Plop Server

I thrill to the old and the new. Really, I celebrate both. While I spend way too much time scanning on-line newspapers, I am still a big fan of the newsprint variety. I still feel like a kid at Christmas when I open my hotel room door and find a local paper - or a USA Today - lying there at the threshold.

However, the electronic newspaper has a marked advantage over the Gutenberg version in at least one big category, and that is delivery into the home. That picture above is of this morning's Sunday paper, lying on the sidewalk in about an inch and half of water. Care was taken to bag the paper, but not so much to tie the bag, so water found the pulp. Later this morning, various sections of the paper could be found drying out above furnace vents.

Oh, we have complained, and inquired of the circulation department, "Is it asking too much to have the paper delivery guy hit the porch?" I remember in my media circulation days, the district route manager, Bernie Sigwart, would pass on a note that, for example, "Mr. Jones at 63 Altamont wants his paper porched". And we took those orders seriously. We'd hit the porch.

Not our paper dude. There is a regular pattern now where we complain, he bullseyes the porch for about a week, then it's back to the early morning scavenger hunt. I think it gets down to finding it hard to get good help these days and, by extension, the ignoble decline and fall of America as a first rate international contender in the world market for goods and services.