This news, about industry-wide circulation slides in newspaper circulation, comes as no surprise to anyone who’s worked in the business lately. You can debate the “why” for days and days, although it’s rather neatly summed up here:

The losses come at a time when Americans have many news outlets that didn’t exist 20 years ago, including cable-television news channels and Internet sites, as well as email and cellphone alerts. Many newspapers have substantial and free online sites offering much of what is in the printed paper. These sites might not hurt readership overall, but they can erode a newspaper’s paying audience.

At the same time, many newspapers have undercut the print product itself, trimming staff and coverage. They also have failed to figure out how to attract younger readers to their pages.

A little of this, a little of that, in other words. More competition leads to lower profits, which leads, at papers all over the country, to hiring freezes, staff cutbacks, shrinking coverage areas (known as “concentrating on our core audience” in staff meetings), a thinner, tighter newshole and all sorts of related flanking maneuvers, all of which lead to, anyone? Yes: More circulation declines.

Professionalism suggests I shouldn’t discuss newspapers with which I have first-hand experience, but the paragraph above pretty much sums it up. I had occasion to look in some microfilm at my alma mater not long before I left — I was looking for a story that appeared around the time I arrived at the paper, in the mid-’80s. How I remember those halcyon days, the paper with a fresh Pulitzer and staff out the yin-yang. We even had a full complement of regional stringers, and oh how we loved to hoot over their dispatches. The guy in Berne wrote his on an antique typewriter, and on the envelope, in his elderly hand, he always added a penciled exhortation to the postman: RUSH. The woman in LaGrange County called in news of a barn fire as though it were the towering inferno. And so on.

It so happened there was a LaGrange dispatch on the Metro/State front that day, about a pack of feral dogs bothering farmers in the area, and the posse that had been assembled to bring them to justice. And you know what? I read that sucker. Six paragraphs start to finish, about a problem that wasn’t mine and never would be, and somehow there was more of a pulse on that page than there was in the elegantly designed incarnations that followed. This might be misplaced nostalgia talking, but I don’t think so. The fact is, a larger staff, spread widely over a multi-county area, will find more news than a smaller one concentrated in one metropolitan area.

Anyway, I like the idea that no one said, “Feral dogs? We overwhelmingly serve an urban population that does not suffer from depradations of its henhouses by such animals. Spike it.” Part of the thrill of reading a general-interest publication is finding out about things you didn’t think you wanted to know about.

That’s what I’ll miss most about the news outlets of the future — the surprises. When our online product first debuted, there was a little ‘bot service called Newshound, which went out and fetched you a made-to-order paper. You told Newshound you were interested in Chicago Cubs baseball, the city governments of Phoenix and Cleveland, the music of Warren Zevon and tips on how to improve your golf swing, and Newshound goes out and assembles it for you. The You News. Motto: “No feral dog packs anywhere.”

Also, “No surprises.” And how much fun is that?

In the last week, two different magazines found their way into the house — it’s easy, they just blend in with the thousands of other magazines — featuring luscious home-decor spreads on the homes of interior designers.

I never know what to think of these, other than: hello? Isn’t the decorator supposed to have a fab house? Wouldn’t you be surprised if he or she didn’t? Wouldn’t you be … disappointed? Figure, if a decorator gives one lousy wine-and-cheese reception for clients at his or her own house, s/he can write the whole 15 fabulous rooms off as a business expense. Why not?

Of course these decorators both had wonderful houses. Both were, however, unsatisfied with said houses, which is probably also to be expected. Every artist needs a fresh canvas once in a while. But the first house, which was actually owned by two decorators, two men, surprise surprise, had a different flaw than the second — the men wanted to downsize and simplify, and make more time with their children. These children were revealed on the last page — a boy and a girl, presumably adopted (they were of a different race).

I’m not mentioning this to make a statement about gay men adopting or anything else. It’s just that when I read stories like this, and look at those pictures, I think: Well sure, if I didn’t have a kid, my house could look like that. In both these showplaces, they did have kids. Two in each, teenage boys in the other one.

Decorators: Always setting the bar higher.

Unlike me.

But I’m improving: Got out of the house a bit this weekend, meeting our new friend John for coffee and a walk out on the marina docks at Windmill Pointe Park, one of GP’s famous private parks. (Longer entry on these coming, one of these days.) Windmill Pointe is actually in G.P. Park, the southermost Pointe, and the Windmill Pointe light is the official point at which Lake St. Clair gives way to the Detroit River. Which is to say, the freighters pass a great deal closer to shore than they do up in the Woods. John’s a sailor, and says these behemoths add a new wrinkle to racing strategy, less so since 9/11 (the Coast Guard doesn’t think it’s funny for small craft to come close to the big guys anymore).

