Doing Less with Less

At Slate, they have a retrospective on the most amazing and disappointing cultural events of the year. Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics--the manifesto of counterintuitive explanations (such as that legalized abortion in the 70s led to less crime in the 90s)--gets about as counterintuitive as is sanely possible by expressing his love for Studio 60 and decrying the fact that both elites and plebes have united in hating a hateworthy show.

Also, Wire creator David Simon decries the down-sizing of America's newspapers, claiming that it is impossible to "do more with less"; you can only "do less with less". Which makes sense, I guess, if indeed newspapers have always operated at optimal efficiency, and if you think that journalism is as noble a profession as its practitioners want you to think.