Saturday, April 5, 2008 – Nil desperandum, Gazette fans. We may be a day late updating this site, and posting the new banner above, but The Olde Rag hit the streets here in the Piscataqua River watershed yesterday, on schedule. And, our subscribers’ papers are in the hands of the faithful U.S. Postal Service. They should be appear in most mailboxes Monday, if they haven’t yet arrived.
As is our practice, we’re now making available our penultimate paper, Volume 252, No. 13, dated March 21. Just mash this link to download the thing, but be warned–it weighs 3.1 MB.
In this issue we slag the Federal Reserve, Bear Stearns, JP Morgan, George W. Bush’s “Poppy,” Ronald Reagan, and, just for balance, take a swipe at National Public Radio. And we note the 5th anniversary of George W.’s fatal adventure.
This paper also includes a radically heartening report about the voters of the town of Nottingham adopting an ordinance stating “that the corporatization of [the town’s] water supplies would constitute tyranny and usurpation; and that we are therefore duty bound, under the New Hampshire Constitution, to oppose such tyranny and usurpation.” This is the best news we’ve had the privilege of reporting in years.
So what, you ask? Well, the merit of our paper—if it has any—is not so much that we approach current events in a more skeptical manner than your average advertising-addicted, faux-impartial Associated Press-type fishwrapper. Approximately a bazillion operations are doing that here in the aether.
The merit of our operation, we believe, is that we do this in a nice little physical package, which we then proceed to give away. And so, every fortnight, at least ten thousand people—many of whom might otherwise not run across much of this sort of material—are encouraged to be more skeptical of the lying rat bastards running this sham of a show.
We like to think of our paper as the journalistic equivalent of half a brick. If any time has ever called out for such a thing, it is now.