ITP - RIP MJ

So it turns out that I am not stupid after all, and my cable box is actually quite dead. This is not a shock as it was four years old, but it does mean I have to make a trip to the Manhattan Time Warner Cable center, which is almost exactly like the DMV. Seriously, they give you a number and you have to wait for hours and then you deal with someone surly - EXACTLY the same. They should just combine the two entities and get it overwith.

Anyway, I HAD to watch today's In the Papers online, given what happened yesterday.

As Pat noted, on today's edition, “I don’t have to tell you what the lead story is on today’s papers," then started with an analysis of the New York Times, which devoted almost its entire front page to the man the New York Post once called "Wacko Jacko."

Pat commented -- as others have, and I agree -- that he feels sorry for Farrah Fawcett– “not in any way to suggest her cultural contribution was euqal to Michael Jackson’s", Pat said, but she did bravely battle cancer and was a pop culture icon in her own right, so it's a bit sad that her death is so overshadowed.

Pat aso mentioned a story about Mark Sanford – who has got to be secretly thanking Jacko for taking some of the media attention off him for a second. Pat didn’t mention it, but today’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting story online about how American voters can now pretty much deal with adultery in all but two circumstances: where the adulterer is a hypocrite (e.g., anyone who ran on a family values platform, like Sanford) or where the adulterer broke the law or abused their office (Spitzer).

There was also a story in the Times about the 35 year anniversary of the bar code. Which reminded me that when I lived on East 6th street, the super ghetto Met Foods supermarket across the street didn’t get scanners until about 2003.

Moving on to the Daily News, Pat noted that the paper's main story said Jackson "died as dramatically and mysteriously as he lived”. The News also had a story about his money problems, calling him a “millionaire who lived like a billionare.” And of course, there were mentions of the accusations of kiddie fiddling. The paper also included a special supplement section that covered both Jackson and Fawcett.

Finally, the Daily News is turning 90 – let’s all hope it goes on for another 90.

Moving on to the Journal, Pat pointed out that the journal front page didn’t give Jackson much coverage – which to me seems appropriate, frankly, given it's mainly a financial paper. I'd have been able to see the Journal's cover myself if the WSJ people bothered to deliver my (expensive) newspaper in a timely and consistent fashion. Grr. Anyway.

The Post cover simply said “Dead” – bit of a disappointment for them, given their famous "Wacko Jacko Backo" cover. I was secretly hoping for "Wacko Jacko Heart Attacko," but they chickened out. Anyway, the article pointed out that his heavy medicine use was blamed as a factor in his death. Another story said Google got so many searches that its security system assumed it was a DNS attack where hackers were tryig to crash google’ servers.

Elsewhere in the Post, the paper gets credit for publishing the first photos of Sanford’s Argentine lover, a news anchor whom the Postt described as a “raven-haired news babe.”

Finally, Pat confessed that he has a soft spot for Letterman before highlighting a Post story about how Letterman's Late Show is edging out Conan's Tonight Show in terms of ratings.

And that's a look at some of what's in today's In the Papers.