Starving children lay scattered across the street like speed bumps, causing passers-by to step over them carefully as they made their way through the mess. On his way to The Green Mill Lounge to take care of a couple items of business, Al openly wondered what was going on. 

“It wasn’t always this way”, he proclaimed to a couple steely cugine’s smoking cigarettes outside of a coffeeshop. 

“There was a time when these children had purpose, a time when they were active members of society just like anyone else. One of these kids stood on every corner, yelling at passerby’s: ‘Extra! Extra! Read all about it!’

The Mafia Gazette was once an institution. The last I heard, squatters had turned the Gazette HQ into a fight club. What of its DIY brothers and sisters: Tea Time, The Bloody Tissue, The Gwarble Barble? 

A bag of newspapers slung across their body, a nickel’d get you an update on the latest mob activity, and them a sandwich to stave off the malnourishment. And now what? The newspaper industry is dead! And for chrissake, these children may as well be too!"