On the morning of April 18, you may wake in a sullen, aching rage. Perhaps because your subconscious has somehow retained the information that this day is National Newspaper Columnist Day. More likely, Americans will ignore the columnists. Most do so already, on a daily basis.
Real news happens too quickly for the art department to whip up some fancy graphics.
It's a column. And there are few things in this world worth less than the bloodless, witless copy of the standard modern columnist. There are exceptions, although the New York Post 's Steve Dunleavy doesn't really qualify as a modern columnist because he's 100 years old, or looks it. Dunleavy's style is crude, brutish and short, but it works, in a time-warped kind of way. England's Julie Burchill is still capable of inventive thought, although less so than in decades past.