perfidy

I've had a devil of a time with delivery of the magazine (the Economist calls itself a "newspaper", whatever) recently, and within the past 4 days, I've received the last three weekly issues. So I'm a bit behind the times.

One of the must-reads, even when playing furious catch-up after having three weeks' reading dumped on me near-simultaneously, is a feature that's been in place for only about the past 5 or 10 years, a closing obituary. Another of the must-reads in each issue is the letters to the editor. In particular, as part of the standard configuration of the newspaper, the last letter in any given issue is normally the funniest.

Having, I hope, set the stage properly, I present you with this from the March 17, 2007 issue, the last of those letters:

Legacies
SIR – In response to the letters you received (March 3rd) criticizing your choice to run an obituary on Anna Nicole Smith, I would say that part of the joy of reading The Economist is to appreciate (for better or worse) how a waitress at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken in a small Texan town can rise and fall and take a swathe of skilled, educated and talented people along with her. - Nick Jones, Atlanta

Somewhere, Greta Van Susteren must be sobbing deeply, wondering how her career ended floating in the sewers.

Oh, and in that same issue, in the US edition anyway, here was the cover illustration:

No, I have no idea what's up with that, either, though I guess it could be an indication that it's really cold in Europe.