One passed while we were there — the Columbia Star, a homely but utilitarian craft, basically a freight train that floats. Couldn’t see a soul topsides, but that’s probably the way those craft operate — it’s not like they’re waving hankies at sweethearts on the dock, I imagine.

(I have to pause for a moment and observe the essential weirdness of thinking, “I wonder if I can find out any more info about that ship I saw the other day” and, 30 seconds later, to find several resources. Miracle, thy name is Google.)

Bloggage:

I’ve read a version of this story, — about life in the farthest-flung outposts of Inuit America — before, but every time I do, I’m amazed and depressed by it again. Not that I wish to bum people out.

The ivory-billed woodpecker hangs on. Having seen but one pileated ‘pecker in my life — no jokes, please — this is good news.

More later. Tired.

Change, when it comes — oh my, it’s breathtaking:

INDIANAPOLIS � An entire generation of Hoosiers who have never changed their clocks will have to get used to the idea as lawmakers on Thursday reversed 33 years of history by voting to observe daylight-saving time.

The quotes are even better. From the speaker of the house: “This is an historic moment for our state to be linked commercially with the rest of the nation.”

But of course there are doubters: �This is not the second coming that is going to take Indiana into a brighter future. We still are going to struggle. I for one will not accept that this is the greatest thing since sliced bread.�

Just in case you were feeling smug, the first voice is a Republican, the second, a Democrat.

So let’s all extend a hand to our Hoosier friends, and lead them blinking into the bright sunlight of the future.

I’m linking to this story because you don’t have to register with the Chicago Sun-Times to read it, and because it’s funny, and because it deals rather drolly with what must be a top-fiver of a hell week for editors at the Chicago Tribune. Twice this week, they’ve run photos of “accused mobsters” who turned out to be ordinary citizens. Twice. Ouch.

This isn’t funny, I know, but there’s something about mob names — Joseph “The Clown” Lombardo in one case, Frank “the other, law-abiding one” Calabrese in the other — that’s funny, and at least one of the misidentified taxpayers took it reasonably well. (The other is suing for $2 million. When opportunity knocks, answer the damn door.)

Mostly I’m glad I don’t have to be in that newsroom, where, I guarantee you, many people are really sorry they have to come to work today.

Once in Fort Wayne, during the horrible aftermath of a child abduction/rape/murder, we ran a composite sketch of the man who drove the car the little girl was seen getting into before she disappeared. At the bottom of the page was a feature story on a local store, with a photo of the owner. Who was a dead ringer for the man in the police sketch. We got several phone calls from wiseacres that night — hey, where’s my reward, I found the guy — but if the store proprietor noticed the resemblance, both he and his lawyer were silent about it. Which I think says more about police composite sketches than anything else.

OK, so I lied. Afternoon has passed, and we’re well into evening. You get what you pay for, and if you want more, go ring up Lance, who apparently has committed to 1,000 words a day, unless it’s Monday through Friday, in which case it’s 2,000. I remember when I started this outfit, back when blog was just a sound you made when you were throwing up — it seemed a big deal to update every day. Now you need to pound the keyboard all day long to be a playa.

Which is why I’m not a playa. Among a million other reasons.

I did pound the keyboard much of the day, but was less productive than I hoped to be. Why? Because I didn’t sleep well last night. I have a get-acquainted visit with a doctor coming up next week, and I’m going to speak aloud the A-word: Ambien. Doing so will usher in the Judy Garland phase of my life, but so what? I want seven uninterrupted hours, and I want them now. The current model is: Three hours asleep, three hours awake, two hours fitful sleep, morning grumpiness, afternoon torpor.

Had my first experience with brining today. Brining means you soak your protein-based entree in salt water before cooking it. It is said to seal in juices. It does so, but I have this tip to add: Omit salt from your spice rub, or else you find yourself glugging down glass after glass of zinfandel, and you don’t want that, unless you do. We had a crackbrain meal tonight — pork tenderloin (brined) on the grill, with sushi for an appetizer. Diversity is a strength, but contemplating the menu made me wonder if I glugged the wine before I started cooking. On the other hand, what’s that supermarket sushi for if not impulse purchasing? I stood over the cooler with supermarket sushi’s target customer — a tall, slender teenager in athletic clothes, obviously on her way home from a practice of some sort, who wants protein in a groovy, low-fat package.

“What is this?” I asked, peering at a sampler selection.

“No idea,” she said. We both bought it.

Then home to the local weekly paper, with its hey-Martha story of the week — about a G.P. Farms resident found dead in his easy chair, TV still on, hand on his chest, after…anyone care to guess the interval? Anyone?

A month.

Ewwwww.

I find these stories rather poignant, as anyone would, I suppose. I find something appealing in leaving as little of my corporal form behind as possible, but not soaked into a chair. What was that scene in “Kundun,” where the monk’s body is dismembered, then taken outside to be carried off by vultures? There’s a funeral I can endorse. Imagine the wake afterward.

