I’ve said it here before:  Don’t blame technology for the demise of newspapers, blame newspaper companies. As Daniel Gross reminds us to.

Note especially this graf about my current hometown paper (or what’s left of it):

In 2007, legendary real estate investor Sam Zell decided that a talent for good timing in flipping office buildings made him an expert on the ailing newspaper industry. In December 2007, he closed on the $8.2 billion purchase of the Tribune Co., which owned the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Cubs. Zell put down just 4 percent of the purchase price—$315 million—and borrowed much of the rest, leaving the company with a $13 billion debt burden. This deal was the purest expression of the “dumb money” mentality. The only hope Zell had of making a dent in the debt load and keeping current on the $800-million-plus annual interest tab was to sell off trophy properties like the Cubs, office buildings, and big-city newspapers—assets that themselves don’t throw off lots of income but whose purchase requires tons of cheap credit. Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy Dec. 8, 2008.

Uh huh. And this was after a decade of mismanagement by the Tribune people, and Times Mirror before them.

I’m not the only one upset about the end of Battlestar Galactica. Turns out Barack Obama is too.

Just a reminder that today is Blank Screen day.  Won’t you join me in pledging to participate?

As part of the global effort to conserve the Internet, which researchers at MIT have shown to be reaching capacity, people all over the world have agreed to switch off for one hour today. I will be observing Internet silence from 2 to 3 PM. You or your organization can participate at any time during normal business hours.

Just one reason why this is important:  Americans comprise less than 5% of the world’s population, yet use more than 25% of the world’s internet capacity. People in the developing nations will never be able to get online while some others are sucking up all available bandwidth  playing online poker and checking out amateur sex sites. Think about it:  your internet silence could help a shoeless child in a remote village get through to Zappos.com.

Please consider joining me and everyone else concerned about shrinking online accessibility today in this crusade.

In Tombstone there’s a new Wyatt Earp in town. Unfortunately, there’s still an old Wyatt Earp too. Now there’s a showdown brewing, with the sheriff saying the town ain’t big enough for the both of them.

I’ve been talking here about my friends losing their newspaper jobs, and all of us losing newspapers. It now occurs to me that I should also note the theatres we’re losing and, more importantly, the theatre people:  the people who really are the theatre (not, to paraphrase Mike Daisey, the buildings in which they work). Because we just lost one of the best. Having been laid off by his theatre, he’s now leaving “the theatre.” When we had him here in L.A., the impact was immeasurable. This isn’t just Portland Center Stage’s loss, this is a loss for everyone who cares about new plays.

“I’m not a journalist,” says the weepy Fox News host Glenn Beck in this video. “I’m just a guy that loves his country.”

I agree he’s not a journalist. No self-respecting journalist would cry these cued-up crocodile tears.

In this clip, you’ll see Tina Brown call Beck someone who is “in the mode of the great charlatan evangelists.” I think that’s about right. Many of those folks were taken as prophets of God — just as many of these entertainers are misunderstood as journalists.

Before the last newspaper folds, will any of them be able to make a profitable transition to the web? Because as bad as print reporting has been the past decade, with an overbearing curiosity about Britneys and Lindsays and little interest in corporate and government malfeasance and illegal wars, I shudder to consider how much worse we will be relying on the sort of boosterish hucksterism seen below.

Please watch.

In honor of the mistreated guy at A.I.G., today’s music video is “March of Greed” by Pere Ubu, animated by the Brothers Quay.

(And why does the band Pere Ubu sing about “Pere Ubu”? Because the band is named after the character, and this video is taken from “Bring Me The Head Of Ubu Roi,” an adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s “Ubu Roi.” Which had better come to L.A., or I warn you, someone will pay the price.)

By the way, if you like the song — and who wouldn’t? — you can download it free here.

The other day I posted an email that’s been making the rounds that endorses giving all the Federal bailout money to, well, us (rather than banks, insurance companies, real-estate conglomerates, failed car companies, and that asshole from A.I.G. who thinks he’s being treated shabbily).  Someone has  now taken a stab at the math and his results are in:  Your personal bailout would amount to all of about $5100. Which makes sense when you think about it this way:  $18 billion to the folks who during escalating foreign-oil dependency came up with the Hummer, and just enough for each of us to buy a right quarter section of one of their vehicles.

Brian Eno and David Byrne on their multi-decade collaboration, and why, for Eno, Frank Zappa provides an example of precisely what not to do in music.