If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

We all know newspapers are hard up for money, laying off staff, going bankrupt, and so on. This leads to a number of unintended consequences, like the increase in ads from advertisers of last resort like the Universal Media Syndicate.

It also leads the papers to put ads in places they never have before -- such as the front page, or right smack dab in the middle of a story, as the Star Tribune did in today's paper.

My jaw dropped when I saw the page. (Click on the image to see it larger.) It is wrong on so many levels:

1. The juxtaposition of photo and ad makes it appear as though Obama is looking at the ad, rather than contemplating a difficult decison.
2. The ad's placement breaks up the page so that it's not entirely clear the photo and headline above the ad go with the story below.
3. And most egregiously, the specific ad is beyond inappropriate. The antics of Dr. Seuss's Thing 1 and Thing 2 in the book The Cat in the Hat are the essence of chaos. No matter how much the fish in the pot tries to advocate for order, Thing 1 and Thing 2 run roughshod over everything in the house.
   

Wait a minute. Come to think of it, perhaps this is a sly editorial comment from the Star Tribune. Maybe the paper is making an analogy to our current economic situation!

Maybe George Bush and previous administrations are the Cat in the Hat, who have loosed the forces of economic chaos and deregulation.


Maybe Obama has a handy net to use so he can catch the miscreants before mother comes home. Let's hope so.

And then perhaps the Cat in the Hat will reappear with his magic machine to help us kids clean up the mess.

Hmmm. Guess the analogy only goes so far.