think it will probably be another lifetime before I give up on newspapers and magazines as my primary sources of news . I consider information from the internet as a secondary source. I am beginning to believe that we need both. This week it was announced that the venerable weekly, Newsweek, is up for sale, or maybe going out of business altogether. Many others will follow as readership and broadsheet circulation are dropping, and profits drying up.

For me it is job number one, each day .First the dogs are put out in the back yard, while I trudge to the front lawn to gather my plastic covered newspapers. Thank heavens I live in L.A where weather has a higher proportion of perfect days than most anywhere else. But then, there are those days when it rains (even here) and then those plastic covers are really put to the test. That's when that which is supposed to stay dry and readable doubles in soggy weight, so that that which is supposed to come apart sticks together. And that which was supposed to stick together comes apart.

I can remember the thousands of 'phone calls I received when Los Angeles lost its Hearst newspaper, The Herald Examiner. Most callers were beside themselves at the thought of losing our one afternoon newspaper. To which I replied, if all those who now protest the loss of the paper had bought it, daily, it wouldn't have gone out of business.

And it appears that at the end of this month, or maybe earlier, "Annie" will disappear from the cartoon pages, after many decades in the funnies..

My idea of the perfect way to start a day... (let me daydream a bit) is to be in the village of Cap d'Antibes in the South of France, with a a strong espresso (or maybe two), and the International Herald Tribune. The nearest I can get to that situation in the near future is to turn to that which I scorned and settle for the printed stories delivered in a flash via the internet, and my own home-brewed Java.

Soon I shall probably turn on the Network news and play Russian roulette with the channels. Most nights you'd never know that we were in a very long war; two actually. Television is giving the world less and less of substance. I've even interviewed young people who would turn to Letterman and Leno as a primary source of news and information.

But that's a story for another day.

Until tomorrow, Michael

PS Good night David and Good night Chet.