How did we take this grim turn? Probably for not getting enough sleep.

Not much bloggage today; I had my mind on other things. Even memeorandum can’t get excited about the day’s big stories. So tomorrow is Thursday, the start of the weekend. Things will improve. See you then.

But I hope to be finished by this afternoon, and in due time will describe every painful stroke of my 5,000-meter virtual row last night, at the end of which I told the instructor, who had been helpfully coaching from somewhere behind me — outside of smacking range, you see — that I finally understood why, at the end of rowing contests, the coxswain is traditionally thrown into the water.

Just kidding.

In the meantime, though, I highly recommend this WashPost story on “mom pop,” the growing musical genre of music by mothers, for mothers. It seems I’ve waited the last eight years to hear a song I understood this well:

My needs are simply simple
Succinctly defined
I just wanna read the paper
I just wanna talk on the phone
I just wanna take a shower
And I only want to pee alone

That’s “Pee Alone,” by the Housewives on Prozac. Genius, I tell you.. Pure genius.

Later!

I finally figured out why I keep returning to Amy’s blog, where the subject matter (Catholicism) is not all that important to me, but the pleasures are both sublime (Amy’s writing) and guilty (her commenters). It took a boring Friday night spent with an old Mary Gordon paperback before it hit me: Her commenters are characters in a Mary Gordon novel, probably “The Company of Women,” but also “Final Payments.”

I was particularly entranced with the reactions to an offhand post she made about the Pope’s choice of footwear for his first official papal Mass. He wore red shoes, which set off a blizzard of chatter that made me wonder if I’d accidentally rung up the Style network: I would especially hope that Pope Benedict wears the red tabarro and papal velvet hat with the gold strings that the late Holy Father used to be seen in regularly at the start of his pontificate. … The other item I would very much like to see return is the velvet mozzetta trimmed in ermine, which was worn in winter.

Granted, my catechism years weren’t my best as a student, but I had no idea what this guy was talking about. A little Googling can bring you up to speed fast, though — the mozzetta is what the rest of us would call a capelet, the swingy thing that covers papal shoulders and ends at the elbow. Wander down this alley, though, and you’ll be lost for great gobs of time. Did you know there’s such a thing as a papal tiara? Really — not a demure Miss America demi-crown but a big honkin’ thing that looks like a beehive. Shunned by Juan Pablo Uno and Dos, the tiara nevertheless is in a closet somewhere at the Vatican, awaiting its next closeup.

I had no idea even the papal wardrobe had such fans. As a Yank, I’m uncomfortable with most outward signs of royalty, including crowns and ermine-trimmed robes (although I still own the King of Sports’ million-pound scepter). But I liked the red shoes.

I suppose this was inevitable, though.

Correction of the day, from the Freep: An article about an employee at the Farmington Hills Golf Club killing a bird incorrectly called it a Canadian goose. It was a Canada goose. Glad we cleared that up.

Elsewhere, in the same paper: Love him or hate him, credit uber-aggressive TV reporter Steve Wilson with performing a minor miracle:

Of Wilson.

Not a bad lede, but what’s the “uber” doing in there? I’m no Deustch-speaker, but doesn’t “uber” mean “over?” Not in the sense of “over-aggressive,” but as in “above, elevated over?” “Deustchland Uber Alles,” Niezstche’s ubermensch, etc? You’d think editors who can split hairs over Canada geese would have flagged that one.

Don’t let that stop you from enjoying the story, though. It’s pretty funny. You have to appreciate how much Detroit and Warren hate one another to fully appreciate it, but there’s a media-hating angle in that for everyone.

My whining about the weather yesterday evaporated by the time I hit save. It touched 60 yesterday and is downright semi-balmy today, so I’m going out for a bike ride before the April showers come down. Later.

The weekend’s weather wasn’t welcomed by anyone, but the dog was especially bummed. Newly stripped for the warm season, he spent much of the last two days shivering pathetically. I considered popping out to Steve & Barry’s to get him a dog-sized maize-and-blue Michigan sweatshirt — or even a dog-sized green-and-white Ohio U. sweatshirt — but came to my senses. When you start buying clothes for your dog you pass a point of no return. Not going there yet.

Not going anywhere else today, either. I have an assignment to flog into the homestretch — on a warm-weather topic, dammitall — and globs of snow on the garage roof to contemplate as I do so. This must be what it’s like in the magazine business, where the Christmas issue is closed in July.

In the meantime, the day’s bloggage:

Lance, full of pith and vinegar, takes on Justice Sunday. (Warning: Liberal politics alert.)

