Blog Love Omega Glee: Love Letters To The Editor (5 October 2012)

On the train down to work, Francine picks up a copy of The Cleveland Advertiser that someone had discarded and flips through it. Having long since given up on news reporting, the newspaper has gone the whole kazoo down the toilet and just become open source journalism, which enabled it to fire the unproductive parts of its staff such as the reporters who wrote the news and keep the productive members of the staff such as the reps who sell the advertising which is the paper's reason for existence in the first place. Presumable the next step is to jettison content entirely and just publish pages of pure profit, but so far the Advertiser hasn't kenned how to do that, so it settles for printing just about any bit of nonsense anyone sends its way.

Francine has to admit that this is an improvement over the old Advertiser.

The result is like reading an entire newspaper of letters to the editor, which, as any newspaper reader knows, are the best part of the paper anyway.

OK, except for the comic strips, but the Advertiser got rid of those long ago when they shrunk them so much no one could read them anyway.

Recognizing an opportunity, the cranks of Cleaveland have taken to the new Advertiser like horseflies on a cowturd. Francine particularly enjoys the contributions by Gertrude Grumblebunny such as this one:

"Dear Editor:

I think recent events have proved the danger of having a socialized military. I propose we switch our national defense to a market-based approach. Imagine this: If the private company we’ve contracted to wage war does an inferior job, then we can just choose not to renew its contract and hire another one in its place. This will provide an incentive for the military to improve their operations and will result in cost-savings for the taxpayer through the magic of the marketplace (which makes me tingle when I think about it--the same magic feeling I get at Disneyland). Instead of foreign adventures costing billions of dollars, we’ll just outsource combat and let the foreigners fight themselves, saving American lives. We’ll even provide a peace bonus (similar to stock options I imagine), which may lessen the number of wars we get into since there’s now a motivation not to blow stuff up (and I know that it’s fun to blow stuff up, but fireworks can provide the same thrill far more cost-effectively than cruise missiles).

Dammit! When is this country going to wake up to the viper coiled at its bosom: The socialized military?!

Semper fi,

Gertrude Grumblebunny, concerned citizen

P.S./ Why go halfway? Let's privitize the whole government! We could rent out the Capitol and just have Congress stay home and meet in online chatrooms. Does the president really need his own house? No job I ever had included free housing. Let him rent out his own apartment! Even with the housing market being what it is nowadays, we could probably get a good price if we sold The White House. Think about it, people!"

Francine thinks about it.

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel.