I've never really understood the appeal of New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd - I think she generally relies on broad caricatures and reduces complex issues into celebrity gossip - but her column today, which mysteriously includes a "joke" of sorts in a discussion of child rape, might be a step too far:

Standing a few feet away from Jerry Sandusky, as he laughed and reminisced with friends in the front row of the courtroom, made me want to take a shower.

Just not in the Penn State locker room.

That was the gateway to horror where innocence was devoured by evil, over and over and over again, without a word being said. Just rhythmic smacking and slapping noises, silent screams, gutted psyches.

While we and our alt-weekly brethren take our shots at the mainstream media, I think we generally wish the best for our journalist comrades, just that their corporate overlords would encourage them to do better work actually serving their communities. Considering that, the New Orleans Times-Picayune's massive layoffs today as part of their plan to go to publishing three days a week just plain sucks, as they dismantle a great newspaper by firing seemingly everyone who has ever been noted for their work in a positive way:

By 10:30 a.m., Friends of the Times-Picayune Facebook page had a list of several of those leaving the paper, including James Beard Award-winning restaurant critic Brett Anderson. Also leaving are news reporter Danny Monteverde, Cathy Hughes, Patricia Gonzalez, Barri Bronston and Katy Reckdahl along with Dennis Persica.

“I think they’ve torn apart an institution," Reckdahl said. "It’s not about me really. It’s about who I’m seeing walk out that door crying. It’s the end of news in New Orleans, I think."

According to NOLA.com, 84 of the 235 combined employees of NOLA.com and the Times-Picayune are being told that they'll no longer have a job....

Times-Picayune editor Jim Amoss promised the future wasn't as dire as it seems today, saying, "I think readers and advertisers both need to see what we're going to be able to deliver, both in print and online, when we launch in the fall."

He added, "I think they will all be very pleasantly surprised. It's hard to envision that when you haven't reached the point yet."

Also, Pulitzer Prize nominated graphic design Ryan Smith announced on Twitter that he lost his job.

As bike thefts on the University of Arizona campus decrease with each passing year, it’s good to know where your bike is most in danger. In the Arizona Daily Star, Elliot Montgomery, a recent graduate of UA, took the time and effort to determine which places on campus you are most likely to get your bike stolen by analyzing police reports from 2006 to 2011.

The list is helpful because although bike riders should already be taking the necessary precautions to make it harder for their bikes to be stolen with methods such as using a good lock or even ensuring that the bike is locked up correctly, knowing where these hot spots are can urge everyone to take even more precautions.

For example, the Recreation Center and the Main Library topped the list in reported bike thefts, which makes sense considering they are the most popular locations on campus. But knowing this for sure allows for bike riders to use that in order to take those extra precautions with their bike. Methods include removing a wheel or the seat of the bike to make it less appealing to steal. It can be perceived as a little strange and inconvenient, but a dwindling number in bike thefts means that bikes are still being stolen, and no one wants it to be their bike.

On May 10, Weekly World Central ran a great column by our Randy Serraglio on Mexican poet Javier Sicilia's visit to Tucson and his battle against the U.S. war on drugs that has left more than 50,000 Mexican citizens missing or dead, including Sicilia's own son, Juan Francisco. If you missed Serraglio's column, you can read it here.

But here's a snippet:

When Mexican poet Javier Sicilia's son, Juan Francisco, was murdered a year ago, his reaction was similar, in some ways. He dedicated a final poem to him and then declared that he had no more words to put into poetry or express his pain.

Instead, he dedicated his life to publicly identifying exactly what it was that his son was caught up in. That work brought him to the University of Arizona last week, where he laid it out in no uncertain terms for a packed room of hundreds of Tucsonans.

Outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderón would have you believe that Juan Francisco was up to no good, that he got what he deserved. Calderón's five-year offensive against the drug cartels has resulted in more than 50,000 deaths, 10,000 disappearances and a million people displaced from their homes. He insists that 90 percent of the victims in this ongoing bloodbath are guilty of something.

To think Scilia is alone in his efforts to take on the drug war, you'd be wrong. Thousands of Mexicans are involved in the nonviolent movement — the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity. As Serraglio reminds us at the end of his column, Sicilia and others from the movement will be back in Tucson and other state's to remind us of our own culpability in this mess.

But also at the forefront in educating and helping to cover this failed war on drugs is Narco News. Bill Conroy, a regular contributor to the project, recently posted this piece on the news group's website on Mexican president Felipe Calderón's hire of a US PR firm to help out with the G20 Summit (read the post here):

The administration of Felipe Calderón has retained a politically connected US advertising and public relations firm to promote the political and economic agenda of the Mexican president in advance of the upcoming G20 Summit, which will be held in Los Cabos, Mexico, only a few weeks prior to the July 1 Mexican general election.

