What the hell happened to The Onion?

I moved to Santa Monica six months ago and it just started showing up at my local record store.

First, I notice that it’s been re-designed.

Second, I notice that it’s now unfunny and stupid.

This is the Onion, the august, revered Onion, the paper a grateful nation once turned to each week to make sense of the world? 

Let’s look at the front page: “New Oliver Stone 9/11 Film Introduces ‘Single Plane Theory’ — Jesus, an Oliver Stone conspiracy joke?  Really?  Is that the best they came up with this week?

Below the fold: “Condoleeza Rice Holds Bathtime Talks With Undersea Representatives.”  The story goes on, about Rice having talks with the toys in her bathtub.  What?  Huh?  Skewering what burning public issue, exactly?

Other headlines: “Hasbro Concedes World Not Ready for Rubik’s Chicken” — again, huh?

“Millions Of Americans Buying Floyd Landis-Inspired Bracelets” — with a photo of said bracelet, yellow rubber (referring to the Lance Armstrong bracelet), which reads “Cheat to Win.”  On the nose, unfunny, landing with a thud.

“Twin Mysteries Of Missing Hamster, Clogged Sink Solved Simultaneously” — honestly, these are the kinds of headlines I would expect from a group of high-school students trying to imitate The Onion.

On Page 4, “Abusive Husband Has Sense of Humor About It” — I’ll admit, the headline got my attention, but the story is almost unbearably unfunny.  The “joke,” apparently, is that the abusive man, who is described as breaking his wife’s jaw, beating her with a wrench, giving her a bloody nose, and biting her on the head, is able to  laugh about his predicament.  There is no attempt to explain why “Abusive Husband” and “Laughing at Life” should go together in humorous juxtaposition, and as the article trudges on, it seems we’re just supposed to laugh at the way the wife is being beaten and humiliated.  Indeed, mere inches away is a new feature, “Unsung Heroes,” where a woman named Sheila Kessler is described as having “had her third abortion Wednesday, but didn’t bitch about it so much as she did the past two.”  I can’t think of a time of my life when I would have found that funny, but having it next to the piece that supposedly “pokes fun” at the abusive husband, it made my skin crawl.

There are many new comics in the new re-design.  They’re all unfunny, and some of them are so unfunny that I can’t tell if they’re supposed to be satires or or not.

Where there used to be the irreplaceable Jackie Harvey, there is now the eminently replaceable Amelie Gillette, who writes a completely straight-faced, ordinary, slightly-bitchy, Entertainment Weekly-style “Hollywood tidbit” column.

The only headline I laughed at was “Road Trip Ruined by Illinois.”

“American Voices” continues to hit the mark, however.  The subject is “Universal Health Care for San Fransisco” and Henry Gaven, Historian, opines “First they make a mockery of my bitter, loveless marriage, now they make a mockery of my restrictive, overpriced health care.  Is nothing sacred to these monsters?”