What do you do when your paper is losing readership?

Why, alienate even more readers!

James Lileks has been a right-of-center feature columnist for the Strib for some years now, and he's being re-assigned to straight news reporting.

If you're not a big Minneapolis Star-Tribune reader, you may say, "big deal."

But when you're one of two right-of-center writers on staff, and you're both effectively getting the axe, one must clearly ask of what purports to be an "objective" news organ, where is the balance???

As it was, the STRIB has been listing so far to the left in the past decade that an army of cranes couldn't right it.

And now James Lileks, along with Katherine Kirsten (who blew the lid off of the Flying Imam story, as well as other cases of Sharia Law invading Minnesota) are both effectively getting the boot. Just goes to show where good investigative journalism and par excellence writing will take you nowadays...

Anyway, I stopped subscribing to the STRIB many years ago. Truth be told, I never subscribed to it in the first place.

But if you do, and you're anywhere to the right of Karl Marx himself, you may want to think about calling the good folks at the STRIB subscription department and cancel said subscription; until such time as Mr. Lileks and Ms. Kirsten are restored to their rightful places.

A major city's newspaper, like a major league franchise, is part and parcel of the character of that city; part of its makeup.

What the Strib has done has been to take its status as a major part of Twin Cities life, and turn it into a leftist underground rag the likes of which would make the Mao's little red book look like Atlas Shrugged.

Residents of the Twin Cities and beyond, the STRIB cannot go on this track forever if the revenues stop. It's time to re-claim your newspaper. It's time to vote with your pocketbook and save Jim Lileks.

And you just may help save a newspaper in the process.