times are tough

I sincerely doubt this has anything to do with the Commercial Appeal pointlessly invading the privacy of over 218,000 law-abiding handgun carry permit holders, but it would seem as though they just laid off 19 employees:

The union representing the editorial staff of The Commercial Appeal of Memphis says the newspaper has laid off 19 newsroom employees, including its editorial cartoonist.

Mark Watson, local president of The Newspaper Guild in Memphis, said Friday that The Commercial Appeal laid off a total of 27 employees represented by the union. Watson was among those let go.

The newsroom layoffs included eight reporters, three photographers, three copy editors and Bill Day, the newspaper’s sole editorial cartoonist.

Day said his work will continue to be distributed by the United Feature Syndicate.

Calls to Editor Chris Peck were not immediately returned.

The layoffs are part of cuts announced last month by the newspaper’s parent company, E.W. Scripps Co.

As the last line indicates, this has been planned for a while, and is probably just an artifact of the malingering death that all newspapers in this country seem to be experiencing. It is, indeed, unfortunate that some people will be looking for new jobs next week, especially considering the economy these days, but for a newspaper that is obivously rampantly liberal, anti-rights, anti-firearms, anti-firearm-owners, anti-Second-Amendment, and anti-self-defense, it is kind of surprising that it has lasted as long as it has in Tennessee – the Patron State of Shooting Stuff.
Regarding the one individual specifically named, Bill Day, I cannot say as though I will be sad to see him go, at all. His past cartoons have bordered on outright disgusting, and one can only hope that his specific selection for firing was due to his offensive and disingenuous artwork. It is a shame that Chris did not join him, given that their tactics, methodologies, and bigotries align quite well.