It’s probably common knowledge that the two best places to catch up on your light reading are the bathroom and the office. Any bathroom worth its salt has somewhere among its various reading materials a copy of Our Dumb World: The Onion’s Atlas of Planet Earth, which patient bathroom-goers can flip through as they wait for something to, uh, happen. Likewise, an office worker should get acquainted—if he or she is not already—with The Onion’s website, because those spreadsheets don’t need to be done by tomorrow! The site, which features a good portion of what is in the print edition of the paper, is even better for Charlottesville office workers, because, last time I checked, The Onion was a little difficult to find around town, even if the Starlight Express does bring back a load with every trip (hint hint).
In case you didn’t know, The Onion (“America’s finest news source”) is an institution. It was “The Daily Show” before “The Daily Show” was “The Daily Show.” A humorous fake newspaper, the headlines are the highlights (sometimes the jokes wear themselves out after the first paragraph or two of an actual story) because, with surprising consistency, they cut straight to the heart of what is ridiculous, depressing, extraordinary, terrifying and horrible about life as we know it. A few recent highlights include “Black Man Asks Nation for Change” and an opinion column entitled “Ask a Girl Whose Boyfriend Went to Six Flags With Someone Else.” I mean, that pretty much sums up a political climate and a personal life in 18 words. Try it—it’s harder than it looks.
Free news is good news!
Nearly $1 million a year goes into the work you’re reading—covering local government, spotlighting the arts, and telling the stories no one else does. If you value that, help fund it for $10 a month (or whatever tax-deductible gift you can afford). Save the free word.