Mitchgate went away quietly on Saturday, pretty much the way I expected. Meanwhile, in the L.A. Times, David Shaw expresses bafflement at the level of outrage directed at Mitch by his colleagues. David: Read this column and see if the truth doesn’t begin to penetrate. I don’t think I’ve seen such shameless self-promotion masquerading as humility since Bob Greene dropped to his knees weeping as Baby Richard was hauled away.

Or, to put it another way: It’s a gut thing. You wouldn’t understand.

One of the best speakers we enjoyed during my fellowship year at UM was Dan Okrent, the inaugural-and-now-departing public editor of the New York Times. I suppose I still have to abide by the Wallace House off-the-record agreement, but I can say this: The man was witty, long-suffering and more than up for the job. I thought this Boston Globe profile, while brief, captured him nicely.

Oh, and while I discovered this late, I thought Michael Kinsley’s valentine to Charles and Camilla was worth a mention: There’s no special magic about a prince approaching middle age who marries a young society beauty. And the more we learn about Princess Diana, the less magical that story seems. And, of course, the abdication tale remains far from inspiring. …Now, what about a prince who marries a young beauty out of his sense of duty, who waits for decades until a car crash frees him and then marries the woman he really loves — a woman whom almost everyone else in the world finds remarkably unattractive; a woman he didn’t need to marry in order to enjoy her companionship as he had for decades; a woman his family and the world didn’t want him to marry. And what about a woman who watched her longtime lover marry a much younger beauty; who married someone else herself out of some kind of bitter realism; who fell in love with a young future king but is marrying an old weirdo who very likely won’t ever occupy the throne; a woman who is inviting a lifetime of public mockery for every aspect of her public appearance. . . . Now that is a love story.

(Sniff.) Yeah.

Tuesday: 85 degrees. Four days later: Snow. Maybe eight inches.

Today’s theme is: Your disgusting body. Sure, God gave you arms long enough to scratch yourself between the shoulder blades and touch yourself in an impure manner. But he also gave you a colon, the body’s own smelly sewer pipe, and do-gooders took it from there and gave us the Colossal Colon, billed as a 40-foot long crawl-through exhibit where you can look upon the price of bad eating, not to mention genetic bad luck — Crohn’s disease, polyps, cancer, whatever.

It passed through (sorry) Fort Wayne recently, and the medical writer at my alma mater wrote a story. She played it straight, probably because the last time she dared to insinuate that the health beat might have a lighter side, in a column poking fun at the endless (Your Disease Here) Awareness Months clogging her calendar, the paper got a bunch of pissy letters from porphyria sufferers.

Honestly, I don’t know how you write a story about the Colossal Colon without at least a whiff (sorry) of humor, but I guess it comes from being a grown-up and leaving the snickering over whoopee cushions and fart jokes to junior-high kids.

But some of us never do. So in the interest of brightening your day, here’s a picture of the Colossal Colon with a dog in it.

OK, one more: Nothing says “friends forever” like having your portrait taken in the Colossal Colon.

Moving right along.

I thought the Wendy’s/chili/finger story would go away when the woman who made the allegation turned out to be a lawsuit-crazy crackpot, but I guess not. The New York Times takes an interesting look at the sort of situation that makes “spokesman for a fast-food chain” a job where you never know what’s coming around the bend. How can you resist a story with the headline, “CSI: Wendy’s”? I can’t.

But can we continue with the body theme? We can. Eric Zorn has been all over the Our Lady of the Stained Underpass story, breaking out of Chicago, where thousands believe a Marian apparition has emerged in yet another unlikely place. What is it with these Marian apparitions? Grilled cheese sandwiches, toasted tortillas? Proof that God has a sense of humor.

Everyone says the stain looks like Mary, but I beg to differ: It’s a vagina. My Chicago source says others agree, and that in fact it’s being called the Vagina Mary, but you won’t read that in Professor Zorn’s column, because it appears in a family newspaper.

Further? Sure! It seems Mitch Albom, newspaper columnist, best-selling author, playwright, talented musician, radio-show host? Is also? Choose your body part: … the stories about Albom’s bad behavior, particularly to underlings, are legion. For example, Lessenberry says one of his students quit an internship at WJR radio after Albom threw a computer keyboard at her. Art Regner, co-host of a sports talk show on WXYT-AM, experienced Albom’s wrath firsthand. “I remember one time when I was his producer, he was unhappy with the way something had gone,” Regner says. “Even if they were upset, most people would have a few words and that would be it. But Mitch � Mitch screamed and screamed. It was a major tantrum.”

I can be a real asshole, too, but I don’t think I’ve ever thrown anything harder than a wad of paper at someone. So much for all that wise counsel at Morrie’s bedside.

With that, I think it’s time to wrap it up. I’ll take that fingerburger to go, because my stomach’s growlin’.