Down East Downsizes

Down East magazine is "reorganizing" which is a nice way of saying they are laying people off. Six people will lose their job while others will have reduced responsibilities, reduced hours, or changed to independent contractor status.

"Even though our magazine readership is at an all-time high, advertising pages are down, mostly due to real estate sales… and when sales are down to this degree, there’s really only so far you can go before you have to come face to face with that reality," said Bob Fernald, president of Down East Enterprises, Inc. -- From Village Soup

If you've leafed through an issue of Down East you probably noticed how much of their advertising comes from real estate -- homes only the wealthy can afford anyway.

When even luxury food magazines like Bon Apetite and Gourmet are trying to change their content to be more frugal, magazines that rely on advertising from cars, real estate, and retail have to come up with new ways to bring in ad dollars. My own parents, who used to subscribe to Down East, stopped reading it because they said there were too many ads. They got sick of looking at them.

So what is a magazine to do? A high ratio of ads to content in a magazine is a turn off for readers, but without ad revenue a magazine can't survive. And luxury magazines are in a tug of war between creating content that is tackling the current economic crisis and potentially losing readers and continuing to create the same kind of content they've been doing all along and losing advertisors.

What's the winning solution? If we knew that I guess the newspaper and magazine industries wouldn't be in such a pickle.

Will the economy hurt baseball?

God I hope so.

Don't get me wrong -- I love watching the game at Fenway Park. I spent three summers waitressing at bars and restaurants in Kenmore Square in college. A lot of my best memories have something to do with the Red Sox.

But hearing on the news last night that Manny Ramirez just signed a contract with the Dodgers for $45 million dollars made me a bit sick.

I don't like Manny. He's got an attitude problem and is a lousy role model. Yet he's the second highest player in the major leagues behind A-Rod. Coaches have to go out of their way to deal with him yet he makes the big bucks. It's like paying a great salesman a top salary even though he's rude to fellow employees and disrespects the boss.

Now I said that I love going to Fenway but how often can I afford to go? Hardly ever. It's too damn expensive! I wonder how the economy is going to affect ticket sales, if at all, this year. How much do ticket sales affect the salaries of the players? I'm assuming that the best teams have the best attendance and thus more money to loo the top players onto their roster...but if no one can afford to attend the games does it matter?

In any case, I think it's ridiculous that pro sports players make so much money -- especially when they get caught using performance enhancing drugs. How did the bar get set so low and the salaries set so high? Why don't more people seem to care? Why aren't these over-paid jocks held accountable?

Mapping out Unemployment

The New York Times has a nifty interactive map of unemployment rates in the country. A screen grab of the map is below but to get to the real one click here.

It really puts into perspective how hard hit some states are -- like Michigan, Alaska, Oregon, and California, for example. Mackinac County, located on the tip of that funny part of Michigan, seems to be the highest with a 24.2% unemployment rate. It looks like they should all move to the plains states like Kansas or to New Hampshire where the rates aren't nearly as bad.

How does your county fare?

Goodbye ShopGirl

Kristen Andresen, the former Bangor Daily News reporter has quit her shopping blog. Read her last post on the BDN site here.

Andresen is right -- times are tough for newspapers these days. But Andresen had a sweet deal as ShopGirl. Not only did she get money from the BDN to buy stuff, she also got paid to blog -- something thousands of would-be fashion bloggers out there in the world would die for.

These days, a blog about shopping does seem a little luxurious, no? Andresen pushed shopping local, which is great advertising for a state where most of the business is small businesses, but reading about her purchases week after week made me a bit jealous. I mean, she gets paid by her job to buy stuff, and gets paid (quite well) to write about it. For a local newspaper who is no doubt struggling to make a profit while not laying off every reporter, this seems a bit unfair. If I'm jealous and I don't even work there I can't imagine how the other reporters felt.

No doubt the BDN wanted to cut Andresen's pay. And they wanted her to write about ways to save money on stuff other than cashmere gloves and skin care products. Fair is fair. And I don't blame Andresen for leaving. I do find it kind of unethical for her to push her new site in her BDN column. It left a "screw you guys" taste in my mouth.

ShopGirl had a good run. She broke the blogging barrier at the BDN and catapulted them into the new millennium. She's got a great job at UMaine and a bunch of stuff from her 8 years as ShopGirl. She has made a name for herself. That's what it's all about anyway.

