The Rake Magazine

They not only wrote the story, they actually ran an AP photo of the men's room, just in case you ladies don't know what one looks like. (This cutline corrected from original.)

We've been having a debate around my house for several months now...since about the time Par (Mr. Ethics) Ridder took over at the Strib...about whether or not we should cancel our subscription to The Newspaper of the Very Local Twin Cities.

I've been saying yes, mostly because, bridge coverage aside, the paper is very weak tea indeed. Every day it seems less like the residual pride of the journalists left there is able to bubble through the crust of the utterly venal management to come through with a story that I care about.

The last straw was Saturday, though. The top of the front page was covered with this story. In case you failed to get your undies in a bunch about anonymous gay sex at the airport, the problem is going to be solved. Yup, the most important story in the Twin Cities on Saturday was that the airport will be lowering the dividers of the mens' room stalls at the airport. Too late for Larry Craig, of course, but the fears of Twin Citians who are concerned that sex (yes, sex!) happens between consenting adults have now been allayed.

I'll sleep better knowing that stuff I couldn't possibly care less about is being assiduously covered by the Strib. I thought that was the job of Channel 5.

He didn't exactly fall on his sword, but you gotta like Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for resigning because his popularity had fallen to Bush-like levels.

The NY Times put it like this: "Mr. Abe, deeply unpopular, had already been written off by Japan's political establishment and news media, his political future measured in months."

And, according to the Times, a Japanese political science professor put it like this: "the way Abe resigned suggests he lacked the qualifications to be prime minister in the first place."

Why can't the United States have a leader with self knowledge like that?

Last month, seven U.S. soldiers wrote an op-ed piece for the NY Times which gave lie to the sunny sunshine glowing the past two days from General David Petraeus's ass.

Today, we read in the Times that two of those men have been killed in Iraq...in a truck accident.

Senseless.