There is a story in today’s Guardian about US newspapers competing to attract the ever-popular 18 to 34 year old “market”. Apparently they are crashing into one another and banging heads in a foolish way in Chicago, as each tries to be dumber than the other. The whole subject gives one a feeling of despair. It is so taken for granted that the point of the enterprise is for newspapers to insinuate their way into everyone’s wallets. It is made so drearily obvious that the actual dissemination or clarification of news and knowledge and understanding is just a kind of pretext for or prettification of the real work of delivering customers to advertisers. Is it any wonder that alien abductions and crop circles and energy-healing go down a treat while science and reason are looked on as killjoys and dull plodding wonder-challenged literalists.