HOW SWEET IT IS

Those of us who still lament the passing of the Dallas Times-Hearld are getting a lot of satisfaction out of the dilemna the Dallas Mourning News is finding itself caught up in these days.

A year or so ago, if you will recall, Mourning News management confessed to "pumping up the books" -- issuing inflated circulation figures.

And there is no doubt in my mind they did this -- with malice aforethought.

I had subscribed to daily delivery of the Mourning News for years, at least after the demise of the Times-Herald, until finally I could no longer stomach their editorial policy nor there continuing failure to recognize that the Texas Rangers were a major league baseball team.

Nolan Ryan could pitch his seventh no hitter with little recognition -- but let a Dallas Cowboy eighth round draft choice get indigestion and it was all over Sports Day, complete with side bars.

In fact in recent years the Mourning News' Sports Day has become little more than a Jerry Jones shill sheet -- as well as an advocate for "homosexual rights."

So, on December 31, 2003, I cancelled my long standing subscription to the Mourning News.

To my chagrin, I received a copy January 1, 2004, as well as every day thereafter this past year. I dutifully picked it up each morning and dumped it in the trash so the home owners association would not get up in arms about a cluttered front yard.

The only difference was -- I never received a bill for it. No quarterly bill, no phone calls as to why I wasn't paying for my cancelled subscription -- nothing.

Then in January of this year I received a statement from the Mourning News -- for three months fee covering the first quarter of 2005. Just like I had been paying for it all along and had no past due balance.

I returned the statement to them, along with a brief note of explanation that I had cancelled this subscription back in '03 and did not want their paper. Whoever opened this letter at the Mourning News office evidently could understand basic English and I no longer get that junk in my front yard.

Now the Mourning News is being investigated by Dallas County's district attorney -- as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission for wrong doing. Circulation is nosediving, reportedly down 13 per cent on Sunday and 9 percent during the week.

Serves the bums right.