The move raises serious questions about whether Calderón is skirting, possibly even violating, a Mexican constitutional provision, Article 41, that prohibits the Mexican government from engaging in political promotion and advertising prior to a national election.

The Group of 20 (G20) Summit, a gathering of the leaders from the dominant global economies to be chaired this year by Mexico, will take place in Los Cabos, located on the southern tip of the Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, in mid-June at a plush convention center built for the occasion by the Mexican government at a cost exceeding $100 million. The Mexican government also is kicking in some $47 million to stage and promote the convention itself.

So, when you read these words, don't forget the newest video above. Folks are tired of these miserable policies in the U.S. and Mexico. After all, the 'kids have had it up to here.' Change is coming to Mexico, maybe it will be heading our way, too. We are neighbors. Not that long ago, in Tucson and Pima County, that used to mean something.

KVOA Channel 4 has come to terms with Sean Mooney for the position of weekend anchor/reporter.

Mooney knows Tucson extremely well. He has worked in the market in a number of sports related roles, including as a reporter for Fox Sports Arizona. But Mooney also has a plethora of large market experience, including recent stints with WBZ TV in Boston and WWOR TV in New York City.

Mooney starts June 4.

Dan Gibson yesterday posted the news that New Orleans' Times-Picayune and three Alabama dailies were, well, moving away from being dailies—in print, at least—by cutting down to three days of dead-tree per week.

A lot of folks took this news—appropriately—as yet another nail in the coffin of the print media.

But not so fast.

There was other biggish media news this week: Warren Buffett, who know a thing or two about business, wants more newspapers in his portfolio—not bigger dailies, but smaller community-focused newspapers.

Buffett said he believes newspapers will do well if they remain the primary source of information about their communities.

"It's your job to make your paper indispensable to anyone who cares about what is going on in your city or town," he said.

For anyone who still loves newspapers (and apparently that's a smaller number of people everyday), it's hard to hear that New Orleans Times-Picayune, along with three other papers owned by Newhouse/Advance in Alabama, will be going to a three day a week print schedule (Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays), firing a bunch of employees, and moving to a digital-centric focus. What's strangest, and possibly most ominous, is that the trend is for media companies to spin off their newspapers into new companies separate from their digital product (this is the case with the Times-Picayune, along with papers owned by the Tribune Company), which seems like a preparatory move to just dump the papers entirely. Not that the state of daily newspaper reporting is great anyway, but it seems like everything is going to get cheaper, faster, and less useful.

Watch 'The Information Diet': More 'Conscious Consumption' Needed? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

I need to buy Clay Johnson's new book The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption, although the irony of a blogger recommending a book that seems to suggest that we should consume less media-wise is not lost on me. Johnson appeared on PBS' Newshour on Friday, dropping this particularly interesting quote:

It's important to realize that no matter what crazy thought that enters your head, there's now a minor media outlet out there willing to tell you that you are right.

And who wants to hear the truth when they can hear that they are right? And so now, whenever we feel uncomfortable, we can sort of go on Google or go and turn on our television set and tune in to someone who is willing to affirm our beliefs. And we get trapped in the sort of reality dysmorphia, this idea that we can just view what it is that we want to see in the world without that actually being attached to reality.

And that's really troubling for the electorate.

[HT: ShortFormBlog]

Tomorrow: More win m b4 u can buy em WWE Supershow tx and Erotic Fiction with the ever erotic @DanGibson520 #fb
— fook (@FookShow) May 15, 2012

If you've ever wondered if someone can blush from embarrassment through the radio, you'll have your opportunity to find out tomorrow at 8ish on KFMA as morning show guy/fellow taco judge Fook and I discuss the smash erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey. If you listen closely, you might be able to hear the end of my career somewhere in the middle of the segment.

Another way to bring bullies down:

When a 14-year-old girl in Georgia discovered a phony—and degrading—Facebook page created in her name, she went to her school, the police, and even Facebook itself without much luck. The page stayed up, and its creators went unpunished. As a result, Alex Boston is now suing two classmates for libel, reports AP, which thinks the suit could trigger similar ones around the country.

Alex and her parents are pushing for Georgia to strengthen its cyberbullying laws, and the lawsuit seeks a jury trial to generate attention, along with unspecified damages. The offending page came down about the time the lawsuit got filed last week. "At first blush, you wouldn't think it's a big deal," says her attorney. "Once you actually see the stuff that's on there, it's shocking." (Among other things, it claimed she spoke a made-up language called "Retardish" and was set up to look like Alex had posted a racist video.)