People are afraid to own their own homes. People are afraid their own government will catch them fixing their houses.

The newspaper industry when I came along in the mid-70s was rich and powerful and growing and hungry for material and open to new people. None of that is true in the newspaper industry today. Print in general is pretty rugged. The good thing is that you can gain a foothold on the Internet because everybody has access to it, even things like Twitter - I mean, you can get a reputation for being funny pretty quickly on Twitter, on a blog, that kind of thing.

I don't know what you can possibly do for less than $50 to have somebody come in your house.

Newspaper readership is declining like crazy. In fact, there's a good chance that nobody is reading my column.

Turbulence.” This is what pilots announce that you have encountered when your plane strikes an object in midair. You'll be flying along, and there will be an enormous, shuddering WHUMP, and clearly the plane has rammed into an airborne object at least the size of a water buffalo, and the pilot will say, “Folks, we're encountering a little turbulence.” Meanwhile they are up there in the cockpit trying desperately to clean water-buffalo organs off the windshield.

People are afraid to own their own homes. People are afraid their own government will catch them fixing their houses.

Of course God enjoys a good prank as much as the next infallible deity.