Reading Eagle plans to pull Doonesbury next week because the topic is -- eek! -- women's rights

Disgusted sources inside the newsroom tell me top management has decided to yank next week's Doonesbury's strips because the subject matter gives them the heebie-jeebies. While women across the continent are enraged by the GOP's invasive plan to inspect their uteri, the Eagle wants nothing to do with anything that would open up a controversy on their "Opinion" pages to the hot-button issue of abortion government telling women who are preggers that they must submit to an unnecessary, humiliating medical procedure.

First response to this jellyfish decision by *THE MEN* who control your morning press: "Right on!" yelled Rick Santorum.

How are other distinguished members of the Fourth Estate handing this delicate matter? The buzz from AP:

Steve Shirk, manager editor of The Kansas City Star, said his paper would use the replacements in the comics section while moving the abortion series to the opinion page.

“We felt the content was too much for many of the readers of our family friendly comic page,” Shirk said. “We felt that (op-ed) page was more appropriate for that story line.”

Couldn't the Reading Eagle Chicken handle the matter the same way, move the panels to the op-ed page? Wait...oh, they do run it over there.

Editor Harry Deitz will explain it all in clear, simple terms Sunday morning, in prose that will sing like the Gospels, after which his pastor will pat him on the back, which contains no spine.

Hideous people stealing newspapers, forcing newspaper to take drastic measures

Diagram that sentence. (Hat tip to Kim Z.)

Reading Eagle don't know nothing about arithmetic

The morning newspaper ran another in its series of editorials today about that hot-button issue of where legal municipal notices should be published. You know, those classified ads about proposed ordinances and the like that nobody ever reads. The state legislature is pondering whether those ads can run just online, not in print, and newspapers have their panties in in a bunch because it would mean less coin from classifieds, a revenue generator that is shrinking faster than George Costanza's penis after a dip in a cold swimming pool.

The editorial contains these consecutive paragraphs:

It is not safe to assume that everyone is on the Internet. There are plenty of people who don't own a computer or smartphone. The Pew Research Center reported in 2010 that 26 percent of Americans and 31 percent of Pennsylvanians do not use the Internet. And even for those who are online, requiring them to go to a school district or municipal website makes it less likely they will find the information.

A newspaper puts all local announcements together in one place - a place that remains by far the most popular source of community news despite changes in people's habits. More than 71 percent of U.S. adults read a newspaper in print or online each week, according to Scarborough Marketing reports.

So, according to this calculation, more people would have access to the public notices online rather than through print -- possibly far more, since Scarborough says 71 percent read a newspaper "each week."

The logic doesn't matter. This editorial was written for an audience of one, Eagle publisher Bill Flippin, who ran his family's treasure into the ground and this morning is sporting a boner that would make George Costanza's head go round and round.