Well, ordinarily, when a columnist ends their enduring career at the Daily, they try and do something “dignified” like tell about all their wonderful experiences and lessons learned. Well, that’s fine and good, but like all journalists, I need a fresh angle.

So without further ado, here’s the list of things I never want to see in a newspaper again.

1) Stories about J. Lo and Ben Affleck. How about we do the right journalistic thing and wait three weeks for J. Lo to get engaged to Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston? Then we can comment on the current situation. Like tornadoes, it’s just best to wait these things out.

2) The phrase “weapons of mass destruction.” If we classify weapons as such, we have to also classify our own bombs as weapons of moderate- to good-sized destruction, and weapons like bayonets weapons of minimal destruction. It just doesn’t work. Mass is a comparative word. Frankly, I like to think of every article about Roman Catholic priests and child molestation as a weapon of Mass destruction.

3) The phrase “hard-earned tax dollars.” There are very few people working in salt mines these days. I’ve done a lot of crappy labor in my days, even of the grunt labor variety, but my dollars aren’t all that hard-earned. Now if I made 30 cents an hour to manufacture Nikes or Kathie Lee Gifford clothing, then we could talk.

4) The abbreviation GOP for the Republicans. There’s nothing particularly grand or old about any party, because our country is still brand-new.

Anyway, it’s just part of that damned liberal media trying to trick you into voting for the grand old Republican party. If they really want to combat it, the Democratic party should just go by the KAP (kick-ass party) and attract the youth that are abandoning it in droves. Yet we see it there, but also in the “EIB — excellence in broadcasting” network that “carries” Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, which provides “fair and unbiased news coverage” which is to say biased and unfair, to a visible extent that you don’t see on CNN. Odds are, if you can find someone claiming to be fair and/or unbiased, they are just a propaganda machine.

5) The phrase “Iowa State basketball coach Larry Eustachy” should be admirably replaced with “former ISU basketball coach Larry Eustachy.” Lacking decorum on the court was enough reason to invoke the clause in his contract requiring him to “positively represent the University,” but drinking Natty Ice with Mizzou fans and telling attractive girls to go to the University of Kansas? That wouldn’t work unless he was making minimum wage.

I’m hardly an idealist, but adhering to these rules would set us on the right path. It may seem like a lot to ask, since it basically asks our newspapers to totally reinvent themselves and readers to actually think out issues. Frankly, as a general rule, we often fail to do that. But I’ll promise you one thing. If these things happen, and you accept these new ways of life, I guarantee you won’t be seeing me in the paper ever again. And for that, I’m sure someone is willing to make the transaction.