The 5:00 pm news is stupid

Maybe you live in the city and there is a lot of stuff going on: murder, protests, car accidents, etc. Not me. I live in a place where Old Granny Smith's 100th birthday makes the nightly news. I am not proud of this.

I have often compared the nightly news in Bangor, Maine to the nightly news in other places I have lived: Boston, Baltimore, New Jersey. It's quite hilarious. I have never understood why rural areas produce a 5:00 and 5:30 pm newscast. Frequently the exact same stories are shown on the 6:00 pm broadcast, so it's not like there is NEW News. In fact, I argue that the earlier news broadcasts are complete wastes of time.

My hypothesis was proven last night during the WABI 5:30 broadcast. During this half-hour, they actually attempt to make a meal with a local chef...who is all done up in a tall white hat and everything. Todd Simcox basically stands there while the chef does his thing. But here's the kicker: the segment isn't long enough to do anything interesting. Last night the chef showed us how to make caesar salad. CAESAR SALAD! Are you kidding me? No, they weren't. The chef literally dumped out a bag of already cut romaine hearts, put them in a bowl, added some asiago cheese and croutons, and tossed it all around in dressing that he didn't even tell us how to make.

Yes folks, in rural Maine the news will tell you how to make salad. Is this news? No. Is it teaching you something? Hardly. Is it even interesting? Not in the least. Todd Simcox stood there trying to get us to believe that the salad was amazing smelling. How often does a salad smell amazing? Does lettuce even smell?

In any case -- a colossal waste of time. I say leave the cooking segments to the cooking shows. Salad doesn't equal news.

Coffee and a side of boob

This story out of Vassalboro, Maine, is making the rounds on national news sites like MSNBC, CNN, the AP, Boston Globe, and US News & World Report. What's all the hype? A new coffee shop in town where the servers go topless.

As a retired professional waitress, I know the perils of not being adequately covered when dealing with hot liquids and baked goods. There is a reason wait staff is supposed to wear shirts -- how would you like it if a stray armpit hair ended up atop your muffin? Or in your hot cocoa?

Regardless of personal hygene, the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop had over 150 applicants and hired 10 women and men. Either people in Vassalboro are over exhibitionist or they really need a job.

Donald Crabtree faced initial opposition to his plan, but he won the right to go ahead in a planning board hearing last week. Many local residents were irate over the idea of combining coffee and nudity. Crabtree, however, saw a profitable business venture.

"I know what people want," he said. "People like nudity, and coffee is profitable. Sure, I'd start a coffee shop, but I'd be out of work in a week." - from CNN

Boy -- this man is an entrepreneurial genius. And classy! Check him out in the video below:



I'm all for creative ways to bring jobs into rural areas. And I'm not opposed to the topless coffee shop. I do wonder, however, what their heating bill is like during the winter with all these half-naked people running around....

What Mimi Saw: Religulous

After the debacle that was my journalism class' interview articles, I watched Religulous with glee. Bill Maher knows how to interview! He was prepared with background information, quotes from scripture, a sense of when to ask open ended and closed ended sentences, skepticism, and patience. It was glorious.

If you haven't seen the movie you should put on your snow boots (or flip flops if you are lucky enough to live in a southern climate) and head on out to your nearest RedBox. For $1.00 you will have laughs to last a lifetime, or a few hours at least.



Maher talks to Rabbis, ex-Jews for Jesus, gay Muslim activists, ex-Mormons, a Senator, Christian truckers, Evangelicals, and even a Hispanic man who believes he is the second coming of Christ. He leaves no religion unturned.

It's amazing how hard it is for people of faith to answer simple questions about their beliefs. For people who just believe, scientific fact and rational thought have nothing to do with their faith. They believe because they do -- and nothing Maher or you or I can say will sway true believers. No matter how much data, how many charts, how many ways you interpret scripture, they won't budge. And that's fine for them. But I wonder if that's the biggest problem we have in the world today. Blind faith.

There was one part in the documentary where a group of protesters were holding up signs and banners saying that God hates homosexuals. One woman said "oh I don't hate homosexuals, but God does." What a waste.

Religion pontificates that it brings people together. Maybe it does in small communities. But in the grand scheme of things -- it's tearing the world apart.