Slum Times Desperation

Now they're going to start running columns from a dead guy in an effort to boost sagging circulation numbers:

• Last week, on the 21st anniversary of his death, we republished a vintage column by Mike Royko, the greatest Chicago columnist ever. We probably shouldn’t say that out loud — that Royko was the best — for fear of offending all the fine columnists working today. But they know it. It’s true.
  
  The column we reran from 1980, about the stupidity of our nation’s weak gun laws, seemed incredibly relevant to our own times, which, when you think about it, is depressing. Readers responded enthusiastically, though, leading us to this thought: Let’s bring Mike back.
  
  If the Tribune can run Classic Peanuts, and Coke can sell Classic Coke, we can — and really should — run Classic Royko.

Somehow irony is lost on the "Borrowed" Times. When Royko wasn't writing about the decline of civilization, reminiscing about taverns, the newsroom and softball games, his imaginary barfly friends, 16-inch softball, ribs, and the Cubs, he wrote extensively about political corruption - something the Slum Times (and Tribune) studiously avoid lest they irritate their political masters. And now, the Slum Times is going to ride to its grave re-posting the columns of a man already in his grave two decades.

Bizarrely fitting.