In the various “new frugality” articles and tv news segments I’ve seen, there’s always some mention of how Spam sales are up as a result of the declining economy. (The weird canned meat product, not the stuff in your inbox.) But as far as I can tell, the only source for this information is a press release from the company itself.

In that spirit, I would like to draw the attention of the national media to another side effect of the now-official recession: This Modern World book and merchandise sales have gone through the roof! Apparently, in these difficult times, people want to save money by staying at home and reading verbose alternative political cartoons and/or wearing t-shirts based on same.

It is a trend, and journalists would not be doing their jobs if they did not provide me with copious quantities of free publicity.