PAGE NO. 2 NY TIMES: THE ONE

Darling, I'm in tears. Good journalism costs more today than ever, while advertising has plummeted, most particularly in print? This is killing the Times, and ME just as well. Not just the New York Times, but, 'our times'. The most cherished of our myths is dying a slow death: Journalism sells. Or is that what they say about sex? At times it seems, does it not, that the two are the same?

After nearly a decade of unprecedented prosperity Mr. Sulzberger has steered his inheritence into a ditch, and I can't quit sobbing. Once, he was such an earnest and well-meaning man and now looks dismayling small, what with all that I'm reading from Murdoch's WS Journal. Oh darling, it's catastrophic - his shares which once sold for more than $50. are now lower than $4. Well, that's less than the price of my beloved Sunday Times. Oh darling, can't Mr. Bloomberg do something, such as purchase it for ME? He's got millions you know, even though he's on a Mayor's salary. And by the way, where did he get all that money? Is Bloomberg a Jewish name? Someone grab my smelling salts, I feel faint.

Remember darling, all those beautiful late Sunday mornings, lingering for hours, with the Times spread out over the bed? I'm steeped in tradition, and that simple pleasure always was and always shall be ONE of my most favored delights,
if not THE ONE.

My tears have ruined the paper, you know. That's not a pun.

This is not tragicomedy, but, true drama and I am the tragedienne. It's simply wretched, the thought, that not a luxury, but a necessity of mine should fall to its death. Quite like a good cigarete, you know?

Only if Ms. Astor still were alive, I know she would applaud and rescue MY love. What a beautiful American she was. But, as is, I must perish the thought that my beloved NY Times may succumb to a tragic end, and march on like a good soldier must.

Oh darling, I have a terrifically marvelous idea. When I ARRIVE in Mexico with Harry, who will be in charge of my cargo if they haven't me a driver at the drop of my hat; my first destination shall be to check in at the Four Seasons and dial up Carlos Helu, as hasn't he the most shares in the Times? Remember darling, he's the Mexican telecommunications billioniare we received at Broadmor last spring, and quite the spar in conversation if my memory serves me correct, which of course it always does. I'm quite sure were I to share a few Negra Modelos with him in the course of an idle afternoon, I might well sway him to consider my plight and we can put this latest tragedy to rest.

It seems never ending, the fights I've up ahead.

with much hope-

-Jacqueline