Passing of a Titan

Alas, the print business has been hard, lately. All of the great metropolitan dailies have been suffering with dropping readership. The New York Times has tracked more and more liberal to try and staunch it's loss of paying customers.

It seems as though that collection of tubes, the Internets, is claiming yet another victim. The Weekly World News:

Weekly World News, the tabloid that for 28 years has chronicled sightings of Elvis, extraterrestrial activity and the exploits of Bat Boy, is no more. Its publisher said Tuesday it would put out its last issue next month, maintaining only a Web presence.

The Constant Reader knows of my near squeamish fascination with the Weekly World News.

One of WWN's writers, Bob Greenberger, did not return a telephone call seeking comment, but he wrote on his blog that the paper's staff was alerted of the closure Friday.

"The reasons given make no sense," he wrote. "We're stunned and shell-shocked."

I don't know why Mr. Greenberger expected sense from a publication that gave us the story of Bigfoot's capture of a lumberjack that he kept as his love slave.

One thing's for sure: Americans' waits in supermarket checkouts will forever be changed.

Hmmm... Is the introduction of supermarket checkout-TV bear the responsibility for the loss of this American Institution? People are distracted away from the headlines to see Rachel Ray telling us how fun it is to cook Jerusalem artichoke?