, it was Sparta, a decidedly Red State, that did most of the heavy lifting against the forefathers of today’s Iranians.

#4 – Only people infused with “non-malodorous fecal matter”, and if you’re not sure what that means you have it so send a SASE, believe that gravity can be defied if enough good people really, really want it. Alas, the Boston Globe produces a product that not enough people want to buy.

I marveled at Polaroid. My father drove a Hudson. I liked to read the New York Herald Tribune. I have some vinyl records. Has anybody heard from Bell & Howell lately? I’ve flown the Concorde. Cotton was King once, wasn’t it? Do you know where I can cash in my Green Stamps? When was the last time you used a Dictaphone? I dropped a can of New Coke on my last pair of Corfam shoes and it hurt the can. Do you think double knit leisure suits will ever come back? Back when Bobby Kennedy was counsel to Joe McCarthy it was fashionable not to testify before Congress. Did the accountants for the Times/Globe purchase all study the New Math? Why is a Republican deficit bad while a Democratic deficit is good? I never did figure out how Senator Jay Forbes Kerry got the city of Boston to move the fire hydrant in front of his house without leaving a paper trail but I know that you didn’t cover the story.

Can you see a pattern developing?

#5 – You say “smart, prudent management can buy precious time to figure this all out”. MacArthur said that all lost battles have the same explanation: “Too late, too late.”

Since Boston will be diminished by the loss of the Globe why not ask the Guild
to work for free? I’m sure the power company will stop charging for electricity once they understand the impact of a Globeless Boston.

Does it have a big parking lot? Think car washes. How about 50/50s? Cake sales? I raised a lot of money when I was a Cubmaster by selling first aid kits. How about setting up some tables at Fenway?

I know without investigating that the Globe holds Darwin in the highest regard. They should revel in the fact that move, adapt, or die is still in force.

#6 – There is some good news. The curse of the Bambino, a 20th Century reprise of the ills that befell the House of Atreus, is forever banned in Boston. Forget about the World Series. Take some consolation that you really stuck it to the nit-wits from New York.



PS – Talk about throwing an anchor to a drowning man! The New York Times just raised its daily newsstand price to $2. Why not raise yours to $3? Your net is sure to increase. Plus, you will decrease your carbon footprint.