(IN CASE YOU MISSED IT)

An irreverent and not always accurate view of the world

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CECIL’S REVENGE, A STUPID SYSTEM AND A TINY … 

So by now we’ve all been repulsed by the story out of Africa wherein this dentist from Minneapolis kills one of the world’s most beloved felines, Cecil the gentle giant of a lion that lived on a preserve in Zimbabwe.

First, Dr. Walter J. Palmer, the dentist in question, along with his hired guides, lured the old cat off its protected preserve. Next they shot the poor beast with a crossbow and then had to track the blood trail for 40 minutes after which they finished off Cecil the old fashion way with a bullet. Then, for who knows why, they whacked off old Cecil’s head and skinned him but then left the whole bloody mess just laying in the bush.

We get it. Cecil was cool and the dentist … he pretty much sucks. But it turns out that the not-so-good doctor paid out somewhere around $50,000 for the privilege of offing the lion. No kidding, $50K. What this says is that this dentist has way too much money and a really tiny d … lets just say his feet are small, and he drives a giant pickup truck. It also says that the people who went to this clown for their dental healthcare were apparently being charged way too much.

What kind of system turns dentists into millionaires while half the world still dies prematurely because they can’t chew their food?

Since the story broke, the dentist has been forced to shutter his lucrative practice, likely forever, and disappear underground do to multiple threats of violence against his person. Let’s just think of it as Cecil’s revenge.

And by the way, whacking a stupid dentist makes no more sense than slaughtering an old lion for $50K. They’re both awfully stupid ideas.

OUR NEW JOBS 

A new study from the American Society of News Editors found that newsroom staffs across the country have decreased by 10 percent in the last year. Data also shows there has been a nearly 40 percent drop in newsroom personnel over the last ten years.

All this pessimism about our industry got us thinking. Then we got scared. So we held at a meeting at the office, decided no one needs journalism anymore and decided to go our separate ways.

What will we do now? The most likely answer is that we all buy a farm together and raise sheep and ducks for whom English is a second language. Our work there, on that farm on the edge of town, is our only recourse as the journapocalpyse descends on our office.

A mythical multiheaded beast made of the heads of the presidents of VICE, Gawker and BuzzFeed are yelling at us, “Go digital!” “This news needs to be sexier!” and “More lists, muahaha, more pithy, nostalgic lists!” as they ride on a chariot of trashed AP stylebooks and old Quark installation CDs.

Perhaps the most depressing point is that mainstream media — yes, the same media that is actually suffering these cutbacks, unlike us who are adding staff — are conflating a decline in newsroom staff with a decline in journalism. It exists, folks, as you likely know. Journalism is an idea and an institution; “journalists” are being cut because somewhere along the way we started chasing retweets and galleries of cats and weird parties instead of the long, engaging story that is critical to building a functioning community. Good thing we don’t do that here. Right?