During a pleasant lunch yesterday—at Morton's with His High Foodiness, Adam Platt, and at Mr. Platt's table—a colleague remarked, "I can't read your blog anymore. It's too depressing."

What I found interesting was that my immediate reaction wasn't my usual, extreme, defensive indignation to the effect of, "The reason you can't read it is because you are low and menial while I am struggling with matters of great importance." No. Instead, my reaction was, "You can't read it anymore? Try writing it. One more 'Death of Journalism and Everyone Goes Homeless and Hungry' piece and I may slit something. And it won't be Morton's Warm Steak Salad."

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The alternative title for this post was "Let's All Calm Down". Because I've about had it up to here with gloom and doomsaying.

But I've found that when high anxiety and panic are in the air, telling someone to "calm down" amounts to pretty much the same as screaming "fire!" in a crowded theater. Those who aren't royally annoyed that you're insinuating they look panicked seize on "calm down" as proof that things really are screwed and it's time to start tearing up the decking for anything that'll float.

The point of not "moving on" like someone--usually an offending party hoping to get past the unpleasantness of being identified as a fraud, scoundrel, or idiot--always says in the wake of a massive disaster, such as our current financial meltdown, is that this time it really might be a good idea to figure out conclusively--for the history books--how this disaster happened and who was responsible so we can build in (or actually enforce) the laws to prevent it from happening again.

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Let me see. I'm doing a little math here. Today, Team Norm Coleman wanted to do a re-look at sixteen ballots the canvassing board ruled on last week and, um, also claimed that thirty-four ballots for which challenges were withdrawn somehow ended up in Al Franken's totals. That's uh . . . carry the one . . . 50 votes! And whoa golly . . . by sheer coincidence, Franken currently leads by 46 or 47. Isn't that odd?

To this point, most Minnesotans, and avid recount watchers around the country, have been entirely patient with the process. Mainly because it has been so thoroughly anti-Floridian, which is to say transparent and free of any discernible political big-footing. Both sides have spun their spins, challenged the unchallengeable, and countered the other's silly legal gambits. But as long as that has been peripheral noise to a process that counted every vote, the public has put up with it. Good for us.

But we are now fast approaching the moment when all the votes--challenged, absentee, what have you--will have been counted as best and as transparently as humanly possible. Once that point is reached and the canvassing board can certify a winner, I know my patience will have expired, and I don't think I'm alone.

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It can't be fun being Norm Coleman these days. If the endless recount weren't enough, with an increasing likelihood that he'll lose twice in ten years to a "gimmick candidate" (first Jesse Ventura and now Al Franken), this business(es) with good buddy Nasser Kazeminy is getting murkier and more expensive by the minute, and that's not good for guy described as "the fourth-poorest U.S. Senator."

Last week, Tom Lyden of Fox 9 put together a cost overrun of roughly $80,000 on a very handsome renovation of Coleman's St. Paul house with the timing of the $75,000 Coleman's wife, Laurie, got via an associate of Kazeminy and her insurance business. Lyden conceded he had no smoking gun. But the timing and the similarity of the numbers is curious. It was one of those, "I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'" moments.

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Judging by the question I'm being asked most, the number of hours until the Star Tribune declares bankruptcy is of secondary interest to media-watchers.

What people really want to know is whether C. J. will remain as the gossip columnist. One rumor has her already being given assurances that she will. If this proves true while the "newspaper" (quote marks for hyperbole) presents Katherine Kersten and Nick Coleman with the "cub reporter option"--a low-level job so demeaning and saturated with purposeful humiliation they take the buyout and go--the Strib may finally achieve the status the Power Line boys incessantly say it has long been, i.e. "a national laughingstock."

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Assuming the story is correct and the Strib's current managers (as opposed to those who will be running the place after its inevitable bankruptcy, possibly before Valentine's Day, I'm guessing) see no further value in traditional metro columnists (Nick being the only one who qualifies as "traditional"), the Star Tribune is taking another giant step toward devolution. (Cue a couple Devo tunes . . . ).

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I have often said there wasn't a riper moment for old-fashion, scandal-loving journalism--at least around these parts--than during Minnesota's 1990 gubernatorial race. You know . . . Jon Grunseth, jut-jawed, family-values Republican skinny-dipping, teenage girls. I mean, I ask you: How could it get any better than that?

My dear friend, Sarah Janecek, insists the whole skinny-dipping story was grossly distorted; Grunseth was as innocent as Snow White and as fully clothed as a Mormon preacher. But, kind of like Steve Bartman ruining the Cubs's best shot at the World Series, reality comes in a distant second if the perception is as good as the Grunseth story.

Memories of Grunseth danced through my mind as the latest epic scandal erupted in Chicago yesterday, complete with Gov. Rod Blagojevich trying to get the Chicago Tribune's strip-and-flip owner, Sam "The Grave Dancer" Zell, to fire the Op-Ed staff that accused him of being the idiot crook he clearly is. All this came to light only a day after Zell threw up his hands--barely a year after taking ownership--and declared bankruptcy (a bankruptcy in which he will be a primary creditor no less since he used other peoples' money to buy the Tribune company).

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The brain wizards at AM1500 are zipped up tight on the whys of the abrupt firing of Tommy Mischke last week. "I can't say anything," was program director Steve Konrad's mantra. (If you're in the mood, these legalized "no comment" bits offer the opportunity for sophomoric amusement. For example, Q: "Mr. Konrad, at least tell us it isn't true that you were seen in a ridiculously small French swim suit poisoning small animals on a grade school playground?" . . . A: "I can't say anything." . . . See?)

But knowing a tiny bit about how radio works in these economically perilous times, I think we can review several options fairly quickly.

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Let me recap, just so we're all clear.

On Monday, WCCO radio and its two sister stations show fourteen employees the door.

Monday was also the day anyone who wanted a buyout from KARE, formerly the Twin Cities' money-printing colossus, had to have raised their hand or wait for layoffs.

On Tuesday, the Star Tribune tells its employees they need to "save" their investment wizards $20 million, most likely by working for less and paying more for health insurance.

On Wednesday, the Star Tribune refines its message and announces it'll be laying off another two dozen newsroom employees.

On Thursday, KSTP-TV--the house of "breaking news"--leaks word that it is whacking eighteen out of its news department.

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I love a good gross understatement. Like this one: It's a really, really bad time for unions in America.

Put aside the UAW preparing to give back huge chunks of pay and benefits it has squeezed out of the car makers throughout the last century. Ignore for a minute the little effect the unions had on the layoffs at WLTE, JACK, and WCCO-AM on Monday. And then watch what happens as the unions at the Star Tribune try to "negotiate" with Avista Capital Partners's minders for another round of multi-million-dollar concessions.

The rumor mill within the Strib is, of course, on fire in the aftermath of publisher Chris Harte's latest memo--the one jangling the threat of imminent bankruptcy as a means to the end. The end, of course, being salvaging more than a nickel on the dollar of "the partners'" investment, not retaining a large, functioning news operation in Minnesota.

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It has been a long time since I convinced anyone I was a music hipster. OK, it never happened. But I like music enough that I, like so many others I hear complaining, find music formatted radio boring beyond belief. Yes, I associate long-ago misty good times with a couple Bachman Turner Overdrive hits, and at some point I might have thought the Wilson sisters' teased hair was pretty hot. But good lord, if your senses of curiosity and adventure aren't completely numb, you moved on . . . about three decades ago.

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